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Akali nerfs

Belisarius09·1/31/2015, 3:04:07 AM·3 votes·1,324 views

Riot's balance team needs constructive criticism to work with. So this isn't a rage piece, there are no pitchforks here. This is my take on the Akali nerfs.

First a little about me.
I've been playing League since the start of S2. I've been playing Akali since level 15, so basically from the start. I know this champion like the back of my hand. I can recall the ups and downs, the nerfs and changes. I know what feels right, and what feels wrong with this champ. I'm not here to say Akali is perfect, or Akali is healthy, or Akali has plenty of counter-play. I'm not here to BS anyone. I'm here to give my impression of the patch 5.2 changes.

First off, the changes to E. I feel like its incorrect to call this a change. Originally, E never proc'd Q. So the correct term would be a "reversion." I'm fine with the revert on E. Losing the utility hurts, but we've survived for nearly 3 seasons without it. I can't gripe and complain and say that reverting the utility on E is what broke the horses back. Furthermore, the changes to shroud make the loss of the utility on E much more bearable. The ms buff aids akali in procing the Q's she might otherwise have relied on E for.

So I'm confident the reversion on E isn't an issue. Sure it weakens Akali's laning phase, but it's nothing she can't survive. I would argue the greatest damage coming from the change on E is how Akali's split pushing potential has been limited. Akali has a tougher time clearing waves with the change to E. But I don't see it as making it too difficult to proc Q. Yes, she's clunkier. Yes, some players might have grown reliant on it. But she survived without it before, she'll certainly survive with out that utility again.

Next, we consider the reduced range on her ult. This I feel has a much greater impact on Akali, in two ways. First, Akali's ult is her iconic feature. Her ult is her identity. Reducing the range on the ult changes her ult and not just in a numbers way, so it follows that her identity is effectively altered.

Second, the impact of the change on the ult to her viability as a champion. Can Akali still do her job? Can she still assassinate? And more importantly, can she assassinate effectively. Straight up, Akali can still assassinate. She still has burst. Granted it's been reduced numerous times from the nerfs to the base stats on her Q, to the increased CD on her ult. Akali has always overcome these hurdles in the past. The reduction in range should be no different, right?

But that's the problem, it is different. Whether it's jumping over walls to her target, or jumping from outside of vision, Akali has always had a "surprise" factor. The reduction in the ulti range serves to eliminate this surprise factor. Maybe that's good, as it provides the enemy more time to react, resulting in counter-play. Maybe that's precisely what Riot was aiming for. I can say though, from the perspective of one playing Akali, that this change is much more difficult to overcome from any of her previous nerfs.

I digress, part of this may be simply because of my familiarity with the champion. I feel like I should be in range to ulti, and I'm not, because it's been reduced. Thats something that hopefully players can adjust to in time. Sort of like getting accustomed to a new pair of shoes. If feels off for a while.

However that still doesn't account for the loss in Akali's surprise factor. However accustomed the player may become to the changes, it doesn't change the fact that Akali has lost something more than just numbers.

Akali's always been limited as an assassin. Unlike other assassins who could jump in, assassinate, and then jump out. Akali could only jump in, burst, and chase. Even her shroud is limited to a small confined area, whereas other stealth champs had more freedom to roam around undetected.

So if Akali only does 3 things well, engage, burst and chase, then we need to keep those three things intact.
Changing E negatively effected her ability to push. Ok, fine, maybe split pushing isn't the healthiest ability to have on an assassin who excels in 1v1 scenarios. Changing E negatively effected her laning phase, ok she's always had a weak laning phase, this is nothing new. That's all fine. How about the changes to her ulti?

Reducing the range on her ult weakens Akali's engagement. Ok that's supposed to be one of her strengths, but she can still do other things well right? Reducing the range on her ult weakens her chase potential, hmmmm that's another one of her supposed strengths... are we sure we're on the right track here? Akali's last strength is her burst, and reducing the range on her ult doesn't really have a negative effect on her burst, so we at least keep 1 strength intact, although even that has been weakened in some previous patches. So Akali's been weakened in this patch alone in 2/3 key areas, along with several secondary skills.

I'm not sure that I can say I support the reduction in the ulti without some compensation somewhere else. I think the best thing to do would be revert this ulti reduction nerf. But if not that, then maybe increase the slow on her shroud so her chase potential isn't harmed as greatly. Or restore the old higher base values on her Q so that when she is able to successfully engage and chase an opponent, her burst is effective enough to accomplish her goal of assassinating.

So what do you think Lol community? Was the change to E more impactful, or the change to R? Do you support these changes? Were they too much? Too little? Should they be reverted or should there be some compensation in some other aspect?

(On a side note Akali's winrate% is taking an absolute nosedive. It's still early though, we'll see how much of an impact this has as time goes on and if it evens out some.) http://loldb.gameguyz.com/champions/akali.html

TLDR: the changes on E are fine, the changes on R not so much, can we get some compensation somewhere somehow please.

18 Comments

Toebae1/31/2015, 7:41:52 AM6 votes

I personally don't think the E changes are "fine" either. Maybe reducing its damage or its radius would have been fine, but the changes have made her incredibly different from before. Her combo has changed to some extent, almost requiring your shroud to trade with opponents. Also, I feel the E change has had a HUGE impact in teamfights. Before, going in you had to hope that you could enter the fight and quickly pop and enemy before relying on your team to follow up. Now, the time required to pull off a combo can EASILY be countered with a Zhonya's or any type of hard CC. Like Phoenix Illumina said, we've become reliant on E proc-ing Q, almost to the point where she doesn't feel the same at all anymore. Before, one could feel confident that when entering a fight, they'd be able to shut down someone before going through the difficult phase of surviving. But now I don't even feel like I can kill someone before dying since E is a complete was of energy in most cases. idk. Just my two cents.

Phoenix Sowilo1/31/2015, 4:13:54 AM6 votes

I agree with most of the constructive criticism - I was an avid Akali player for about a year and a little more . However, I don't think the E nerf (or reversion) was fine. Getting used to the E to proc the Q for a whole season and now without it, we have to travel a bit more further to proc it with AA and with R being decreased in range, it is much more harder to proc it (not to mention having to pop W for the gap closing speed prevents it from being an escape at a later point now too). I totally agree with the surprise factor for R - it was huge to her mobility in chasing and escaping (via minions/jungle mob). Without that, the game play no longer feels the same in style and is no longer "Akali".

I am experimenting on this still yet but In terms of build I think it shrinked diversity. I personally used to rush Revolver, then Zhonya's as it provides a huge mobility, surprise, and low-health-come-back in 1vs1 (Zhonya's lets CD recover) and I liked this diversity (instead of having to rush gunblade - I could potentially do well throughout the game without building LB or gunblade until end game). Now, it seems we'd have to rush gunblade for E to be of any use in fights (AD), then maybe the Rylai's/LB so that you can actually move fast enough (or slow opponent) to land an AA to proc Q (I've even heard some people say to build Nashor's to proc it...)

In summary, there should be better ways to nerf her than simple lazy variable changes (commenting out code for E reversion & changing R range variable) which results in a very different game play style experience which doesn't "feel" like "Akali" anymore.

Belisarius091/31/2015, 6:45:39 PM4 votes

All in all E is a fairly useless skill. I've been experimenting with leveling up shroud before crescent slash. The results so far haven't been very promising though.

Gazdorff2/6/2015, 5:21:31 AM4 votes

I play Akali very often, she is my main champ. I feel this nerf was uncalled for. There are many champions that actually need nerfs, I didn't feel Akali was one of them. The change to her E has made the skill useless, and the changes to her R damaged her chase. Chasing was one of the few things she was good at. She is now an assassin that can't assassinate. Hopefully they will at least return her ult to its old range, as I feel the nerf ruined one of her main mechanics. It also has thrown my game way off xD, but I'll adjust in time, or find a new main, if they intend to keep nerfing her into the ground over every little complaint(Complaints that every stealth assassin gets btw, they just ignore the other ones and beat her into the ground).

Belisarius092/1/2015, 6:52:31 AM3 votes

Riot please take this review into consideration.

Pingkmonster2/2/2015, 2:31:27 AM3 votes

I agree that Akali being strong could be un-fun for other players, but the fact that her e don't work with q anymore just kinda killed her kid. I mean that she is already weak as hell pre 6, and now with this use less e she have no ability to exchange damage with long pokers. which is very stupid since the CC is already changed so she can't just jump in whenever she wants to anymore. The item change for 15 more ap doesn't do that much. The E change make akali have to attack for q but akali her self don't have attack speed which makes her has to stay so much longer and close to other, and that just such crap. that makes akali in to a yi kind of shit which you can only do shit to noobs now. anyone who is on the sliver LV and mains mid will know how to fight her before the change gee. If those shit heads don't know how to fight her or kat then too bad they are mean to stay in the elo hell.Akali

Gorgiolio2/2/2015, 2:38:21 AM3 votes

Honestly, no offense to akali players, I am so happy they finally did SOMETHING to her. Everytime I finally see her get into my games, I just put my head into my hands and cry a little in the inside. She has amazing sustain, gap closing capability, outplaying potential, and damage. You have to sacrifice something. In all my games pre-nerf, the instant she hit 6 my lane was usually done. Maybe I was doing something completely and utterly wrong, but she was almost unbearable a majority of the time.

GloriousKaiser2/22/2015, 3:26:08 AM1 votes

I just hate the fact that you have to have grievous wounds on your team if you don't want her to sustain your initial burst. The spellvamp is just too strong as it is.

I know she's weak earlygame. So is Talon. Point is, she shouldn't be able to recover 1/2 of her health by hitting all of her point and click abilities. It isn't fair that you basically have to kill her in a single rotation or she'll kill you.

As it stands, she offers no counterplay to her damage. It's either you completely deny her ability usage or she rolls you if you can't.

Done252/2/2015, 2:37:08 AM1 votes

I think part of the problem was not only the free multi engage her R gave her, but the SPEED that it happens at. An Akalir R is very fast, giving her target little time to react before she's on top of them.

Belisarius092/20/2015, 12:04:31 AM1 votes

I don't think her spell vamp is the problem. Morg's passive gives 2-3X more spell vamp than akali's does.