Idea regarding Akali's counter-play. Decent start or completely idiotic?

Hinagiku33·Mar 22, 2014·9 votes·856 views

Hi All,

I've been playing Akali since season 2 (along with my others mains Kat and, obviously, Fiora) and I find that while she's really fun for those of us that play her...there's a lot of people who seriously want her deleted. Like nearing Teemo levels of hate. For a while I disregarded most of it as people who just hate burst champs in general, but I have seen some people make good points here and there.

So let's just get right into this...

I think Twilight Shroud (W) should be the core of Akali's kit.

I know, I know. "Why would her escape/stall be her core element? That's not even how she kills people! And all she does is damage! What's wrong with you?!" For starts, it's Akali's unique ability so design-wise it should be important. Kat and Leblanc have back-loaded mark-based Q poke. Zed and at least someone else has a self-targeted AoE for wave-clear. Lots of champions have dashes. Who else makes a stealth field? Nobody that's who. So it should be more of her gameplay than just throwing it down to wait out cooldowns and juking corners. So here's my idea for it.

**Shadow Dance no longer has charges. Twilight Shroud given an ammo system similar to what Shadow Dance has now. **

Shadow Dance put on a short to semi-short cooldown - Shadow Dance can only target enemies in Twilight Shroud.

Twilight Shroud armor/mr removed. Instead Akali gets bonus movement speed which decays quickly starting when she leaves the shroud.

Okay, so I'm sure you're asking "What? What is this I don't even...?" Well the ammo system for Twilight Shroud was talking about by Riot ages ago as being a good possibility to make it more meaningful. But it wasn't enough obviously since it didn't happen. It has a lot of potential though, and I felt that it could be used to open counter-play while also making Akali as ninja as Zed (or damn close anyway).

Think about it.

Real ninja kill you in your sleep or poison your food. This is not a game where we want to do real ninja things. We want to do story ninja things, like Zed's shadows and delayed heart explosion. Well in stories ninjas don't just disappear in a cloud of smoke. They also appear with clouds of smoke. Aside from being pretty ninja to me, it gives Akali some essential counter-play to what a lot of people have been complaining about.

Akali currently has 3 jumps that are targeted and long ranged
Akali currently can just hide in her shroud to wait on cooldowns but counters attempts to use AoE to hit her in her shroud by having passive resistances to mitigate the damage.
Akali gives very little warning when she suddenly leaps on you and it happens quick enough that a lot of players aren't able to find a window of opportunity to do anything about it before she kills them.

I feel this can solve several of the complaints about Akali in a way that still allows her to be a good ninja and be devastating when played well. Skill is the key element since it's a lot less painful to die to something that you know took effort to set up than it is to die because your enemy was able to click on you.

Akali can't just click on you know. She has to hit Twilight Shroud so you're standing in it. If you dodge the shroud or dash out before she jumps on you...Akali can't Shadow Dance to you. Plain and simple.
There is a delay before Akali is able to jump on you due to needing to throw her shroud first. This gives you both warning that it's about to happen and a little bit of time to avoid it - namely don't stand it in.
Akali can't just sit in her shroud. Ninja's don't do that. She can hide in her shroud but it won't do her any good if a skillshot or AoE comes flying at her. In exchange she can get a short speed boost to help "smoke out" and escape since smoke bombs are meant to hide where you went, not hide you.

Like this Twilight Shroud can be both Akali's escape and her engage. Say Brand or some other mage is farming mid. Suddenly a burst of smoke appears around them. Brand instantly knows what's coming and can splash some AoE damage around himself or he can try to run out, especially if he's already near the edge of the shroud. If he makes it out then he knows for fact he is safe. If he splashes damage then he has a chance to blast Akali as she comes to kill him, at least having a chance to fight back. But if he locks up...or doesn't have the spell he needs off cooldown...then Akali appears behind him in the smoke, ready to combo him to death with no mercy. Maybe later you and some guys find Akali out of position and decide to go avenge your mage. Akali can hit one of you with her shroud and dash to you to kill you first. If you came from different directions she might shroud you, dash to you, and use the short speed boost to run for it. Or she could drop a shroud right where she's standing. You can feel safe knowing that she's not able to jump on you, but you can't use targeted abilities on her while she's in it and the speed boost can help her run away to re-group.

The only problem I foresee is that she won't be able to use her ult's damage when another melee gets up close and personal unless she drops a shroud on herself - and she wouldn't be getting resists or stay in stealth if she's attacking. I feel like this might make her weak in duels which is bad since that's really all she does, but with a (probably) healthier play pattern I think it wouldn't be a problem to buff up her damage since her ult is limited and can't be spammed 3 times in rapid succession just for damage. She would need at least two charges, but I'd like for her to have enough that she can use two at once to fake-out opponents - perhaps max of 4 able to have 2 out at once? Her Shadow Dance should also be on a pretty short cooldown since it can only be used conditionally (if an enemy is in shroud) and it shouldn't take too long to have her dash up since she still needs to have another shroud charge and hit it on a valid target to use it again anyway. She at least can be balanced around how often her shroud ammo charges, the cooldown before she can throw a shroud, and the cooldown on her dash. So Riot can make her dash-happy but weak damage, or put more time between her dashes and give them more damage.

Feedback and criticism please :)

TL;DR - Read what's in bold.

19 Comments

Sir ArmaMalumMar 23, 20146 votes

####Good things first!

I love the idea of ms instead of mitigation on her shroud, it allows for better play when she exits and much less invisible of a power increase. Not to mention with ammo system, you can have an increased area for an ms boost if you plan ahead.

You're off to a great start, chiefly because you've put a lot of thought behind this on both fronts and not trying to simple enhance or reduce a single portion of her kit without taking into account at least some other portions of her kit.

Addressing her ult's ammo system and the power of not only the numbers but the reaction time is a very good way of going about it.

####Not-so-good things

Major thing that I disagree with is the same thing ArtoriusIV mentioned, limiting the ult to anyone already inside of the shroud will severely limit her effective range and she would be absolutely dominated by longer range champions. I would think it would be the same as Akali pre-6, where ranged champions have a lot of wiggle room and the ability to make plays with is very difficult. My first thought is to reverse it, why not make it so her ult can only be used if she is stealthed by her shroud and have no cooldown on the ult? It would limit her use-case and give additional decision points based on how many ammo charges of the shroud she has left. It would also make it easier to tell (telegraph) when she's about to use because the shroud will have to be down already. I would play that Akali in an instant. My 2 cents.

Making an ult dependent on another ability (my above idea has this same problem too) runs the danger of being very unfriendly to new players, because it requires a high dependency on proper comboing to even use the ability. Essentially it raises her skill cap a bit and can cause some frustration in areas where a game mechanic is actively denied due to someone's skill.

Limiting her ult to one charge, even with a low cooldown, will severely lower her burst capacity. It's very key not to have a window of time where she can't do anything and instead is just walking around waiting for cooldowns. AD assassins can get away with this because their auto's hurt, but AP assassins (not mages, they have range) need abilities up so they don't have sitting time. At least that's my personal opinion. I hate to have sitting time and almost no ability to contribute when I'm within kissing distance of the enemy.

Major nitpick really, but your formatting overall could be better. Bullets are a great start but there are a few additional tools in the CB that a lot of people don't know. Not exactly what you wanted to hear, sorry, but I want to help out! You can create headers by putting "#" in the beginning of the line (no quotations naturally), add more for smaller headers. and you can create horizontal dividing lines by adding "---" at the beginning of a line. Try it out and feel free to experiment with the CB tools. I've used them in this comment as an example.

Overall, great post! I appreciate the work you put into this and the thought behind it. Great job!

Hinagiku33Mar 23, 20142 votes

Thanks for the feedback!

Also the awesome tips on headers and diving lines. I'm new to the CB so I'm still figuring a lot out.

And yeah, I also had a lot of the same worries when I was writing this. On the one hand it feels really bad to say "you didn't land a shroud? you have no ult." But on the other hand Akali having a lot of dashes and not having to land any skillshots or anything to use them is a huge point of frustration for the people I go up against.

I also might not have been clear on a couple things:

Twilight Shroud's range can be extended to roughly what Shadow Dance is now so Akali can still dash at the same distance.
By short cooldown, I was thinking something like 2 seconds on Shadow Dance. It should be fairly similar to how it is now but instead of dash > smack > dash > smack > dash it would be more like smoke bomb > dash > smoke bomb > dash

The idea was supposed to be that Akali is almost exactly as she is now, except that she needs to land something before she can dash. The timing between dashes and their range should still be like what they are now.

Maybe allow 3 shroud charges, but only allow two to stay out at once? That way Akali can throw them all down really fast to spam her dash up to 3 times just like now but it requires skill to actually use them all that fast. Honestly it wouldn't break my heart if Akali wasn't as good for new players since she can be damn annoying to new players. I started laying her when I needed a special rune page so she could start with both her passives so I really don't mind a higher skill floor.

Actually, a higher skill floor is probably what Akali needs most right now.

Sir ArmaMalumMar 23, 20141 votes

Okay, I didn't realize you also wanted to add range to shroud's cast, I can get behind that. And I agree Akali has a great potential for a higher skill cap and it would be nice for her to get higher rewards for it.

Hinagiku33Mar 23, 20142 votes

Thanks for the feedback guys :)

I wasn't sure there would be much response but I'm glad to see people like the idea. Let's see if we can keep this going to get a Red to weigh in.

InxMar 23, 20142 votes

I...don't think this the best idea. The amount of rebalance to her assassination that would be needed and the amount of counterplay you're introducing to her rotation just sounds awful.

her ability to juke to minions would go down due to being dictated by your shroud and thus making escapes even harder and because you can only ult into the shroud, that means either her ult or her Q combo would have to increase in damage, meaning she'd give the target less time to react, not more, if they wanted her to still be able to do her job. It would make her assassination way too unreliable.

I really don't personally think akali has a counterplay problem, since she actually has a decent amount already. What she has is a very ubiquitous assassin problem, where when she has an inch on you, she can take a mile, because her entire kit is designed to kill people, and because her escapes are sketchy (stealth in a single area) she also has inherent spellvamp making her able to tank through damage

She also has the diana problem of being sticky, but I don't think this is the path to a resolution.

Hinagiku33Mar 23, 20141 votes

Thanks for the criticism :)

Do you think Akali is fine as-is or just needs different tweaks? Riot seems to think she has a counter-play problem and as much as I hate to think that...well, just ask anyone who doesn't play Akali how they feel about her.

Honestly, I don't see a problem with bumping up Akali's damage if we're also increasing the skill she needs to kill someone. From a design perspective, there is something to be said for not tying ALL of a champ's damage to abilities that only require you to click on the target.

How long are you seeing the delay between tossing shroud and jumping into it? I was thinking that it wouldn't be too different from what she does now with tossing her Q and then jumping to the marked target. Toss shroud into a wave of enemy minions and jump. Might be a touch slower than now but I think it shouldn't be too noticeable a change unless you have bad ping.

ArtoriusIVMar 23, 20141 votes

I like the idea, but not being able to dash to people unless they are in the smoke seems a bit to UP to me, what if she can only dash if someone is in the smoke, allies or foe, and can dash to anyone in range, in smoke or not. I think that this will let her have more options for a fight, while letting enemies have an idea something is coming, if not knowing who (like nocturne and his ult)

Hinagiku33Mar 23, 20142 votes

I'm not sure I understand what you mean when you say "in smoke or not".

The idea is that if you aren't standing in the smoke you can't be dashed to, since the lack of visual indicators or warning is such a huge complaint. I figured if Akali gave some warning and allowed a small time to respond then it wouldn't seem as unfair and Akali can get some of the damage back from her nerfs.

I actually don't mind being able to jump to allies standing in shroud but it's up to Riot whether they feel adding that might be too unfair. Again, Akali should be almost the same as she is now, except if the enemy suddenly sees Twilight Shroud appear on top of them they are at least given a warning that they are about to die. It's not "lol, I see the shroud so I'll just leisurely plan what to do" it's more like "shroud! run!" and relying on fast reflexes.

The image I had was something like this. Picture a samurai walking down a path. All of a sudden a smoke bomb bursts at his feet. The samurai stands his ground and readies his sword. The figure of a ninja appears behind him poised to slice open his throat. It doesn't end well for the samurai. Instead of standing his ground, the samurai leaps to the side out of the smoke to readies his sword. The smoke dissipates and nothing is there. Maybe the ninja left. Maybe the samurai starts to walk away when another smoke bomb bursts and it starts over again.

ArtoriusIVMar 25, 20141 votes

think similar to Nocturne ult. once you see the shroud, you ready your sword, but there is still an element of surprise as to who has to spam their abilities because of it.

GROMMIMar 23, 20141 votes

This was actually a really cool, very fantastic read. Take my +1 :)

Doominator10Mar 23, 20141 votes

[http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v519/queenanthai/Made%20Of%20Fail/shutupandtakemymoney_zps3bbbd52e.jpeg]

Gospel NoctisMar 23, 20141 votes

So, what does she do once someone throws down a pink ward? With her burst neutered, and shroud still retaining the exact same counterplay as it always has, what does she do when someone throws down a pink or uses oracles lens on the shroud?

Sir ArmaMalumMar 23, 20141 votes

It would apply a sort of de-buff/buff still, it would just visually reveal her. i.e. she would still be able to use her ult if you're in the shroud, just see her doing it. At least that's how I read it.

Gospel NoctisMar 23, 20141 votes

I guess I should have been a bit more clear. What I meant, was that what would Akali do to survive/be relevant once someone pinked her shroud. With her burst neutered, and only being able to dash to things in her shroud she would not only be unable to kill anything in her first rotation, she would be defenseless and unable to escape due to Shadow Dances cooldown, and even once it came back up only be able to dash to something already in her shroud.

With these changes, she would be extremely feast or famine depending almost purely on whether or not someone had a way to reveal stealth. If they don't, she can chain shrouds back to back, leaving very little time to counter attack her while she whittled away at her target. If they do, she goes in, does a little bit of damage, gets pinked, and dies before her cooldowns come back up.

Sir ArmaMalumMar 23, 20141 votes

yeah that and the reduced effective range of her ult (only really in the range of the shroud) is the main thing I'm disagreeing with. A variation os having her ult only when she's stealthed in her shroud, so her ult can still be agted by the shroud ammo and placement but she can W->R for a quick jump and drop another for more. While inside she would have to reactivate the stealth real quick to ult again. I like the idea of that decision point personally, as well as the fix for her very little telegraphing in live now. But that's my 2 cents.

Hinagiku33Mar 23, 20141 votes

I posted above too, but I wasn't fully clear on Twilight Shroud changes. I figured it wouldn't be a problem to make Twilight Shroud's range the same as Shadow Dance's since it didn't seem like it'd be a problem to let Akali throw shrouds that far. Her dash range should be the same as it is now but require more skill than just clicking on the enemy to use.

Cooldown for Shadow Dance should be something more like Sheen proc's internal cooldown (like 2 seconds). I'm not really use about the whole "if the enemy sits in shroud can Akali dash to them infinitely?" thing this might cause. Figured this can be balanced to whatever Riot feels appropriate using cooldowns and energy costs.

As for Akali's burst being neutered - remember that Akali's damage is kept low because on her low skill floor. I would fully expect Akali's damage to be buffed to compensate for her new higher skill floor.

PyrrasuMar 23, 20141 votes

Instead of it being a requirement to use shroud first, what if dashing to someone in the shroud gave bonuses? Like if a standard dash consumed 2 charges (bumping the cap up to 4 maybe) but dashing to someone in shroud only used one charge?