I very much dislike the changes to Akali's Shroud and think they should be reverted. Here's why.

This is probably going to be a lengthy post so prepare yourself. Maybe a red response or at least acknowledgment of this post would be great.

After doing a lot of testing on the PBE I've come to realize that I do not like the changes to her shroud at all. Riot stated that this rework would be geared more towards dedicated Akali mains and I think this misses the mark entirely. If there is anything Riot needs to do during this PBE patch cycle before it hits live it is definitely considering changing her shroud back.

Currently on PBE Akali's shroud has been changed so she always places it on top of herself and then instantly blinks to where her cursor is. She is no longer revealed by pink wards and the duration of the shroud now starts at 4 seconds and goes up to 8 seconds at max rank. The movement speed boost is now constant while in the shroud instead of decaying.

I like the fact that she is no longer being revealed by pink wards, but I really dislike the other changes to her shroud and I feel that Riot is really ruining this ability for Akali mains and gearing it more towards casual players which is the opposite of what they said they were going to do. Here are the reasons why I dislike it.

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1) The Outplay Mechanics of the Ability have been geared more towards casuals than Akali players Adding a blink to the ability makes Akali much easier to use and takes away vision dashing. Currently, Twilight Shroud can be used in conjunction with Shadow Dance to hope over walls by revealing enemies with Twilight Shroud. This might seem like a small and simple mechanic to most people, but it is actually very difficult to do in a short window of time to get over the wall quickly or before her enemy can run away fast enough to get out of dash range (which is especially harder now after her ult range nerfs). By adding a blink to it, this completely destroys the mechanic and makes it much easier to do and less satisfying. Not to mention that good Akali players can use her shroud to catch out enemies by slowing them, using the movement speed buff to catch them, etc. but this change takes away all of that in favor of a simple mechanic that anyone can use. It makes it much easier for any player to pick her up and use this outplay mechanic and makes it less satisfying for Akali mains which is the opposite of what Riot stated their goal was with the rework.

2) This change is very counterintuitive to a change that was made in Season 3 Back in Season 3 Akali's shroud was nerfed in patch 3.5 that made it so she would be immediately revealed upon leaving the shroud (previously she had about an extra half second of stealth after she left). This was very frustrating for players because it made it really hard to catch Akali due to the fact that she could be anywhere after leavinig her shroud without them knowing until it was too late. This change to her shroud does just that. Right now, when Akali casts her shroud you know exactly where she is and can aim your skillshots accordingly to try and hit before she starts running around her shroud. Adding a blink to her shroud means that she could be anywhere which may seem fun for the Akali player, but most certainly is not for someone that's trying to hit her with a skillshot because now they have no idea where she went. This is even more important now that she won't be revealed by pink wards. This is essentially bringing her back to pre 3.5 because of the lack of information you are getting when she is in her shroud. This is not very healthy for the game.

3) Her juking mechanics have been geared towards casuals instead of Akali Mains Right now it takes a lot of game knowledge to know where and when to place your shroud. You aren't going to get anywhere with Akali if you put down your shroud wherever you like and think that everything will be okay. There are many strategic places where you can place your shroud at the moment and knowing all of them and when to use them is very important and takes knowledge of how to use the shroud. This is even more important when you are in the heat of battle and need to think very quickly about where to put down your shroud. Put it right on top of yourself so you are in the middle of it? Put it off towards the edge to give you an escape path? Put it over the enemy carry so you can stealth when you jump to them? These are things that Akali players have figured out and a casual player won't be able to do this unless they dedicate time into the champion. Using a blink to juke your opponents takes much less skill (on PBE even a monkey can juke opponents with her new shroud) and feels much less satisfying. Setting up your shroud in places that maximize the amount of potential you can get out of your shroud is much harder to do and is much more satisfying if you can pull it off. Something that Akali mains can do but casuals cannot.

4) The cooldown nerfs at early ranks are crippling to her early and mid game During the early game good Akali players know how to use her shroud to zone enemy opponents and zip around the lane to outplay them and get damage off while minimizing the amount she takes if she plays it right. She can also use it to farm if she is getting bullied hard and needs some way to farm outside of spamming Qs to kill minions. Akali's early game is bad as is and using her shroud effectively like this is important. Cutting the duration in half at rank 1 is huge to her early game. Because the ability is maxed last she'll have the 4 second duration all the way through mid game which hurts her skirmishing power as well which is something she is supposed to excel at. Having a blink doesn't fix this problem and makes the ability incredibly weak until maxed. If Riot really wants to nerf the shroud's cooldown then 6 seconds should be as far as they go because halving the duration of an ability that it maxed last is way to big.

5) The new shroud overall just feels really clunky and unsatisfying to use The point of her shroud is to use her stealth to trick her opponents and use her stealth to give her an edge over her opponent. Putting a blink on it just defeats the purpose. When Riot removed Akali's Q proc from her E Akali mains were upset that this change made her feel clunky and harder to use, but this is just a disaster compared to that. I do not enjoy this new mechanic at all. My first problem is that you cannot choose where you place the shroud and instead you have to place it on top of yourself (going back to destroying her juking mechanics). This change would be comparable to making Anivia walk towards your cursor if it's outside her Qs cast range instead of just throwing out the Q or making Zed and Leblanc walk up the cursor before using their W's. Just doesn't feel good at all and I very much dislike it. Half the time I end up accidentally walking out of the shroud because the blink puts me at the edge of it which makes me accidentally walk out of it. The blink might seem cool, but it's really not and makes Twilight Shroud feel not like Twilight Shroud.

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Overall, these changes make me feel that Riot doesn't really understand what Akali mains want and are more focused on making this champion geared towards casual players rather than Akali mains like they promised. Akali won't feel like Akali anymore if these shroud changes go through and I'll be really sad if they do. Her Crescent Slash and Shadow Dance are already getting nerfed pretty heavily so ruining her shroud would be a kick in the shin at that point. Most of the threads that have been posted heavily disagree with the direction that Riot is going with her shroud so it would be great if we could get at least one red response on it or at least acknowledgement that they are planning on trying out different thing.

I think that the shroud changes are like the new plants that Riot is implementing. Riot stated that if the plants don't end up working out then they would pull them because of how major their impact would be on the game and I think they should do the same thing for Akali's shroud because of how huge the changes to it affect her. Thanks for reading.