On December 11 2012 02:34 Seuss wrote: Updated. Akali is a hell of a lot stronger now for the same reasons every other assassin is a hell of a lot stronger. It helps that Gunblade got buffed like crazy for someone who does tons of single target damage like Akali. I really like the power of Gunblade + DFG + Lich Bane for making carries disappear.
Also, jungle Akali is totally legit. Those level 6 ganks.
I was thinking she could be good to pick up because of the oracles nerf... whenever I played her that was what could really shut her out of teamfights.
The Oracle's nerf isn't all that relevant. People will still grab Oracle's or Pink Wards if you rely too heavily on Shroud to be effective. I've seen it often even when on my 1200 smurf without any stealthers around. What is relevant are the itemization and penetration changes.
I could probably spend paragraphs explaining how stupidly good Gunblade, DFG, and Lich Bane are on Akali now. I won't for the sake of brevity, but they are (in my humble opinion) Akali's new holy trinity of items. That's not to say it's an immutable build, just that it's stupidly strong in games where it makes sense.
Also, everyone is just less tanky, and that always makes assassins happier, especially one whose survival depends on her ability to heal herself through damage.
On December 11 2012 06:45 Praetorial wrote: Can Black Cleaver be built on her successfully?
Sure. Hit E once, whole enemy team now has no armor. But if you're going to stack something stack Gunblades. If you finish four of those you'll have 118%+ Spell Vamp. It's as dumb as it sounds (especially if you jungled and have Smite, free 1000 health heal even minute if there's a creep nearby).
On December 13 2012 04:06 101toss wrote: Frostborn gauntlet: waste of mana outweighs the massive utility?
Why gauntlet instead of Lichbane (with the sheen) - you don't have problems sticking to targets, proccing the slow only in melee range isn't particularly amazing, and if you feel you REALLY want a slow past the gunblade slow (honestly, the gunblade slow is probably plenty) Rylais is better, significantly cheaper, is applied better (can apply at range with Q, also applied when you're diving the shit out of someone with R) doesnt have 800 gold of useless stats, and isn't competing with a core Akali item.
Note that I'm not running Bladed Armor, get no help at level 1, and opt to do Wolves before Red rather than Golems. If you're concerned that she's slow, these adjustments easily put her below 3:40 for clear time (not that 4:00 is bad, it's just average).
She can also hit level 6 before 7:00 if you just keep clearing, which is generally a better time investment than trying to gank.
I played 5 games of jungle Akali today running 23/7 (and eventually 22/8 for bladed armor). I don't have spell vamp quints or flat AP blues, so I used AD red, armor yellow, scaling AP blues, and flat AP quints. For the last game I swapped to scaling MR blues.
Basically, not having spellvamp quints is fine, but it'd be really tough to pull off in competitive games because of how weak you are on your second/third clears before getting revolver (and if you rush revolver you have no boots) forcing you to buy additional pots. [EDIT: Montgomery this is prob what you meant by "not safe without spell vamp quints"?] I may try 1 spell vamp quint, 2 flat AP quints, and 2 flat AP blues to proc the passive and see how that works tomorrow.
I do like the MR blues on Akali since she is pretty squishy with a gunblade->lichbane build, and from the jungle she will have lower levels and farm than lane. I've been buying some resist items just to not instantly die against teams with a lot of cc or Lee. How do you make make her work with base MR and jungle farm/exp?
Akali These changes are to open up additional rune and mastery setups for Akali players. They’re intended to be a small change for those players who choose to stick with the setups they currently use. Twin Disciplines Discipline of Force Now takes effect immediately instead of requiring 19.5 Ability Power Base damage bonus reduced to 6% from 8% Discipline of Might Now takes effect immediately instead of requiring 9.5 Attack Damage Base spell vamp bonus reduced to 6% from 8%
So, what are people planning now for their Rune/Mastery setups? 9/21/0 is looking pretty tempting now, as are Hybrid Pen marks and spellvamp quints. Am I going overboard and giving up too much offense in favor of being able to survive early laning?
Spell Vamp Quints were already the best option for Akali (activating her AP passive at level 1 was overrated compared to the sustain), there's just more leeway now for her Marks, Glyphs, and masteries.
I'll need to run fresh jungle tests to see what I like, but I'm going to experiment with a few things. CDR Glyphs + 9/0/21 has some potential, as CDR is definitely strong on Akali. There's also 11/7/12 for the best of all worlds, or 9/21/0. I could try running MPen Marks/Glyphs to see if the 13.5 MPen makes a significant enough difference during ganks to make up for the lack of jungle applicability.
You actually gain energy spamming Rank 5 Q so long as you're also proccing it, even at capped CDR. CDR also means more Qs while jungling which means more healing through Spell Vamp.
I did say I wanted to test them, not that I was at all certain they'd be good. Having run the tests, I'm fairly certain they are not. In fact, having tested a few setups it seems clear to me that my previous setup remains the best for jungling.
That said, the interest in CDR was largely because DFG is not sufficient on its own to cap CDR, and capping CDR is always extremely fun. If CDR glyphs had worked well that + DFG would have brought Akali to 20% CDR, which means blue buff would have capped her CDR. It turns out that Flat AP is stronger for clearing the jungle, so at this point it's moot.
Bah, I really wanted to like Akali, but I can't. Just seems like her lane matchups, at mid and top, are too poor, and she gets shut down hard in fights. I can't make her work for the life of me.
I've been playing Akali a lot recently and this rune change really excited me so I cracked and bought hybrid pen runes and my final 20th rune page to mess with.
After a number of games and different permutations of things heres what I came up with
I think the change mostly just removed the AD requirement and now enables using hybrid pen runes/masteries, but you'll still want to stack ap for making ur early trades worth it.
I think Vamp quints (which I notice many discussing) would (only) be worth it (in lane) for a build that for some reason doesn't rush a gunblade.
The more I've played and tested it, the more I've come to the conclusion that rushing Spectral Wraith on jungle Akali is superior to rushing Gunblade. This is not definitive at this point, but the reasons are fairly simple:
Spectral Wraith finishes 1700g sooner than Gunblade.
The clear speed difference is extremely noticeable, giving you more opportunities to farm without sacrificing map presence.
By the time a Gunblade would have been finished you're halfway to or almost done with your next big item.
Akali is a champion who depends heavily on taking an early advantage and running with it. When jungling it often takes a considerable amount of time to finish Gunblade, and if the game isn't going very well your timing can easily get thoroughly screwed up. Finishing a major jungle item in half the time is simply too huge a benefit to ignore.
On February 16 2013 08:01 Logrus wrote: I've been playing Akali a lot recently and this rune change really excited me so I cracked and bought hybrid pen runes and my final 20th rune page to mess with.
After a number of games and different permutations of things heres what I came up with
I think the change mostly just removed the AD requirement and now enables using hybrid pen runes/masteries, but you'll still want to stack ap for making ur early trades worth it.
I think Vamp quints (which I notice many discussing) would (only) be worth it (in lane) for a build that for some reason doesn't rush a gunblade.
hilights: hybrid pen reds (+1x mpen blue) + both pen masteries the 12 ad scaling gives 2% more vamp at 18 (4x ap/lvl blues + 4x ap/lvl yellow = ~1.x ap/lvl) + (mastery 1ap/lvl) = 2ap/lvl 5x ar yellow = 7 + 2 from mastery = 9 armor 3x mr blue = 4 + 5 from mastery = 9 mres 3x ap quint + 1x ap blue = 16.04 ap + 2 mastery + 2/lvl = 20ap level 1
I'm certainly no pro but i like messing with runes and masteries a lot so curious everyones thoughts! cheers
The value of Spell Vamp Quints is that you can enter the lane with 12% Spell Vamp, as much as a Revolver. It's going to take time to farm up Revolver, and you're significantly safer with Spell Vamp Quints versus any other option. If you get shut down in that window, you often lose your opportunity to take command of the game.
Hi guys, I've started to run Akali as my main to a decent success, but I'm still having trouble with one point : how to farm properly ? I've noticed I always do decently in my games, stacking quite a lot of kills, but i oftentimes have only 80-90CS past 20 minutes in. How do you guys deal with that ?
On February 28 2013 22:33 The_Unseen wrote: Hi guys, I've started to run Akali as my main to a decent success, but I'm still having trouble with one point : how to farm properly ? I've noticed I always do decently in my games, stacking quite a lot of kills, but i oftentimes have only 80-90CS past 20 minutes in. How do you guys deal with that ?
Are you just missing CS or losing a lot of it because you're spending time roaming? During laning you can use Q to last hit from range if you can't AA the creeps, or AA several creeps getting them low and E to clear a small group of them (although they have to be pretty low, the damage is pretty low early with low ranks and not a lot of AP). Now if you're just missing CS because you're roaming around getting kills that's more understandable. I've seen plenty of Akali's carry low Elo games with terrible CS but like 13 kills. You could probably improve your CS a bit, but on a roaming champ like that, unless you're taxing lanes, you're likely to fall behind in CS.
Ward the river and use your shroud to last hit. You can throw a Q on them, shroud, then stand in the creeps to cs. If they walk up then you can just ignite the Q to win trades. Long range champs can still poke you when you cs, but most of the time I think the bonus from shroud lets you shrug this off with spellvamp anyway..
also with some practice youll never miss CS with ur Q (that missile speed <<)+shroud, although youll run outta energy fairly fast if ur never able to pop those Qs.
also jungle akali is really nice, but Id never pick it when ur laners lack early CC because youll never get get early ganks off because they can just run away most of the times.
Also the smite CD reduction on Spectral Wraith is a bit weird imo. Would have been better if they would have just put some more AP onto it imo~. Ill take it tho :D
Alrigth guys thanks very much for your answers. I do tend to roam quite an awful lot and carry games with super low CS, so I guess that's normal and I'll try to improve on my farming !
EPT
