Even now, Akali is still a little TOO old school.

has quite a few glaring issues that need to be addressed. Let first take a look at her identity, what is Akali?

Akali is currently an all-in, high risk/reward assassin. She is often viewed as solely being just straight damage but, this is a more modern view on her because of how parts of her kit have fallen into neigh uselessness or are hardly noticeable. She has also fallen behind in recent years caused by changes in the meta and other advancements that have been made to the game.

Twin Disciplines (Passive) - Was necessary to get started with runes so that you went into lane with it activated. That was cool. Now, it's just kinda there. Spell-vamp isn't core to Akali's identity. Not like . We've seen spell-vamp on a passive and forgotten it existed, we call it . As Akali currently stands, the vamp is necessary because she has nothing defensive about her. If you go in and take the smallest bit of damage, you either have to continue to commit and HOPE to live, or die. Spell-vamp stacking was a thing for a while but that got removed. (gunblade spellvamp is unique) The other half of the passive just doesn't see use anywhere except in last hitting and jungling. Hybrid itemization has been proven to not be a thing, especially for akali. (I do have a theoretical build for hybrid fighter akali but I haven't looked at the numbers yet)

Mark of the Assassin (Q) - Was a point click for minor poke and a way to set up your damage, for a riskier engage. It felt good, it still feels good and is in a fine place currently.

Crescent Slash (E) - Was a way to proc your Q, that was it. It's damage was sub-par and costed a ton of energy but it was fast. Faster than an auto attack so if you wanted to follow up with an AA for a sheen proc you could but didn't have to. It gave options. Burn energy to get quicker damage or AA to conserve energy.

Currently, her E is just a low-damage energy sink. It is nearly worthless and with its cost compared to cool-down means having to pay an inordinate amount of attention to their energy and its expenditure. This is counter-intuitive for anyone below gold. Its current iteration is also bland and boring. Even if it is spammable, it doesn't DO anything (Besides some damage). BORING!

Twilight Shroud (W) - WAS satisfying, you jumped in, did some damage and with a poof, she was gone, kinda. It was a highly defensive skill because Akali didn't have any outs that were easily or safely accessible to her (Zed, Le Blanc) and she didn't do enough damage to burst someone to dead in a single combo before cool-downs stopped her (Diana). Jumping to minions was subjective, supporting that they were available to be jumped to, and jumping to other enemies was a dangerous gambit. This shroud gave her the opportunity to make the choice to do either of those in a team fight or, in a duel, gave her time to let her Q cool down so that she could live long enough to finish doing her damage.

The glaring issue in her current shroud is it doesn't behave like we expect it to, and is underwhelming at best. When you jumped in and dropped W you felt some sense of security and were afraid of the support because they were the ones with the pink ward that could take your safety away. This isn't the case anymore. ANYONE can drop a pink ward on your shroud late game because they spent 250 gp. It doesn't give resists anymore either, so what does it do then? Creates an AoE zone of minor slow/MS boost. That's it, that's all its useful for against even moderately competent opponents.

Shadow Dance (R) - The range was brought down. This hurt. A lot. This wasn't a "Lets look at what makes it good and nerf its weaknesses," this was a straight punch to the gonads. "Lets take away Akali's ability to have an initial engagement on something that will take out all her health in 1.5-2.5 seconds anyway," seems like the thought behind the change. I will agree that Akali's ult needed a nerf but this didn't feel good and wholesome.

Now that we'e taken a look at what made/makes up Akali, lets take a look at possible solutions to keeping what she is intact while providing flavor and/or meaningful changes.

Mark of the Assassin (Q) - Change how it procs, take it off of Auto Attacks and put it on her Ult and/or after 3 hits from her E. This means Akali can burn an ult to get in then q to set up the rest of a combo. Also, reduce duration to 4 seconds from 6. (See crescent slash)

Crescent Slash (E) - If I want to blow my energy on something, I want it to be meaningful. How about removing the energy refund from Q and put it on E. "Hitting an enemy with a Mark of the Assassin on them refunds 50-100% of Crescent slashes cost/cool-down." Still doesn't proc the mark but gives Akali something to do during that time where she was vulnerable and trying to hide in her shroud for 3 seconds while everything cooled down while also not causing Akali to burn ALL of her energy with just 2 casts after a Q and a shroud. Better yet, give it an AA reset too. The AA reset might be a bit strong but would line up better with her current passive and allow her to actually AA more and actually make use of said passive against champions.

Shadow Dance (R) - How about just reducing the max stacks to two and giving her the range of her old ult back? A change like that means Akali has to make choices about how her ult is going to be used. Jump to a minion, then jump to the target leaves you with no followups or escape options. Or you can jump to the target and make a choice to continue to chase with a second and be forced to commit to get a stack back for escape, or you can jump away to a minion and wait for your stacks to come back before trying again. This is strategic gameplay and feels good while taking away some of the over -the-top chasing power she had by having 3 stacks to spend on this. Also, have Akali's ult proc her Q, will be explained further down.

Now the difficult child.

Twilight Shroud (W) - How about a bi directional graves smokescreen? No-one sees in, and no-one sees out, possibly not even Akali. (Maybe let her see out when it hits lvl's 3-5 or something) I mean that sounds cool, useful, and not nullifying 25% of a champions abilities with 250gp. If Akali cant see out, then she is susceptible to ganks in lane if she goes in on the enemy to slow it. The mystery of whats going on in the shroud, out of the shroud, glorious. Also, increase the slow to a useful level maybe?

Obviously, the numbers would need tuning to match up with such changes to the kit, but I think this would be something really cool for Akali and give her her own Unique Identity again.

So, thoughts?