I wrapped my Akali Champ of the Week with four losses, none of which made me particularly happy. Two of the games featured serious trolling by my teammates, once in the form of AP Pantheon, once a Singed who intentionally fed. In another, the enemy team had Orianna, Janna, and a hugely farmed Irelia, not to mention a very farmed Gangplank. If I remember correctly, the final game my team had a leaver. In short, it was not a fun way to wrap what had been a mostly enjoyable week, but it did highlight some of Akali’s weaknesses.

I’ll start by saying that I think Akali is almost always a strong pick for a team. She has incredible burst and, provided your teammates can provide a little initiation, she can bring down a carry faster than anyone else in the game. She has a very strong laning phase, thanks to the cover provided by Twilight Shroud and the burst from Mark of the Assassin. With boots at level one, she can almost always get in range to nuke off some enemy health while staying healthy in the cover of Shroud.

That said, she can be countered, but that counter often leaves a team vulnerable to their own counter strategy. Akali does struggle against teams that can mitigate her burst. It isn’t healers – it’s the shielders that give her trouble. Orianna, Lux, Janna and Jarvan can all eat a significant chunk of her burst up front, which means she needs to slowly wear them down over the course of a fight. That’s okay in lane, where there’s plenty of time to set up a kill, but in a teamfight someone else needs to nuke those shields so that Akali can get down to business. If your team can’t do that for you, it’s going to be a tough game.

In my game against Janna, Orianna, and Irelia, there was so much shielding on their melee carry that it was impossible to burn her down. Also, Orianna does quite well against Akali, thanks to the combination of her shields and the AoEs she can use in Twilight Shroud. It takes some very careful play to outlane Orianna.

On the whole, though, I think Akali is among the strongest champions in the game. Once farmed, she absolutely melts anyone with less than 3000 health, and even those targets drop alarmingly fast. If I could change one thing about her, it would be to limit the refresh mechanic on Shadow Dance. As it stands, Akali refreshes her Essence of Shadow every time she gets a kill. I’d like to see it have some sort of activate, something like Master Yi’s Highlander. The skill could refresh Essences only while active, maybe for a period of 15-20 seconds. It would force Akali players to carefully plan an attack, instead of freely dashing all over the map. It would also limit situations in which Akali can get a kill, duck into brush to wait on a Shroud cooldown, and then blow anyone up that comes to find her. She wouldn’t snowball nearly as hard, which I think is exactly the kind of thing she needs.

An Akali Champ of the Week is exactly what I needed after the mess that is Mordekaiser. I’ve been spending some good time on the melee ninja, darting around the map and dominating my opponents. Where Mordekaiser felt dependent on my enemies, Akali allows me to focus on my own play. Every fight feels like a puzzle, working out just how hard I can hit an enemy to grab that last hit, refreshing my Essence of Shadow for a dash out from under turret fire and back to safety. I’ve only lost one game with her so far, thanks to a Singed player who thought he needed to troll. I was 20-4.

I have a couple buddies with whom I often chat about game balance. Whenever we’re talking about whether a champion is OP, we always talk about the two tiers of OP. The lower tier is a champion that is godlike in the hands of a skilled and attentive player. The upper tier is champion that any player, regardless of skill, tends to have a good game with. Akali is absolutely lower-tier OP. With even the most moderate farm she becomes a wrecking ball at level six, able to burst down just about anyone that isn’t a true tank. With a little bit of map awareness she can quickly take over a game, cutting down squishy champions and building a massive item farm. Once she has Rylai’s and Lichbane, very little can stop her.

I think I’m going to save the Akali counter discussion for another post. For now, I’ll leave you with my rune and build choices so you can start tearing up Summoner’s Rift. I use the runes pictured above, taking AP quints, 7 physical damage marks and two magic pen., flat armor seals, and flat AP glyphs. The total stat bonus is 6.6 physical damage (rounded to 7), 1.9 MPen, 13 armor, and 24 AP. With the 3 damage from offensive masteries, this gives Akali both her passive bonuses without any items, allowing me to take boots and three pots at level one.

As for build, I now rush Rylai’s exclusively. I tried Gunblade a few times, and though it was fun in the early game against single targets, Rylai’s gives her much more survivability along with a slow on every skill, not just a targeted nuke on a 60-second cooldown. From there, I take Lichbane followed by Deathcap unless I’m having serious survivability problems. As for boots, it’s really up to you. I like Sorcerer’s Boots, but I take Merc Treads often for the added survivability.

Check back this weekend for more on this amazing assassin. I’ll cover the characters that counter her best and some methods for being successful against a tank-heavy team.

I thought I might get a little inspiration for the Champ of the Week from last night’s Fearless Gamer League of Legends Monday and it turns out I was right. I had a lot of fun in a game with Akali, a champion I hadn’t spent much time with until burning through something like 18000 IP a couple weeks ago to buy a rune page specifically for her. Since that time I’ve started to really appreciate her playstyle a bit more and to see how much she can contribute to a team. I’m really excited to name Akali my Champ of the Week.

I’ve been screwing around with a few different builds as I’ve played her recently, but I’d really like to spend the week focusing on when a build works and doesn’t work, and how to stay viable if you get wedged into a duo lane. I think the obvious solution to that problem is to not play Akali if you’ll be in a duo lane, but Akali requires a lot of rune specialization. If players want to get serious about her, chances are she’ll be one of very few champions that player can afford for some time. I may spend a game or two playing with a basic mage rune setup, but frankly, I don’t think she fares very well in levels 1-5 without her own build.

Check back later in the week for epic tales of my leaps across Summoner’s Rift. Chances are good that I’ll get caught under a turret more often than anyone reasonably should.

I’ve only had the time for four games today with Akali, but between that and my time on the TR I feel like I have enough data to offer up some initial impressions.

First, I like Akali. The energy system provides just enough spam to keep me happy while still limiting DPS output to a reasonable degree. That said, the fact that Akali is melee makes her incredibly susceptible to CC/AoE damage dealers, and without her own hard CC she can be easy to counter.

For my first game I set out to try AD. It was broken for most of her duration on the TR so it seemed right to give it a go. Akali is a great farmer, especially if you have a lane partner capable of some decent harass. I had quickly put together my Rageblade and a Phage (which I didn’t love). My burst was solid and I was healing well from her passive, but I was missing something. My next item was a BF sword, and in the time it took me to farm that (which wasn’t long) I watched my damage go from good to just below mediocre. She doesn’t have enough of a CC to keep an opponent close and her Mark of the Assassin (Q) and ultimate are both laughable as AD. Mark is so bad as AD you shouldn’t even waste the energy to use it. By the time I had a Bloodthirster and Infinity (yeah, my farm was huge in an average length game) I was cutting people down fairly quickly, though mostly through right clicks, which kills a lot of the “feel” of the character. Crescent Slash feels extremely lackluster the further the game gets, mostly because of the crappy damage coefficient. I know she’s meant ot be a hybrid toon, which is fine if you have a mix of AP and damage, but consider a skill like Volley, which is used at range, covers a wide radius, gets 100% of your attack damage plus bonus damage and shares a similar cooldown. For the number geeks, at 300 attack damage, Crescent Slash will deal 310 damage (180 from AD ratio plus the 130 bonus damage). Volley, by comparison, would deal 380.

For the second game I went AP and was similarly disappointed. The ult felt better, but her ratios are pretty bad for Mark (40%) and downright deplorable on Crescent (30%). Without a monster farm she is hardly something to fear, especially since she has to be on top of you to deal any damage. The only person I felt like I was rocking was a Zilean who had built zero survivability, and once he was down I was usually out of energy, leaving me woefully exposed to his allies. Consider that at 300 AP – which is a lot if you aren’t sitting on a 20-stack Soulstealer and can’t benefit from Archangels – her Crescent is dealing a meager 270 damage while Mark is hitting for 540 (including the proc). Compare that to Anivia’s Flash Frost – which you can proc for extra damage if you’re good – hitting for 660, stunning, slowing, and synergizing with her other nuke. I think increasing her ratios a bit would make AP feel much more viable. Since shroud deals no damage, she needs the other skills to hit hard. I feel like her passive is meant to counteract her melee vulnerability, but by level 10 a 20% spell vamp isn’t going to save you from much. In most cases you’re healing back something on the order of 60-90 damage for each cast. That’s fine if you’re at a distance and capable of running but when you’re buried in the mix it’s not going to help.

On the whole, I think it’s still very difficult to make melee DPS viable without some sort of survivability. Garen works well because he has both passive and active damage reduction, a speed boost, and slow immunity. Though you could argue that Shroud adds survivability, your enemy still knows where you are and can spend AOE skills to blow you up without much trouble.

As I play her more, you can bet I’ll be making more posts about her viability. Stay tuned.