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I've given it long enough: I don't understand the hate for Akali

chipndip1··112 votes·54,613 views

Like, she's almost everything the boards will ever want from an assassin, let alone a rework from the insanely flawed design she had before.

  • She can actually be peeled. Getting rid of old Akali was like trying to lose your own shadow.
  • Counter-play is heavily apparent in just about every part of her kit. Her passive and Q can be out-ranged. Her W can be walked away from. Her E can be side-stepped. If she tower dives with W, you can just hit her with your hard cc (most every mid laner has SOMETHING to hit her with when she's untargetable).
  • She has less overall mobility than she used to. It's more free-form now, but her overall ability to fly in, re-fly in, and re-fly in one more time and murder someone, only to re-fly to someone else, is greatly reduced.
  • As long as she isn't fed too hard, her burst pattern is significantly slower than just about any other assassin in the game, save Pyke.
  • Her difficulty curve makes sure that you have to be pretty dang good at this champ before she's actually a threat. Her low elo win rates are through the floor, while her higher elo win rates aren't offensive for solo queue (they reach to like 50% or so in Diamond on lolalytics, give or take 1%).
  • She's actually able to be played in pro games, where most assassins that aren't 1-shot machines don't get play.

So we can say things like "But her shroud's annoying" or "she beat me last game and I just don't like that", but if we're saying Akali's some horrible design that should have never been made...

...then what assassin ISN'T?

Leblanc: EXTREMELY little in the way of counter-play. The most time you have to react to her is the time she takes to finish her dash. If she isn't hard-cc'd she can just poof away.

Shaco: His whole play pattern is "Be invisible. Get behind them. AA + E + Ignite + Dark Harvest. Bam I'm amazing". Annoying little shit with invisibility (not camouflage, but invisibility) and a blink on the same ability, so if he isn't hard cc'd, he's long gone. Also, activating his ult just lets him avoid damage for free.

Rengar: This dude's bullshit, along with LeBLanc, was the poster boy of the assassin rework in the first place. Also, what type of assassin design doesn't have a way out of fights? He's practically a fighter.

Katarina: Absolutely useless beyond solo queue stomping because her ult's so bad. I'm sorry, but it's the truth. If Riot wants her to spin and throw knives, find another way to do it besides making an assassin spin in place with an aoe dps ability. The dagger game play is already pretty easy to play around, but the ult being as easy to stuff as it's always been makes it so there's always going to be a point where Katarina's basically just training wheels when you can pick some other assassin.

Pyke: Only reason people mildly accept this champion is because he's a support so he isn't designed to run you over for as long as other assassins can. I guarantee that people are that shallow.

Fizz: The dude's "Chum then bum (rush)" game play, combined with his E just nullifying incoming damage with little effort, has struggled to find a sweet spot to rest on for years. Either he doesn't even need his whole kit to bum (rush) you, or he's the one getting bum (rushed) throughout the entire laning phase. Dude's 1-5 is insanely weak, and the spike at level 6 is extremely polarized in comparison. Honestly, if you ask me, if his level 6 was LESS deadly, you could use it as justification to make his 1-5 less pathetic, because it's fucking pathetic and is the reason his level 6 has such a a sharp spike.

Nidalee: Either runs the whole jungle by herself or stays by herself while the rest of the roster gets to have fun. Idk what Riot's gonna do about this champ.

Zed: People hate him, but let's be honest when I say that nearly any mage can just build the counter-play to Zed. Hell, any ap scaling champ period can build the counter-play to this champ. His ult takes so long to drop that, along with the teleport lock out, what is this champ supposed to accomplish, again? Like, once you realize "Oh yeah, he's gonna appear right behind me", you just walk under turret and cc him. Now HE dies for ulting you since his ult has such a big notice before it goes off.

We can run down the list all night, but the point is that Akali's design manages to avoid ALL these pitfalls. She doesn't operate on polarizing one shots (unless she's fed since any damage champ will 1-shot when fed so don't bring it up), she has an appreciable and rewarding skill curve, she doesn't just give away everything about what she's doing before doing it, she isn't a confused fighter, and she isn't just a "solo queue" design. Like, what more COULD you want from an assassin design? Sure, her numbers are always up for tuning, but the core foundation of the design seems more than sound. It seems like what Riot was aiming for with Evelynn's design, Zed's design, and the assassin rework as a whole...but people still complain. I don't get it.

So what do people want? Is there an assassin design that embodies "proper" assassin mechanics in the game? I've resided on these boards for a few years, so given the complaints I've seen about assassins, I don't see how people don't see the good that came out of Akali's kit. If you see something I don't, tell me.

365 Comments

hotarse90 votes

wheres the downvote button

chipndip114 votes

Do you care to actually partake in the conversation in this thread, or are you here to complain that you can't downvote it?

Leetri20 votes

There is no downvoting on Gameplay+, cause unlike the regular Gameplay boards this is meant for discussion about the game. Can't have any discussion if the opposing view is silenced just because they think differently.

Marothennan14 votes

Well if it's only about discussion then why do we need a voting system at all?

Thefrostyviking2 votes

To make the things people agree with the most more visible so that it becomes easy to get an idea of what people are thinking with the least effort.

Illabethe7 votes

Except that's contradicted by there not being a downvote. Most threads may have 40 respondents, yet 19 of them being downvotes and 21 being upvotes, netting 2. looks pretty unpopular. But is a busy thread in reality.

Iron Rubric9 votes

Riot likes reddits circle jerk method, its been proven that up vote only is a terrible system that breeds elitism but ehh

hotarse42 votes

{quoted}

There is no downvoting on Gameplay+, cause unlike the regular Gameplay boards this is meant for discussion about the game. Can't have any discussion if the opposing view is silenced just because they think differently.

Well, the downvoting is my voice. Now if I think differently, my vote is being silenced. So your statement is contradictory.

Ayame Isaki36 votes

You aren't supposed to downvote what you disagree with; that's why they needed to make this section have no downvotes.

You are supposed to downvote low quality content; if someone makes a fantastic post supporting an actually unpopular opinion it does not deserve to be submerged by misused downvotes. If you want to argue with someone's well reasoned post, then you should make a well reasoned counter argument.

Instead of detailing your counterpoints you want to just down vote and walk away (which is either an act of laziness or fear that your ideas won't hold up to actual scrutiny and discussion). Proper discussion requires interaction; board voting systems are not discourse.

TL;DR: You haven't been silenced; use your words. Discussions require that people actually say something.

Leetri6 votes

What Ayame Isaki said, downvoting isn't meant to show that you disagree. It's there for off-topic comments, spam, etc. It's even in the board rules that it's not supposed to be a disagree button.

Limrick16 votes

Uh, no. That's what the report button is for. Downvote is a disagree button. If you say something stupid or unpopular, you get downvoted by people saying they disagree. There isn't anything wrong with that. This system is actually far worse. All you can see is the people who agree, and no matter how stupid or wrong a statement is, someone is gonna agree with it. It's incredibly misleading and gives a false impression of how the community actually feels. Not to mention that not everyone has the time to type out a detailed response explaining WHY they disagree, so the downvote button is a way for them to still matter.

AJ776 votes

What leetri (and whoever removed that control) are saying is that while you're right in practice (i.e. on Reddit), discussion is smothered by that usage of downvotes. If three downvotes occur (and hide a comment) before assenters have a chance to see it, good content can vanish without being seen by those who would upvote.

Say you have 200 readers: the impression of the community is maintained because universal agreements will get 200 upvotes, controversial get 100, poor comments get 1. Still comparable.

If you don't have the time to contribute to the discussion, just don't. Read it and come back later, or read it and don't return; either way the discussion will continue with those who put in the effort to express themselves thoughtfully.

Limrick8 votes

Okay, three things. If discussion is being "smothered" by downvotes, then why have voting at all in Gameplay+? The goal is simply discussion, so why not just do away with voting altogether? Another option would just be to never hide comments regardless of downvotes, which would show how people feel without censoring.

Second, there is no way to know how many people have seen a comment, and I can guarantee 90% of those views wouldn't vote regardless. It's still muddying the water. Currently this thread has 70 upvotes with 16,500 views. The only information we get from that is that 70/16,500 people agree strongly enough to upvote. We don't know how many people completely disagree. So respectfully, I don't agree that this system gives an accurate view of how the community feels. Not to mention that you can just post here instead of normal Gameplay to effectively dodge all negativity, which is just cowardly.

Finally, I disagree completely that people should be excluded just because they are short on time.

Velasan60 votes

I don't mind Akali, but I can understand why she becomes frustrating in certain situations. I've won and lost games against her, and when she is most annoying to deal with is during tower dives.

Her invisibility breaks all the rules they've put into the game so far about stealth. There is no great counter to it besides having picked the right champion (preferably somewhat tanky and has some kind of non targeted aoe). When she dives a person under tower and the smoke shield is up makes it near impossible to tell how much health she is losing or gaining by her Q/gunblade.

One of the biggest things you need to know when an enemy jumps on you under tower is whether you need to use summoner spells to escape or attempt a kill. If you can't see the enemy to discern those things then you either burn your summoners needlessly or don't use them when you should have. If you're melee with no aoe at all her smoke screen just means no interaction whatsoever.

In summary, she's fine for the most part. It's only that the smoke screen is a giant wall of non interaction that you can't do anything about, and it sucks having anything in the game you can't affect. Other assassins are still frustrating, but at least there is some counter play to whatever they are doing. Akali's counter play is pick the right champion. It is particularly strange because Riot has been doing nothing EXCEPT encouraging all devices that enable interaction (less wave clear, scuttle crabs, etc), just not for Akali.

Otherwise totally agree with you.

chipndip118 votes

But if she's tower diving you, and you hit her with your cc (since almost no cc in the game that's left is targeted anyway, so we can safely assume you successfully hit her), and then you use your other non-targeted moves, and she's STILL not dead...

...can't you just not walk back up to the shroud? You can see where she is in the shroud during a dive. Being unable to AA her doesn't mean you can't see her. If she's still alive, obviously you don't just walk up to her again.

If you're low on hp, wouldn't you just recall, anyway? Any other assassin would blink/dash in and murder you outright, then blink/dash out. In Akali's case...you could just walk backwards (assuming she was recently hard cc'd, because if you don't she's about to ult you).

I just don't follow. Like, I get she can be annoying depending on who you are, but EVERY champ can be annoying. Being annoying doesn't justify giving Riot the wrong message that we want less assassins that offer counter-play and more assassins like K6 or LeBlanc that thrive off of quickly slashing your chest open in .3 seconds, if you ask me.

Velasan31 votes

Because of course in real games it's not as simple. Sometimes you're being tower dived by 2 people, sometimes they are sieging and she uses the smoke screen to get into your back line, and sometimes it's just useful info for when you are fighting 1v1 and you back into the tower and she's still fighting you.

As I already explained part of how you gauge the way to react to a situation is by seeing the enemies health bar. If she's on half health and dives you under tower with smoke screen, you ignite her and hit her with a spell before she disappears again while she q's you in response, then you can't see what health she is at or how much she has healed for.

Do you flash away? Attempt to run around the tower? Continue fighting? Hard to know at that point.

Having said all that (again I agree) yes Akali is better than a lot of other assassins. I would take her over Fizz any day.

TheSingularity5 votes

The issue is when you lack any of the following:

  1. Reliable hard CC with a hit indicator
  2. Abundant high AOE dmg
  3. Enough damage to scare her away should you land a spell.

Generally with 1, you get one or the other. Example of reliable hard CC would be Velkoz Cassiopeia Veigar Kennen Lissandra Gragas, these were the only one's I could pick out, if I missed a bunch lemme know. The problem with many of these spells is that you don't see where they hit akali, you just hope they do. Then champs with an indicator (eg where the spell stops or an audio cue) Ahri Anivia AurelionSol Brand Leblanc Lux Morgana Varus Urgot Xerath As you can see set B is greater in number than set A, however they trade this indicator for reliability, in that the projectile size is generally smaller or is delayed. But then we have set C, unreliable CC with no indicator, in other words almost useless 1v1 (ALMOST!) Annie Irelia Heimerdinger Chogath Orianna Zyra And of course set D, where the CC is point and click where you must get your mouse to her and press a key within 0.6 seconds Malzahar TwistedFate

The issue with 2 is this damage must be wide enough to potentially cover a max sized shroud, champions like that are few and far between and if it's DOT, chances are akali will kill you before you kill her. Anivia Cassiopeia Karthus Kassadin Kennen

Then 3, very few mages can single combo akali through her shroud because their CC doesn't last long enough, their combo takes too long or there's a point+click aspect. FirstLissandra second Velkoz third Syndra

"If you're low on hp, wouldn't you just recall, anyway?" If you didn't kill her in shroud then she has killed you, plain and simple.

I just don't follow. Like, I get she can be annoying depending on who you are, but EVERY champ can be annoying. Being annoying doesn't justify giving Riot the wrong message that we want less assassins that offer counter-play and more assassins like K6 or LeBlanc that thrive off of quickly slashing your chest open in .3 seconds, if you ask me.

It's less about annoying and more so what feels fair. Let's use common champions that feel unfair based on boards complaints: Zoe She felt unfair because one mistake meant death with no chance of escape. Generally you have room for 2 mistakes with other champs. It's still a skillshot, it can still be dodged, it can still be cleansed/spellshielded. Darius He felt unfair because he deals brutally more damage than dedicated damage classes while being almost as beefy as dedicated beef classes. But play a certain way and avoid the Q and you can prevail. Illaoi People had no clue how to handle her E. First dodge it, but if not... let a tent spawn, keep it alive and stand next to it. The only spawn space is gone and ur safe. You see all these champs abuse common mechanics which can be avoided in the first place, and if not can then be RELIABLY played around. There're of course more examples just as there're examples of the opposite.

DrMundo Feels unfair because he has access to a stat stick heal that would take a team of supports to match Fiora Feels unfair because she forces you to play the game her way and can't be counterbuilt (vitals) Fizz If unfair because his E is a unique tool for him that has no work around. Azir Ivern Gnar Kalista all suffer from this exact problem. Most of them either take a mechanic to the extreme (mundo) or have a mechanic no one else has, like akali. Since these mechanics are made in isolation, they have one cookier cutter way to be dealt with that requires specific champions played in specific ways with specific builds. Because there is no other mechanic like it to match it.

Tormentula31 votes

Akali's a pain because there's no real "counterplay" to akali, its a matter of the akali player outplaying themselves. Its the same syndrome as yasuo, its either going to give you a really bad day, or an easy time depending on how the person plays.

  • She can actually be peeled. Getting rid of old Akali was like trying to lose your own shadow.

I disagree as you could kill old akali the moment she jumped somebody. She could get backline easily, but her stealth didn't include as large of a radius, you could group around her priority target and kill her. New akali on the other hand, you're discouraged to group up because all of her damage except for E and passive is AoE, she wants you to line up and she also has the microstun. Sure you can peel for your ADC so she doesn't just delete them, but in doing so you risk a lost teamfight as she hurts everybody at once instead. The most you can do is CC her when she gets the jump, but like old akali thats really hard to do since she'll go back in stealth as she's not attacking, with a larger radius to work around.

  • She has less overall mobility than she used to. It's more free-form now, but her overall ability to fly in, re-fly in, and re-fly in one more time and murder someone, only to re-fly to someone else, is greatly reduced.

Well, depends how you look at it. I'd say yea for sure its not as binary as old akali, new one has mobility in her E which is with the backwards dash (either for over walls, to hit somebody with E, or even backwards to get closer for a Q slow) and her R does have free roam dashes but with a high CD. The stealth size does enable her to cover a lot of ground though, as in she can walk around aimlessly more freely then old akali where she had to dash out of her small shroud to go on something and it was predictable how she'd use those dashes. I'd say its less about which had more mobility, and more about which has enough to get the job done, in which case i'd vote they're both even on.

  • As long as she isn't fed too hard, her burst pattern is significantly slower than just about any other assassin in the game, save Pyke.
  • Her difficulty curve makes sure that you have to be pretty dang good at this champ before she's actually a threat. Her low elo win rates are through the floor, while her higher elo win rates aren't offensive for solo queue (they reach to like 50% or so in Diamond on lolalytics, give or take 1%).

Agreed, this is probably her biggest weakness and its how much effort it takes to get the kill. Granted there's not much you can do about it but that's why akali is extremely hard to play, she works for what she gets.. but that's also where she suffers from yasuo syndrome. A good akali will make her kills impossible to counterplay, but a bad one will somewhere in all that effort mess up and miss out on the kill entirely or result in a turn around. There is significantly more room for error from the player, but that doesn't necessarily mean there's room for the opponent to cause that error. She can fight you but you can't fight back with that shroud.

  • She's actually able to be played in pro games, where most assassins that aren't 1-shot machines don't get play.

Actually doesn't akali have like a 42% winrate at LCS this year? I think the main reason she's being played is because of how safe she can be. Like I mentioned her shroud makes telegraphing her extremely difficult and time consuming, and if LCS taught us anything, its safety first, so she could bait a lot of plays if anybody actually tries to act on her or even turn fights around with it.

Assassins that do get played in LCS usually get played for more reasons then just 1-shot machines. Like season 7's Khazix Rengar were mainly seen utilizing the utility and amazing clears they offer to teams. Kha'zix's evolved Q made objectives easy to take, and his slow was valued alongside his ability to run around the map fast as a pseudoevelynn to reduce risk of being caught. Rengar had his built in cleanse so he was easier to not die as and sorta countered other CC champs like Elise Sejuani Kennen, etc. Alongside his Q making raptors, wolves, and krugs a breeze. Akali would be a prime example of this, in that she can play safe but still be a threat of her own. Talon was played quite a bit recently too but I haven't watched enough about him to give an opinion, but i'd imagine it'd relate to how much pressure he applies early, how much pressure he applies in his roaming, and how likely he is to get out of bad situations easier.

So what do people want? Is there an assassin design that embodies "proper" assassin mechanics in the game?

Well here's the thing. I don't believe the fact akali is an assassin is what is concerning everybody, its how her play pattern is. People hate Zed because of how easy it is for him to shit on somebody, people hate Akali because of how hard it is to shit on her. It may not be easy for her to shit on you, but it is entirely her advantage to.

As for "proper assassin design in the game" short answer is no. Pyke comes close but its literally because he's gated as a support, he doesn't do enough on his own and even though he does pack a punch, its not stupidly high, like blitzcrank's ult does 250-500 base damage so damage from supports isn't too alien, even leona can flat out destroy you early on. I think people are sometimes just glad there's a Pyke support instead of Brand Zyra, because personally I do think after his recent buffs he's a little too past his sweet spot but I'm still not banning him because curtain #2 is just as concerning. Also he's skillshot based, which is a rarity among his class. I can't really say what we'd envision as a proper, perfectly balancable and healthy assassin because the class literally involves "priority target removal" so somebody's day is going to be shit, rather then say a fighter or diver focusing more on everybody and meatshielding a little.

There will always be bias towards assassins just due to their mere role concept. People hate mobility, people hate stealth, people hate duskblade/dark harvest and gunblade, people hate point and click abilities/autos, anything that utilizes any of that which 100% likely would for target access, is likely going to be circlejerked.

chipndip18 votes

I mean, from what you posted:

  1. You have a fundamentally flawed understanding of Akali from the foundation up. You say Akali discourages grouping, but grouping is how you deal with just about any assassin in this game, including Akali. She has no major aoe threat that an entire team fight's worth of enemy's are going to be afraid of. Akali Q isn't that scary.

  2. You came into the thread trying to disagree, but ended up agreeing with most of the points made in the thread in some fashion with no major downside of Akali's play pattern mentioned.

  3. You don't even like any assassin designs in this game to date in the first place, and you only think Pyke's decent because, and I called this, he's not designed to shit on you as long as actual assassins are.

So, to you, my question would be: If Riot would EVER land an assassin design that you'd find "100% the best one in the game", would Akali's design be closer to that than previous designs or farther?

Tormentula13 votes

  1. grouping is how you deal with most assassins. Akali's play pattern, particularly in teamfights, can punish that better then most others. Akali shouldn't 1v5, but in a teamfight you're going to funnel in a really bad spot for her to do decent damage. Katarina expresses this a little bit in how she can get in and AoE hurt a lot of people, but to a much greater extent. Take katarina but remove the idea of a channel in the wide open for everybody to turn on her. Kat can at least do a huge amount of teamfight damage and akali can achieve about the same thing with her shroud even if she does go down. It might not be as instant though.

  2. I came to discuss why she's a problem in my opinion, to other people whether that's the popular opinion on her exact problem or not, because you're not looking at the bigger picture. You're looking at specific traits comparative to other assassins regarding why people hate on her or previous iterations. Old akali was by no means a balanced champion, so whether you consider new akali above or under that design doesn't speak a lot. Saying she shouldn't be hated because she doesn't offer the same duskblade auto kill playstyle as other assassins doesn't necessarily mean she isn't hated for other reasons. I agreed with your points because yes they're true, but they're not the issue behind the point of the topic. You compare her to other assassins but again, she's not like other assassins and that doesn't necessarily do her justice.

  3. Don't accuse I dislike assassins when i am an assassin main. Well AP diver - > assassin main Elise Khazix Evelynn Kayn Nidalee Katarina Talon Nocturne. I'm just unbiased in that I 100% understand the frustration of all these designs and what makes them good/bad and what makes them infuriating/fair. Just because I play Khazix, doesn't mean I'd defend him in his current state. As a matter of fact I'd love to see a version of him where his passive was gutted, duskblade didn't exist, and he relied on Q for skill expression, extended duels, and general game health. I don't mind playing against him too, so consider that I don't even hate kha'zix and I can rationalize with people who do. I play Talon but I'll be the loudest person in the room to say I fucking hate his design currently and I don't take satisfaction in what I achieve with him.

I called pyke decent off of my own opinion. You stated it as your own and considered it close because of the outcry, well I'm part of the popular opinion believe it or not. I don't enjoy playing against pyke honestly, I don't personally play him currently (but intend to), but I'm not biased enough to call pyke a terrible design as yes, he doesn't do anything uncounterable.. his Q can be side stepped, his E can be side stepped and has a delay, and his ult requires you to get low in the first place and is still a dodgable skill shot. Nothing in his kit screams to me "wat do" when I ask how to counter him, if he's broken to me, I think its strictly because of his tuning, which is why I disagreed with his recent buffs and now I strongly believe he's over tuned, anything else I can blame it on myself. Akali I don't see thats fair to blame it on myself if there was never room for me to do something in the first place, despite how long it takes her to kill you, there's some how little room to punish which I think is very unfair. I'm actually starting to learn akali myself recently and it is disgusting the more I play her, but I haven't been playing her as ham (bans and stuff). I have good games and bad games, when I do have good ones, its because I completely prevented my opponent from doing anything. When I have bad ones its because I suck at akali still.

As for your question, I'm personally going to wait a see the future because I'm really uncertain to say either;

a) farther, next azir / kalista in that she'll be godlike but significantly held down by pro preformance and average playerbase just can't handle her skill cap. This is a big claim admittingly so please take with a grain of salt if this isn't true.

b) farther because her general design is more frustrating in a counterplay clarity sorta way. There's a saying yasuo has no counter play and his hardest counter is himself, I believe this holds true to akali, and whether or not the current patch's banrate correlates with the actual viability, it is still really hard to push out or shove back into the game without causing balance issues.

c) closer because I do believe if it wasn't for her 1 frame ult and both the size and turret stealth of her W (or just flat out the entire ability as a whole), I think we'd be on to something here as a healthy assassin, if not, at least a nice fighter. New akali is less binary and thats good, it doesn't communicate well with its opponent on how to beat it however and I can only say old akali did it better because she utilized the same shroud but on a much more toned down level, so she was literally going ape shit with point and click single target abilities where everybody can go on her.

I'm not going to flat out say either one because I do try to view this from multiple viewpoints, but I do believe akali as is the current design regardless to be unhealthy and broken and can mostly rationalize with the arguments on why she's hated rather then why she shouldn't be. I'm leaning with farther.

I can't design a healthy assassin as an assassin main. I would only be able to re-make the definition of assassins as a whole, ex. I believe assassins in games like smite are well designed, a lot of them don't one shot but instead have fighter like patterns similar to camille or Elise. Arachne is an assassin, but rather then deleting somebody, she utilizes a 3 hit proc that stuns somebody and does % health damage, this makes her a duelist that kills her isolated target with the same outcome, but with a slower and more punishable rate. She doesn't powerspike with flat damage bonuses but rather attack speed so she can melt her stunned opponent quicker. She gets the job done, but not in a way that the player literally grey screens in .2 seconds just off of raw damage output. Her mobility is a stronger version of Elise's rappel, but you can see her coming and where she's going, and its an ultimate ability.

420 grams19 votes

How fast she restealths can be punishing for players on higher ping

1RiceBowl1x16 votes

I think 75% of the people who complain about akali's W are people who just stand in the middle of it expecting to hit her and wonder why she gets to be invisible, when they could literally just walk away.

Electro52213 votes

So, wait just a damn minute......

Are we actually praising Certainly T here? And on the Boards, no less?

Am I dreaming?

Serika Zero11 votes

a few things you are wrong on: Akali has less mobility than before. While its true that reworked Akali has only 3 dashes (4 if you count the tumble) over the 3 dashes and a blink available to non rework akali + resets. The non reworked akali had less mobility. And why is that? Because now Akali doesn't need a target to dash. While sure, he needs to usually commit her ultimate for it (as the tumble back has low range). She can still do a lot more stuff now with her mobility. While prior to this, her ult was only allowing her to go on enemy targets, limiting her mobility.

And literally if you couldn't get a kill, your mobility back then is very similar to your mobility now.

Another thing you are wrong on: Fizz being weak 1-5. Nop, fizz has kill potential at lv3+. You literally have to start outplaying fizz since lv3, or you'll get fucked.

Rengar has no ways of getting out: He actually has, empowered W removes CC and gives him movement speed i believe for a second or so. Also, he can just go in a brush and jump. If you count Akali pre-rework as having a lot of mobility, then rengar is full of it, even if only on enemy targets.

probably more mistakes, but i gtg

chipndip17 votes

Rengar: The point of assassins is that they have mobility tools to get out of danger. LB blinks. Zed blinks. Kat blinks. Talon dashes over walls. Kass blinks. Shaco blinks. Eve blinks. Ekko blinks to 4 seconds ago. Rengar walks.

Like, that's a DEFINING contrast between divers and assassins. Divers use mobility into the fight and brawl their way out. Assassins use mobility both into and (hopefully) out of fights. Throwing yourself into the fray and utilizing cc cleanses to save yourself is more along the lines of Garen, a fighter, than an assassin.

Fizz: If you outrange the guy (I imagine you do), then out-playing him is as simple as minding his ranges while hitting him with projectiles. It's not really hard to just...not stand too close. If he E's to engage, hard cc him on his way down and combo. If he Q's, then E's...hard cc him. If he Q's YOU and not a minion, then E's, then why were you so close to him that he could Q you? He has no real way to keep his burst pattern on cd while closing in unless you get hit by his ult first.

Akali: Like I said in the post, her mobility is less limited, but the sheer potential she has to dash and blink around has decreased. Like, who has more mobility between Ezreal and Yasuo? Ezreal can freely blink once. Yasuo has as many dashes as he has targets. Yasuo clearly has more overall mobility than Ezreal, but Ezreal's has less strings attached. That's the point we're making here. Her overall mobility is reduced.

boricCentaur110 votes

I feel like people have not played vs the old akali when they say she is bs or that the shroud is op like the new akali is just so much better and has more counter play.

Alzon9 votes

When Akali drops her shroud, just walk away. No sense in crying if you have to stand behind your tower for a few seconds - Teemo has been doing the same thing for nearly a decade.

Champions who outrange her in lane will typically have an easy time of it, especially if they rush tier 2 boots.

Melee champions, however, have it pretty rough. She functions a lot like Darius in how polarizing she is, and how her opponents are forced to play around the nuances of her Q and passive or else they will die over and over again. It’s certainly doable, but it typically requires a lot of missed CS because she can zone anyone out from behind their caster minions unless they’re under tower, in which case her shroud lets her do the same thing (but it leaves her incredibly vulnerable afterward).

All in all, I think Akali has her place in League, with clear counters both ways. Anyone who wants to cry about how polarizing she is should look at someone like Anivia, Yi, or Darius first.

Illabethe9 votes

What world are you living in?

People are only beginning to master her, and the smurfs who are using her have 0 counterplay. 0.

A typical Akali user is bound by a set of rules because of her energy regen. A pro has continual replenishment, because they time their W and passive energy gain to almost outpace their energy consumption. And eventually, this dynamic is going to trickle down to low skill players who have just played her a lot (Kind of like how it took Yasuo about 8 months to really become toxic).

https://matchhistory.na.leagueoflegends.com/en/#match-details/NA1/2882463392/243999882?tab=overview

Take this game for example. 36 minute game. 26 kills. Assume she didn't get a kill the first 3 minutes. That's 1 kill per 1.25 minutes.

It took her 21 consecutive kills before she finally got killed by 4 people surrounding her through the sidebushes. chasing down lane, and cutting off every single angle.

The real truth is..... if Akali has access to her shroud (which is damn near spammable near end game), she can escape anything, and have the energy left over to counter-pursue.

If you are under the impression that you can just walk away from her shroud.... you're in for a rude awakening: her E has longer range than almost any distance you can travel, and if it's a good Akali, she's already marked you. If you run and are free of your team, you're dead. If you are are with your team, she just faked you and got away.

She has a longer range peel escape than any other champion in the game as well.

Even the pros have plainly stated: once mastered, Akali will have a bigger presence than the old Akali. She has almost unstoppable playmaking ability, almost endless energy, and doesn't even need half her kit to kill someone. You can't place a control ward at every shroud and even if you do, she can still kill you, or escape. The only obstacle is energy management, and that is slowly getting better. Pros have already mastered it.

chipndip16 votes

I'm very sorry, but there's more to unpack with your example game you posted than simply "Akali got fed". Thus, I'll respectfully skim over that.

The skill cap of the champion that the pros reach have nothing to do with your level of play. In that mmr range, Akali should be a near guaranteed win for you. I'm sorry, but that Akali was a smurf or you messed up more than just "a lot".

Tobykachu8 votes

Well there's a reason she has an almost 100% pick/ban rate in pro play - she is simply over tuned atm. Assassins in general rarely pop up in pro play unless they're exceptionally powerful, so this should speak volumes on just how strong she is right now in the right hands. Her shroud definitely needs to be looked at, because an ability like this will prevent her from being strong without the community complaining about her. She simply re enters stealth too quickly after attacking that it's almost impossible for your average solo queue player from being able to target her in the brief periods you can see her.

Not to mention the random as f*ck stun she gets on her ult for seemingly no reason.

Ahri Inari7 votes

Why we can't downvote this? Isn't vote manipulation not allowed?

Vekkna7 votes

The unique frustration with Akali is her ability to dictate aggression. She has easy disengage on E and uncounterable disengage on W.

The unique aspect is that her W's re-stealth heavily distorts the agency of each party in the fight. As in Akali has nearly all the agency and her enemy has little or none depending on how many skillshot aoes they can blindly spam into the shroud. Other champs have annoying target drops, vanishes, etc. but the commonality between them is that they don't automatically re-apply after each attack. Most of the time they're used as a 1-time engage or disengage, and once that wad is blown they have to wait out the cooldown.

Akali's W is used for engage and disengage repeatedly within a single fight. It has no counter. It's immune to turret sight. It is a thoroughly rule-shattering ability in terms of both vision and the precedent set by existing stealth, invisibility, and untargetability spells.

The rule-breaking itself is not inherently problematic, and there are exceptions to most rules. Eve's passive is a good example of this. Eve and Kat are good examples of how unique power is heavily taxed elsewhere in a kit; in Eve's case her permastealth is taxed with a large detection radius and total lack of engage mobility. In Kat's case her mobility and ult are taxed with delays, total absence of utility, and the highest-counterplay ult in the game.

I think Akali's W has room to exist in the game, but I also think it's super fucking toxic in conjunction with her Q healing, E disengage, and ult mobility/stun when added together.

NaturesMayhem5 votes

I think every champ listed above is fine, their kits are annoying, but there's an easy fix, longer cooldowns. Assassins should be just that asssassins. What do assassins do? They assassinate a specific high priority target, whether they live or die is depends on them, what matters is that they got rid of the enemy and quickly. Assassins do not work that way, they get ahead and then spam their kits, annihilating every champion they come across. It's unlikely they will 1v4 as they're still squishy and can get CC'd. But if they play well and know when to engage, they can get away with a lot. This is why assassins should have kits on longer cooldowns. Punishing those that spam their kit at every chance. I'm alright with LB engaging and one shotting me, I'm not okay with LB engaging and one shotting me, then repeating the same for the rest of my team every 4 seconds. I'm alright with akali killing me under tower with her shroud because I lost lane, I'm not okay with akali killing me in teamfights then popping back into and out of her shroud with her full kit again each time killing a teammate. Assassins are too powerful, with the ability to engage and disengage repeatedly, detonating players before they can react, this is un-intuitive and un-enjoyable gameplay. I believe this season will be a rework upon assassins, since we're going full circle and we seem to have gone through all the other classes thus far. I'm hoping Riot will look into this and possibly rework assassins into a better state, but at this rate, I'm almost certain they will create more problems. Maybe make electrocute and ignite into one item, removing the keystone and summoner ability, forcing all assassins to build it till it gets nerfed 10 patches later. Fuck, I can actually see Riot doing this now.

SangreDeNoche2 votes

[deleted]

ReWeebdown5 votes

{quoted}

This is just blatantly false and the fact that I can't downvote any of the idiocy in this thread annoys me but I'm used to the boards being a place where riot fanbois beat each other off for internet points so I'm not surprised.

Wow wtf is your problem? Instead of simply stating that its 'false' you could have maybe given... i dont know, one argument instead of whining?

JackMcSnipeyz1 votes

Her shroud. She is so safe and cant be locked down without investing stupid amount of time. Her shroud lasts too long and i still dont know why towers dont reveal her, nothing more frustrating than being in a teamfight and she pops her W in the middle of it just Q'ing people and restealthing for the entire teamfight.

Yes you can waste your skillshots blindly aiming at her general direction, but you better hope to god you hit or else you'll leave yourself open for either her to dive you (in 1v1) or the enemy team to roll over (in teamfights).

Her core design is greatn the hit and run passive and E are cool and really unique, but her shroud+double dash ult+ double dash E are just annoying to fight and leave you feeling like you are getting outclassed no matter what just in terms of kit power.

chipndip11 votes

{quoted}

Her shroud. She is so safe and cant be locked down without investing stupid amount of time.

That can apply to more than just Akali, though.

Her shroud lasts too long and i still dont know why towers dont reveal her, nothing more frustrating than being in a teamfight and she pops her W in the middle of it just Q'ing people and restealthing for the entire teamfight.

I like that she doesn't get revealed by turrets. I'm actually of the belief that they can tone down the duration of the shroud, though. If Riot's going to nerf Akali, I believe they should nerf her shroud duration somehow, rather than nerfing her numbers again.

Yes you can waste your skillshots blindly aiming at her general direction, but you better hope to god you hit or else you'll leave yourself open for either her to dive you (in 1v1) or the enemy team to roll over (in teamfights).

If she's turret diving you, you can see her. When I talk about hitting her in shroud, I'm usually talking about the turret dive scenario.

Her core design is greatn the hit and run passive and E are cool and really unique, but her shroud+double dash ult+ double dash E are just annoying to fight and leave you feeling like you are getting outclassed no matter what just in terms of kit power.

I mean, how you FEEL isn't the reality of the situation. Should champions not feel good to play? If the enemy champ feels so much stronger than yours, maybe the issue is that your champ's design just doesn't feel that empowering?

I made a thread on that topic, too, but the point of it sort of got lost in people really disliking CT.

JackMcSnipeyz1 votes

I dont dislike CT, i usually defend him. But you asked why people hate her, and i think this falls under the catagory of feelings. There are a lot of frustarating abilities in league, but yasuo and akali have some of the worst. Blocking an entire class of champion's kit for a long duration on a basic ability is and always will be annoying.

I dont like playing wack'a'mole for 8 seconds everytime akali presses W and i play a champ with not a lot of AoE. I dont like having my entire kit deleted by yasuo windwall which late game can cover almost an entire lane.

As far as i recall no other basic abilities fuck up so many champion's kit for such a long time on such a quick demend. I dont think akali will be any less fun to play if she didnt get to jerk around in teamfights for so long in her shroud.

As long as akali's shroud will stay as it is she will be hated by the majority of players.

chipndip15 votes

I get the point, but Vlad/Fizz/Kench/Braum/Kalista/Shaco/Xayah kinda nullify whole champion kits just as hard in different ways. I get it, but I personally look at it holistically. It's not something we shouldn't be used to by now from my pov, but maybe that's where I'm wrong?

Raiyza1 votes

They put a stun on her ult. That, along with her shroud, is absolute horseshit.

chipndip17 votes

Shaco: Fear

Nocturne: Fear

Ekko: Aoe stun

LeBlanc: Root

Rengar: Root

Ahri: Charm

Evelynn: Charm

Fizz: Knock up/away

Can we stop with this strange notion that assassins can't have hard cc? Akali's hard cc isn't even as long as ANY of these examples.

Raiyza1 votes

Akali does not need that with her kit. Her ability to deal damage while moving around like that is just overkill. .5 seconds is plenty of time to reposition and deal more damage/get the shroud up.

I'm okay with assassins having some cc, but let's not overload the kits when they have so many tools already.

chipndip16 votes

But Akali's is less than every other assassin in the game. How is that even remotely "overloaded"?

"She can move around and deal damage" is the same thing any other assassin does.

rtbf2256182411 votes

It's her W and how it creates massive frustration to the enemy because it defies the rules of the game for an extended period of time and allows the Akali player windows of opportunity that cannot be countered. Everything else in her kit is completely fine with everyone as far as i've seen. Every time it's the W that makes people angry.

chipndip15 votes

The ability counters itself just as much as it enables her to make plays, if you actually think it through.

Other forms of invisibility/camoflauge can be detected and targeted after being revealed by certain moves while Akali's can't, even if you use TF ult or something. Some say "that's op" or what-not, but the key difference is that others can go literally anywhere while Akali can't.

Shaco can press Q and be virtually anywhere in any direction. Twitch can enter camouflage and, once again, be anywhere on the map until detected. Akali's W gives her general vicinity away as soon as she drops it (she can't be outside the shroud). Her location in this controlled space is hidden under more circumstances, but where she is can't vary as drastically as other stealth users. If you have large aoe attacks, you can just flush her out. Sunfire cape detects her constantly. The answer isn't as obvious as "pink the shroud" or "QWER", but it's not like it's some "no counter-play" ability that offers no way to play around it. There's many ways you can play into it from both her side and her opponent's.

rtbf2256182414 votes

Except that this only works in theory. In practice, you don't have that long to sit near her smoke screen.

During the early to mid game, she will 1v1 you or you and your jungler. Her W offers a safe zone without any way to counter it. Bringing in heavy equipment like fucking aoe abilities (single use, long cooldown, high chance to miss) a sunfire cape (high cost, low damage, low reliability of use) and lens (in exchange for vision which is far more important for a decent jungler and already taxes on the game knowledge of at least 2 players in the team heavily because of a single stupid ability) means that something is seriously wrong here.

Not to mention how she can run circles around you and just stab you with her Q and go back in the smoke without you being able to retaliate unless you get a lucky ability on her.

And not to mention she uses her W mostly to replenish her energy and potentially heal herself. She can use the dagger in smoke as an escape path should her attempted route become unsuitable and her smoke spreads over time. Just because it doesn't grant universal movement doesn't mean it's a balanced ability lol. It's only purpose is to protect Akali and allow her to not get traded while she uses her extremely short range Q+basic attack combo. You can only see her for a split second, and most spells or basic attacks don't even allow you to hit her with the average reaction time a person has. I mean i have fast reflexes as an Osu player and i can't click on Akali fast enough while guessing where the hell will she appear. And i play Osu on Hard maps.

Secondly, her late-game gives her a free escape rally tool to back off out of teamfights or chases. Basically if she gets caught, assuming for whatever reason she has used her E and R, she will definely use her W and sit there until her team or someone arrives. Even in teamfights, she can use it to just walk away.

Also, can you imagine how insanely rage-inducing that ability is for someone like Zed? He ults Akali and cannot hit anything anymore because of a BASE ability that negates his vision in plain sight with no detection possible outside of investing heavily into items to counter 1 ability.

It's a stupid design. It should at the very least not have "True stealth" like fuck off, Riot, control wards and everything else should be able to reveal her.

TomiMan71 votes

When she can use 2 out of 4 dmg abilites just for mobility, and still have enough dmg to 100-0 you, yeah i think she could use some tweaking. I mean hard nerfs.

Ive faced an akali inted her face off, was 1-6 with a single gunblade and fiendish codex, she gunbladed me, missed the first part of her ult W to wait out the second part, then she flash Rd me again, and i was dead. I was 3lvls up. Yeah cool. Tell me she is in an okay spot. Same bullshit as syndra. She misses her Q W E then another Q, but hey you cant miss your ulti, and im dead.

chipndip18 votes

If you're telling me you died to simply Gunblade and R2 without ANY other interactions from 100% hp when she's feeding and you're fed, you're lying to me.

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