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Now that Akali will get another nerf

IP Masquerena·8/21/2019, 4:46:51 PM·9 votes·4,234 views

Foreword: Can't believe I actually have to do this....for the at least 3rd time (or 1st, since it's at the top of the thread), this isn't about pro play Akali, nor the 103249836247385345 gajibimillion mastery Akali mains, this thread is about the bad, the mediocre, the non mains, the call them whatever, Akali players, that somehow still manage to win lane when they shouldn't. Now can you please stop with the "but Akali in pro play....." comments? I know she's busted there, I know she's busted when played by someone who mastered her, but this thread isn't about those Akali players, outside of pro play and really high elo, those guys are as rare as A-Sol, yet somehow, the rest of the bunch, the "a dime a dozen" players still somehow manage to win lane, and this is what this thread is about. We good?

Can people please stop losing lane to her so consistely?

Disclaimer: I am not saying you're not allowed to lose a 1v1 lane to an Akali that has over 200k mastery on her, that's absolutely normal for your 1st time Yasuo to get demolished in that scenario. I'm talking about the <70k mastery Akali players.

Now, let's get into the main aspect of this thread.

There's two things I've seen that all Akali in my games have in common: they win lane when not against me, and they lose lane against me.

Disclaimer #2: This thread is about laning stage, nothing can help you when you have a 1-14 ADC Fiora no matter how hard you stomp your lane.

This is how my last few games against Akali went during the laning stage: (stats provided by Blitz, I'll share the link for the game as well)

Game 1: Qiyana vs Akali - https://blitz.gg/lol/match/eun1/Rylalei/2251460870

  • 3 mins: Akali dies as 1st blood
  • 4 mins: Akali dies
  • 6 mins: Akali dies again
  • 8 mins: Akali and Nidalee die, I die as well, couldn't get in range to Q the creepwave to have Ravenous heal me T-T
  • 11 mins: Akali dies
  • 13 mins: Akali and Nidalee die.

Game 2: Ahri vs Akali - https://blitz.gg/lol/match/eun1/Rylalei/2247977334

  • 7 mins: Akali dies

Not much to be said for this game, I got hard camped so I couldn't be as aggressive as I wanted to be, so all I managed to do was deny her a hella lot of cs to set her way behind

(Note: Can we get a QoL nerf for Hecarim? If I stop him during his Speedy Gonzales, he shouldn't be allowed to still knock me back, especially when the damage from that is not dealt)

Game 3: Qiyana vs Akali - https://blitz.gg/lol/match/eun1/Rylalei/2246560981

  • 3 mins: Akali dies at 1st blood
  • 5 mins: Akali dies
  • 8 mins: Akali dies (tho as an assist, it was a small skirmish in the jungle, I got the kill on Nasus)
  • 12 mins: Akali dies
  • 14 mins: Akali and Nasus die.

Note for this game: What's funny for this one, I was in voice chat with Shun, the support, and I basically told him, as my E was coming off cooldown, that "Akali will die as first blood in 3....2....1..." and allowed the announcer to finish that XD

Note #2 for this game: Akali's game history on Akali was full stomps, easy lanes, so she was taunting, trying to look cool spamming emotes, etc. Giving her a wake up call was one of the best feelings I had in LoL. You can say "she just had a bad game", could be, but it's not. Sadly (not for me), most Akali players don't know how to play when they aren't ahead in lane, so after the 1st 2 kills on her, she was in full panic mode.

Game 4: Qiyana vs Akali - https://blitz.gg/lol/match/eun1/Rylalei/2243590921

  • 3 mins: Akali dies
  • 5 mins: Akali dies
  • 6 mins: Akali dies
  • 8 mins: we kill eachother during a gank from both junglers (only my jungler walks away from this)
  • 9 mins: Akali dies
  • 12 mins: Akali dies

Game 5: Qiyana vs Akali - https://blitz.gg/lol/match/eun1/Rylalei/2243514944

  • 3 mins: we both die (another both teams gank, my jungler just went for the KS, that's all Twitch did that game)
  • 5 mins: Akali dies
  • 8 mins: Akali dies while Twitch takes the kill on Akali
  • 13 mins: I die
  • 15 mins: Akali dies

Note for this game: a lot of ganks happened from both teams in mid lane, Twitch just kept E to get the kills, he's the reason why we lost, as he refused to group.

Game 6: Qiyana vs Akali - https://blitz.gg/lol/match/eun1/Rylalei/2237543559

  • 2 mins: Akali dies
  • 4 mins: Akali dies
  • 6 mins: Akali dies
  • 9 mins: Akali dies
  • 10 mins: Akali dies
  • 14 mins: Akali dies

Anyway, 6 games should be enough, I'm not in the mood to search my whole game history just to see which ones had me vs Akali. The games show it, I'm not just "oh you're all bad, only me good", that's far from truth, in a way. I may not be the best player, but so far, I'm the only player I see in my games to win lane against Akali. The last Zed who was vs Akali? 2-5 even with ganks from me (Vi jg). Previous one was a Jayce? When Akali 1st came bot to gank, she was 16-0 off Jayce and his boyfriend Jax. Last Akali in my team? She won lane. All Akali I see that aren't against me win their lane. I can list all the games with the time stamps where Akali killed her enemy laner, but what's the point for that?

So yes, I can see why people say "she always wins lane", and I'm sorry, I just can't understand it, trust me, I tries, I just can't. I'm not able to see "how" people see Akali, the last time I faced an Akali and lost lane was at her release when I played LeBlanc and well, underestimated her.

She's not unbeatable, she has counterplay, and although I have a hard time finding the games (Blitz seems to have issues with showing games that are older than 20 days), I've defeated her as Orianna, Irelia, Diana, Qiyana (my last games are full of her because she's so much fun and I like playing her, she fits my style like a glove), Ahri, TF, LB, Azir and a bunch of others, can't recall them all.

If someone can explain how people manage to lose their lane so consistently against her regardless of what they play (I've seen Teemo, Darius, Cho, Zed, GP, Yasuo and others in my games alone, then let's not forget the boards, this place is full), please do. I'm not talking about winning lane and losing game, I've had that, you can see above, I'm strictly talking about the laning stage. Yes, some will say "well, I only play vs 3gajibimillion mastery points Akali mains", and as I said, it's understandable to lose lane against them, you can't be blamed there, but, all Akalis I see, in both teams, have almost exclusively less than 70k mastery. I've seen only 1 that had more than that, was vs me on Irelia, 2 ganks from Twitch allowed her to go 3-0 in lane, solo killing me once, but soon after I got my Hexdrinker, she just went from 3-0 to 3-5 before 20 mins. Considering how many "Akali is OP, I go play her" players I see on her, it's unlikely ya'll face only mains, so how come I'm yet to see only the ones against me lose lane? (not saying there aren't more outside my games that lose lane, the ones I have, don't).

Disclaimer #3: Don't say "well, you can beat her, she's just not fun to play against". 90% of the threads talking about Akali are about how's she's too strong and has no counter play.

Now, there's a reason why I didn't say how to beat her in the thread, I tried to help my laners who were against her, they all told me "I know how to play against her", so if anyone needs help, ask, but I won't force feed you the info if you don't want it.

32 Comments

ImTheJuggernauty8/21/2019, 5:20:03 PM8 votes

I've read halfway, and will finish reading shortly, but one thing that sticks out to me is that you consistently played Qiyana. Perhaps she's both safe AND able to deal solid damage AND follow up on akali.

I play mostly darius, believe it or not, unless I make it to late game with full build, it's never easy fighting her, even when she is behind, because she has a micro stun, her stupid camo, and tons of dashes for getting in on my Q and/or escaping. In short, if I want to beat akali, I have to be INCREDIBLY patient while she is getting tons of free harass on me, because she can more easily kill me early or mid game since it's just too easy for her to outplay such an immobile, telegraphed champ as darius, and even when I win trades, she can easily escape.

My whole point there was to give you perspective. It could be that you simply know how to beat akali better than most, or it could be that you are good at Qiyana and that she is really good against akali or something.

But the general problem with akali is that she not only pubstomps most squishies, including adcs, mages, supports, other assassins, and a good number of skirmishers, etc, but she also pubstomps tanks and juggernauts, which is absolutely wrong. Sure, with her nerfs, bad akalis don't do so well, but good akali's know how to use and abuse her plethora of options and out play mechanics, along with her overloaded damage. She's quite simply a stupid overloaded champ who owns most of the agency in most fights.

Even when she is CC'd or peeled, she easily jumps back in and instadeletes the adc or mage. She's near impossible to peel EVEN WHEN you successfully manage to land a skill shot peeling ability. This champ honestly just needs to die if Riot will refuse to make good vs some classes and bad vs others, since currently she is solid against every class of champs when played right.

Edit: I see you also mentioned that you beat her with champs like irelia (also overloaded when played right, regardless of recent nerfs, and has many of the same issues as akali) diana (not overloaded, but enough range to poke akali safely, enough durability with her shield that she might survive the upfront burst from akali, and enough chase to make it harder for akali to get away. That being said, I think a good akali vs a good diana would favor the akali most games, and Orianna (don't know enough about the matchup, but the shielding and ult have got to be useful at surviving all-ins). I don't know if it's just your skill, or the champs you pick, but I don't think your anecdotal evidence is enough to say that akali has reasonable counterplay, because as you mentioned, you haven't been going up against very experienced ones very often, so you are only comparing the bad akalis. Then again, you point out that it is reasonable to lose to the experienced ones. I would say it's not only reasonable, but nearly inevitable.

Anime Fizz8/21/2019, 6:30:22 PM5 votes

Are you actually trying to defend akali early game?

WTF dude, i like assassins but holy shit akali early game is like giga busted right now, its the whole reason the champ is broken in high elo and competitive, she cannot lose like 99% of the lanes unless the akali player is bad.

Her Q + passive trade pattern loses trades to basically 0 melee champs and she has shroud so you cant retaliate back unless you're playing like the 2~3 top/mids that have aoe dots as their main dmg (and those champs actually lose trades hard to Q AA spam).

Dasdi968/21/2019, 5:55:50 PM5 votes

Not if the akali player knows that she autowins trades past level 3 because she has 6 seconds of "i can hit you but can't hit me"

Akali is SO HOT8/21/2019, 6:07:09 PM4 votes

All of those games aside from one are on Qiyana. Akali is super broken early game and shits on 90% of the melee roster and some ranged matchups too. She absolutely does not have any counterplay during the laning phase which is why she is pick/ban in pro. Just watch any pro games and you'll see that she never dies during early game. This is even worse in solo q because people almost never know how to play around her shroud.

iDarkWind8/21/2019, 6:42:25 PM3 votes
  • She shits on everything that is meele during laning phase
  • Her shroud is one of the most abnoxious abilities in the game
  • She has a total of 3 dashs including two from her ultimate
  • One of the biggest powerspikes of the game from finishing the first item wich is item 3146

Riot is nerfing her because they have good reasons to do so. Her Win Rate somehow shows to be an atrocity, however when you face Akalis in high elo, you feel totally helpless, especially if you're a meele champion versus her. And if this wasn't enough, she is prominent in pro play.

She's a mobile assassin that is extremly hard to kill due to the fact she has acess to Zhonya's, many dashes from her abilities and her shroud ability. No amount of your soloQ games will ever be enough to prove any point whatsoever, especially when you're not even in high elo to begin with.

GodlyBane8/21/2019, 6:25:17 PM3 votes

Yea qiyana and ahri are both extremely broken so your logic doesnt work here. Also its midlane. Akali top is the real problem. They made akali as broken as any other mage, or rather, they made her able to deal with mages good, and since mages are op af, when the champ designed to kill op af champs goes against meh champs and champs that are somewhat ok, she stomps hard

Lanakila Au8/21/2019, 9:19:06 PM3 votes

I play a good amount of Akali. I can tell I'm gonna win lane when the enemy laner doesn't show respect and lets me walk up and q passive q level 1. If you show respect to that combo then the lane becomes a lot harder. Yes she can shroud in lane to get some poke, but thats when you spam ping your jungler because without shroud, she is very vulnerable as e isn't a very long dash.

When I lane against Akali, she isn't able to kill me because I understand her and her kit. If you can poke her out and not let her cs, it becomes really hard for her. Playing from behind as Akali is fairly difficult, as you hit your power spike late and aren't able to clear the backline with a q till later.

Just respect Akali and you'll find that suddenly, youre not feeding her

Atom Knight8/21/2019, 11:53:30 PM2 votes

She should be nerfed more tbh. There are some champs that just have disgustingly designed kits and should just be nerfed until they are niche picks period. Akali is one of those champs

AccurateYeet8/21/2019, 10:02:24 PM1 votes

Let's preface by saying I play Ahri/Swain mid, so none of this is relevant to my day to day at all, similar to your situation, OP.

Now onto the problems:

Akali is beatable sure, but by no means for every champion. No part of Akali's kit is weak by any means, and the shroud is insane cover for any mistakes that might be traded back on, especially in the ELOs you reference. It's also just an absurdly powerful ability on its own merit. There's no secondary ability you could steal off any champion in the game to replace with shroud that would seriously hurt that champion, and in almost all cases would be a massive buff.

Let's look at Ezreal to make that point. Ezreal's W is one of his integral skills to doing damage these days, especially the burst hybrid build people complain about because they feel they're being melted unfairly by what's supposed to be a sustain dmg champion. (I'd argue Ezreal isn't exactly what those people think or want him to be, and would be less problematic if they understood the champion themselves, but that's an argument for another day.) So let's pull his W off and give him the shroud instead. Suddenly he goes from being assassin fodder like every AD in the ELO you're trying to argue for (No his one e does not actually fix this problem) and becomes the individually safest champion in the game outside of a full tank with a lead under its own tower. Ezreal's kit is no stronger as a whole than Akali's even with this change, probably still less so because he loses one of his primary damaging abilities, a loss that Akali is not subject to.

One of the earlier replies referenced Darius , so let's try that too. He loses his weakness to being kited because instead he just can't be interacted with by any champion that would need to do that. It zones every teamfight and if you walk too close to the shroud you die. Now imagine the lane where he gets to charge his Q in peace and invisibility and unless you wanna back all the way up all the time you're just fucked. Oh and you can never gank him for the same reason. I don't think Akali has quite the same gank immunity as darius would have just because she's not nearly so threatening as the Massive damage AoE heal darius is now tossing out from largely uninteractable stealth, but she's got the mobility to compensate so you still don't get to have it almost regardless of execution unless the Akali, or in this case Darius really fucks up.

All this to make the point shroud is an overloaded ability, and most of what people don't like about Akali, at least in my experience comes from that. As bullshit as the hypermobility, infinite distance gap closer and relatively spammable Q damage, it's the defensive option that removes so much agency from the opponent that's the serious offender and people have good reason to think her kit should be weak to compensate if they're not going to change or remove it.

And now onto the argument that 'if I can do it you should be able to as well' not everyone wants to play Qiyana and they shouldn't have to. Now Qiyana has a lot of similarities, problems, kit etc. to Akali, and oh look at that if you pull them up side by side and consider the lane there's absolutely no reason Qiyana should struggle at all. She wins AA trades no setup, has longer range poke, access to hard cc, her own stealth, and doesn't really have to care about the shroud. (If she touches you just chuck everything in her general direction and it will connect, no targeting, no need to follow up before she does etc., but I"m sure as a Qiyana player you know that.) Now let's talk about a champion like Darius instead. You get one Q with huge wind up,and if you miss she trades everything on you for free from complete safety, and if you don't wanna risk it you're just zoned, and it doesn't get better if you just wait the shroud out and try to trade with her afterwards because the rest of her kit is still strong against yours. (Mobility, spammable damage, that janky ass AA range increase she has) On paper at least it's not a good look. And that logic can be extended down the line to a sizable chunk of the roster.

And lastly to your point about the ELO more specifically: You want to consider low/mid ELO Akalis only, you have to consider they're also playing against low/mid ELO players where that hard panic button/free trade is really gonna fuck with people and requires basically no execution on the part of the Akali to make use of it against equally low skill players, hence frustration, deaths etc.

And lastly onto the pedantics that so often come with this sort of thing, just to cover my ass: Yes I know the shroud swap doesn't work on any champions that deal constant damage like Teemo, Mordekaiser, Brand etc. No that doesn't actually serve as a 'counter argument' because it is completely irrelevant to the point, and also just doesn't actually disprove it in any sort of meaningful way. Yes I know there are other champions than just Qiyana who can beat Akali, do they still have trouble with the shroud? More likely than not. Do they still have kits that aren't stronger than hers even without that? Possibly, though I will give you a number of champions like Irelia who can always fight her.

SweedishGunner8/21/2019, 10:50:04 PM1 votes

Akali needs kit changes or she'll constantly be shit for the masses and broken in the hands of those who know how to play her.

Linna Excel8/21/2019, 8:01:46 PM1 votes

Let me be the one to ask this: how does one beat a non-main akali player?