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@Ricklessabandon, Why the Akali changes missed the mark. Tank akali is back.

StevoTheCreator·10/25/2016, 4:21:53 AM·80 votes·5,047 views

INTRO Of the small assassin reworks, Akali is generally the one with the most visible dissatisfaction.

While many players are looking forward to a more balanced and fair Akali these changes missed the mark for her opponents.
Furthermore for Akali players, they have lost some of the fun the champion has offered since her introduction.

As many of her opponents from mid season 6 know Grasp of the undying item 3068 item 3065 Akali can be frustratingly sticky, is difficult to push out of lane, and is low interaction. She is an unswat-able fly that has consistent mixed damage and does not have the same high moments for Akali players as higher risk damage builds.

PBE CHANGE

As an example of how her tank build has improved lets take a look at her passive

Twin Disciplines (Passive) - [reworked into a two hit passive]: Now gives Akali's next two attacks bonus effects (base values scale with lvl) THEN GOES ON COOLDOWN First strike restores 10-130 (+70% bonus AD) health. Her second strike (within 4 seconds) deals 14-70 (+50% AP) magic damage. Cooldown for empowered attacks is 8-4 seconds based on level.

now to compare with her current passive

DISCIPLINE OF FORCE: Akali's basic attacks deal 6% 「 (+ 1% per 6 AP) 」 of her AD as bonus on-hit magic damage. DISCIPLINE OF MIGHT: Akali permanently has 6% 「 (+ 1% per 6 bonus AD) 」 spell vamp.

EXPLANATION

With the new passive her stat scalings change greatly.

-her on hit damage no longer scales with attack damage and therefore her damage is COMPLETELY INDEPENDANT OF ANY ATTACK DAMAGE

-she no longer has to build ANY attack damage to get the free 130 heal on the first auto

-if she does not auto attack twice in succession she loses alot of potential healing and damage because her passive will not go on cooldown (if shes squishier getting off the second auto attack with her slow attack speed is not worth it so the cooldown is extended while waiting for cooldowns in new W)

-she no longer has any native spellvamp

-with full tank she has MORE flat damage as a result of the passive than before at ALL stages of the game (tot ad 58.4 – 113 .062 = 7.008 -- 13.56 damage per 2 auto attacks) net 56 - auto attacks magic damage gain while passive is on cd damage with NO AP at level 18

-her new E has MORE base damage at level 1-6 8-13 (190+.7bonus ad = 130 +.6total ad (100) (@ level 13.7 akali would get 100 total ad w/o items/masteries and WITH ITEMS AND MASTERIES IT IS ALWAYS GREATER BEFORE 13)

-with full tank she has MORE base healing as a result of the passive at MOST stages of the game. example @ level 13 ((260 +.9(20 ap placeholder runes masteries)).06) +((190 [base damage from prior calculation of current base of akali at level 13]+.4(20 ap)).33(aoe red).06) + ((175+.5(20)).06) = 16.68+3.96+11.1 =32 (64 if we are going for the 2 full q r e aa combos) with new passive (130-10)/17=7.06 heal per level aprox (it doesnt scale linearly but i dont have the values) so at 13 lets assume a lower value of +5 heal per level 10+(12*5)= 70

so the old akali is greater or the same heal if were being ABOUT EQUAL handed with assumptions with 20 free ap from runes and assuming 2 full combos NOT counting any damage masteries into our calculations @ level 13

after level 13 she no longer gains base values from abilties so she will ALWAYS HEAL FOR MORE AS TANK AKALI POST LEVEL 13 (even taking into account her old ultimate damage increase at 16.)

now lets take into account the damage difference in a full combo between new and old akali The calculations are also varied but she LOST roughly 120 + 20% ap damage with three ults @ level 6 and losing more @ 11 and 16 HOWEVER

Shadow Dance (R) Now includes charges when first learned CDR once again affects recast time.

3 FULL CHARGES at soon as you CTRL R which adds roughly -20 + 30% ap assuming akali uses all her charges as soon as she hits 6 and she does not get off more than one passive (which seems likely since opponents will have time to get back to tower)

So not only has item 3068 item 3065 item 3025 /item 3022 item 3748 (note titanic auto reset helps her get her passive off quicker and buffs her passive heal) akali tank type builds been slightly net positive or improved but damage builds and specifically item 3146 Damage has been drastically reduced since her pasive damage no longer scales with attack damage. She now scales better with FLAT ITEM BONUS DAMAGE like sunfire, lich bane, titanic hydra, ludens because they now contribute a larger percentage of her damage than traditional AP items.

This leaves Akali with a damage build that looks something like thisitem 3285 or item 3152 with item 3116 item 3100 item 3135 with a item 3026 or item 3089 to compensate for her drastically reduced burst and to suppliment her low ap ratios. The CDR is now needed to lower her ult cd so she can actually stick and deal her damage in the late game since her ult now has a 2 second CD making her feel alot slower than live without it.

CONCLUSION and a tldr read above for proofs As you can see MINOR number changes wont fix her build problems only MAJOR NUMBER SHIFTS can change the fact that her damage builds got nerfed and to the dismay of most of Akali opponents her tank build became par or better in most scenarios. Unfortunately losing her build and her poor numbers balancing is not the only issue for her mini rework.

Others have stated better than i can why her new W is less fun for Akali players AND opponents than the old one which had so many uses

here are some example threads http://boards.na.leagueoflegends.com/en/c/gameplay-balance/vxq9B2lj-i-very-much-dislike-the-changes-to-akalis-shroud-and-think-they-should-be-reverted-heres-why

http://boards.na.leagueoflegends.com/en/c/gameplay-balance/gAJANpa5-a-master-tier-akali-player-has-given-his-thoughts-on-the-assassin-update-pertaining-to-akali

Lets all work together to get some focus on these recent Akali changes and make league of legends a more fun game. We all want Akali to be fair and fun but these changes didn't do that for us.

UPVOTE IF U DONT WANT ANOTHER TANKY STICKY SON BITCH

no more tankEkko because hes about to be replaced by Akali

65 Comments

StevoTheCreator10/25/2016, 4:24:27 AM16 votes

SIDE NOTE IF THE NEW FERVOR OF BATTLE ADDS AD ON ABILITY HITS TANK AKALI IS EVEN BETTER.

because the large bonus ad gives -buffed e damage -free ad for larger heals with spirit visage -better access to mixed damage which makes it harder to itemize against.

i didnt add to main chat because im not 100% sure if it still stacks on ability hits from surrender @ 20 and couldnt find any resources on the matter.

Akali is SO HOT10/25/2016, 5:00:44 AM7 votes

Akali is an assassin so that means most of the community hates her and doesn't really care what happens to her. There are only a few Akali players on this board and the rest are basically mage mains that hate assassins. That's why you see every mage champion get much more time in the spotlight over here than assassins aside from the times when massive QQ comes out for Akali nerfs. Pretty unfortunate. Doubt these changes will be reverted.

Ralanr10/25/2016, 11:03:32 AM7 votes

Tank akali never left.

PapaGreg2110/25/2016, 4:26:07 PM5 votes

I think Akali will be significantly worse than other assassins after this update. I would rather they not change her than do this

LankPants10/25/2016, 10:29:25 AM4 votes

https://twitter.com/ricklessabandon/status/790770775301120000

Just dropping in the changes that are coming up on the PBE tomorrow. Seems to me like these force Akali even further into tank builds, 60% E reset on a unit kill seems odd but it rewards Akali at least somewhat for fighting in a wave, GW on Q on targets <40% is great VS Mundo and Irelia.

Highlander10/25/2016, 5:22:53 PM3 votes

Tank Akali was part of the tank metagame, featuring people like Nautilus and Maokai. The strong thing between all of the champions at the time was Sunfire cape, Spirit Visage and Grasp of the Undying. Iceborn and Titanic Hydra were also strong. Since then all 4 of those items and the keystone have been nerfed. To buy Sunfire and Spirit Visage you now have to spend 300 extra gold, which is roughly a kill.

Tank Akali also maxed her E first to get the 1 second cooldown on a ~180 damage ability. Her ultimate has also had it's damage halved, and cooldown increased at later levels.

Tanks work around using either disruptive CC abilities to draw aggro or straight up beating people with a number advantage. Tankali falls into the second category, but for all intents and purposes is seeing a drop in her base damages. Her ult doing 50/75/100 less damage per hit is big. Her E not having the reliable 1 second spam is huge.

If you think it will be powerful then by all means go get that freelo, but from what I see in these changes she is getting a stronger, more reliable lane phase but less power to delete people no matter the build, instead having to rely on good play from her W to really impact games.

The 14th Angel10/25/2016, 4:47:30 PM3 votes

Its cute watching people type out opinions about akali that never play her as hard as the mains, Think they know whats best even more so than the one tricks. :) coming from a one trick akali main, This assassin update has utterly killed her, you will see less of her from the mains.

R.I.P Akali. :/ FUCK RIOT

Linna Excel10/25/2016, 4:40:29 PM2 votes

Yes, riot missed the mark on her rework so badly, I'm starting to think that they are screwing her up intentionally. Also, their testers probably didn't even check on tank akali either.

Spoofghoul10/25/2016, 10:48:54 AM1 votes

The 2 hit does kind of fall in line with taking more time to burst someone which is the direction the assassin rework was going so i can see why they did it. The longer cool down ult is also because of this reason.

Can't just expect that to be reverted, in fact the ult cool down of 2 seconds is not affected by cdr, which suggests they really did do this on purpose to somewhat limit her mobility since it is a point and click dash which put's you on target. this means you can be puhished by someone stopping your dash or stopping you after you get to target rather then just dashing again and again to bypass this.

Though bruiser akali imho was far less toxic then bruiser/tank ekko , fizz or yasuo She doesn't pack the utility they have in their kits.

Bruiser akali was annoying because of how impossible she was to peel, with the ult change this is no longer the case Overal ratio's are higher except ult, ult damage got poured into passive and basic abilities as far as i can tell. Ad ratio's changed to bonus ad but higher which hurts bruiser akali a lot actually, along with the higher cool down on crescent slash. Higher bonus ad ratio's also mean she get's to benefit from the new assassin items too.

Let's not forget she gained a small blink. And with protobelt along side that she actually got more mobile

Overal i feel tank akali will not be an issue because tank akali compared to old tank akali lost significant base dps in favor of stronger scaling

Also do not forget her itemization options are far greater then those of most assassins due to being hybrid scaling and with many strong items available i think she will do well. With items like item 3152 item 3146 EoN item 3147 item 3157 item 3001 item 3100 item 3156 item 3742 item 3071

She got plenty of options to deal with opponents many of these items aren't great for every assassin but should all work perfectly fine on akali.

I am not sure if her passive scales with cdr, but if it does then i think she will be plenty powerfull

QaznGod10/25/2016, 8:36:35 PM1 votes

BUT DID YOU MENTION? You really might've I could've missed it. But she took a significant nerf to her E cool down. Now at 3 seconds at max rank compared to 1. Tank akali maxed E and face wrecked. Now her E is a third less spammable. Just thought I'd point out

IlexAlderwood10/25/2016, 9:19:05 PM1 votes

What's even worse is that now she'll be building tank and we won't be able to use pink wards in her shroud anymore...

Scoroct10/26/2016, 2:15:08 AM1 votes

Just making sure I am getting it, her passive effectively gives her flat healing and dmg (with some scaling) compared to it used to being completely % dmg based which in turn means she can get away with less damaging builds?

Now that I think about it this is basically what allowed Ekko to function as a tank/bruiser so effectively despite having fantastic scalings for AP on everything. Everyone hated his %missing hp dmg but that only matters once you lose significant health anyway and that was all due to sheen and his passive base dmg. Surprised during all the tank assasins no one tried these builds on Diana.

EDGE LIGHTSPEED10/25/2016, 10:18:26 PM1 votes

The changes to her base damages and scalings seem a bit overboard. I get that you can't pink ward her shroud anymore but this seems like a large enough hit where ether tank Akali is going to come back or she's going to be put on the shelf until full relaunch. (See: Aatrox)

Did not think she was in an unreasonable spot before, her tank build was dead and she wasn't destroying lower ranks. Seems like they made change for the sake of change with her. PBE changes rarely get rolled back contrary to what we are told so I don't expect any of this to actually get fixed. The changes today are a good indication that they're going to try to patch this mess up instead of reverting it. Literally none of her players or play testers like these changes, and if tank Akali comes back nether will her enemies. Bad changes, thanks for clarifying and making a thread about it.

CorruptedScythe10/26/2016, 1:48:38 AM1 votes

Thankfully, they did say that Akali would be receiving a larger update at a later point. The current Akali is just a placeholder for the future. I just hope that it's next year at the latest.

Kingdom Corn10/26/2016, 1:49:13 AM1 votes

I really wanna make another post about rengar being a bruiser and why but too much typing I already did that. A short version is Riot lied about rengar, they promised he would remain this assassin that we know... Good meme he is a bruiser ask any rengar main what is the BEST (as in most effective) way to play rengar... You will get something like black cleaver deathdance and then full tank.

PapaGreg2110/25/2016, 9:41:28 PM1 votes

Akali is just going to become a worse damage but more mobile version of fiora or irelia