I'm not really seeing the reasoning behind the shroud changes in the patch notes

Akali is SO HOT·Nov 8, 2016·11 votes·504 views

On the subject of making her more unique, we’re playing up Akali's 'smoke bomb' to feel like a more potent defensive tool, giving her more ninja-like ways to juke, dodge, and mindgame her opponents in combat.

Akali's shroud is already very unique to begin with and it already does a great job of giving her ninja-like ways to juke, dodge, and mindgame her opponents. Is it really necessary to try to add more uniqueness to something that's already very unique to begin with? I would argue that it makes the ability less unique because the blink turns it into a generic mobility spell used to move around rather than a strategic smoke bomb used to trick your opponents. She already has her ult as part of her ninja-like juking so why take away the uniqueness of an ability to give her something she already has?

13 Comments

Akali is SO HOTNov 8, 20162 votes

It would've been nice if Riot had given us the context we asked for at the very beginning of the PBE cycle to have a good discussion about it instead of less than 24 hours before the patch goes live with all of the changes locked in.

Handy Sandy Nov 8, 20161 votes

tru

LostFr0stNov 8, 20161 votes

Although it's not smooth, doesn't it work out if you space out the passive by going in with ult-->comboing-->shroud away leaving the shroud on their face-->wait for passive cd-->ult in-->combo again (they should be dead right?).

Akali is SO HOTNov 8, 20162 votes

You can't leave the shroud on their face anymore because you can't choose where to place it. Unfortunately, with all of the nerfs coming in with her "mini" rework, Akali has nowhere near that amount of burst to kill a target like that anymore until much later in the game. For some reason Riot also decided to nerf revolver which makes her burst that much worse early game. Not to mention that her ult has a 2 second cooldown at all ranks now which spaces out her burst even further. From all the testing I've done on PBE she is definitely not a very good Assassin.

LostFr0stNov 8, 20161 votes

You can though. It gets placed from where she casted it. Ult in, combo, place shroud to gtfo, wait, ult in again, combo again. I'm not pulling this from my butt; I've tried it.

Akali is SO HOTNov 8, 20161 votes

If they run foward towards you then yes. Otherwise all they have to do is move backwards and you're forced to walk out of your shroud to get to them. Bonus points if they can increase the distance with a blink or dash.

LostFr0stNov 9, 20161 votes

There's still the ult-passthrough leeway but yeah, you're def spot on about the rest.

World EnderNov 9, 20161 votes

I don't see a point where you'd ever want to not place your shroud on you. It's meant to be an diversion/escape tool, not an on demand AOE slow wherever you want it. That's not its purpose.

Also, about what you say about her burst being nerfed: it was needed. I know that it can be frustrating when your main is changed (Shen main here), but generally Riot knows what they're doing. Akali had too much power coming from Gunblade. Finishing that early basically guaranteed her a free game with how strong it made her against squishies and even fighters and tanks in some situations. Changing it so that she actually needs more items to get rolling is definitely a good thing. It will (eventually) allow her to have power added elsewhere. Currently she's in a permanent state of "meh" because of her synergy with Gunblade. Reducing this synergy by reworking her passive allows her to have her other abilities buffed once they gather more data and such. Give it time and I think things will be ok.

It is just the preseason after all, remember the release week of rework Graves? Nothing can possibly be worse than that was. Yikes.

Hinagiku33Nov 9, 20161 votes

Given how hideously explode-able Akali is, I really enjoyed being able to toss my shroud over a wall or into a bush to gain vision. Placing it behind me to cover my escape was also nice.

As for her burst, it's one thing to reduce some ratios to make her need more items after Gunblade to hit her Power Spike. It's another thing entirely to extend her cooldowns and make more of her damage delayed, especially by gating it through multiple auto-attacks. Telling Akali to stay in a fight longer while also reducing her sustain by a huge margin is a very questionable decision for a champion intended to build glass cannon.

Melee champions in League don't really go glass cannon unless they have the burst to do their job quickly and get out. Akali still doesn't have an escape, and now her burst and sustain have been cut drastically so she needs a prolonged fight to get it back. This suggests that Akali is intended to build tanky so that she can survive long engagements - which is weird because Riot said they don't like assassins building tanky.

There better be some buffs to follow up these nerfs. The least Riot could do is allow Akali's pre-6 to not be the worst in the game.

Akali is SO HOTNov 9, 20162 votes

There is almost never a situation where you want to put the shroud right on top of yourself. Placing it in a strategic position is what separates good Akali players from bad ones. If I screw up and place it incorrectly then I get punished heavily for it. Knowing where to place it is huge for being good at Akali. Taking the ability to do this away from her is an absolutely huge change to the way she plays and not a good one.

LankPantsNov 9, 20161 votes

I tried Akali out in a custom game earlier, her shroud felt completely unusable. I was playing against bots and the shroud felt useless all game and these are the bots that forget you exist the second you go into stealth. I dread to think how garbage this ability is VS players.

Akali is SO HOTNov 9, 20162 votes

On PBE I really didn't even use the shroud for stealth anymore. It's really basically just a blink ability now because you can never place it where you want to unless you are in the perfect position which is always difficult to do as Akali. Currently, being able to place the shroud where you want to lets you do all of these cool things, but now it's just really bland and boring.

Hinagiku33Nov 9, 20161 votes

I'm more curious why Riot thought that adding a 4th dash to Akali's kit was a good idea when the most common complaint is that people think she has too many dashes.

...and now she can hop walls without using her ult, which I'm guessing means that Akali will eat even more nerfs even though Akali cannot possibly use it to gank before getting her ult.