The Ninja Assassin That Is Making a Comeback

Warmogs is the new most popular item ever, so it turns out. But it got some nerfs! What kind of nerfs, you ask? Well, it costs slightly more now. Riot added another Rejuvenation Bead, and this bodes well for today's hero. As it turns out, high burst assassins are better than people are thinking right now. However, what about a high burst assassin that also has the capacity for strong sustained damage?

A good old pubstomp friend of ours has been coming in to light recently, and is starting to look better and better. Champions such as Katarina and Evelynn have been seeing hits to their power over and over in the past few patches, and Kha'Zix is popular, as well. Resets seem to be the flavor of the month, and the ability to pump out high, consistent damage while either sustaining through whatever you take, or simply powering through it with tanky buffs. Kha'Zix has his Spike Shot, to heal him, while Katarina's Shun Po which will block 15% of any damage that she takes while she's trying to kill your whole team.

People like building this item; turns out it's good.

So resetting is good. High burst with sustained damage is good, and tankiness is good. Everyone seems to love blowing up the squishies and being a pain to kill, so why not Akali?

Akali has fallen off the map in the past few months. There has been no place for her, as assassins for a long time were extremely unpopular. Bruisers for too long did too well simply building tanky items and Aegis of the Legion was way too efficient on too many people. Between tanky junglers being the norm, and Magic Resist being as cheap and accessible as it was, Akali had extreme difficulty dealing with it. However, now that Negatron Cloak is no longer an item you can buy two of and have a ton of items to build it into, early magic resist is much more difficult to come across. Instead, people are often rushing Warmogs or other such items, and now that it will take longer to build Warmog's Armor, Akali will have a slightly larger window in which they will be squishier and easier to kill, or at least harass her opponent out of lane.

Even the people who are considered to be "counters" to her in lane, can be defeated by some smart counterplay.   Lee Sin?  Sure, he can do some serious damage to you, but the biggest difference comes from the fact that you can no longer rely on your shroud to be your primary dueling tool; instead you have to keep yourself moving to avoid his Q, if you can do that then you can almost certainly put out enough damage to keep him out of lane; not only this, but your burst will make it difficult for him to get close enough to sustain his hp back.

Give him some respect; but don't give up if he's your lane opponent!

There will naturally be people that give you serious problems; champions who are able to all in Akali as hard as she can in the early levels are very tough for her.  Someone like Darius at level six creates a great deal of problems; while he does not have a way to deal with her stealth bubble without a pink ward, he is able to wait it out, then force a fight while Akali's shroud is on cooldown.  His ultimate makes it extremely dangerous to be anything that isn't full health against him, as his combo does an exceptional amount of damage.  Renekton is a similar problem.  Once he hits level six, he can sit in Akali's shroud with his ultimate on just ticking away at her HP, and stun her whenever she reappears.  Not only this, but his Q also has a large enough range that Akali has an extremely small window that she can stand in to not be hit by it.

Akali has a significant power spike after merely 1200 gold, typically. Historically, Hextech Revolver has been the first item that she picks up; the sheer amount of sustain it offers her when combined with her passive is fantastic, and giving her a very strong boost in her burst damage. Since things such as Vampiric Scepter and Wriggle's Lantern are becoming less popular on top laners nowadays, it does not take as much sustain as it did before to keep yourself ahead. Between this and Akali's ability to generate either a stalemate or an advantage by setting down her shroud in the middle of a fight, she has a great deal of tools to win a lane. In the early game, she won't gain too much armor while in her shroud, but nearly half of a cloth armor and half of a Null-Magic Mantle is still nearly 400 gold worth of stats for free, as well as the stealth, which is more or less impossible to quantify.

Look at all the free stats you get!

Unfortunately, Akali is notoriously weak for the first few levels. She, more than almost any other champion in the game has an incredible power spike upon reaching level six. This means that for many matchups, you are going to get beat up on for a few levels, especially against ranged champions. This is almost inevitable, but she surprisingly does quite well early levels against melee opponents. Her Q gives her free damage, and makes her very dangerous to approach due to the amplified damage from her Mark of the Assassin. It's extremely difficult for her lane opponent to abuse this, too. She will gain damage on her next auto attack, but the Mark lasts for 6 seconds, while her Q has a 6 second cooldown. This means that unless she runs extremely low on energy, which is difficult to do if you're only spamming her Q, you will always be ready with a mark of the assassin.



These are all things that we already know about Akali. What may have changed that makes her so much stronger than she used to be? Many people overlook it, but the fact that Hextech Gunblade is now even stronger on Akali sends her strengths through the roof. Although the stats on it have been reduced ever so slightly, it is cheaper by two hundred gold, and it has gained an incredible ability:

Unique - Reload: Your basic attacks and single target spells against champions reduce the cooldown of this item by 3 seconds.

At a base 60 second cooldown, Hextech Gunblade used to be something that you had to be pretty careful about using in order to get value out of it. But now? During fights, this item is on an absurdly low cooldown. Any type of combo from Akali will drop the cooldown on this like a rock; a simple R > Q > Auto drops the cooldown by 9 seconds. Not to mention the fact that by the time Akali will have Gunblade (even if you rush it, which is often but not always a good iea) your Q will have a 4 second cooldown. During teamfights, you’re using this ability off cooldown, and often times having intermittent auto attacks.

It reloads now; turns out being able to shoot ever 20 seconds is much better than every 60.

During a fight, it isn’t unrealistic to have Gunblade drop down to a 25-30 second cooldown. While this is still fairly long, it means that your sticking power in teamfights becomes literally second to none. Between three dashes and the ability to fire off a slow at people, you become a machine that not even the most slippery of champions can escape from. Along with this stickiness, you also gain a modicum of peel to your kit, meaning that afterwards if you need to you can become a rather effective offtank who is surprisingly good at protecting your squishy carries. Your shroud acts as an excellent zoning tool in teamfights should you not be able to dive past their front line; between the slow and tankiness that it offers later on in the game, you are able to build a tank item or two and suddenly become extraordinarily difficult to kill, avoid, or remove from a fight.

Akali is beyond effective at what she does, however the recent item changes mean that she can do so much more than what you would think. She fits into the League of Warmogs very well, due to the efficiency of her scaling off of Gunblade and the indirect tankiness that she gains from her shroud. Not only does she gain some armor and magic resist, but simply being inside the shroud makes her very difficult to kill without a pink ward. Often Akali can be killed despite this, but if you throw on a tank item or two, all of a sudden you have a champion who can not only burst down squishies, but easily stand toe to toe with any of those bruisers running around today. An Akali with 3500 HP nearby to her shroud is almost impossible to duel, and this is extremely helpful in this day and age.

So my conclusion? Give her a try. While her lane phase doesn’t have the most insane lane phase, she can stand up to a fair number of champions, and sustain through a whole bunch of damage, especially after she picks up her Revolver. From there, her build can go anywhere: finish your Gunblade, start to beef up some, start getting some penetration, any of these are viable options. Stealthy, hilariously frustrating to deal with with any amount of beef, and the capacity to blow people up? It’s all here.