My Take on an Akali Rework

So Akali has been changed a lot in the past with a lot of good ideas that have fallen flat in practice, and with another big change to her on the horizon, I figured I'd offer some recommendations of my own as a scrublord who wants to enjoy playing her and doesn't enjoy playing against her. The main issue with Akali (and a lot of assassins, and many champions in general) is how uninteractive she is; nearly all of her damage is point-and-click, and her shroud is a stealth that lasts a very long time and can only be countered by AoE or very specific abilities that grant true sight. I'm well aware that any suggestions I make will probably never be noticed and don't have much credibility since I'm currently in silver tier and have never gotten above gold, but I'd like to try anyway. For the record, I do play a lot of Akali and have been playing her for a long time, and I did get high gold last season (unfortunately, I only became motivated to climb near the end of the season and couldn't quite get from gold 5 to plat fast enough, so "I was gold" is the best I've got). I've been playing the game for years and seen a lot of good and bad balance decisions, and I might not be a challenjour player but that doesn't mean I have no idea what is and isn't fair, so at least gimme a chance. <3

First off, when I saw the changes to her ult back in the day, I thought it sounded like a really cool concept. I understood what they were going for, or at least thought I did: making her feel more like a true ninja by dashing all over the place around and past people instead of just clicking and flying on top of them. However, they realized they made it a bit too extreme and it would throw her out of basic attack range, so they reduced the dash-through distance to the point where it's barely noteworthy. I think they should have done the opposite and made it shoot her even further away. This would make her somewhat more interactive by having her ult force her out of immediate all-in range instead of just "I can jump right on top of you 3 times," and with that, they could focus on adjusting her kit to compensate and giving her more interesting, interactive tools.

Instead of trying to make sure she could still proc her Q with a basic attack (which was the main problem with the ult change), make her ultimate able to proc it, then have it lower the cooldown of Q by 50% if her ultimate is used to proc it. This immediately gives her more of a true ninja feel, encouraging her to fight by dashing through people and using her mobility instead of sitting on top of them and getting into fisticuffs. It would make her a bit more annoying to play against, especially for players who aren't particularly good, but it would also give her more counterplay if you know what you're doing against her; it would also give her more potential to mess up and get herself killed. Allow for her passive to be applied by her ult as well, but only if she's in her shroud. Her current passive is stronger than the old one, but personally, I find it less exciting to use, so it seems like a bad change all-around. However, I'd personally enjoy it more if she could use it in more exciting ways than just "basic attack someone twice).

Next, lower the duration of her shroud dramatically, but have it increase if she continuously hits people, to the point of potentially surpassing the current duration; maybe increase its radius as well. This might sound bad, but it encourages the playstyle of fighting with her ult and actually trying to wait patiently to hit people instead of killing them all at once. At the same time, it makes her shroud less of a defensive tool and more of an offensive outplay tool, which solves the problem everyone has with it while preserving it as part of her identity. This is the general restriction Riot went for with the assassin changes a while back (make it so they can't kill people as fast or have as much free safety, but give them more tools to kill people and mess with them over time), so I'd say it fits. If she isn't actively fighting and consistently revealing herself to give enemies chances to play against her, then the shroud goes away quickly; but if she plays aggressive and tries to outplay them instead of just hiding, she gets something more fun, interactive and interesting than her current shroud. If it seems too weak, keep in mind that it could give the player short bursts of stealth and speed to move around between attacks, and if it seems too strong, remember that the player would be forced to reveal themself often to keep it active.

Then there's her E. What to do with this... It's probably the most boring part of her kit, and any past attempts to make it more interesting have resulted in even more problematic patterns of play and strategies than she currently has (such as an AD bruiser build). Honestly, what to do with this skill isn't as important as the rest of my suggestions here, but I'd say make it do even less damage than it currently does, then let it be used during the travel-time of her ultimate and have it lower the cooldowns of all her abilities (including itself and the stacks and between-use cooldown of her ult) by half a second for every champion hit (this is only 2.5 seconds at max, assuming she hits 5 champions). This means you don't have to wait the ~1 second between ulting if you're in melee range where you can hit her E on someone, which further encourages the non-confrontational playstyle I've been going for here. It would also give her some small way to respond if she ends up in a bad situation with multiple people around her, since her shroud would no longer do much to help her defensively. So now her E does less damage, weakening her burst and giving opponents even more opportunity for counterplay, but it also gives her more utility and further solidifies the theme of her trying to hit people while keeping herself safe as opposed to just "I'm gonna jump on this person and make them wish they were never born."

Options for more power if the kit is deemed too weak: allow ult to apply on-hit effects, make Q's travel time faster, allow E's cooldown to completely reset on kills again, give the damage part of her passive some %missing HP damage, make ult lower the MR of the target a bit when it hits, and give her more potential ult stacks somehow (like maybe 1-2 more at ult levels 2 and 3). Note that these are just my recommendations for if what I've already suggested would make her too weak to function properly. She's still an assassin, after all, so she should still have the tools to kill someone relatively quickly if she plays well. If it's too strong, on the other hand, the blink on her W could be turned into a dash or completely removed, her Q could be turned into a skillshot, and her raw damage could be lowered or moved around. An option for a mixed bag of balance would be to make her shroud start out with a smaller radius than currently, but it gets bigger the longer you manage to keep it active, so it really doesn't do much immediately but rewards the player for managing to keep their momentum (like Cassiopeia's old Miasma and Anivia's current ult). Again, these are all just additional options for balance if they're needed, not necessarily requirements for this concept to work.

As a whole, think of the theme of Fiora's old ultimate, except far more interactive for both the player and opponents. Having a ninja who ACTUALLY feels like what most people think of when they think "ninja" instead of some brute or mage would be neat, I'd say. I know this would make her annoying to play against in some ways, but she's already annoying so there isn't much to lose. This would also give opponents more opportunities to respond to her while also requiring her to outplay people more to succeed and rewarding her for doing so, and I don't know about you all, but I would much prefer that to her current state, both in playing as and against her. You'd be able to fight her in her shroud since she'd have to keep hitting you and revealing herself to preserve it, her kit would discourage her from getting into melee range for consistent damage on you, and she would have to use the utility of her kit instead of just getting in someone's face and overwhelming someone with raw damage. On the flip-side, the Akali player would have more options than just "jump on this dude and make him long for the sweet release of death, then give it to him."

Bottom line is Akali's supposed to be a ninja, not a facehugger. Again, I know this seems like it'd probably be annoying, but she's already annoying; and her concept as an assassin with high mobility, stealth and sustain will probably always make her at least a little bit annoying. Would you rather her be annoying with less counterplay and more ability to 1shot you, or more counterplay and less ability to 1shot you? And if you're an Akali player, can you really say you don't find her just a little one-dimensional and dull in her current state? Wouldn't you like to have more potential to show off your challenjour mechoniks and style on people?

TL;DR: Ult puts her behind people like in the past except even further, and it procs her Q mark and passive; W's duration is drastically lowered but is increased every time she hits someone (up to a cap, of course); E does less damage but lowers the cooldowns of her skills by half a second for every champion hit and can be used while dashing with her ult. This makes it so Akali has to use mobility and outplaying to kill you, and makes it harder for her to kill through overwhelming force or win melee 1v1s with people. I really think giving her kit more depth would provide more options for balancing her and making her fun to play.

I'd love feedback on this even if it doesn't have the slightest chance of ever being implemented! I know a lot of people hate playing against Akali, so would this make her more tolerable or would you just want to die having to deal with her jumping all over the place with her ult? Does anyone have anything to add to this concept that you think would make it better? Should I go crawl into a hole and never try to "fix" an assassin again?