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

chipndip1·10/7/2018, 10:21:58 PM·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

hotarse10/8/2018, 5:05:20 AM90 votes

wheres the downvote button

Velasan10/8/2018, 2:16:24 AM60 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.

Tormentula10/8/2018, 5:24:41 AM31 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.

420 grams10/8/2018, 3:59:03 AM19 votes

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

1RiceBowl1x10/8/2018, 2:51:10 AM16 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.

Electro52210/8/2018, 4:31:30 AM13 votes

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

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

Am I dreaming?

Serika Zero10/8/2018, 5:00:49 AM11 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

boricCentaur110/8/2018, 2:46:31 AM10 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.

Alzon10/8/2018, 2:22:28 PM9 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.

Illabethe10/8/2018, 3:54:35 PM9 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.

Tobykachu10/8/2018, 9:07:29 AM8 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.

Vekkna10/15/2018, 4:54:14 PM7 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.

Ahri Inari10/8/2018, 1:38:06 PM7 votes

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

NaturesMayhem10/8/2018, 3:06:42 AM5 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.

SangreDeNoche10/11/2018, 2:48:50 AM2 votes

[deleted]

JackMcSnipeyz10/8/2018, 6:41:32 AM1 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.

Raiyza10/8/2018, 4:19:11 PM1 votes

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

rtbf22561824110/8/2018, 8:49:35 PM1 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.

TomiMan710/11/2018, 8:14:29 AM1 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.