Abilities: (Innate): Discipline of Force: Akali's auto attacks deal 6% (+ 1% per 6 AP) bonus magic damage.
Discipline of Might: Akali gains 6% (+ 1% per 6 bonus AD) spell vamp.
(Active): Akali throws her kama at a target enemy, dealing magic damage and marking the target for 6 seconds. Akali's melee attacks against a marked target will consume the mark dealing the same magic damage again and restoring energy.
(Active): Akali throws down a circular cover of smoke that lasts for 8 seconds. While inside the area, Akali gains armor and magic resistance and becomes stealthed. Attacking or using abilities will briefly reveal her. Enemies inside the smoke have their movement speed reduced.
(Active): Akali flourishes her kamas, hitting nearby units for physical damage. Triggers Mark of the Assassin on targets affected by it.
Cost: 60 / 55 / 50 / 45 / 40 energy
Radius of AoE: 325
Cooldown: 7 / 6 / 5 / 4 / 3 seconds
Physical Damage: 30 / 55 / 80 / 105 / 130 (+0.6 per AD) (+0.3 per AP)
(Active): Akali moves through the shadows to quickly appear next to her target and deal magic damage to it. Akali gains an Essence of Shadow once every few seconds up to a total of 3, affected by cooldown reduction. The time to gain a charge doesn't count when at maximum charges. Additionally, Akali gains an Essence of Shadow for a kill or an assist.
Jungling: I have a guide here. The rest of this post primarily deals with laning.
Now that Akali's passives activate independently of Ability Power and Attack Damage she has a much wider variety of rune and mastery configurations, though you will always want at least 9 points in the Offense tree for the extremely cheap Cooldown Reduction, AP per Level, and % Magic Penetration. Boots, Amplifying Tome, and Cloth Armor are all viable openings
Your first goal is to get Hextech Revolver. This item either snowballs Akali's lane in her favor or keeps her competitive against other high sustain champions. It also builds into Hextech Gunblade, and item which has seen significant buffs in Season 3. It's cheaper than before, provides more stats, scales with AP, and its Active's cooldown is now reduced by single target abilities and attacks (which Akali has a plethora of). In short, this is your core item, and building it as fast as possible is a priority.
From here your item build depends heavily on playstyle and circumstances. Deathfire Grasp greatly increases Akali's ability to assassinate any target, and her burst shoots even higher when Lich Bane is added in. Rylai's still greatly enhances Akali's legendary chasing abilities, and greatly increases her survivability when combined with her Shroud and defensive items such as Abyssal Scepter and Zhonya's Hourglass. Because the stats on Hextech Gunblade stack, you could always just buy as many of those as possible if the enemy team is light on crowd control. Void Staff is an eventual necessity, but is best left until after two or three other items are completed.
With the penetration changes Akali should almost always build Sorcerer's Shoes. For her Tier 3 upgrade Furor is extremely strong given her high base speed and extensive single target abilities, though you could always go Alacrity instead.
Playstyle:
Akali is an AP assassin with exceptional chasing and cleanup capabilities. She is the single best champion in the game for punishing minor positioning mistakes, whether they occur during the laning phase or in team fights. If she gets a lead in her lane she can very quickly snowball the entire game. However, even when ahead it's important to carefully gauge team fights and enter at the right moment, otherwise you'll be quickly focused and killed before you can assassinate your target.
Akali can function very well in the top or mid lanes, or even as a jungler. When laning your goal is to zone and trade favorable until you can completely shut down your opponent. When jungling you should try and hit level 6 as fast as possible in order to leverage Shadow Dance's incredible gank potential.
Essential Skills:
Zoning:
Learning to zone with Akali's Shroud and Mark is essential to her laning. The basic pattern is to place the Shroud on the enemy caster minions, making it difficult if not impossible for the enemy champion to last hit without taking Marks and auto attacks. Akali, meanwhile, is safe from retaliation from both the enemy champion and their minions due to her constant restealthing.
Double Mark Combo:
A major factor in dominating a lane is learning to use back to back Marks. The cooldown on Mark is shorter than the duration of its debuff. This allows Akali to Mark an opponent, bide her time for a few seconds, and then Shadow Dance in for a Dance -> Auto+Proc -> Mark -> Auto+Proc burst combo. At level 7 this is easily 600-700 damage or more before Armor/Resists, and can be repeated any time the opponent attempts to leave the safety of their tower.
Tower Diving:
Carefully analyzing when it's safe/advisable to tower dive is critical. It's possible to execute the Double Mark Combo when the opponent is under their tower, but this can easily lead to your own death if you leap before you look. Consider the enemy champion's abilities, their health, where their minions are, what summoner spells they have available, and the minimap before diving. Nothing sucks more than diving an opponent and dying because their Exhaust was up or there were no remaining enemy minions to jump to as an escape.
Conservation of Energy:
The bread and butter of Akali's damage are her Marks, making it imperative that you maintain enough Energy to continually chain Marks on a target. Overzealous use of Crescent Slash can quickly deplete your resource, leaving you unable to Mark a target for 6 seconds while you wait for Energy. Try to use Slash only as a tool for proccing Marks that are slightly out of reach (or when you're auto-attacks are inhibited by Blinds or Slows).
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%
V1.0.0.142:
Crescent Slash:
Energy cost reduced to 60/55/50/45/40 from 60 at all ranks.
Now activates Mark of the Assassin's secondary damage.
V1.0.0.136:
Base Health increased to 530, up from 510.
Base Armor increased to 20, up from 17.
V1.0.0.129:
Twin Disciplines
Initial spell vamp gained upon obtaining 10 bonus attack damage reduced to 8% from 10%
Additional spell vamp reduced to 1% per 6 attack damage from 1% per 5 attack damage
Initial magic damage bonus upon obtaining 20 ability power reduced to 8% from 10%
Additional magic damage bonus reduced to 1% per 6 ability power from 1% per 5 ability power
Mark of the Assassin Projectile base damage and proc base damage reduced to 45/70/95/120/145 from 50/75/100/125/150
V1.0.0.121:
Akali will now attempt to immediately attack champions upon arriving when she uses Shadow Dance.
V1.0.0.113:
Adjusted Twin Disciplines to trigger at 9.5 bonus attack damage and 19.5 ability power to account for rounding.
V1.0.0.111:
Fixed a bug where the sound of Mark of the Assassin could persist after her target died.
V1.0.0.110:
Twin Disciplines no longer deals bonus damage to towers.
V1.0.0.106:
Fixed a bug where Shadow Dance could sometimes deal damage even if interrupted by a knockup / knockaway.
V1.0.0.104:
Shadow Dance:
Time to gain Essence of Shadow charges is reduced by cooldown reduction effects.
Time to gain next charge does not progress while you are at maximum charges.
V1.0.0.100:
Fixed a display error with Twin Disciplines and death recap.
Shadow Dance can no longer be cast while rooted.
V1.0.0.99:
Twin Disciplines will now gain 1% spell vamp for every 5 additional attack damage, up from 1% for every 10 additional attack damage.
V1.0.0.96:
Shadow Dance will now gain an Essence of Shadow charge on Champion kills and assists in addition to her standard accumulation over time method.
V1.0.0.94(b):
Twilight Shroud:
Now grants addition magic resist equal to the armor values.
Now lasts for 8 seconds at all ranks from 6/6.5/7/7.5/8 seconds.
V1.0.0.94:
Fixed a bug with Akali’s attack timing.
Using a potion while in Twilight Shroud will no longer break Akali out of stealth.
V1.0.0.87:
Twin Disciplines spell vamp ratio increased to 10% per 100 damage from 5% per 100 Damage.
Akali can no longer Shadow Dance out of disables.
Adjusted Akali's hit timing to be more accurate.
Fixed a bug where Mark of the Assassin would proc even if you miss or are dodged.
Fixed a bug where her Twin Disciplines failed to count ability power and damage gained through buffs such as improved Ignite, Eye of the Storm, or Mejai's Soulstealer.
Fixed a bug where Crescent Slash was spell vamping for too much.
V1.0.0.86:
Twilight Shroud stealth is now removed when you actually attack, rather than when you begin your attack animation.
V1.0.0.85: Added.
Mark of the Assassin: Akali spins her kama at a target enemy to deal magic damage and mark the target for 6 seconds. Akali's melee attacks against a marked target will trigger and consume the mark to cause additional damage and restore energy.
Twilight Shroud: Akali throws down a cover of smoke. While inside the area, Akali gains armor and becomes stealthed. Attacking or using abilities will briefly reveal her. Enemies inside the smoke have their movement speed reduced.
Crescent Slash: Akali flourishes her kamas, dealing damage based on her attack damage and ability power.
Shadow Dance (Ultimate): Akali moves through shadows to quickly strike her target, dealing damage and consuming an Essence of Shadow charge. Akali recharges Essence of Shadow charges periodically, max 3 stacks.
Twin Disciplines (Innate):
Discipline of Might: Upon obtaining 10 attack damage, Akali gains 10% Spell Vamp, increasing by 1% for every 20 attack damage gained thereafter. This does not include base damage.
Discipline of Force: Upon obtaining 20 ability power, Akali's hits deal 10% bonus magic damage, increasing by 1% for every 5 ability power gained thereafter.
2/14/2013: 3.02 changes. 12/10/2012: Season 3 update. 11/11/2012: Long overdue update with patch changes. 4/10/2012: Update with patch changes. 11/15/2011: Updated to reflect changes in Season 2 Patch 7/20/2011: Initial Version
I never get a Hextech Revolver. I find it such a waste of gold. Sheen is a MUCH better early game option, especially with the last buff Akali got (auto attack after ult).
My build usually goes Doran's Blade (for passive) -> Sheen + Boots -> Giants Belt -> Rylai's -> Lich Bane. After that, I build defensively mostly. Maybe a Deathcap if I'm super fed.
As for the tower diving section, I would advise AGAINST tower diving unless you have a someone tanking the turret or you have a giant's belt. This is talking mostly from experience (and I have quite a bit playing Akali).
For anyone new, DO NOT BUILD HYBRID. You get so much more out of building AP. Think of it this way. If you build AP, you do more damage. If you build AD, you get more sustainability, but that sustainability is very dependent on the amount of AP you have.
No I mean when sheen adds her base damage, do you get bonus magic damage on the whole thing or just the non-sheen part? i.e. does the discipline apply after sheen bonus or before?
On July 21 2011 15:30 Javadocs wrote: I never get a Hextech Revolver. I find it such a waste of gold. Sheen is a MUCH better early game option, especially with the last buff Akali got (auto attack after ult).
My build usually goes Doran's Blade (for passive) -> Sheen + Boots -> Giants Belt -> Rylai's -> Lich Bane. After that, I build defensively mostly. Maybe a Deathcap if I'm super fed.
As for the tower diving section, I would advise AGAINST tower diving unless you have a someone tanking the turret or you have a giant's belt. This is talking mostly from experience (and I have quite a bit playing Akali).
For anyone new, DO NOT BUILD HYBRID. You get so much more out of building AP. Think of it this way. If you build AP, you do more damage. If you build AD, you get more sustainability, but that sustainability is very dependent on the amount of AP you have.
If you need the Doran's Blade for her passive, your runeing is bad.
Boots+3 give akali the necessary mobility and that little extra HP to be a threat in lane.
While Sheen should be an item that you get quickly if you think it will help you assure kills (aka situational), Hextech is an item that helps you get more sustain in lane if you need it (aka also situational). Always/never getting those items is a bad choice.
What's considered to be "Core" is Boots, Rylais, Lichbane. Everything after that is completely situational.
Advise against towerdiving? Have you ever seen Westrice Videos? Akali is probably the best early towerdiver in the game. When your lane is pushed, Q, retreat, go in -> Ignite -> Auto -> Q -> Auto -> Flash out is insane burst and you won't get more than 1-2 tower hits. The sign of a strong Akali is correctly estimating when you can successfully dive with that combo. If the enemy spams "OMG LUCKY OMG" you can smile and know you just did the right thing.
On July 21 2011 15:30 Javadocs wrote: I never get a Hextech Revolver. I find it such a waste of gold. Sheen is a MUCH better early game option, especially with the last buff Akali got (auto attack after ult).
My build usually goes Doran's Blade (for passive) -> Sheen + Boots -> Giants Belt -> Rylai's -> Lich Bane. After that, I build defensively mostly. Maybe a Deathcap if I'm super fed.
As for the tower diving section, I would advise AGAINST tower diving unless you have a someone tanking the turret or you have a giant's belt. This is talking mostly from experience (and I have quite a bit playing Akali).
For anyone new, DO NOT BUILD HYBRID. You get so much more out of building AP. Think of it this way. If you build AP, you do more damage. If you build AD, you get more sustainability, but that sustainability is very dependent on the amount of AP you have.
I don't find Revolver to be a waste of gold. While either Sheen or Revolver makes it difficult to trade blows with Akali and come out ahead, I prefer Revolver for the sustaining power. If it takes me an extra burst cycle or two to force away or kill my laning opponent that's fine since I have the health to keep farming or go gank another lane when I'm done.
Incidentally your choice of Sheen over Revolver is likely why you need another person or a Giant's Belt before you can tower dive. Because you opt for greater offensive capability over sustain you may push someone to the point where you could dive them, but your own health is too low to do so safely.
The big advantage of Sheen (if you build anything before Rylai's at all) is that it doesn't delay your core build.
On July 21 2011 20:43 starfries wrote: No I mean when sheen adds her base damage, do you get bonus magic damage on the whole thing or just the non-sheen part? i.e. does the discipline apply after sheen bonus or before?
Sheen's proc doesn't increase the damage of Akali's passive because it's not actual AD.
With my jungle build Akali has 70 AD and 25 AP at level 2. When she attacks the Wraith she only does 55 damage from her auto attack, but her passive proc does an additional 7 damage. 11% of 55 is most definitely not 7.
It would really suck if it was any other way because then her passive would double dip on defenses, i.e. be completely worthless late game since it would get reduced by both Armor and Magic Resistance.
On July 21 2011 20:43 starfries wrote: No I mean when sheen adds her base damage, do you get bonus magic damage on the whole thing or just the non-sheen part? i.e. does the discipline apply after sheen bonus or before?
Sheen doesn't add damage to your attack--it's just a proc that does bonus damage equal to your base AD. So no, Discipline of Force doesn't multiply Sheen/Lichbane procs.
On July 22 2011 01:58 Seuss wrote: That's completely wrong.
With my jungle build Akali has 70 AD and 25 AP at level 2. When she attacks the Wraith she only does 55 damage from her auto attack, but her passive proc does an additional 7 damage. 11% of 55 is most definitely not 7.
It would really suck if it was any other way because then her passive would double dip on defenses, i.e. be completely worthless late game since it would get reduced by both Armor and Magic Resistance.
I see I see, although 11% of 70AD is 8 isn't it?
I'm just saying this because I recalled reading somewhere that Akali's passive damage increases when you crit. -shrug- I'd be much happier if it didn't work as I expect.
This guide is correct in every way. It mb should be noted that akali is a dominating laner against AP champs as well from lvl 6+ at least.
The only 2 opponents you never want to have are cassi and urgot. everyone who has experienced taht lane (against a formidable opponent ofc) knows what I'am talking about.
On July 22 2011 20:38 GranDim wrote: Mord and Rumble to a lesser degree
oh I ment mages. There are some strong lanecontrol mages like brand, karthus. Those are lanes you can dominate. Such lanes depend on mistakes of both sides imo because a lane with akali is very fragile for both sides.
I just picked up Akali and played my first game with her. Solo top against Lee Sin. It seems like it would be quite a tough lane, although it actually went ok for me as he made a couple of mistakes that cost him. But his AoE abilities and his shield seemed to counter her harass somewhat.
Ah ok, so it's likely that he was just playing really badly, not just me doing well (less likely). Well, thanks, I'll bear that in mind next time I see a Lee Sin on the other team.
Hes much more scary as a jungler than a lane. You can still trade mostly even with him even if he lands his Q, the reveal from during a gank is deadly.
I know how people use 9 flat ap blues but I'm only using 4 flat ap blues and the rest are ap per level. Is it just personal preference to go with 9? because I still hit my double passive at the start but only do slightly less damage for iono how many levels but just a bit more late game.
So I've been maining akali lately and I've been following the core build the OP wrote down, since it's also the core build for westrice. It seems good but lately I've been seeing a few streams of akalis who rush hextech gunblade before ryalis/sheen-lichbane. I've tried it once last night and did surprisingly well (most kills with akali yet), but I'm just wondering if ryalis first is still better for the consistent slow and more hp. Any thoughts?
You only rush Gunblade if you team's score looks something like N - 0, where N >= 4 and half those kills are yours. In that very specific situation a rushed Gunblade allows you to kill anyone any time because no one has any defenses to stop you and you heal so much you can 1v2/3 no problem. Take red buff from your jungler and just win the game by 20 minutes because you have 15 kills.
Do not rush Gunblade in any other circumstances. If the enemy has any kills at all that means someone on the enemy team is going to be strong enough to be a problem and if they have the smallest modicum of skill they'll slam your window of opportunity for a quick win shut.
On July 24 2011 14:23 TacToSs wrote: I know how people use 9 flat ap blues but I'm only using 4 flat ap blues and the rest are ap per level. Is it just personal preference to go with 9? because I still hit my double passive at the start but only do slightly less damage for iono how many levels but just a bit more late game.
In my case I'm just OCD and hate having non-uniform runes. Your setup is fine, and some Akali players use 9 scaling glyphs.
On July 30 2011 01:50 Seuss wrote: You only rush Gunblade if you team's score looks something like N - 0, where N >= 4 and half those kills are yours. In that very specific situation a rushed Gunblade allows you to kill anyone any time because no one has any defenses to stop you and you heal so much you can 1v2/3 no problem. Take red buff from your jungler and just win the game by 20 minutes because you have 15 kills.
Do not rush Gunblade in any other circumstances. If the enemy has any kills at all that means someone on the enemy team is going to be strong enough to be a problem and if they have the smallest modicum of skill they'll slam your window of opportunity for a quick win shut.
On July 24 2011 14:23 TacToSs wrote: I know how people use 9 flat ap blues but I'm only using 4 flat ap blues and the rest are ap per level. Is it just personal preference to go with 9? because I still hit my double passive at the start but only do slightly less damage for iono how many levels but just a bit more late game.
In my case I'm just OCD and hate having non-uniform runes. Your setup is fine, and some Akali players use 9 scaling glyphs.
Yeah I just realized I was 2-0 against morde top that specific game and it was 4-0 killwise for our team during the laning phase. That early rush to gunblade made me unstoppable, but I guess it wouldn't work as well against a similarly fed team
I really find hextech really good as a starting item for akali, lets you take red and blue so easily without losing much hp, I pretty much get it and boots asap (doran's starting). Also lets you stay in lane if you need addional farming.
Also I'm not sure if this is a bug, but you can actually have 2 gunblades and use the unique twice, my friend drummed his fingers on 1-2 and one shotted this guy the other day.
I think Akali is only good against certain types of teams, like if the opposition team has about 2 or 3 AOE stuns she can get completely useless. Therefore shes not a champion I would choose as a main
so I had great success lately with akali playing the standard mercs rilay as core and getting lichbane most of the time as my third item. I'am doing the boots+3 opening with both passives and armor seals.
I have a question to some of the high elo guys around here about her laneing:
I've found out that she allways does well mid against most AP carries but she is fucking amazing top against many AD based bruisers such as Irelia, udyr and the likes (didnt try her against morde/rumble because I dont think that would work).
So I destroyed like every irelia/udyr top so far and zoned them like crazy. Does this occur because they just dont know how to play properly against me or is akali just autowinning by pick?
edit: When iam soloing top against AD I get the HP thing from rilay and an armor vest early on. I do rilay mercs and zyonas as my starting build. Put that into consideration.
even most irelias and udyrs I laned against rushed MR of some kind (negatron etc) but I won like every trade. Not even playing super aggressive but just tagging them 24/7 and when they lasthit I double Q
Irelia : Harass all day and win Jax : Baring some very lucky dodge from him, harass and punish jump with proc and another Q. Jarvan : You should win the trade if you can safely proc some marks Singed : You can harass and stop any puddle and toss attempt with shroud. Nidalee : You can outdamage her heal and get an early kill if she is not playing safe, if not wait for 6 and kill then. Nasus : Zone that dog, there's not much he can do.
Even
Mord : You need to position yourself on his side using the brush and make him chose to either E the wave or you, once you have a mark on him wait for a very good opportunity to proc it.
Lee Sin : Dodge/bait his Q, punish/harass with your own. Getting hit by his Q hurts a lot however.
Renekton : You won't get much or any lead trading with him pre 6, his ultimate makes it very hard to kill him once he has it.
Rumble : Much more manageable after the Q nerf, juke the flamethrower and dodge his slow, the trades are winnable.
Bad
Gangplank : I haven't played it much since hes banned so much but that passive makes it very dangerous to be near him, his Q hurts more than yours if you don't proc it, if you do proc it he may get 2-3 stacks on you and thats gg. More manageable once you hit 6.
Garen : Q and spin to win too strong
Monkey King : His E-Q-W combo is not punishable, its like a Jax you can't retaliate against.
Udyr : Turtle/Tiger too strong, he can mostly ignore your harass with turtle and getting hit once by tiger hurts much more than a proced mark on him.
Maining Irelia (though not even being level 30), I found Akali hard to lane gainst because she has a good harass, allowing her to punish your last hits (you can't bladesurge every minion just to get hit less), and lower cooldowns than you, so she can win trades handily, and even if she don't, she'll be ready to attack again before your combo is up. If you charge her, you'll have to wait for a whooping 12 seconds before you can do it again, so... Also, she can kill minions so fast it's hard to punish her for it.
Uugh, was just forced to mid against Brand as Akali and it was a massacre. His E outranges your Q, so it's impossible to safely get a mark up, and if you go in to proc your mark he can stun you no problem, which is pretty much gg. On top of that, his W's radius is large enough that it's pretty difficult to hide in a shroud. Even if you're hanging back at tower he's got the range to make your life hell. Good luck getting cs.
Hes not going to max e first so Q trade decently with it. Wait until 6 and move behind him/to the side before anything else after you dash him, it usually juke most of his stuff.
On August 08 2011 10:04 Node wrote: Uugh, was just forced to mid against Brand as Akali and it was a massacre. His E outranges your Q, so it's impossible to safely get a mark up, and if you go in to proc your mark he can stun you no problem, which is pretty much gg. On top of that, his W's radius is large enough that it's pretty difficult to hide in a shroud. Even if you're hanging back at tower he's got the range to make your life hell. Good luck getting cs.
Never again.
I actually never had problems against brand dunno why. his skillshots hurt but are dodgeable. If you do welltimed shrouds and dodge his AoE then you can either safely lasthit or mark him. But yeah you have to be very active in that lane.
And yeah his E has more range and also hurts a bit more than a Q without autohit but he has to max it (which he doesnt want to) and he will still deal less damage with it because of the much higher cooldown.
I also didnt have any problems so far against udyr top his tiger stance definitely does less damage than double Q or even double Q+E. Shroud helps to tank it + dodge any persistent autohit attempts. Turtle does only tank 1 of 2 Qs if he consistently spamms his abilities.
Mb all those lanedyrs that popped up are just bad...
I just go straight Gunblade first. It's about the same price as Rylai and you start wrecking face as soon as you get parts of it. I don't think there are many that can 1v1 her after she gets the fast Gunblade (maybe Mord or Jax). IMO it's easier to go from Gunblade -> Rylai than Rylai -> Gunblade.
On August 08 2011 03:51 GranDim wrote: Here's my take on the matchups
Good
Irelia : Harass all day and win Jax : Baring some very lucky dodge from him, harass and punish jump with proc and another Q. Jarvan : You should win the trade if you can safely proc some marks Singed : You can harass and stop any puddle and toss attempt with shroud. Nidalee : You can outdamage her heal and get an early kill if she is not playing safe, if not wait for 6 and kill then. Nasus : Zone that dog, there's not much he can do.
Even
Mord : You need to position yourself on his side using the brush and make him chose to either E the wave or you, once you have a mark on him wait for a very good opportunity to proc it.
Lee Sin : Dodge/bait his Q, punish/harass with your own. Getting hit by his Q hurts a lot however.
Renekton : You won't get much or any lead trading with him pre 6, his ultimate makes it very hard to kill him once he has it.
Rumble : Much more manageable after the Q nerf, juke the flamethrower and dodge his slow, the trades are winnable.
Bad
Gangplank : I haven't played it much since hes banned so much but that passive makes it very dangerous to be near him, his Q hurts more than yours if you don't proc it, if you do proc it he may get 2-3 stacks on you and thats gg. More manageable once you hit 6.
Garen : Q and spin to win too strong
Monkey King : His E-Q-W combo is not punishable, its like a Jax you can't retaliate against.
Udyr : Turtle/Tiger too strong, he can mostly ignore your harass with turtle and getting hit once by tiger hurts much more than a proced mark on him.
I was watching westrice's stream and he was playing/talking about akali. He echo'd some of the points you made. First picking akali is usually a bad idea since you are basically giving away the lane.
Also don't use E unless you are 100% about the kill lolz
On August 08 2011 03:51 GranDim wrote: Here's my take on the matchups
Good
Irelia : Harass all day and win Jax : Baring some very lucky dodge from him, harass and punish jump with proc and another Q. Jarvan : You should win the trade if you can safely proc some marks Singed : You can harass and stop any puddle and toss attempt with shroud. Nidalee : You can outdamage her heal and get an early kill if she is not playing safe, if not wait for 6 and kill then. Nasus : Zone that dog, there's not much he can do.
Even
Mord : You need to position yourself on his side using the brush and make him chose to either E the wave or you, once you have a mark on him wait for a very good opportunity to proc it.
Lee Sin : Dodge/bait his Q, punish/harass with your own. Getting hit by his Q hurts a lot however.
Renekton : You won't get much or any lead trading with him pre 6, his ultimate makes it very hard to kill him once he has it.
Rumble : Much more manageable after the Q nerf, juke the flamethrower and dodge his slow, the trades are winnable.
Bad
Gangplank : I haven't played it much since hes banned so much but that passive makes it very dangerous to be near him, his Q hurts more than yours if you don't proc it, if you do proc it he may get 2-3 stacks on you and thats gg. More manageable once you hit 6.
Garen : Q and spin to win too strong
Monkey King : His E-Q-W combo is not punishable, its like a Jax you can't retaliate against.
Udyr : Turtle/Tiger too strong, he can mostly ignore your harass with turtle and getting hit once by tiger hurts much more than a proced mark on him.
I was watching westrice's stream and he was playing/talking about akali. He echo'd some of the points you made. First picking akali is usually a bad idea since you are basically giving away the lane.
Also don't use E unless you are 100% about the kill lolz
I'm not exactly sure about what happens in high elo games, but I always go mid as akali, otherwise I wont pick her. I don think she is sustainable enough to be top before revolver, not to mention she is much better in mid because I see her as a "counter-carry" similar to irelia.
On August 08 2011 12:53 ArC_man wrote: I just go straight Gunblade first. It's about the same price as Rylai and you start wrecking face as soon as you get parts of it. I don't think there are many that can 1v1 her after she gets the fast Gunblade (maybe Mord or Jax). IMO it's easier to go from Gunblade -> Rylai than Rylai -> Gunblade.
this has been discussed allready. Gunblade first does not give you enough damage to warrant for delaying the survivability and utilty rilay gives you. In fact it has less AP on it, costs more and funnily in many situations you even deal less damage than with rilays because you do not slow your opponent with it permanently. Not saying it is terrible but it certainly is less optimal than rilays.
Akali starts with Boots + 3 potions for laning and Cloth Armor + 5 potions for Jungling. Her bread and butter item is Rylai's Crystal Scepter. This is her first major item in 99.9% of reasonable circumstances. It's sometimes delayed for a minor item such as Sheen or Hextech Revolver, but never for another major item. The slow is simply too ridiculously strong on a champion with as much single target ability spam as Akali.
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Going for rylais first is really a bad choice, you should start with either Dorans blade (for double passive bonus) or tome and a few pots. First you should buy boots, and then go for hextech revolver, then, pendings enemy CC, should decide upon which boots to buy, if they dont have much CC but sorcerers. then buy a sheen, then go for rabadons, then finish your revolver, then lich bane. sure this is not what you will get every game, but this will be your optimal build. rylais, granted, is a nice item, but you can kill enemys easily without it, and its not your job to tank, if they focus you, you're invis
EDIT: i know the scrubs thing makes me look like a dick, but it seems fitting
EDIT 2: this is all my opinion, im only 1700 ELO so dont be offended if u dont agree, this is just works for meee
Akali starts with Boots + 3 potions for laning and Cloth Armor + 5 potions for Jungling. Her bread and butter item is Rylai's Crystal Scepter. This is her first major item in 99.9% of reasonable circumstances. It's sometimes delayed for a minor item such as Sheen or Hextech Revolver, but never for another major item. The slow is simply too ridiculously strong on a champion with as much single target ability spam as Akali.
Going for rylais first is really a bad choice, you should start with either Dorans blade (for double passive bonus) or tome and a few pots. First you should buy boots, and then go for hextech revolver, then, pendings enemy CC, should decide upon which boots to buy, if they dont have much CC but sorcerers. then buy a sheen, then go for rabadons, then finish your revolver, then lich bane. sure this is not what you will get every game, but this will be your optimal build. rylais, granted, is a nice item, but you can enemys eaily without it, and its not your job to tank, if they focus you, you're invis
EDIT: i know the scrubs thing makes me look like a dick, but it seems fitting
boots first is assuming you can get passive at lvl 1 or 2 from runes + masteries. The q spam and proc harass is retarded if you can start that. Also, if you can conserve your life and your passive spell vamp will keep you alive you don't have to go for revolver before rylais. I wouldn't set that in stone in my item build. Some people like to go hextech first, some like rylais first. They're both good. Also most single target stuns are long enough to let the enemies kill you so "you're not a tank" isn't really valid as you're going to be jumping into the middle of them to do damage (usually behind them to get to their carry, actually) so being more than paper thin is nice.
and yeah, the scrubs thing makes you look like a dick.
Akali starts with Boots + 3 potions for laning and Cloth Armor + 5 potions for Jungling. Her bread and butter item is Rylai's Crystal Scepter. This is her first major item in 99.9% of reasonable circumstances. It's sometimes delayed for a minor item such as Sheen or Hextech Revolver, but never for another major item. The slow is simply too ridiculously strong on a champion with as much single target ability spam as Akali.
Going for rylais first is really a bad choice, you should start with either Dorans blade (for double passive bonus) or tome and a few pots. First you should buy boots, and then go for hextech revolver, then, pendings enemy CC, should decide upon which boots to buy, if they dont have much CC but sorcerers. then buy a sheen, then go for rabadons, then finish your revolver, then lich bane. sure this is not what you will get every game, but this will be your optimal build. rylais, granted, is a nice item, but you can enemys eaily without it, and its not your job to tank, if they focus you, you're invis
EDIT: i know the scrubs thing makes me look like a dick, but it seems fitting
The scrubs thing is funny but the build makes you look like a scrub.
1. Dorans blade for double passive screams for losing lane. You get enough AD from masteries + some marks. If you walk to a solo lane without enough sustain and your name is "squishy as fuck+melee" then its pretty much gg.
2. Even if your item build would do more damage in theory you will simply not do it bc you can get kited/bursted like a tard which is bad for your ridiculously low survivabilty for a melee champion.
The reason why everyone suggests the rilay rush is partly experience and partly bc of the fact that like every known akali player does it. Like you said in the first paragraph there are some who prefer that little item before rilay (revolver/sheen).
Akali starts with Boots + 3 potions for laning and Cloth Armor + 5 potions for Jungling. Her bread and butter item is Rylai's Crystal Scepter. This is her first major item in 99.9% of reasonable circumstances. It's sometimes delayed for a minor item such as Sheen or Hextech Revolver, but never for another major item. The slow is simply too ridiculously strong on a champion with as much single target ability spam as Akali.
Going for rylais first is really a bad choice, you should start with either Dorans blade (for double passive bonus) or tome and a few pots. First you should buy boots, and then go for hextech revolver, then, pendings enemy CC, should decide upon which boots to buy, if they dont have much CC but sorcerers. then buy a sheen, then go for rabadons, then finish your revolver, then lich bane. sure this is not what you will get every game, but this will be your optimal build. rylais, granted, is a nice item, but you can enemys eaily without it, and its not your job to tank, if they focus you, you're invis
EDIT: i know the scrubs thing makes me look like a dick, but it seems fitting
The scrubs thing is funny but the build makes you look like a scrub.
1. Dorans blade for double passive screams for losing lane. You get enough AD from masteries + some marks. If you walk to a solo lane without enough sustain and your name is "squishy as fuck+melee" then its pretty much gg.
2. Even if your item build would do more damage in theory you will simply not do it bc you can get kited like a tard which is bad for your ridiculously low survivabilty for a melee champion.
The reason why everyone suggests the rilay rush is partly experience and partly bc of the fact that like every known akali player does it. Like you said in the first paragraph there are some who prefer that little item before rilay (revolver/sheen).
But it isnt a good idea to say "well x pro likes to rush for rylais, so it must be the best build, thus i will only do this"
and like i said, its just what works for me, i dont wanna sound like im preaching my build onto others, but it just works really really well for me ^_^
the best thing about playing akali is that if you get a kill or two early, it's almost a free win, and iff not, you sure have fun 2 shotting squishys
edit T_T: plus most of the time when i play with 4 of my friends i take mid, akali is such a good mid char vs most champions, the invis Q harass just kills
not to sound like troll, but westrice is prob the best akali player and he was at dreamhack. Dorans first is awful for a few reasons. 1. you have zero lane sustain 2. you can actually harras/ kill/ zone who you are laning against with boots because it allows you to hit your marked targets where as with dorans first it does not. 3. Rylai's guarantees kills on ad carrys and or people out of position because of its strong slow and it makes you a little beefier which is never a bad thing on akali. 4. The loss in spell pen from using ad marks is pretty much negligble as you have 15% from the offensive tree.
gunblade first is okay think the best is boots hextech depending on lane rylai sheen lichbane rabadon finish gunblade last item can be hour glass or Ga or whatever
what the hell? why are people going gunblade AND rylais? it is unnecessary to have two slows. you are not being efficient your items and wasting money that could be used on other things. rylai is also a much more consistent item, as you slow anyone you touch and the hp boost is essential for a fragile champion like her. going revolver + rylai is okay, but typically you will only get revolver if things are going back to base before you have farmed well enough.
the best ap items on akali imo are rylai then lichbane...that is enough ap to burst down most champs that you should be targeting, like casters and carries. the slow on rylai will help you perma slow a champ for your team to clean on up on beefy heroes after a fight as well.
westrice plays one of the best akalis out there, if you are looking for a proper reference please refer to his videos/guide.
Akali does a fair amount of auto attack damage, and the Gunblade has some of the best stats on an item out there if you can utilize all of it. Even if you discount the slow (which would still have it's uses with Rylai's), it is extremely effective due to the volume of stats on it. I typically upgrade it after a Lichbane and have never regretted it. The sheer spell vamp and lifesteal you have lets you use your burst for thousands of health regenerated during a team fight. With the increased auto attack damage, effects from her passives, her increased E damage for a burst combo, and the a single shot of the Gunblade Active you do nearly the same amount of burst damage as you do with a Deathcap instead but you have a whole lot of spell vamp and lifesteal. Not to mention, finishing the Gunblade after having a Hextech Revolver is a lot cheaper making a Deathcap.
The Deathcap is great, but overrated I feel. Utility and Defense are often a lot better. I sometimes won't even get a Deathcap in a full item build, because I value a Guardian Angel and a Void Staff so highly as well. With a Guardian Angel, underneath a shroud, you have over 200 Armor and Magic Resist with 35 Tenacity while still putting out ridiculous damage. Not to mention the rebirth can win you many team fights you should've lost because Akali is an aggro magnet. Now the choice between a Void Staff and Deathcap is purely situational. If their carries are still in the 30-80 MR range then Deathcap reigns supreme. If their carries are Tanky with 120+ MR then the Void Staff will do more damage even with all the lost AP.
A lot of the best Akali's out there (including Westrice) will pick up the Gunblade. It's important to note that you shouldn't necessarily stick to your core build all the time however. Making changes depending on how the game is going is important. Skipping the Gunblade to get an early Guardian Angel, or adding a Zhonya's in there instead can be smart too.
Edit: Seems few people realize how awesome Blue Buff is on Akali. The enhanced energy regen and cooldowns make her insane. Maybe I wouldn't take it over an equally farmed Brand or Anivia, but I get a little sad inside when Nocturne yells at me for taking it on "someone who can't use it at all".
I hate akali's Ratios. Makes her feel so useless after early-mid game. It feels like all she does is snipe maybe one target down, maybe if she gets enough burst to fight through mr. All her builds don't go magic pen either.
Akali does a fair amount of auto attack damage, and the Gunblade has some of the best stats on an item out there if you can utilize all of it. Even if you discount the slow (which would still have it's uses with Rylai's), it is extremely effective due to the volume of stats on it. I typically upgrade it after a Lichbane and have never regretted it. The sheer spell vamp and lifesteal you have lets you use your burst for thousands of health regenerated during a team fight. With the increased auto attack damage, effects from her passives, her increased E damage for a burst combo, and the a single shot of the Gunblade Active you do nearly the same amount of burst damage as you do with a Deathcap instead but you have a whole lot of spell vamp and lifesteal. Not to mention, finishing the Gunblade after having a Hextech Revolver is a lot cheaper making a Deathcap.
The Deathcap is great, but overrated I feel. Utility and Defense are often a lot better. I sometimes won't even get a Deathcap in a full item build, because I value a Guardian Angel and a Void Staff so highly as well. With a Guardian Angel, underneath a shroud, you have over 200 Armor and Magic Resist with 35 Tenacity while still putting out ridiculous damage. Not to mention the rebirth can win you many team fights you should've lost because Akali is an aggro magnet. Now the choice between a Void Staff and Deathcap is purely situational. If their carries are still in the 30-80 MR range then Deathcap reigns supreme. If their carries are Tanky with 120+ MR then the Void Staff will do more damage even with all the lost AP.
A lot of the best Akali's out there (including Westrice) will pick up the Gunblade. It's important to note that you shouldn't necessarily stick to your core build all the time however. Making changes depending on how the game is going is important. Skipping the Gunblade to get an early Guardian Angel, or adding a Zhonya's in there instead can be smart too.
Edit: Seems few people realize how awesome Blue Buff is on Akali. The enhanced energy regen and cooldowns make her insane. Maybe I wouldn't take it over an equally farmed Brand or Anivia, but I get a little sad inside when Nocturne yells at me for taking it on "someone who can't use it at all".
I remember when I was lvl 15 playing normals with more experienced Tlers, and someone told me to take blue and I was like "wtf, why?"... yeah... since then I've learnt how awesome it is to hog all buffs on akali (if you stay alive... if youve got a suicide playstyle, then let someone else get more mileage out of them).
On August 17 2011 03:01 0123456789 wrote: I hate akali's Ratios. Makes her feel so useless after early-mid game. It feels like all she does is snipe maybe one target down, maybe if she gets enough burst to fight through mr. All her builds don't go magic pen either.
Late game problem is mostly oracles/pink spam limiting the fights you can win. I don't really like mpen on her since Lichbane and to a lesser extend Gunblade do a lot of physical damage.
So, I'm considering Akali. She looks like a lot of fun.
Is she worth investing in? She's a gold digging biatch. Purchase cost, AD and AP runes (I dont have them) and I need a new runepage all for her. Also, maybe a skin. Stinger is so awesome.
On September 24 2011 19:17 Cuddle wrote: So, I'm considering Akali. She looks like a lot of fun.
Is she worth investing in? She's a gold digging biatch. Purchase cost, AD and AP runes (I dont have them) and I need a new runepage all for her. Also, maybe a skin. Stinger is so awesome.
On August 17 2011 03:01 0123456789 wrote: I hate akali's Ratios. Makes her feel so useless after early-mid game. It feels like all she does is snipe maybe one target down, maybe if she gets enough burst to fight through mr. All her builds don't go magic pen either.
actually the ratios are good considering the very low cooldowns. she can be godlike in lategame fights or terrible, mostly depending on initiation/positioning.
On September 24 2011 19:17 Cuddle wrote: So, I'm considering Akali. She looks like a lot of fun.
Is she worth investing in? She's a gold digging biatch. Purchase cost, AD and AP runes (I dont have them) and I need a new runepage all for her. Also, maybe a skin. Stinger is so awesome.
On September 24 2011 19:17 Cuddle wrote: So, I'm considering Akali. She looks like a lot of fun.
Is she worth investing in? She's a gold digging biatch. Purchase cost, AD and AP runes (I dont have them) and I need a new runepage all for her. Also, maybe a skin. Stinger is so awesome.
That's "expensive".
If you're halfway decent at Akali, she's definitely one of the most fun champions in the game. Plus, she has fantastic skins. But yeah, it's a bit of an investment. Personally, I just dove in without ever having played her before and didn't regret it. That's not what most people would advise you to do, though. Common wisdom is to try the champion when they're free, but I haven't seen Akali free for a looooong time.
What I would recommend is buying the champion and holding off on the runes and the skin until you at least have an idea of the playstyle. Play some normals, do a compstomp or two (she's great at blowing up midlane vs. AI, first blood every time), just get a "feel" for her. She's still viable without the level 1 passives, it's just not quite as great.
so what's the current counterpicks that hard-counter akali these days? i haven't really had any difficulties with couterpicks at my current elo range but i know it'll be more common once i grind my way up more, and i like picking akali for ranked. from my limited experience:
super hard counters garen galio yorick (dat sustain and harass) lee sin
against most solo tops. (if you have both passives level 1) she absolutely dominates especially if you are much better skillwise than the other person and understand just how much she bursts for.
Edit: Also, if the op wants to change his guide a bit. zhonya's ring doesn't exist anymore
IMO dont get her early on in oyur lol days. I got her as my first champ, and she is fucking fun... but she is a real niche character. She doesnt work in every team, she has some hard counters, and she requires a big investment of IP (rune page and champ).
IMO get more versatile champs first, she is wicked fun... but you'll get better mileage out of other chars.
On September 26 2011 12:11 De4ngus wrote: akali rapes morde.....
ive only had trouble against garen. hate that guy.
are you sure? because especially before the nerf, he would just shield regen all day and i could never burst through early levels, and after 6 his ult plus ignite just decimates u after his combo. Thankfully I don't see any mordes these days huehue.
On September 26 2011 12:44 Dgiese wrote: IMO dont get her early on in oyur lol days. I got her as my first champ, and she is fucking fun... but she is a real niche character. She doesnt work in every team, she has some hard counters, and she requires a big investment of IP (rune page and champ).
IMO get more versatile champs first, she is wicked fun... but you'll get better mileage out of other chars.
i've been playing for a while now- just not that much in ranked that's all. I've basically copied westrice's rune page so I do have a akali specific page.
on a 6 w 1 l tear with her in ranked this weekend ^.~
On September 26 2011 12:11 De4ngus wrote: akali rapes morde.....
ive only had trouble against garen. hate that guy.
are you sure? because especially before the nerf, he would just shield regen all day and i could never burst through early levels, and after 6 his ult plus ignite just decimates u after his combo. Thankfully I don't see any mordes these days huehue.
you can walk up to him and q+autoattack him to death at level 1 lol. morde should barely be able to farm vs akali.
On September 26 2011 12:11 De4ngus wrote: akali rapes morde.....
ive only had trouble against garen. hate that guy.
are you sure? because especially before the nerf, he would just shield regen all day and i could never burst through early levels, and after 6 his ult plus ignite just decimates u after his combo. Thankfully I don't see any mordes these days huehue.
You should be so much stronger than him at early levels that by the time he can sustain his shield generation, you should be riding a pretty big gold/XP advantage.
Why is Akali all of a sudden in every single game -.- it's getting annoying, i've wanted to play her in the last 15-20 but she's always insta-locked, did someone dominate with her in a tourney or something?
I see a crapton of gunblade rush akalis. Gunblade rush on akali is terrible. Sure you have massive sustain, but you do shit for damage and you're squishy as heck.
Gunblade rush is popular for the same reason Mejai's+SotO rush was once popular. You sometimes get that one game where you get fed and just roll over your opponents because they do crap for damage and you spell vamp for infinity health.
By definition it's terrible on Dominion. Everyone is essentially equally fed, and you heal for 20% less.
On September 26 2011 15:27 Seuss wrote: Gunblade rush is popular for the same reason Mejai's+SotO rush was once popular. You sometimes get that one game where you get fed and just roll over your opponents because they do crap for damage and you spell vamp for infinity health.
By definition it's terrible on Dominion. Everyone is essentially equally fed, and you heal for 20% less.
What would be the ideal build for Akali on Dominion?
On September 26 2011 14:31 Ryuu314 wrote: I see a crapton of gunblade rush akalis. Gunblade rush on akali is terrible. Sure you have massive sustain, but you do shit for damage and you're squishy as heck.
gunblade rush is the best way to play akali. it boosts both of your passives and give you a ridiculous burst. i cant think of another item that i would get before gunblade.
On September 26 2011 15:27 Seuss wrote: Gunblade rush is popular for the same reason Mejai's+SotO rush was once popular. You sometimes get that one game where you get fed and just roll over your opponents because they do crap for damage and you spell vamp for infinity health.
By definition it's terrible on Dominion. Everyone is essentially equally fed, and you heal for 20% less.
What would be the ideal build for Akali on Dominion?
Does it really matter?
You can sit on a tower and defend it from 5 players for 8 seconds. You could be building full mana regen and she can probably still turn the game single handed.
On September 26 2011 06:32 spacemonkey4eve wrote: so what's the current counterpicks that hard-counter akali these days? i haven't really had any difficulties with couterpicks at my current elo range but i know it'll be more common once i grind my way up more, and i like picking akali for ranked. from my limited experience:
super hard counters garen galio yorick (dat sustain and harass) lee sin
On September 26 2011 14:31 Ryuu314 wrote: I see a crapton of gunblade rush akalis. Gunblade rush on akali is terrible. Sure you have massive sustain, but you do shit for damage and you're squishy as heck.
gunblade rush is the best way to play akali. it boosts both of your passives and give you a ridiculous burst. i cant think of another item that i would get before gunblade.
uh rylais?It's been debated in this as well as other countless guides on akalis... and after having tried going after gunblade or rylais first, rylais is definitely better. That slow allows you to get the double/triple kills, while being tanky enough to survive the damage during the fight. Gunblade gives you 1 slow during the fight, and that sustain won't last during a fight.
I've been going boots + pots -> hextech -> blasting/tome/belt/lvl2 boots depending on lane -> rylais -> sheen -> lichbane
By the time i get lichbane, i'm just a roflstomp faceroll machine. haven't felt the need for gunblade at all.
Kass is officially a PITA to lane against. Stronger burst than you pre-6, better escape post-6, and passive to reduce all your magic damage. Ranks up there with annoying bastards to go against.
On September 26 2011 15:27 Seuss wrote: Gunblade rush is popular for the same reason Mejai's+SotO rush was once popular. You sometimes get that one game where you get fed and just roll over your opponents because they do crap for damage and you spell vamp for infinity health.
By definition it's terrible on Dominion. Everyone is essentially equally fed, and you heal for 20% less.
What would be the ideal build for Akali on Dominion?
Does it really matter?
You can sit on a tower and defend it from 5 players for 8 seconds. You could be building full mana regen and she can probably still turn the game single handed.
Hextech sweeper or cheaper oracle are both very efficient counters.
I was just rereading the earlier posts and remembered other champs that counter akali. So including the other recent ones mentioned above the updated list would be:
Garen Lee Sin Yorick Galio Udyr Kass Cass (quite possibly the worst experience I've had playing against as akali)
Honestly, I always am wary of picking Akali in blind pick (not high enough for ranked) just because she can get randomly countered by a lot of champions.
However, it's so worth it for those matches where you don't get any of them, and all your opponents are nice and squishy. She's a very polarizing champ when it comes to early/mid game, but strong if you can fight the right opponents. I guess that can be said about any assassin type, though.
so many bad akali players lately in SR. obv everyone thinks he is an akali pro after raping faces with her in dominion. When someone firstpicks akali without knowing what to face in lane you can pretty much say he is one of them...
Whenever i'm usually firstpick i always ask if anyone wants another champ so i can trade later and not get counterpicked. However since almost always people are too dumb to strategize like this I end up just first picking her. However at my current elo range (1400) no one is smart enough to counterpick/play counterpick properly/use pink wards and I end up hard carrying for a win :D
On September 27 2011 01:31 clickrush wrote: so many bad akali players lately in SR. obv everyone thinks he is an akali pro after raping faces with her in dominion. When someone firstpicks akali without knowing what to face in lane you can pretty much say he is one of them...
Or when someone picks akali and builds revolver then immediately after revolver gets a fucking pickaxe.
On September 27 2011 01:31 clickrush wrote: so many bad akali players lately in SR. obv everyone thinks he is an akali pro after raping faces with her in dominion. When someone firstpicks akali without knowing what to face in lane you can pretty much say he is one of them...
Or when someone picks akali and builds revolver then immediately after revolver gets a fucking pickaxe.
Lol, I rage so hard. "Alright, decent start, guess they needed some sustain. Good job, next will maybe be boots? Sheen? Ryali's? ...Oh shit."
Also, I've been called a bad Akali by people because I don't rush Gunblade before even level 1 boots.
On September 27 2011 01:31 clickrush wrote: so many bad akali players lately in SR. obv everyone thinks he is an akali pro after raping faces with her in dominion. When someone firstpicks akali without knowing what to face in lane you can pretty much say he is one of them...
Or when someone picks akali and builds revolver then immediately after revolver gets a fucking pickaxe.
Lol, I rage so hard. "Alright, decent start, guess they needed some sustain. Good job, next will maybe be boots? Sheen? Ryali's? ...Oh shit."
Also, I've been called a bad Akali by people because I don't rush Gunblade before even level 1 boots.
ಠ_ಠ
Gunblade first is just the dumbest thing ever. Gunblade first on anyone but Jax is just straight retarded imo. It's a amazing item in that it has really well rounded stats and gives insane sustain, but getting it first on 99% of champs means your super susceptible to burst and your damage isn't nearly as good as it could be since it doesn't give that much AD/AP. All you can do with gunblade is single-target slow and stay in lane forever, but by the time u get gunblade, laning's over or almost over.
On September 27 2011 01:31 clickrush wrote: so many bad akali players lately in SR. obv everyone thinks he is an akali pro after raping faces with her in dominion. When someone firstpicks akali without knowing what to face in lane you can pretty much say he is one of them...
Or when someone picks akali and builds revolver then immediately after revolver gets a fucking pickaxe.
Lol, I rage so hard. "Alright, decent start, guess they needed some sustain. Good job, next will maybe be boots? Sheen? Ryali's? ...Oh shit."
Also, I've been called a bad Akali by people because I don't rush Gunblade before even level 1 boots.
ಠ_ಠ
Gunblade first is just the dumbest thing ever. Gunblade first on anyone but Jax is just straight retarded imo. It's a amazing item in that it has really well rounded stats and gives insane sustain, but getting it first on 99% of champs means your super susceptible to burst and your damage isn't nearly as good as it could be since it doesn't give that much AD/AP. All you can do with gunblade is single-target slow and stay in lane forever, but by the time u get gunblade, laning's over or almost over.
Yeah, people can just be bad. I find that Boots-Revolver-Ryali's(or parts of it anyway)-Boots2-Lichbane has served me well in most situations. Good damage and survivability early on, burst later, especially with a lategame Deathcap.
On September 27 2011 06:28 TieN.nS) wrote: hi5 you guys should tell westrice and voyboy they're just bad
pretty sure westrice doesn't rush gunblade but goes rylais first.
not sure bout voyboy. gunblade lets you snowball hard 'cause you will be able to outheal w/e damage they deal to you, but gunblade first makes you squishy and your burst is considerably less than if you went rylais-sheen.
On September 27 2011 06:28 TieN.nS) wrote: hi5 you guys should tell westrice and voyboy they're just bad
Westrice doesn't even think Gunblade is required on Akali and will often times skip Hextech Revolver to get an earlier Rylai's. To be fair though, I haven't been keeping up with streams and such for like two weeks so maybe he goes Gunblade first now?
Rushing Gunblade seems so bad though. You get a little more AD (mostly useless to the burst), some lifesteal (alright, but most of your damage is abilities, so meh) and a slow (probably the only good thing about it). The extra 35 AP is nice, but putting off Ryali's health, 80 AP and constant slow doesn't even seem worth it. 60 AD for auto attacks and some lifesteal doesn't feel like I should rush for it.
On September 27 2011 06:28 TieN.nS) wrote: hi5 you guys should tell westrice and voyboy they're just bad
Except they usually go Boots > Rylais > Lichbane or Boots > Revolver > Rylais > Lichbane
Why, why did they have to put Akali on sale, had a mirror last night at top lane, he built Ionian boots > Gunblade > Warmogs... I really can't wait until something else becomes FotM
lol @ everyone saying gunblade rush is bad and top players get rylais first. why dont you go check their match histories instead of making stuff up. gunblade gives everything akali needs. after that is all situational although most of the time you're gonna want rylai, lichbane, GA.
On September 27 2011 07:11 De4ngus wrote: lol @ everyone saying gunblade rush is bad and top players get rylais first. why dont you go check their match histories instead of making stuff up. gunblade gives everything akali needs. after that is all situational although most of the time you're gonna want rylai, lichbane, GA.
match history doesn't tell you the order they get items in.
gunblade is good on akali. no doubt about it. gunblade first is suboptimal.
On September 27 2011 07:11 De4ngus wrote: lol @ everyone saying gunblade rush is bad and top players get rylais first. why dont you go check their match histories instead of making stuff up. gunblade gives everything akali needs. after that is all situational although most of the time you're gonna want rylai, lichbane, GA.
Most of my post came from what Westrice did circa 2 months ago. I haven't been watching many streams so maybe gunblade first is the norm.
I haven't gotten to play LoL much the past like four days or so. I want to try this gunblade rush on Akali but since she's fotm I think I'll just keep being lazy and wait until people don't play her again.
How does Akali do against Maokai? His passive charges up quicker because Akali likes spamming spells, and his saplings follow you through twilight shroud.
On September 27 2011 01:31 clickrush wrote: so many bad akali players lately in SR. obv everyone thinks he is an akali pro after raping faces with her in dominion. When someone firstpicks akali without knowing what to face in lane you can pretty much say he is one of them...
Or when someone picks akali and builds revolver then immediately after revolver gets a fucking pickaxe.
Lol, I rage so hard. "Alright, decent start, guess they needed some sustain. Good job, next will maybe be boots? Sheen? Ryali's? ...Oh shit."
Also, I've been called a bad Akali by people because I don't rush Gunblade before even level 1 boots.
ಠ_ಠ
Gunblade first is just the dumbest thing ever. Gunblade first on anyone but Jax is just straight retarded imo. It's a amazing item in that it has really well rounded stats and gives insane sustain, but getting it first on 99% of champs means your super susceptible to burst and your damage isn't nearly as good as it could be since it doesn't give that much AD/AP. All you can do with gunblade is single-target slow and stay in lane forever, but by the time u get gunblade, laning's over or almost over.
What are you talking about? Gunblade gives around 500 more damage worth of burst (for one combo, more damage the longer your combo goes) compared to Rylai's and has comparable cost.
As an assassin, your #1 goal is to kill your target, Gunblade lets you do this better than Rylai's and Gunblade is a much better 1v1 item than Rylai's. The extra damage from Gunblade usually determines whether or not you kill them in one combo or you need to extend your combo and consume extra ult charges (which buys precious time for enemy help to show up or for their cooldowns to come up). Akali doesn't need to build any survivability unless she can't jump in on someone after initiation and get instantly melted.
Edit: I'm pretty sure Reginald and Voyboy always go Gunblade first. I've seen Ocelote go Gunblade first as well as Deathcap first.
On September 27 2011 07:11 De4ngus wrote: lol @ everyone saying gunblade rush is bad and top players get rylais first. why dont you go check their match histories instead of making stuff up. gunblade gives everything akali needs. after that is all situational although most of the time you're gonna want rylai, lichbane, GA.
match history doesn't tell you the order they get items in.
gunblade is good on akali. no doubt about it. gunblade first is suboptimal.
...........................
ok i will hold your hand as we do this. lets take a look at voyboys match history. 2 akali games. both have gunblade and half built rylais. hmmmm.
i could do this with every other top akali player for you if you want
On September 27 2011 01:31 clickrush wrote: so many bad akali players lately in SR. obv everyone thinks he is an akali pro after raping faces with her in dominion. When someone firstpicks akali without knowing what to face in lane you can pretty much say he is one of them...
Or when someone picks akali and builds revolver then immediately after revolver gets a fucking pickaxe.
Lol, I rage so hard. "Alright, decent start, guess they needed some sustain. Good job, next will maybe be boots? Sheen? Ryali's? ...Oh shit."
Also, I've been called a bad Akali by people because I don't rush Gunblade before even level 1 boots.
ಠ_ಠ
Gunblade first is just the dumbest thing ever. Gunblade first on anyone but Jax is just straight retarded imo. It's a amazing item in that it has really well rounded stats and gives insane sustain, but getting it first on 99% of champs means your super susceptible to burst and your damage isn't nearly as good as it could be since it doesn't give that much AD/AP. All you can do with gunblade is single-target slow and stay in lane forever, but by the time u get gunblade, laning's over or almost over.
What are you talking about? Gunblade gives around 500 more damage worth of burst (for one combo, more damage the longer your combo goes) compared to Rylai's and has comparable cost.
As an assassin, your #1 goal is to kill your target, Gunblade lets you do this better than Rylai's and Gunblade is a much better 1v1 item than Rylai's. The extra damage from Gunblade usually determines whether or not you kill them in one combo or you need to extend your combo and consume extra ult charges (which buys precious time for enemy help to show up or for their cooldowns to come up). Akali doesn't need to build any survivability unless she can't jump in on someone after initiation and get instantly melted.
Edit: I'm pretty sure Reginald and Voyboy always go Gunblade first. I've seen Ocelote go Gunblade first as well as Deathcap first.
It's definitely better 1v1 item, but the problem is most Akalis can't farm up a gunblade until liek 25 minutes. By the time the vast majority of teh Akalis I see get their gunblade, laning is over and teamfights are starting. If all you have are boots and gunblade you're gonna get instantly melted by w/e aoe the other team has.
I guess gunblade first can be really good since the stats on it are insane, but Regi Voyboy and the pros actually know how to farm and can get gunblade by >20 minutes and actually do something with it. In my experience, people generally can't accomplish that.
On September 27 2011 01:31 clickrush wrote: so many bad akali players lately in SR. obv everyone thinks he is an akali pro after raping faces with her in dominion. When someone firstpicks akali without knowing what to face in lane you can pretty much say he is one of them...
Or when someone picks akali and builds revolver then immediately after revolver gets a fucking pickaxe.
Lol, I rage so hard. "Alright, decent start, guess they needed some sustain. Good job, next will maybe be boots? Sheen? Ryali's? ...Oh shit."
Also, I've been called a bad Akali by people because I don't rush Gunblade before even level 1 boots.
ಠ_ಠ
Gunblade first is just the dumbest thing ever. Gunblade first on anyone but Jax is just straight retarded imo. It's a amazing item in that it has really well rounded stats and gives insane sustain, but getting it first on 99% of champs means your super susceptible to burst and your damage isn't nearly as good as it could be since it doesn't give that much AD/AP. All you can do with gunblade is single-target slow and stay in lane forever, but by the time u get gunblade, laning's over or almost over.
What are you talking about? Gunblade gives around 500 more damage worth of burst (for one combo, more damage the longer your combo goes) compared to Rylai's and has comparable cost.
As an assassin, your #1 goal is to kill your target, Gunblade lets you do this better than Rylai's and Gunblade is a much better 1v1 item than Rylai's. The extra damage from Gunblade usually determines whether or not you kill them in one combo or you need to extend your combo and consume extra ult charges (which buys precious time for enemy help to show up or for their cooldowns to come up). Akali doesn't need to build any survivability unless she can't jump in on someone after initiation and get instantly melted.
Edit: I'm pretty sure Reginald and Voyboy always go Gunblade first. I've seen Ocelote go Gunblade first as well as Deathcap first.
I think the issue is that a lot of Akali players build Gunblade when they don't have the skills to do what Voyboy and others do, or when they're near-guaranteed to get focused and melted. It's generally considered a "terrible" starting item because you have to be very mindful of whether you might get focused/burst/killed when entering a fight, something most players aren't.
On September 27 2011 01:31 clickrush wrote: so many bad akali players lately in SR. obv everyone thinks he is an akali pro after raping faces with her in dominion. When someone firstpicks akali without knowing what to face in lane you can pretty much say he is one of them...
Or when someone picks akali and builds revolver then immediately after revolver gets a fucking pickaxe.
Lol, I rage so hard. "Alright, decent start, guess they needed some sustain. Good job, next will maybe be boots? Sheen? Ryali's? ...Oh shit."
Also, I've been called a bad Akali by people because I don't rush Gunblade before even level 1 boots.
ಠ_ಠ
Gunblade first is just the dumbest thing ever. Gunblade first on anyone but Jax is just straight retarded imo. It's a amazing item in that it has really well rounded stats and gives insane sustain, but getting it first on 99% of champs means your super susceptible to burst and your damage isn't nearly as good as it could be since it doesn't give that much AD/AP. All you can do with gunblade is single-target slow and stay in lane forever, but by the time u get gunblade, laning's over or almost over.
What are you talking about? Gunblade gives around 500 more damage worth of burst (for one combo, more damage the longer your combo goes) compared to Rylai's and has comparable cost.
As an assassin, your #1 goal is to kill your target, Gunblade lets you do this better than Rylai's and Gunblade is a much better 1v1 item than Rylai's. The extra damage from Gunblade usually determines whether or not you kill them in one combo or you need to extend your combo and consume extra ult charges (which buys precious time for enemy help to show up or for their cooldowns to come up). Akali doesn't need to build any survivability unless she can't jump in on someone after initiation and get instantly melted.
Edit: I'm pretty sure Reginald and Voyboy always go Gunblade first. I've seen Ocelote go Gunblade first as well as Deathcap first.
I think the issue is that a lot of Akali players build Gunblade when they don't have the skills to do what Voyboy and others do, or when they're near-guaranteed to get focused and melted. It's generally considered a "terrible" starting item because you have to be very mindful of whether you might get focused/burst/killed when entering a fight, something most players aren't.
Exactly, for the most part. I'm halfway decent at Akali, and a fast Gunblade would be nice, but I can't farm enough to get one right off the bat. Much safer/easier to go Revolver/Scepter before rushing to Gunblade.
On September 27 2011 01:31 clickrush wrote: so many bad akali players lately in SR. obv everyone thinks he is an akali pro after raping faces with her in dominion. When someone firstpicks akali without knowing what to face in lane you can pretty much say he is one of them...
Or when someone picks akali and builds revolver then immediately after revolver gets a fucking pickaxe.
Lol, I rage so hard. "Alright, decent start, guess they needed some sustain. Good job, next will maybe be boots? Sheen? Ryali's? ...Oh shit."
Also, I've been called a bad Akali by people because I don't rush Gunblade before even level 1 boots.
ಠ_ಠ
Gunblade first is just the dumbest thing ever. Gunblade first on anyone but Jax is just straight retarded imo. It's a amazing item in that it has really well rounded stats and gives insane sustain, but getting it first on 99% of champs means your super susceptible to burst and your damage isn't nearly as good as it could be since it doesn't give that much AD/AP. All you can do with gunblade is single-target slow and stay in lane forever, but by the time u get gunblade, laning's over or almost over.
What are you talking about? Gunblade gives around 500 more damage worth of burst (for one combo, more damage the longer your combo goes) compared to Rylai's and has comparable cost.
As an assassin, your #1 goal is to kill your target, Gunblade lets you do this better than Rylai's and Gunblade is a much better 1v1 item than Rylai's. The extra damage from Gunblade usually determines whether or not you kill them in one combo or you need to extend your combo and consume extra ult charges (which buys precious time for enemy help to show up or for their cooldowns to come up). Akali doesn't need to build any survivability unless she can't jump in on someone after initiation and get instantly melted.
Edit: I'm pretty sure Reginald and Voyboy always go Gunblade first. I've seen Ocelote go Gunblade first as well as Deathcap first.
I think the issue is that a lot of Akali players build Gunblade when they don't have the skills to do what Voyboy and others do, or when they're near-guaranteed to get focused and melted. It's generally considered a "terrible" starting item because you have to be very mindful of whether you might get focused/burst/killed when entering a fight, something most players aren't.
Exactly, for the most part. I'm halfway decent at Akali, and a fast Gunblade would be nice, but I can't farm enough to get one right off the bat. Much safer/easier to go Revolver/Scepter before rushing to Gunblade.
The starcraft player in me makes that sentence turn into "My macro isn't good enough so I practice going 13gate instead of 12gate when I want to 12gate."
Changing the topic to counters again, just got fucking OWNED by malz mid. Is it me or did his aa range get buffed? got zoned out hard pre 6, and after 6 just suppress+DOT=deadlane.
can't harrass him with shroud because of his aoe spells...
I actually had fun counterpicking another team's firstpick akali as garen the game before. The poor bitch tried to switch lanes literally 5 times and I just followed. She ended up with 70cs after 35 mins lol. I found out that with 20ad from runes and going boots first, my qe combo literally left her with half a bar from full hp at level 2. So yeah, counterpicking akali is also real fun.
On September 27 2011 01:31 clickrush wrote: so many bad akali players lately in SR. obv everyone thinks he is an akali pro after raping faces with her in dominion. When someone firstpicks akali without knowing what to face in lane you can pretty much say he is one of them...
Or when someone picks akali and builds revolver then immediately after revolver gets a fucking pickaxe.
Lol, I rage so hard. "Alright, decent start, guess they needed some sustain. Good job, next will maybe be boots? Sheen? Ryali's? ...Oh shit."
Also, I've been called a bad Akali by people because I don't rush Gunblade before even level 1 boots.
ಠ_ಠ
Gunblade first is just the dumbest thing ever. Gunblade first on anyone but Jax is just straight retarded imo. It's a amazing item in that it has really well rounded stats and gives insane sustain, but getting it first on 99% of champs means your super susceptible to burst and your damage isn't nearly as good as it could be since it doesn't give that much AD/AP. All you can do with gunblade is single-target slow and stay in lane forever, but by the time u get gunblade, laning's over or almost over.
What are you talking about? Gunblade gives around 500 more damage worth of burst (for one combo, more damage the longer your combo goes) compared to Rylai's and has comparable cost.
As an assassin, your #1 goal is to kill your target, Gunblade lets you do this better than Rylai's and Gunblade is a much better 1v1 item than Rylai's. The extra damage from Gunblade usually determines whether or not you kill them in one combo or you need to extend your combo and consume extra ult charges (which buys precious time for enemy help to show up or for their cooldowns to come up). Akali doesn't need to build any survivability unless she can't jump in on someone after initiation and get instantly melted.
Edit: I'm pretty sure Reginald and Voyboy always go Gunblade first. I've seen Ocelote go Gunblade first as well as Deathcap first.
I think the issue is that a lot of Akali players build Gunblade when they don't have the skills to do what Voyboy and others do, or when they're near-guaranteed to get focused and melted. It's generally considered a "terrible" starting item because you have to be very mindful of whether you might get focused/burst/killed when entering a fight, something most players aren't.
Exactly, for the most part. I'm halfway decent at Akali, and a fast Gunblade would be nice, but I can't farm enough to get one right off the bat. Much safer/easier to go Revolver/Scepter before rushing to Gunblade.
The starcraft player in me makes that sentence turn into "My macro isn't good enough so I practice going 13gate instead of 12gate when I want to 12gate."
gunblade is the 4gate rush and rilays is the 2gate robo expand. Gunblade is a high risk high reward opening that provides a chunk more damage and a snowballish mechanic with the spellvamp and lifesteal. If you manage to make use of it during the early midgame, letz say during a dragon fight, then you'll do more damage to your opponents with it if you manage to survive somehow, which is also reliant on your teammates ability to synergize with you. If your awareness and reaction time fools you then you invested 3.6k gold into being useless. You get gunblade around the time when supports/junglers are allready able to spam oracles/pinks, so don't fool yourself into thinking it's an easy task to do well with a 1.5k~ health melee champion. Even Their AD carries will have more health than you and can shoot you from a safe distance when your CC'ed. Even if your team manages a good initiation, you need to be able to quickly dispatch one of their targets without getting kited by their carries and disabled by their supports and tanks. If they have ignite up then your screwed for sure since spellvamp and lifesteal count as heals since a few patches.
rilays sets up a smoother, safer midgame. Some healpots are enough for sustain and cost nothing. The permaslow makes you unkiteable which easily makes up for the additional damage of gunblade and also helps your teammates to stick to a certain target as well. You cant as easily be countered by strong disables or ignite, and you are able to make more aggressive moves like towerdiving. The additional health synergizes very well with your merc treads and deny the option for an AP carry to 1shot you. Not to mention rilays costs a good chunk less than gunblade.
When some of the highly respected players choose to make gunblade over rilays, then they either trust in their skills and their teamcoordination enough to make use of the riskier opening or they simply are trying stuff out / are trolling or they just didn't think that much about it. Copying this stile without knowing what the thoughts behind are is foolish IMO.
On September 27 2011 01:31 clickrush wrote: so many bad akali players lately in SR. obv everyone thinks he is an akali pro after raping faces with her in dominion. When someone firstpicks akali without knowing what to face in lane you can pretty much say he is one of them...
Or when someone picks akali and builds revolver then immediately after revolver gets a fucking pickaxe.
Lol, I rage so hard. "Alright, decent start, guess they needed some sustain. Good job, next will maybe be boots? Sheen? Ryali's? ...Oh shit."
Also, I've been called a bad Akali by people because I don't rush Gunblade before even level 1 boots.
ಠ_ಠ
Gunblade first is just the dumbest thing ever. Gunblade first on anyone but Jax is just straight retarded imo. It's a amazing item in that it has really well rounded stats and gives insane sustain, but getting it first on 99% of champs means your super susceptible to burst and your damage isn't nearly as good as it could be since it doesn't give that much AD/AP. All you can do with gunblade is single-target slow and stay in lane forever, but by the time u get gunblade, laning's over or almost over.
What are you talking about? Gunblade gives around 500 more damage worth of burst (for one combo, more damage the longer your combo goes) compared to Rylai's and has comparable cost.
As an assassin, your #1 goal is to kill your target, Gunblade lets you do this better than Rylai's and Gunblade is a much better 1v1 item than Rylai's. The extra damage from Gunblade usually determines whether or not you kill them in one combo or you need to extend your combo and consume extra ult charges (which buys precious time for enemy help to show up or for their cooldowns to come up). Akali doesn't need to build any survivability unless she can't jump in on someone after initiation and get instantly melted.
Edit: I'm pretty sure Reginald and Voyboy always go Gunblade first. I've seen Ocelote go Gunblade first as well as Deathcap first.
I think the issue is that a lot of Akali players build Gunblade when they don't have the skills to do what Voyboy and others do, or when they're near-guaranteed to get focused and melted. It's generally considered a "terrible" starting item because you have to be very mindful of whether you might get focused/burst/killed when entering a fight, something most players aren't.
Exactly, for the most part. I'm halfway decent at Akali, and a fast Gunblade would be nice, but I can't farm enough to get one right off the bat. Much safer/easier to go Revolver/Scepter before rushing to Gunblade.
The starcraft player in me makes that sentence turn into "My macro isn't good enough so I practice going 13gate instead of 12gate when I want to 12gate."
gunblade is the 4gate rush and rilays is the 2gate robo expand. Gunblade is a high risk high reward opening that provides a chunk more damage and a snowballish mechanic with the spellvamp and lifesteal. If you manage to make use of it during the early midgame, letz say during a dragon fight, then you'll do more damage to your opponents with it if you manage to survive somehow, which is also reliant on your teammates ability to synergize with you. If your awareness and reaction time fools you then you invested 3.6k gold into being useless. You get gunblade around the time when supports/junglers are allready able to spam oracles/pinks, so don't fool yourself into thinking it's an easy task to do well with a 1.5k~ health melee champion. Even Their AD carries will have more health than you and can shoot you from a safe distance when your CC'ed. Even if your team manages a good initiation, you need to be able to quickly dispatch one of their targets without getting kited by their carries and disabled by their supports and tanks. If they have ignite up then your screwed for sure since spellvamp and lifesteal count as heals since a few patches.
rilays sets up a smoother, safer midgame. Some healpots are enough for sustain and cost nothing. The permaslow makes you unkiteable which easily makes up for the additional damage of gunblade and also helps your teammates to stick to a certain target as well. You cant as easily be countered by strong disables or ignite, and you are able to make more aggressive moves like towerdiving. The additional health synergizes very well with your merc treads and deny the option for an AP carry to 1shot you. Not to mention rilays costs a good chunk less than gunblade.
When some of the highly respected players choose to make gunblade over rilays, then they either trust in their skills and their teamcoordination enough to make use of the riskier opening or they simply are trying stuff out / are trolling or they just didn't think that much about it. Copying this stile without knowing what the thoughts behind are is foolish IMO.
Rylais doesn't set up a smoother, safer midgame. You warding the map does that. The moment you get your giant's belt, your 'omg no hp' issue disappears. Good players aren't rushing gunblade because they're trolling. They're rushing it because it gives akali absolutely freakish lane sustain which lets her rice harder and subsequently snowball harder. Rylai's benefits are completely overshadowed by gunblade unless your team has poor ward coverage and you're prone to taking stupid risks.
But hey, most teams have poor ward coverage and most akali players are prone to taking stupid risks.
Rylais doesn't set up a smoother, safer midgame. You warding the map does that. The moment you get your giant's belt, your 'omg no hp' issue disappears. Good players aren't rushing gunblade because they're trolling. They're rushing it because it gives akali absolutely freakish lane sustain which lets her rice harder and subsequently snowball harder. Rylai's benefits are completely overshadowed by gunblade unless your team has poor ward coverage and you're prone to taking stupid risks.
But hey, most teams have poor ward coverage and most akali players are prone to taking stupid risks.
What? what does wards have to do anything with it? He's talking about teamfights, not farming the lane. By the time you even get your gunblade, it's drag fight stage and teams are roaming for ganks. Akali is meant to thrive in teamfights, not from farming lanes all day. Having that rylais (or most of the components of it) by the first major team fight is much more useful for akali than having parts or the whole gunblade.
On September 27 2011 01:31 clickrush wrote: so many bad akali players lately in SR. obv everyone thinks he is an akali pro after raping faces with her in dominion. When someone firstpicks akali without knowing what to face in lane you can pretty much say he is one of them...
Or when someone picks akali and builds revolver then immediately after revolver gets a fucking pickaxe.
Lol, I rage so hard. "Alright, decent start, guess they needed some sustain. Good job, next will maybe be boots? Sheen? Ryali's? ...Oh shit."
Also, I've been called a bad Akali by people because I don't rush Gunblade before even level 1 boots.
ಠ_ಠ
Gunblade first is just the dumbest thing ever. Gunblade first on anyone but Jax is just straight retarded imo. It's a amazing item in that it has really well rounded stats and gives insane sustain, but getting it first on 99% of champs means your super susceptible to burst and your damage isn't nearly as good as it could be since it doesn't give that much AD/AP. All you can do with gunblade is single-target slow and stay in lane forever, but by the time u get gunblade, laning's over or almost over.
What are you talking about? Gunblade gives around 500 more damage worth of burst (for one combo, more damage the longer your combo goes) compared to Rylai's and has comparable cost.
As an assassin, your #1 goal is to kill your target, Gunblade lets you do this better than Rylai's and Gunblade is a much better 1v1 item than Rylai's. The extra damage from Gunblade usually determines whether or not you kill them in one combo or you need to extend your combo and consume extra ult charges (which buys precious time for enemy help to show up or for their cooldowns to come up). Akali doesn't need to build any survivability unless she can't jump in on someone after initiation and get instantly melted.
Edit: I'm pretty sure Reginald and Voyboy always go Gunblade first. I've seen Ocelote go Gunblade first as well as Deathcap first.
I think the issue is that a lot of Akali players build Gunblade when they don't have the skills to do what Voyboy and others do, or when they're near-guaranteed to get focused and melted. It's generally considered a "terrible" starting item because you have to be very mindful of whether you might get focused/burst/killed when entering a fight, something most players aren't.
Exactly, for the most part. I'm halfway decent at Akali, and a fast Gunblade would be nice, but I can't farm enough to get one right off the bat. Much safer/easier to go Revolver/Scepter before rushing to Gunblade.
The starcraft player in me makes that sentence turn into "My macro isn't good enough so I practice going 13gate instead of 12gate when I want to 12gate."
No, it's more "My micro isn't good enough, so I'm working on getting better at the game rather than practicing 3 simultaneous drops as Terran while expanding". I'm not consistent about last hitting, managing Shadow Dance, warding when necessary, and using my Smoke Bomb, so I'm not completely loaded by midgame. I generally won't have enough money to finish Gunblade. It costs 2325g for Gunblade after Revolver, and 3105 for Ryali's. However, I'll probably only have enough (after boots) for parts of those. So, for my money's worth, I can get Pickaxe and Vampiric Scepter, or Giant Belt for health. Heading into the mid game, I feel that the survivability is more useful.
tl;dr, I'm trying to optimize my usefulness given the constraint that I suck.
Rylais doesn't set up a smoother, safer midgame. You warding the map does that. The moment you get your giant's belt, your 'omg no hp' issue disappears. Good players aren't rushing gunblade because they're trolling. They're rushing it because it gives akali absolutely freakish lane sustain which lets her rice harder and subsequently snowball harder. Rylai's benefits are completely overshadowed by gunblade unless your team has poor ward coverage and you're prone to taking stupid risks.
But hey, most teams have poor ward coverage and most akali players are prone to taking stupid risks.
What? what does wards have to do anything with it? He's talking about teamfights, not farming the lane. By the time you even get your gunblade, it's drag fight stage and teams are roaming for ganks. Akali is meant to thrive in teamfights, not from farming lanes all day. Having that rylais (or most of the components of it) by the first major team fight is much more useful for akali than having parts or the whole gunblade.
I don't get the whole "I can't get a gunblade fast enough so I don't build it" reasoning. Akali isn't suppose to group up with her team and do the whole stand-off poke war. In fact, if the other team grouped up as 5 and pushed up to your tower and are actually capable of taking it, something went wrong. Otherwise, she's much stronger at pressuring lanes and insta-gibbing stragglers in transition. Having a good awareness of where the enemy team is and know how to make a distinction between an isolated target and a bait is pretty crucial for assassins.
Unless they run around in a ball of 5 and stay that way the entire teamfight you really needn't worry about being ineffective. I've tried rylais akali and gunblade akali. Frankly, her base burst is sufficiently high that both are equally effective in fighting but gunblade is just far more conducive to her playstyle because of the extra damage and sustain.
So you think it's better going into battle with a Revolver and half a Cutlass than a Revolver and half a Rylai's? Honestly asking, I'm generally just kind of bad, so any help you can offer is great. Akali is one of my favorites to play, and I thought I was being efficient. Apparently not :\
Yeah, well, it's hard to farm harder solo top when I'm constantly against impossible to fight enemies for Akali :\ Gets frustrating: Galio, Maokai, Singed, Lee Sin. Yi was alright, unless Smoke Bomb was on CD, then he's kinda scary.
Something's wrong here. Akali murders Singed and Galio (barring some full-MR page shenanigans on them) if she starts tossing that Q stuff early on. Yi should be fine for the most part if he gets mana sustain and at least 1 point in meditate so that you can't dive him, and then take whatever he can get with alpha strike.
But yeah, I`d much rather complete gunblade than have some half-rylai unless you are desperate. If you are going to build rylais, build rylais straight up. I go rylais in some hard matchups because for instance vs annie having giant`s belt is way more useful than a revolver unless you have a warwick ganking for you or something.
On September 28 2011 00:35 Requizen wrote: Yeah, well, it's hard to farm harder solo top when I'm constantly against impossible to fight enemies for Akali :\ Gets frustrating: Galio, Maokai, Singed, Lee Sin. Yi was alright, unless Smoke Bomb was on CD, then he's kinda scary.
Akali has strong matchups against many melee laners. Certainly Galio, Singed, and Yi. Not sure about Maokai, and Lee Sin is a pain to deal with. But even the majority of bad matchups are not so bad that you should not be able to win them off playing better than your opponents.
Bah, I probably just suck. Galio with his MR just kind of crapped all over me and could hit surprisingly hard. The Singed just played really aggressive, but that was probably just thanks to his team having a jungle and my top lane partner being a newbie (friend getting into LoL). I need to get better at this game T.T
How do I play in lane? I don't feel that Q hits hard enough by itself to dissuade melee from farming, and once I get in combat with one, well, without W up I don't feel that I can fight straight up and win at a consistent rate. Maybe Runes will help, but I dunno.
Edit: the hardest lane I played against was a Maokai and Talon duo with me and... I think it was Morde? So much poke, couldn't stand up to it.
What are Voyboy et al building following Gunblade? Are they building Rylai's or something else like Lichbane/Deathcap?
On September 28 2011 01:27 Requizen wrote: Bah, I probably just suck. Galio with his MR just kind of crapped all over me and could hit surprisingly hard. The Singed just played really aggressive, but that was probably just thanks to his team having a jungle and my top lane partner being a newbie (friend getting into LoL). I need to get better at this game T.T
How do I play in lane? I don't feel that Q hits hard enough by itself to dissuade melee from farming, and once I get in combat with one, well, without W up I don't feel that I can fight straight up and win at a consistent rate. Maybe Runes will help, but I dunno.
Edit: the hardest lane I played against was a Maokai and Talon duo with me and... I think it was Morde? So much poke, couldn't stand up to it.
Do you not have AD runes? Proccing your passives without items makes a huge difference.
Q harass hinges around the fact your Q debuff lasts longer than its cooldown. This allows for back to back Q procs with timed right, making damage trades very hard to lose (especially with innate Spell Vamp).
On September 28 2011 00:32 dnastyx wrote: The trick is to farm harder and get better, instead of optimizing for bad play.
I can't believe you throw shit like this in here. Now only because a couple of good players occasionally rushed gunblade doesnt make it any more viable than rilays. The only argument for gunblade so far is sustain and "you should be able to deal with having no rilays early-mid". For the same reasoning you should rush thirster on every melee dps without dorans blades. Gunblade rush is a high risk high reward opening and makes akali a no utility glasscannon that relies on snowballing from favorably initiated midgame teamfight.
I've got enough AD to get that one up, but I guess I need to learn when to engage efficiently. And honestly, the 10% vamp from the passive doesn't really feel that noticeable when it comes down to it.
I start with boots 3pots, QWQE R>Q>E>W. I use my Q to last hit at times if I'm not close enough, should I not do that? Is it better to use Q to harass and miss out on that gold?
On September 28 2011 00:32 dnastyx wrote: The trick is to farm harder and get better, instead of optimizing for bad play.
I can't believe you throw shit like this in here. Now only because a couple of good players occasionally rushed gunblade doesnt make it any more viable than rilays. The only argument for gunblade so far is sustain and "you should be able to deal with having no rilays early-mid". For the same reasoning you should rush thirster on every melee dps without dorans blades. Gunblade rush is a high risk high reward opening and makes akali a no utility glasscannon that relies on snowballing from favorably initiated midgame teamfight.
OK let's clear something up:
Revolver + Rylai's - 500 HP, 15% Spellvamp, 4305 gold Gunblade + Giant's Belt - 430 HP, 37% Spellvamp (including 12% from passive based on Gunblade AD), 20% Lifesteal, 4735 gold
How is Gunblade more glass-cannon than Rylai's-based builds?
On September 28 2011 02:00 clickrush wrote: i dont even make revolver anyways.
Then replace Revolver with Sheen/NLR/whatever AP item you would get next. Not like you go Rylai's->tank on Akali.
Rylai's isn't some amazing magical super-tanky item. It happens to just give 70 more HP than a Giant's Belt, which Gunblade-based builds can buy wherever they feel it's necessary. The only downside of Gunblade is that the parts are mediocre before you complete it, but honestly, on a strong laner like Akali, being expected to finish 4-5k gold worth of items before 20 minutes is not exactly unrealistic, considering that's about the cost of 2 Doran's + IE for a ranged AD carry, or Rod of Ages + NLR or 3 DRing + DCap for AP carries.
I had this game where I was doing all right but I noticed my minion kills was low. 2nd game I tried last hitting with my Q more and had better minion kills and was doing a lot better than my previous game.
Should I keep doing it or try to improve my last hits? ( I'm better at this with ranged champions )
On September 28 2011 02:00 clickrush wrote: i dont even make revolver anyways.
Then replace Revolver with Sheen/NLR/whatever AP item you would get next. Not like you go Rylai's->tank on Akali.
Rylai's isn't some amazing magical super-tanky item. It happens to just give 70 more HP than a Giant's Belt, which Gunblade-based builds can buy wherever they feel it's necessary. The only downside of Gunblade is that the parts are mediocre before you complete it, but honestly, on a strong laner like Akali, being expected to finish 4-5k gold worth of items before 20 minutes is not exactly unrealistic, considering that's about the cost of 2 Doran's + IE for a ranged AD carry, or Rod of Ages + NLR or 3 DRing + DCap for AP carries.
20 minute IE, starting dorans and getting zerker greaves is totally realistic imo.
On September 28 2011 02:00 clickrush wrote: i dont even make revolver anyways.
Then replace Revolver with Sheen/NLR/whatever AP item you would get next. Not like you go Rylai's->tank on Akali.
Rylai's isn't some amazing magical super-tanky item. It happens to just give 70 more HP than a Giant's Belt, which Gunblade-based builds can buy wherever they feel it's necessary. The only downside of Gunblade is that the parts are mediocre before you complete it, but honestly, on a strong laner like Akali, being expected to finish 4-5k gold worth of items before 20 minutes is not exactly unrealistic, considering that's about the cost of 2 Doran's + IE for a ranged AD carry, or Rod of Ages + NLR or 3 DRing + DCap for AP carries.
20 minute IE, starting dorans and getting zerker greaves is totally realistic imo.
That's exactly what I'm saying. Sorry if it's worded in a confusing way.
4-5k gold worth of items is about what you'd expect for "core" items on most laners. Gunblade+GBelt isn't out of the norm at all, and is stronger than most other combinations of 4-5k gold worth of items on Akali.
Incidentally, if you consider all the reasonable combinations of items to expect for about 5k gold: Rylai's + Revolver + Blasting Wand Rylai's + Sheen + Blasting Wand Rylai's + NLR Gunblade + Giant's Belt
Gunblade + Giant's Belt has the MOST survivability of any of those, so calling calling Gunblade glass-cannon is definitely somewhat silly.
Akali is likely to get a kill at top if the jungler stop by when she hits 6 and has 2-3 Marks ready, and the lane is not pushed towards enemy side. Free gold ezpz.
Westrice's guide on Solomid (which admittedly hasn't been updated in a while) recommends rushing Lichbane. I'd say that's probably your "glass cannon" build.
Rylais doesn't set up a smoother, safer midgame. You warding the map does that. The moment you get your giant's belt, your 'omg no hp' issue disappears. Good players aren't rushing gunblade because they're trolling. They're rushing it because it gives akali absolutely freakish lane sustain which lets her rice harder and subsequently snowball harder. Rylai's benefits are completely overshadowed by gunblade unless your team has poor ward coverage and you're prone to taking stupid risks.
But hey, most teams have poor ward coverage and most akali players are prone to taking stupid risks.
What? what does wards have to do anything with it? He's talking about teamfights, not farming the lane. By the time you even get your gunblade, it's drag fight stage and teams are roaming for ganks. Akali is meant to thrive in teamfights, not from farming lanes all day. Having that rylais (or most of the components of it) by the first major team fight is much more useful for akali than having parts or the whole gunblade.
he obv didnt read my post -.-
You realize team fights don't just randomly happen right? Teams force fights or wander into them by mistake.
The only time you're going to get rylais much earlier than gunblade is if you skip revolver or sheen, and if you skip revolver or sheen I sincerely wonder how the fuck you're going to lane vs the majority of decent-level lane opponents in the game.
As for gunblade being an item you get once laning is over: You will generally have enough for a gunblade in under 16 minutes if you are ricing correctly regardless of kills/dragon/towers. The parts for gunblade both greatly assist in laning sustainability as well. Tome, Wand and Giant's belt? They don't.
Starting to see how picking the gimp route to akali doesn't add up?
Rylais doesn't set up a smoother, safer midgame. You warding the map does that. The moment you get your giant's belt, your 'omg no hp' issue disappears. Good players aren't rushing gunblade because they're trolling. They're rushing it because it gives akali absolutely freakish lane sustain which lets her rice harder and subsequently snowball harder. Rylai's benefits are completely overshadowed by gunblade unless your team has poor ward coverage and you're prone to taking stupid risks.
But hey, most teams have poor ward coverage and most akali players are prone to taking stupid risks.
What? what does wards have to do anything with it? He's talking about teamfights, not farming the lane. By the time you even get your gunblade, it's drag fight stage and teams are roaming for ganks. Akali is meant to thrive in teamfights, not from farming lanes all day. Having that rylais (or most of the components of it) by the first major team fight is much more useful for akali than having parts or the whole gunblade.
he obv didnt read my post -.-
You realize team fights don't just randomly happen right? Teams force fights or wander into them by mistake.
The only time you're going to get rylais much earlier than gunblade is if you skip revolver or sheen, and if you skip revolver or sheen I sincerely wonder how the fuck you're going to lane vs the majority of decent-level lane opponents in the game.
As for gunblade being an item you get once laning is over: You will generally have enough for a gunblade in under 16 minutes if you are ricing correctly regardless of kills/dragon/towers. The parts for gunblade both greatly assist in laning sustainability as well. Tome, Wand and Giant's belt? They don't.
Starting to see how picking the gimp route to akali doesn't add up?
While I agree, you have to be fair and acknowledge that Giant's Belt aids more in sustain than Pickaxe, and Wand gives more burst than it. Gunblade is better when taken as a whole, but I think the parts go to Rylai's.
Rylais doesn't set up a smoother, safer midgame. You warding the map does that. The moment you get your giant's belt, your 'omg no hp' issue disappears. Good players aren't rushing gunblade because they're trolling. They're rushing it because it gives akali absolutely freakish lane sustain which lets her rice harder and subsequently snowball harder. Rylai's benefits are completely overshadowed by gunblade unless your team has poor ward coverage and you're prone to taking stupid risks.
But hey, most teams have poor ward coverage and most akali players are prone to taking stupid risks.
What? what does wards have to do anything with it? He's talking about teamfights, not farming the lane. By the time you even get your gunblade, it's drag fight stage and teams are roaming for ganks. Akali is meant to thrive in teamfights, not from farming lanes all day. Having that rylais (or most of the components of it) by the first major team fight is much more useful for akali than having parts or the whole gunblade.
he obv didnt read my post -.-
You realize team fights don't just randomly happen right? Teams force fights or wander into them by mistake.
The only time you're going to get rylais much earlier than gunblade is if you skip revolver or sheen, and if you skip revolver or sheen I sincerely wonder how the fuck you're going to lane vs the majority of decent-level lane opponents in the game.
As for gunblade being an item you get once laning is over: You will generally have enough for a gunblade in under 16 minutes if you are ricing correctly regardless of kills/dragon/towers. The parts for gunblade both greatly assist in laning sustainability as well. Tome, Wand and Giant's belt? They don't.
Starting to see how picking the gimp route to akali doesn't add up?
lol this argument can go forever both ways. It's like trying to convince another person that your own playstyle will work for everyone else. In the end it all comes down to skill and playstyle, not some difference in the order or type of items you get. Both routes are viable if played correctly, and I would hardly call going rylais first the "gimp route". Sure if you want the sustain for farming past the 16 min mark, then go ahead. Me personally, I like to push the lane, go back, and gank other lanes whenever I can with rylais/parts of rylais, which has proven very successful.
And I don't know about you, but having hextech revolver by itself is more than enough along with her passive for sustain. I don't understand the need for more sustain and a long cd slow. I'd rather go for more AP/hp. But that's my playstyle, and I've been doing well with it. Believe me, I can't tell you how many times I ulted into a squishy during a teamfight and escape out with a sliver of hp left, something I couldn't have done had I gone gunblade first.
Seriously I can't believe that this argument has gone on for 3 pages though, and that I've been going along with it. Do whatever the fuck you guys think works for you l0l. If you win your lane and the game, then something must be working correctly.
On September 28 2011 02:13 Fawkes wrote: My english is bad.
Akali is likely to get a kill at top if the jungler stop by when she hits 6 and has 2-3 Marks ready, and the lane is not pushed towards enemy side. Free gold ezpz.
Akali can get kills at level 2-3 if the jungler has some decent CC. At the very least you can force a summoner's. Noc, Udyr, and Lee Sin all work very well with Akali at top if you let your lane push towards you some. Seriously if your jungle ganks for you Akali is so fucking scary even at low levels.
On September 28 2011 02:07 Zhiroo wrote: I've got a question
I had this game where I was doing all right but I noticed my minion kills was low. 2nd game I tried last hitting with my Q more and had better minion kills and was doing a lot better than my previous game.
Should I keep doing it or try to improve my last hits? ( I'm better at this with ranged champions )
It depends on the situation. If walking up and attacking the creep with auto-attack will let the enemy champ get off significant ranged harass on you, then use Q to last hit it. If auto attacking will allow the enemy to get off significant melee harass that you can't out trade (i.e. garen Silence + spin) then use Q to last hit. If your lane is pushed towards their tower and going in for an auto attack could leave you very vulnerable to a gank, then use Q.
Basically if you can get away with auto attacking the creep, and using Q on the enemy champ, then do that. Other uses for Q are healing, so rather than last hitting with Q, you last hit with Q + auto (to proc Q).
Basically in favourable matchups, save Q for enemy. In hard matchups (garen / lee sin), use Q to last hit and wait for your opportunity to strike.
I wanted to try something different some games ago. went mercs, sheen, belt, soulstealer, rilays, GA. Lategame I managed to upgrade sheen into lichbane and was half way on my gunblade. I didnt plan to get sheen even before GA, but at the time I was playing top and zoneing a nidalee, so I figured I need some quick boost for my burst combo to scare her away some more. Also playing top solo opens up for delayed builds if you like to grab this or that before your core items because your not that active during the early-midgame as if you where mid. The reason why I mention this, is because I find snowballing an interesting mechanic, but I almost never do it. In this case it was a calculated thing because of the synergy it provides. GA is generally a strong item on akali I figured, because she can really do alot after the revieve, which is not true for every champ. So I wanted to include it into a build that makes as much use of it as possible. Comming back to the gunblade vs rilay opening: GA after a gunblade rush might actually work very well in theory because high regeneration+high defenses synergize well together and revieve+burst+regeneration too. Just like GA works well on Irelia too after you get mercs and trinity.
On September 28 2011 00:32 dnastyx wrote: The trick is to farm harder and get better, instead of optimizing for bad play.
I can't believe you throw shit like this in here. Now only because a couple of good players occasionally rushed gunblade doesnt make it any more viable than rilays. The only argument for gunblade so far is sustain and "you should be able to deal with having no rilays early-mid". For the same reasoning you should rush thirster on every melee dps without dorans blades. Gunblade rush is a high risk high reward opening and makes akali a no utility glasscannon that relies on snowballing from favorably initiated midgame teamfight.
You realize this has nothing to do with "high level play" and everything to do with the fact that he said his mechanics are poor? I'm telling him to work on last hitting and improve his fundamentals.
I don't know how you turned that into...whatever that excuse for a rant is.
On September 28 2011 02:07 Zhiroo wrote: I've got a question
I had this game where I was doing all right but I noticed my minion kills was low. 2nd game I tried last hitting with my Q more and had better minion kills and was doing a lot better than my previous game.
Should I keep doing it or try to improve my last hits? ( I'm better at this with ranged champions )
It depends on the situation. If walking up and attacking the creep with auto-attack will let the enemy champ get off significant ranged harass on you, then use Q to last hit it. If auto attacking will allow the enemy to get off significant melee harass that you can't out trade (i.e. garen Silence + spin) then use Q to last hit. If your lane is pushed towards their tower and going in for an auto attack could leave you very vulnerable to a gank, then use Q.
Basically if you can get away with auto attacking the creep, and using Q on the enemy champ, then do that. Other uses for Q are healing, so rather than last hitting with Q, you last hit with Q + auto (to proc Q).
Basically in favourable matchups, save Q for enemy. In hard matchups (garen / lee sin), use Q to last hit and wait for your opportunity to strike.
Without triggering the mark, it doesn't do all that much damage and if you ever get close his q/spin combo is pretty strong. I think at best it is an even lane if you both play well.
On September 28 2011 00:32 dnastyx wrote: The trick is to farm harder and get better, instead of optimizing for bad play.
I can't believe you throw shit like this in here. Now only because a couple of good players occasionally rushed gunblade doesnt make it any more viable than rilays. The only argument for gunblade so far is sustain and "you should be able to deal with having no rilays early-mid". For the same reasoning you should rush thirster on every melee dps without dorans blades. Gunblade rush is a high risk high reward opening and makes akali a no utility glasscannon that relies on snowballing from favorably initiated midgame teamfight.
You realize this has nothing to do with "high level play" and everything to do with the fact that he said his mechanics are poor? I'm telling him to work on last hitting and improve his fundamentals.
I don't know how you turned that into...whatever that excuse for a rant is.
On September 28 2011 20:49 ZERG_RUSSIAN wrote: Am I the only one who feels like Akali hard counters Garen when played right? Just sit back and q harass til he's too low to trade and then win.
I feel we can both freefarm if I open cloth+5. Freefarm Akali vs freefarm garen, I call victory. =P
On September 28 2011 20:49 ZERG_RUSSIAN wrote: Am I the only one who feels like Akali hard counters Garen when played right? Just sit back and q harass til he's too low to trade and then win.
Akali potentially slaughters/gets slaughtered by everyone in the game (except lee sin who always rapes her sideways). She's so snowbally.
Akali just needs to go 1 for 1 and kill carries and try to not feed to hard imo. You just have to think if the situation is worth it for the kill and she'll snowball really hard especially if shes getting 300 gold.
On September 29 2011 01:19 Zhiroo wrote: What does snowball mean? I keep hearing it a lot. Pardon my ignorance.
Snowball kind of describes when a champion gets kills and how powerful they become based on the kills. Best example is Katarina, she thrives on kills, but if you don't get kills on her, its very hard to be productive with her later. Another example would be "snowball" items like Mejais, sword of the occult, leviathan, where you get more powerful based on getting stacks due to Kills/Assists.
That was a lot harder to explain than I thought it would be.
On September 29 2011 01:19 Zhiroo wrote: What does snowball mean? I keep hearing it a lot. Pardon my ignorance.
Imagine a snowball rolling down a snowy hill, getting bigger and bigger as it picks up more snow. It's that.
It's the idea of "getting ahead and staying ahead". Champions (like Akali) that scale well with items get more and more ahead with each kill, because they get more items than you and can farm more. Essentially, with each kill, it becomes easier for Akali to get the next kill, which makes her stronger and easier to get the next kill, and so on.
Champions like this tend to have really sporadic games, where one game they get a few early kills and then keep dominating with their lead, but another game they die or get zoned out early and they're useless because they can't keep up. Akali is one, LeBlanc is (sort of) another. Most carries can snowball, some more than others. Vayne with a few early kills for good items just becomes a terror in the mid game because she can just crap all over most enemies when built.
There are also "snowball items", like Mejai's or Sword of the Occult, that get big boosts on killing a champion or getting an assist.
I see thanks for the explanation. I noticed that I was able to hold up even though I suck at farming with Akali at the moment by just getting lots of kills.
On September 28 2011 20:49 ZERG_RUSSIAN wrote: Am I the only one who feels like Akali hard counters Garen when played right? Just sit back and q harass til he's too low to trade and then win.
Maybe, but Q without proc doesn't do much damage... He's got the ability to Q and spin if you go in for last hits (which you will have to if you are trying to get him low with Q harass). Even if you do go in for last hits and shroud before he silences you, he'll still be able to get a couple ticks of spin off.
And if by some chance your Q harass is wearing him down, he can just camp in the brush to heal with his passive (+ one of the 3 pots he opened with).
Iunno, maybe I'm biased. It seems like a case of getting minimal harass on him, and missing out on last hits that you would have Q'd safely... or leaving yourself vulnerable to a Q+ spin combo when you go in to last hit.
I'd probably just stick to the safer play of using Q to last hit.
Might be a better matchup if you start boots and the Garen doesn't... but I'm used to Garen's starting boots.
Let me know if I'm missing anything here, cause if there is some way to play the lane out as a favourable matchup then I'd love to be able to.
Rylais doesn't set up a smoother, safer midgame. You warding the map does that. The moment you get your giant's belt, your 'omg no hp' issue disappears. Good players aren't rushing gunblade because they're trolling. They're rushing it because it gives akali absolutely freakish lane sustain which lets her rice harder and subsequently snowball harder. Rylai's benefits are completely overshadowed by gunblade unless your team has poor ward coverage and you're prone to taking stupid risks.
But hey, most teams have poor ward coverage and most akali players are prone to taking stupid risks.
What? what does wards have to do anything with it? He's talking about teamfights, not farming the lane. By the time you even get your gunblade, it's drag fight stage and teams are roaming for ganks. Akali is meant to thrive in teamfights, not from farming lanes all day. Having that rylais (or most of the components of it) by the first major team fight is much more useful for akali than having parts or the whole gunblade.
he obv didnt read my post -.-
You realize team fights don't just randomly happen right? Teams force fights or wander into them by mistake.
The only time you're going to get rylais much earlier than gunblade is if you skip revolver or sheen, and if you skip revolver or sheen I sincerely wonder how the fuck you're going to lane vs the majority of decent-level lane opponents in the game.
As for gunblade being an item you get once laning is over: You will generally have enough for a gunblade in under 16 minutes if you are ricing correctly regardless of kills/dragon/towers. The parts for gunblade both greatly assist in laning sustainability as well. Tome, Wand and Giant's belt? They don't.
Starting to see how picking the gimp route to akali doesn't add up?
While I agree, you have to be fair and acknowledge that Giant's Belt aids more in sustain than Pickaxe, and Wand gives more burst than it. Gunblade is better when taken as a whole, but I think the parts go to Rylai's.
Yeah, but "parts" of Gunblade include "completed revolver" which is pretty damn awesome early game. The cutlass half is definitely less awesome, of course, but once you get the cutlass completed (even if gunblade isnt done yet) you have the on-active slow to pop as a followup to your R. Your example of pickaxe is pretty silly when that's not the first thing you pick up for a gunblade, whereas wand/belt are your two favored options to start a rylais.
I've pretty much played exclusively for a good 3 weeks and I still haven't found an answer to laning against akali and I say it is 100% impossible unless the akali doesn't start with boots+3. actually akali is the only champion I can't beat I think.
Any advice? Maybe if it is actually unwinnable, who would be a good counterpick to akali? I'm pretty confident in my gragas vs akali.
Rylais doesn't set up a smoother, safer midgame. You warding the map does that. The moment you get your giant's belt, your 'omg no hp' issue disappears. Good players aren't rushing gunblade because they're trolling. They're rushing it because it gives akali absolutely freakish lane sustain which lets her rice harder and subsequently snowball harder. Rylai's benefits are completely overshadowed by gunblade unless your team has poor ward coverage and you're prone to taking stupid risks.
But hey, most teams have poor ward coverage and most akali players are prone to taking stupid risks.
What? what does wards have to do anything with it? He's talking about teamfights, not farming the lane. By the time you even get your gunblade, it's drag fight stage and teams are roaming for ganks. Akali is meant to thrive in teamfights, not from farming lanes all day. Having that rylais (or most of the components of it) by the first major team fight is much more useful for akali than having parts or the whole gunblade.
he obv didnt read my post -.-
You realize team fights don't just randomly happen right? Teams force fights or wander into them by mistake.
The only time you're going to get rylais much earlier than gunblade is if you skip revolver or sheen, and if you skip revolver or sheen I sincerely wonder how the fuck you're going to lane vs the majority of decent-level lane opponents in the game.
As for gunblade being an item you get once laning is over: You will generally have enough for a gunblade in under 16 minutes if you are ricing correctly regardless of kills/dragon/towers. The parts for gunblade both greatly assist in laning sustainability as well. Tome, Wand and Giant's belt? They don't.
Starting to see how picking the gimp route to akali doesn't add up?
While I agree, you have to be fair and acknowledge that Giant's Belt aids more in sustain than Pickaxe, and Wand gives more burst than it. Gunblade is better when taken as a whole, but I think the parts go to Rylai's.
Yeah, but "parts" of Gunblade include "completed revolver" which is pretty damn awesome early game. The cutlass half is definitely less awesome, of course, but once you get the cutlass completed (even if gunblade isnt done yet) you have the on-active slow to pop as a followup to your R. Your example of pickaxe is pretty silly when that's not the first thing you pick up for a gunblade, whereas wand/belt are your two favored options to start a rylais.
Well yeah, but the discussion was "After Revolver, go for Gunblade or Rylai's or ???". I can see the merits of both, but I think moving into the midgame it's better to have a Revolver and Giant's belt than Revolver and Pickaxe and maybe Scepter. I'm still pretty undecided, though.
On September 29 2011 05:55 RoieTRS wrote: Hey akali players
I've pretty much played exclusively for a good 3 weeks and I still haven't found an answer to laning against akali and I say it is 100% impossible unless the akali doesn't start with boots+3. actually akali is the only champion I can't beat I think.
Any advice? Maybe if it is actually unwinnable, who would be a good counterpick to akali? I'm pretty confident in my gragas vs akali.
Akali counters are basically champs that can out trade her. For the most part, Garen does pretty well, same with Lee Sin. Burst casters can do okay pre-6 since they can nuke her from far away and she can't really retaliate. The super sustain guys like yorick udyr and ww can force the lane into a farm-fest, but they have to play more passively lvls 1-3 while they wait for their sustain skills to really kick in.
Gragas can do okay 'cause he can just sit really really far away and just farm/harass with Q and never have to get close to Akali. If Akali approaches him into melee range, Gragas body slam does a pretty significant amount of damage if it's single target.
Back to Gunblade v. Rylais. I tried a gunblade rush in ranked today and it felt okay. Getting the revolver definitely helps lane sustain but the lull between getting revolver and finishing gunblade felt a little iffy and I had to play much more passive. If I go Rylais first, I grab belt first, which gives me a good chunk of hp that I can use to trade burst with and usually come out on top seeing how spammable akali's burst rotation is. Once I finished Gunblade things were pretty chill, but I just had to be much more mindful of when/how I enter teamfights. Which usually involved sitting way far away twiddling my thumbs until all the enemy shit has been blown then flank their carries. With Rylais I could afford to be a little more reckless cause that extra chunk of hp helps to let me get on their carries and shroud.
On September 29 2011 05:55 RoieTRS wrote: Hey akali players
I've pretty much played exclusively for a good 3 weeks and I still haven't found an answer to laning against akali and I say it is 100% impossible unless the akali doesn't start with boots+3. actually akali is the only champion I can't beat I think.
Any advice? Maybe if it is actually unwinnable, who would be a good counterpick to akali? I'm pretty confident in my gragas vs akali.
Lee Sin destroys Akali. I have no idea about Gragas vs. Akali.
On September 28 2011 20:49 ZERG_RUSSIAN wrote: Am I the only one who feels like Akali hard counters Garen when played right? Just sit back and q harass til he's too low to trade and then win.
I have never lost to any akali(generally crush her) but then again I play vs bad ppl.
I really don't see how akali could win tho.. I'll just last hit everything, pot up, then come back with a brutalizer and a dorans and destroy her.
On September 29 2011 05:55 RoieTRS wrote: Hey akali players
I've pretty much played exclusively for a good 3 weeks and I still haven't found an answer to laning against akali and I say it is 100% impossible unless the akali doesn't start with boots+3. actually akali is the only champion I can't beat I think.
Any advice? Maybe if it is actually unwinnable, who would be a good counterpick to akali? I'm pretty confident in my gragas vs akali.
If an Akali doesn't start boots 3 pots... chances are they don't have a proper akali runes + mastery setup... which means they probably aren't very good at her.
Typical counters are Lee sin / Garen / Kass. Gragas can definitely be good against her - barrel can still hit her in her shroud, body slam for escaping or if she gets close. I haven't played the matchup in a while though... Gragas's barrels are pretty weak early... so I feel like an Akali with both masteries procced could establish an advantage especially at level 2 and 3 with Q and shroud. Depends on whether it was mid or top... Iunno, playing the matchup would probably help me get a better idea.
On September 29 2011 05:55 RoieTRS wrote: Hey akali players
I've pretty much played exclusively for a good 3 weeks and I still haven't found an answer to laning against akali and I say it is 100% impossible unless the akali doesn't start with boots+3. actually akali is the only champion I can't beat I think.
Any advice? Maybe if it is actually unwinnable, who would be a good counterpick to akali? I'm pretty confident in my gragas vs akali.
Play Kennen. He can outlane Akali AND he can 1v1 Akali at any point in the game. I haven't played enough Trundle to say anything about him.
I just destroyed a kennen with akali in my last game. The trick is to let him push a bit and carefully watch his energy pool while getting lasthits under shroud when he pushes too hard. When his energy drops by a certain amount then jump him.
I actually pick malzahar against akali mid. before 6 malz just completely controls the lane with Q and E and after 6 she has to be real ballsy to jump him. It can go both ways though but with a strong start malz wins those trades. Others that certainly work well are: swain, morgana, brand, anivia and I even think kassadin should do very well against her mid. Not that every of those matchups are foolproof or something but I think those champions have the luxury to control the lane in their favor while the akali player can only count on mistakes and punish them accordingly.
On September 29 2011 14:22 tobi9999 wrote: Morgana destroyyyyyyyssssssssssssssss akali
or at least that's how I feel
Akali has to be brain dead to jump on morgana, and any harrass that Akali does is just spellvamped back by morg.
Plus, Morg is ungankable and can push all day.
A good akali should be able to hold her ground, she will have to take lasthits but when morg's ulti isn't up it's easy to get zonen out because if you pool her shroud a smart akali will jump on you. Idk, the akali I was against carried their team super hard but morg vs akali felt like a even lane to me (when the akali knows her shit, that is, if she's nothing special (run of the mill akali) then she'd get destroyed most likely).. Given I was winning on CS I didn't DESTROY her
On September 29 2011 14:30 Wala.Revolution wrote: Iirc morg ult under akali shroud doesn't follow her.
Lane seems even to me; what's morg going to do other than push lanes and miss q if she shoots it and akali will just lasthit/q.
you never want to be permanently pushed under your turret at the midlane. especially if your opponent is hard to kill, such as morgana.
Toplane such things matter less but the mid is a very active lane. You are bound to help your jungler in skirmishes or dragon fights. You should not miss opportunities to gank. A midlane that is pushed to your turret by anything that is not easily killed, such as morgana/swain/anivia (which are all very strong pushers with bluebuff at least) means that everyone is safe from you and results in 4on3 mid/bottom and 3on2 mid/top skirmishes.
Morgana is one of the best picks against akali mid, since she can push her safely and help in ganks and jungle fights while akali sits under her turret, desperately trying to control the wave. Basicly this forces the other lanes and your jungler to play conservatively while your opponents can control the flow of the game.
It is a different story if you and your jungler are able to kill the reckless pusher. The more offensive type casters such as brand/malz/cassio/annie are far easyer to kill before they reach their turret, when they push you then they have to be sure about getting support from their jungle if needed. But hard to kill targets can often shrug off enough damage until they get support and turn things around in their favor.
On September 29 2011 21:33 topoulo wrote: Akali is getting destroyed by cc - stuns mostly - tanks teams and high defense + warmongs type items.
She kills range ad's like ashe or soft ap champions ( mages ) thats her job.
akali in high elo is situational cause she can be shut down way too easy.
Kennen is far better champion in the right hands go watch some pro tournaments
thats a bold statement. I've seen enough akali bans against westrice to be able to deny this.
Actually is westrice and some other top players who claim these and is pretty evident from latest tournaments.
No 1 bothers bann akali lately , they almost always ban lee sin , orianna ( even with the nerfs is stupid strong ) alistar - brand , sometimes morgana and then depends
The things you said about akali is are all very well known. But claiming kennen to be a far better champion is kinda bold since both champions have completely different weaknesses and strengths.
Akali is strong even against stuns, all you have to do is wait out some of their stuns and you can abuse that in team fights and spam q from the farthest range. She obviously is even stronger when your opponents don't have as many stuns but she's strong regardless.
I generally don't have a problem with stuns as long as I pop W as soon as I R into a fight. They stun right off the bat, but I'm stealthed so it doesn't really matter all that much. If they're intelligent, they'll wait for Smoke Bomb to disappear, but you may be able to kill them by then. It's not impossible to fight against.
On September 29 2011 12:10 clickrush wrote: I just destroyed a kennen with akali in my last game. The trick is to let him push a bit and carefully watch his energy pool while getting lasthits under shroud when he pushes too hard. When his energy drops by a certain amount then jump him.
I actually pick malzahar against akali mid. before 6 malz just completely controls the lane with Q and E and after 6 she has to be real ballsy to jump him. It can go both ways though but with a strong start malz wins those trades. Others that certainly work well are: swain, morgana, brand, anivia and I even think kassadin should do very well against her mid. Not that every of those matchups are foolproof or something but I think those champions have the luxury to control the lane in their favor while the akali player can only count on mistakes and punish them accordingly.
Malz is pretty sick good vs akali even post 6 if he can just Q over himself as soon as akali jumps at him. Silenced akali can't do shit, you are free to kill her to your leisure.
LeBlanc is great against akali. Just harass pre-6 and it is easy win lane. Also, pink wards work too well. A good akali can still function without shroud decently but it makes the trade-free harass go down quite a bit.
So I've been some akali in the last little while (when she isn't banned) and enjoying her a fair bit. I have a few questions, so hopefully someone who's played her more than me will be able to answer them:
1. the new masteries - most quides still go 21-9-0 or 21-0-9. Would it ever make sense to go something crazy like 30-0-0 (or 27-3-0 or so)? She does quite a bit of physical damage especially once she gets Lich Bane. The attack speed is somewhat wasted (though not entirely imo). Anyways, is 10% apen worth veteran's scars? The last 3 could go into armour, lifesteal, energy, apen, or even havoc (since it affects all her damage).
2. lifesteal - my understanding is that lifesteal should proc off all on-hit damage so that should include lich bane, her passive, and consuming marks - is this correct? it would make lifesteal quite good on her (not saying you should ever have any more than gunblade + maybe the masteries though).
3. the standard for runes seems to be ap quints, ap/lvl blues, hp/lvl yellows, and 7 ad + 2 mpen reds. Doing some bizarre math you'd also get your ad passive up off of 1 ad quint (2.25) + 5 ad reds (4.75) + 3 pts from masteries (3), and your ap passive up off of 5 l1 ap from masteries (4 + 1/lvl) + 2 ap quints (9.9) + 3 flat ap blues (2.97) + 6 ap/lvl blues (1.02 ap/lvl) = 18.89 ap x 105% (from masteries) ~= 19.8 which rounds up to 20. Then you could run 2 more mpen runes. So my question is, is 1.9 mpen (at lvl 1-18) worth ~2.5 ap at lvl 1 and ~11 ap @ lvl 18?
[you can also do some interesting things with the math - if you run all ap/lvl blues you don't get your bonus magic damage passive until lvl 2, but you're trading 2 mpen for flat 5 ap at all levels]
I got akali yesterday and played 4 games with her. I'm doing so terrible, 3 of the 4 games I had really abhorrent scores. Any tip for laning akaki early game?
Please read the whole thread! I'm sure you'll find something that will help.
Also, saying "I'm bad at laning with Akali" doesn't really give us anything to help you. Do you have bad CS? Are you getting outplayed? Are you going into bad matchups? What are your runes and masteries? Try to give us as much background info as you can so we can help you.
You can't expect people to spit out free information if you're not going to take the time to put effort into your post.
On December 03 2011 19:10 dnastyx wrote: Please read the whole thread! I'm sure you'll find something that will help.
Also, saying "I'm bad at laning with Akali" doesn't really give us anything to help you. Do you have bad CS? Are you getting outplayed? Are you going into bad matchups? What are your runes and masteries? Try to give us as much background info as you can so we can help you.
You can't expect people to spit out free information if you're not going to take the time to put effort into your post.
My apologies. I did read the whole thread, but mostly it was a discussion about items : rylai vs hextech to be exact.
My runes are AD marks, AP quints, flat armor seals and scaling MR glyphs. So I can comfortably start boots and pots. Mostly my problem is laning pre lvl6 since I am really bad at using shroud to zone out people and hence end up getting zoned out myself and low on cs. I've only played a few games with her yet. Also maybe it was kinda unlucky I got morgana and cass to lane against in my first few games. Basically any advice regarding using shroud properly and also how to deal with lanes like brand, morg, cass etc.
Even if you don't want to dedicate a special rune page for her you can have both passives trip by lv 2 with pretty standard rune pages +masteries. I think someone already kind of broke this down a couple pages up so just go look at that~
Use your shroud to cs over trying to zone them out. If you don't know how to use shroud to harass effectively anyway yet this seems like a better use for it. Usually you'll want to throw shroud, toss a Q at them.. If they come up to cs you just hit them..
Morg will spellshield your Q.. I'm not 100% positive.. but i think you can twiddle her mana down if she's forced to ss every Q you throw... she'll probably switch to perma pushing the lane with pool... then you just cs and harass while she's on CD. If her ult's down you can abuse her..
Brand - don't let him destroy you early on... at 6 you're burst will beat his and you can fight while he's on CD
Actually, I think that's mostly true for most casters.. Just farm until your burst wrecks them..
On December 04 2011 06:55 dnastyx wrote: Are you going mid? People usually don't play those champions top.
Well since Ive been trying to practice her in blind pick, mostly I'm going mid. Once I went solo top vs a garen, the second time I was 1v2 vs cass & nidalee. @koreasilver yes, I am using the correct runepage for her.
So Akali can jungle like a boss with Spell Vamp Quints. I only have two so far, but I ran 21/9/0 and was able to start Amp Tome + 1 Potion and clear without issue (even without a leash). Since you're activating your passive with an Amp Tome you can take whatever Glyphs suit your fancy.
I imagine something like 3/11/16 for masteries could also work, but I went with 21/9/0 since it seemed better suited for being an assassin.
If you just continuously clear the jungle until level 6 you farm enough gold to buy Boots 2 or Boots 1 + Revolver/Sheen.
On December 15 2011 07:25 Seuss wrote: So Akali can jungle like a boss with Spell Vamp Quints. I only have two so far, but I ran 21/9/0 and was able to start Amp Tome + 1 Potion and clear without issue (even without a leash). Since you're activating your passive with an Amp Tome you can take whatever Glyphs suit your fancy.
I imagine something like 3/11/16 for masteries could also work, but I went with 21/9/0 since it seemed better suited for being an assassin.
If you just continuously clear the jungle until level 6 you farm enough gold to buy Boots 2 or Boots 1 + Revolver/Sheen.
Akali practically has no gank potential before lvl 6 though. I just have a huge problem jungling with champs that are like that because you give off no threat and thus basically surrender map control to the enemy jungler. Doing this exposes your lanes too much and the enemy team has a noticable advantage in the early game due to it. Isn't this one of the main reasons why Warwick fell out of favour so much among junglers?
On December 15 2011 07:25 Seuss wrote: So Akali can jungle like a boss with Spell Vamp Quints. I only have two so far, but I ran 21/9/0 and was able to start Amp Tome + 1 Potion and clear without issue (even without a leash). Since you're activating your passive with an Amp Tome you can take whatever Glyphs suit your fancy.
I imagine something like 3/11/16 for masteries could also work, but I went with 21/9/0 since it seemed better suited for being an assassin.
If you just continuously clear the jungle until level 6 you farm enough gold to buy Boots 2 or Boots 1 + Revolver/Sheen.
Akali practically has no gank potential before lvl 6 though. I just have a huge problem jungling with champs that are like that because you give off no threat and thus basically surrender map control to the enemy jungler. Doing this exposes your lanes too much and the enemy team has a noticable advantage in the early game due to it. Isn't this one of the main reasons why Warwick fell out of favour so much among junglers?
Jungle Akali's ganks may be slightly better than they used to now that Q and R proc lizard buff, but yeah low ganking power is one of her weaknesses. Smite working with spell vamp is always amusing lategame, though.
On December 15 2011 07:25 Seuss wrote: So Akali can jungle like a boss with Spell Vamp Quints. I only have two so far, but I ran 21/9/0 and was able to start Amp Tome + 1 Potion and clear without issue (even without a leash). Since you're activating your passive with an Amp Tome you can take whatever Glyphs suit your fancy.
I imagine something like 3/11/16 for masteries could also work, but I went with 21/9/0 since it seemed better suited for being an assassin.
If you just continuously clear the jungle until level 6 you farm enough gold to buy Boots 2 or Boots 1 + Revolver/Sheen.
Akali practically has no gank potential before lvl 6 though. I just have a huge problem jungling with champs that are like that because you give off no threat and thus basically surrender map control to the enemy jungler. Doing this exposes your lanes too much and the enemy team has a noticable advantage in the early game due to it. Isn't this one of the main reasons why Warwick fell out of favour so much among junglers?
She has a slow and high burst. I'd say that's pretty good for ganking.
Actually shrowd can be used offensively, it's not the best use for it, but it works really really fine, especially if you use it before a teamfight to get some better positioning-cloak-armor/mres.
Plus, after a teamfight, if your opponents start running you could use shrowd to annoy/chase any carry who's fleeing.
On December 16 2011 00:23 Vibes wrote: Smoke screen for offensive slow? its just a escaping tools in my eyes - am i wrong here?!
A 14% slow (rank 1) is nothing to sneeze at when chasing someone down, you just have to be very smart about where you drop it. Placing it directly on an opponent is almost always a mistake because they're already halfway out. You want to place it where they're going so they have to either run straight through or walk around it. It's especially good at punishing people for running into sidelane bushes.
Reading this guide and other guides it really puts emphasis on both of her passive abilities really on for the 10% more magic damage and the 8% spell vamp, but is it really worth it to make your first 10 minutes in game easier?
This guide and others I've seen a lot of emphasis on mark of strength to get the 8% spell vamp but do I really need that so early and is it worth sacrificing extra damage, also the first item I buy is going to be a hextech so do I really need a lot of emphasis on the flat ap aspect to get the 20 ap for the 10% extra damage?
I've only just started playing Akali and have brought sick scores already and I assume its early game where i struggle the most, so I'm just curious if I should be putting emphasis on those sorts of aspects, and going as extreme as getting 7 flat AD runes to get my passive 8% spell vamp? Specially if I'm opening boots and 3 pots.
The 8% spellvamp is what allows you to stick around and cs if something bad happens to you early on (you got jumped on with a mistake and traded very unfavourable, you got lvl 2 ganked by the enemy jungler, etc. The spell vamp is a pretty big deal and I would never skimp on it.
And the extra damage is really nothing to scoff at for the other passive. That's what allows you to bully the hell out of some certain lane opponents, and having both passives up allows you to trade favourably. You want to be able to dish out damage and heal if you have to trade. I really think the AD marks and the AP quints are nonnegotiable.
AD Marks are essential. This is because there is only one AD item in the game Akali wants, and it was nerfed to the point where it's a questionable buy. Moreover the AD component costs 975g, which is a fairly long time to wait to activate your primary method of sustain.
I don't think AP Quints are as essential. While more damage is useful, it's not as critical as the sustain from her AD passive. Spell Vamp quints are arguably far better for the same reason that AD Marks trump anything else, Spell Vamp is the primary mechanism which allows Akali to win lanes.
On March 09 2012 06:29 D u o wrote: Reading this guide and other guides it really puts emphasis on both of her passive abilities really on for the 10% more magic damage and the 8% spell vamp, but is it really worth it to make your first 10 minutes in game easier?
This guide and others I've seen a lot of emphasis on mark of strength to get the 8% spell vamp but do I really need that so early and is it worth sacrificing extra damage, also the first item I buy is going to be a hextech so do I really need a lot of emphasis on the flat ap aspect to get the 20 ap for the 10% extra damage?
I've only just started playing Akali and have brought sick scores already and I assume its early game where i struggle the most, so I'm just curious if I should be putting emphasis on those sorts of aspects, and going as extreme as getting 7 flat AD runes to get my passive 8% spell vamp? Specially if I'm opening boots and 3 pots.
What else do you really want to use the rune slots for? Mpen reds and ap/lvl blues I'm guessing? If you're going revolver -> gunblade how late do you find you get the AD to proc your passive, something like 10 mins in? I'd much rather have spellvamp than Mpen, to give that extra boost in pre 6 laning.
On March 09 2012 07:29 Dgiese wrote: What else do you really want to use the rune slots for? Mpen reds and ap/lvl blues I'm guessing? If you're going revolver -> gunblade how late do you find you get the AD to proc your passive, something like 10 mins in? I'd much rather have spellvamp than Mpen, to give that extra boost in pre 6 laning.
Basically, why not proc your passives?
I'm not disagreeing with you at all I'm just curious if trying to rework in those limitations is even really worth it. But it seems like I kind of have to because I'm not going to get that extra life steal. I answered my own question by playing the game I suppose once I played vs better people I started having laning issues a bit so the only answer is to go for something of the sort to get my those 2 extra passives instantly. Thanks anyways. :D
I've been playing akali a lot lately, it's kinda nice to cloth five top lane (against some ad), take the golems and start bullying at lvl 2. Only laners i cant seem to beat are rumble, pantheon and yorick. Rumble might be possible with some early mres, idk, but the other two seem nigh impossible.
tl;dr at end of post. Okay, so I have been trying something with Akali, and I'd like some people to tell me what's wrong with using it. (assuming there is)
First off, Akali's passives trigger at 19.5 AP and 9.5 AD. So we want those two values at level 1. Why do we want them at level 1? For Spellvamp and extra damage on auto attacks. My first thought here was: If we're throwing AD runes for Spellvamp, why not actually get Spellvamp quints too? We get 7.916% Spellvamp for the first 9.5 AD, and we can get another 6% Spellvamp by using our quint slots on Spellvamp. So the idea is to still hit 19.5 AP and 9.5 AD at level 1, but without Quints or items.
First of all, we're going to take 21/x/y for masteries. This can give up to 4 AP, 3 AD, 0.5 AD/lvl, 1 AP/lvl, and 105%AP. Notably, the 4 points in Archmage mean we only need 18.57 AP to trigger the passive. (19.5/1.05=18.571) If we took all of these(I don't), we would need 5 AD, and 14.71 AP from runes. Since we want Sorcery and AK mastery, we need to drop at least 4 mastery points if we want to stick to 21/x/y.
Now, everyone knows that the most efficient non-quint for AP is glyphs, and for AD is marks. So 9 AP glyphs gives 8.91 AP while 9 AD marks give 8.55 AD. This more than covers our AD needs, but doesn't meet our AP requirement. So we move on to marks and seals for AP. Both give .59 per rune, but we prefer marks for Penetration and Attack Damage. So we fill up with AP seals to gain another 5.31 AP.
These would give us totals of 8.91+5.31+4+1/lvl for 19.22 AP and 8.55+3+.5/lvl AD for 12.05 AD. Now we can remove runes and masteries to go back down to 18.571 AP and 9.5 AD. So we want to remove .6485 AP and 2.55 AD. The AP expense can be recovered by taking out an AP seal, or taking out 2 points from AP/level mastery. The AD is more flexible, as points can be recovered from AD/lvl or flat AD masteries, and up to 2 AD marks can be removed. However you do it, you'll want to recover at least 4 mastery points for Sorcery and AK mastery if you don't want to run 25/x/y instead of 21/x/y.
The way I have currently settled on is 21/9/0 with 1 Crit chance mark, 8 AD marks, 9 AP seals, 9 AP glyphs, 2 points in Brute Force, 2 points in Blast, no points in Deadliness, and full points in Archmage and Mental Force. (I currently throw the 2 recovered points from Blast in Lifesteal, but an argument could be made for plenty of things, including back into Blast)
8*.95+2=9.6, and 1.05(9*.99+9*.59+4+.5)=19.656
tl;dr: I tried to have both passives + Spellvamp quints for 14% Spellvamp at level 1. There is some leeway in how to finalize it.
On March 09 2012 09:41 Shauni wrote: I've been playing akali a lot lately, it's kinda nice to cloth five top lane (against some ad), take the golems and start bullying at lvl 2. Only laners i cant seem to beat are rumble, pantheon and yorick. Rumble might be possible with some early mres, idk, but the other two seem nigh impossible.
Mord, Garen, Lee Sin, Irelia and I'd imagine Udyr all do well vs Akali.
Can anyone give any tips on how to survive in team fights as Akali? She's one of my favorite heroes to play, but past the early midgame gank period, I just end up getting focused down when I try to pressure their squishies. By this point, I've generally got Revolver and Rylai's. After that, I generally start focusing on building a Lichbane.
So far, the most success I've gotten is to wait until CCs have gone out, then just play like a wuss and QRQ combo in, then run until my Q is back up.
id say akali is a situational pick to punish low CC lineups. Before her nerf and the gunblade nerf she was even banworthy if you didnt want to think about her as an opponent's lastpick when building a team. Now she is in a place where she can really do well against certain lineups or do really really terrible against others. Generally it is recommended to force a prolonged ganking phase by invading jungle alot and heavy warding/counterwarding (yes you should buy pinks/oracles on akali if you invade). By invading and ganking/splitpushing you force both teams to split up alot. A general rule of thumb is to only pick akali if your team has more CC than theirs.
tl;dr: I tried to have both passives + Spellvamp quints for 14% Spellvamp at level 1. There is some leeway in how to finalize it.
Is it worthwhile though?
Not likely. You activate Akali's AP passive to help her win trades. Your setup defeats the purpose because you'll take more damage when you trade, offsetting the gain.
Basically, you should either activate the AP passive at level 1 with AP quints or you should use Spell Vamp quints. I wouldn't try to do both.
So you're saying it's not enough to activate the AP passive, you want to maximize the bonus AA damage for trades. So we just get the AD passive because it only costs us our marks. Yeah?
Not exactly. The point is that you're trying to maximize your ability to trade which includes AA damage, ability damage, damage taken, self-healing etc. The AP passive increases your AA damage, but with your setup you're drastically increasing the damage you take. The net result is you actually do worse when trading because your opponent gains more damage than you do.
We activate the AD passive for three reasons:
It's a lot of self-healing.
It's cheap to do so. While MPen is "optimal" AD Marks give nearly as much damage early on.
Activating the AD passive through items is extremely awkward.
The AP passive isn't as important because it will naturally be activated as soon as you buy something beyond your starting item, and activating it early can be costly.
I'd argue that the AP passive is extremely important too as it's what allows Akali to really dish out a lot of damage. The problem with not having it active at least by level 2-3 is that it neuters your ability to really dish out a lot of damage if the situation occurs. You want to have that immediate threat and killing ability when you hit level 6 even if you haven't gone back, which happens pretty often if you play the early levels carefully. For example, you can often completely bully a Tryndamere out of lane and force him to ult or die when you hit level 6 if both of you haven't gone back. The sheer damage you get out of having the AP active up is really important. You really don't lose out from having the passive up just because you're going to be getting a revolver as your first item anyway, since you're going to be improving your passive. As for trying to squeeze in spellvamp quints and having both your passives up, I don't think it would be worth sacrificing your defensive seals and glyphs. You would just get wrecked.
On March 09 2012 09:41 Shauni wrote: I've been playing akali a lot lately, it's kinda nice to cloth five top lane (against some ad), take the golems and start bullying at lvl 2. Only laners i cant seem to beat are rumble, pantheon and yorick. Rumble might be possible with some early mres, idk, but the other two seem nigh impossible.
Mord, Garen, Lee Sin, Irelia and I'd imagine Udyr all do well vs Akali.
Akali actually beats Morde. I've played a lot against Morde top and ended up zoning them in about 90% of the games. The remaining 10% is losing due to persistent lvl 2 ganks. vs Morde you have to be really aggressive early on or you'll slowly start losing lane. Garen is winnable if you play passive early on, same with Lee Sin. Lee Sin obviously scary pre6, many picks him to counter Akali, but i feel that Akali wins trades after lvl 6, you can force fights under shroud and try to avoid his e/q. Irelia and Akali are quite even, the one who farms/harasses best pre 6 will win. Udyr isn't a big threat early, but he can probably outfarm you after lvl 7-8 by winning trades, but then again he is severely op and beats basically all top laners.
And regarding being too squishy later in the game, I feel that it's best to build either GA or Aegis after your rylai. Lich bane is stupid to get before some survivability, you do enough damage with revolver and rylai pretty far into the game anyway.
On March 10 2012 03:01 koreasilver wrote: As for trying to squeeze in spellvamp quints and having both your passives up, I don't think it would be worth sacrificing your defensive seals and glyphs. You would just get wrecked.
You're not losing any defensive Glyphs, they're all AP already. And most people run HP/Level seals, so you're losing mid and late game defense, not so much early game. That could easily be an argument for Armor seals though.
I think the moral of this discussion is that you just want as much early AP as possible for both Ability damage and bonus AA damage. So I guess Spellvamp Quints take away too much damage to be worth getting back a bit more health. (and you lose some of the healing from the damage you no longer do as well)
If you're going against a pure AD champ then yeah, you would take all AP glyphs, but if you're against a mixed or an AP champ, you can easily use a rune page with mostly flat mr glyphs. I used to have two pages for Akali when I played her until I stopped because having two rune pages just for one champion is just way too annoying.
I don't remember the exact way I used to have it, but I had one page with armor seals and ap/lvl glyphs and one page with health/lvl seals and a mixture of flat ap and flat mr glyphs that got the AP passive up at lvl 3.
On March 10 2012 03:01 koreasilver wrote: I'd argue that the AP passive is extremely important too as it's what allows Akali to really dish out a lot of damage. The problem with not having it active at least by level 2-3 is that it neuters your ability to really dish out a lot of damage if the situation occurs. You want to have that immediate threat and killing ability when you hit level 6 even if you haven't gone back, which happens pretty often if you play the early levels carefully. For example, you can often completely bully a Tryndamere out of lane and force him to ult or die when you hit level 6 if both of you haven't gone back. The sheer damage you get out of having the AP active up is really important. You really don't lose out from having the passive up just because you're going to be getting a revolver as your first item anyway, since you're going to be improving your passive. As for trying to squeeze in spellvamp quints and having both your passives up, I don't think it would be worth sacrificing your defensive seals and glyphs. You would just get wrecked.
You're overestimating the amount of damage you get out of the AP passive, especially after the nerf.
Assume you're level 3 with AD seals and Brutality (11.55 bonus AD). Your total AD at level 3 will be 74.15. Thus the AP passive adds 6 damage before MR, and only ~4 damage afterward. That's notable, but it's not what "allows Akali to really dish out a lot of damage". In a double Q combo (Q -> Wait -> AA -> Q -> AA) the AP passive represents a mere 2.2% of the total damage you deal.
As you build AP the damage becomes much more significant, but the initial activation isn't all that critical. The reason why it's been fairly sacrosanct up until recently is because AP Quints are extremely good on any AP, and once you have 15 AP it's trivial to shoot for 19.5. Now that there are Spell Vamp quints the choice isn't so clear cut, especially as there is plenty of itemization for AP but very little for Spell Vamp.
How do you more experienced Akalis feel about maxing W before E if laning vs someone who can hit you through your shroud? Like Orianna, Rumble, Amumu jungle, etc. The resistance boosts seem to have more utility, at least in my head.
On July 02 2012 03:44 nmbr wrote: How do you more experienced Akalis feel about maxing W before E if laning vs someone who can hit you through your shroud? Like Orianna, Rumble, etc. The resistance boosts seem to have more utility, at least in my head.
I've always used the E as more of a farming skill than for dealing damage. I feel Crescent Slash uses up way too much energy to do damage againts enemy champions. I would still max E over W, but mostly to just farm. It's her only farming ability and you want to get as much gold as possible so you can pick up your big items.
The invisibility is enough I think to keep Twilight Shroud at level 1, as well as the slow it gives.
On July 02 2012 03:44 nmbr wrote: How do you more experienced Akalis feel about maxing W before E if laning vs someone who can hit you through your shroud? Like Orianna, Rumble, Amumu jungle, etc. The resistance boosts seem to have more utility, at least in my head.
It's not really a laning question. By the time the difference between QEW vs QWE becomes noticeable you're in the mid-game.
I like maxing W before E when I know there's going to be a lot of unavoidable damage in teamfights. +40 Armor/MR a big chunk of extra survivability.
Hi, I'm new to lol, lvl15. My mains right now are kassadin and akali ( I like so assassins I guess) can someone tell me why hextec is considered core for akali and a waste for kassadin? They seem so similar, but the general wisdom seems to be that akali needs the sustain, and kassadin would rather have something with more ap.
I feel the lack on both ends: with akali I rarely get both litchbane and deathcap up, and miss that uber burst. With kass I always feel the need for some sort of life steal or heal.
So why the difference? And what is ideal for each?
Most of Kassadin's damage in a burst combination is AoE (W/R), so the healing they provide from Spell Vamp is reduced by 2/3rds. He's also a mana-based champion with relatively long cooldowns/restrictions on his abilities, limiting how well he can sustain himself using Spell Vamp while laning.
Akali is an energy champion whose damage is primarily single target, so she gets the full healing and never runs out of energy to sustain with.
On July 07 2012 00:32 quillian wrote: Hi, I'm new to lol, lvl15. My mains right now are kassadin and akali ( I like so assassins I guess) can someone tell me why hextec is considered core for akali and a waste for kassadin? They seem so similar, but the general wisdom seems to be that akali needs the sustain, and kassadin would rather have something with more ap.
I feel the lack on both ends: with akali I rarely get both litchbane and deathcap up, and miss that uber burst. With kass I always feel the need for some sort of life steal or heal.
So why the difference? And what is ideal for each?
Akali utilizes energy as her resource system. This means that in lane she can spam Q all the time without ever being in jeopardy of running out of mana. The more spells cast = more health healed. If Kassadin were to rush a revolver instead of catalyst or drings, he would run out of mana very quickly. The trade off just isn't worth it.
Hextech revolver also builds into Hextech gunblade which is considered core on akali. This is because she scales off of AD and AP, and she can make good use of the lifesteal and spell vamp whereas Kassadin would only use the spell vamp.
Akali has a passive that scales pretty well with AD. Gunblade+her passive gives her ridiculous amounts of self-heal. Not only that, but she has rather low cd, single target bursts which maximizes the benefits of Gunblade. It also grants her a much needed slow, especially if you opt to skip Rylais.
Kassadin plays more of a vulture/poke role. He has comparatively long cds and much of his damage is aoe, so the spellvamp isn't very good on him. Kass also doesn't need the slow. He also doesn't scale with AD at all (assuming AP kass ofc)
Do you have any suggestions on how to deal with low health issues on kass, or is just not meant to have sustain? I find myself investing in a lot of pots and having to back frequently to keep up health/mana.
my normal build is boots, doran, tear, catalyst > rod of ages, deathcap/lichbane, frozen heart if I need it.
I like having a large mana pool for R spam, as the damage scales tremendously if you can build it up.
I prefer Cata over tear in like 99% of the casters. It's been a long time since I last played Kass, but it holds true for other mana hungry champs I like (like Anivia).
Having the HP and the regen @ lvl up is worth much more and is more useful the faster you get it.
On July 07 2012 01:34 quillian wrote: ok cool, that makes sense, thanks.
Do you have any suggestions on how to deal with low health issues on kass, or is just not meant to have sustain? I find myself investing in a lot of pots and having to back frequently to keep up health/mana.
my normal build is boots, doran, tear, catalyst > rod of ages, deathcap/lichbane, frozen heart if I need it.
I like having a large mana pool for R spam, as the damage scales tremendously if you can build it up.
I go boots3pot then rush cata. a dorans if i back with at least 475 gold, but not enough to buy blasting wand. Generally, I don't like to get tear 'cause i feel like it delays my damage way too much, but some people do get it. Same deal with Philo.
My build is usually boots>cata>roa>dcap. Then Zhonyas and Abyssal; which one I get first depends on what I feel like I need more, the armor and stasis or the mr and mr reduction. I round out my build with void staff. Don't get lichbane; you shouldn't be auto-attacking your enemies as AP kass much if at all. If you want armor, go with Zhonyas not frozen heart. For boots I favor cdr boots cause you need your skills off cd as much as possible, especially after all the nerfs. If I'm dominating I do grab sorcs from time to time but I almost always sell them later in the game for cdr boots or mercs.
Sustaining in lane is pretty much covered via pots, cata passive and intelligent play. Don't trade unless you know you will come out on top, which is pretty easy against most AP mids once you hit 6.
and then a defensive item, GA or Banshees. It plays really, really well. I always felt like there was something kind of off about the standard builds and this gives pretty much everything I want.
they're good stats. same as any other champion. ad carry "uh yeah you could buy dorans. or you could just buy infinity edge and truck people." ap "yeah you could buy rings. or uh, just get deathcap? you'll, you know, beast everyone."
http://solomid.net/guides.php?g=10075 is pretty much the best guide I've found out there atm, easily beats Westrice guides. Also he suggests some REALLY slick runepages which help you to truck people like Garen/Renek or at least not get trucked by them. =P
On July 09 2012 03:11 Ota Solgryn wrote: Could any akali players provide som tips on which heros counters her and vice versa?
Top lane: Lee Sin is a pretty obvious counter, Garen is pretty good as well. Akali does well against mundo, singed, basically melee champs that aren't early game orientated. Also does well against ad carries top especially when you hit 6.
I don't know how Akali works mid-lane these days, but I hear it's not very good
On July 09 2012 03:11 Ota Solgryn wrote: Could any akali players provide som tips on which heros counters her and vice versa?
Top lane: Lee Sin is a pretty obvious counter, Garen is pretty good as well. Akali does well against mundo, singed, basically melee champs that aren't early game orientated. Also does well against ad carries top especially when you hit 6.
I don't know how Akali works mid-lane these days, but I hear it's not very good
Sion/Brand/Viktor are utter bitches to play against mid, the rest is mostly stuff you can deal with.
On July 08 2012 09:23 r.Evo wrote: http://solomid.net/guides.php?g=10075 is pretty much the best guide I've found out there atm, easily beats Westrice guides. Also he suggests some REALLY slick runepages which help you to truck people like Garen/Renek or at least not get trucked by them. =P
I dunno.. i feel l ike gunblade isnt that good any more. I mean the lifesteal&ad part of the item doesnt do a ton when you get slow from rylai and mostly utilize spells rather than AD damage.
On July 08 2012 09:23 r.Evo wrote: http://solomid.net/guides.php?g=10075 is pretty much the best guide I've found out there atm, easily beats Westrice guides. Also he suggests some REALLY slick runepages which help you to truck people like Garen/Renek or at least not get trucked by them. =P
I dunno.. i feel l ike gunblade isnt that good any more. I mean the lifesteal&ad part of the item doesnt do a ton when you get slow from rylai and mostly utilize spells rather than AD damage.
Gunblade has an active that nukes and slows, gives you retarded amounts of sustain, and gives you a lot of damage even after its nerf. There is a distinctive reason why Westrice went back to building gunblade as a core item on Akali after experimenting with rylai builds after the gunblade nerf
I've noticed strong heroes vs akali tend to be melee ones with strong ranged harass. For example, pantheon or rumble. Usually her whole thing is that she can't do much against ranged harass but as soon as she gets into melee range she just blows her opponent up. Unfortunately if they can hit you from range and then actually hit really really hard when you close to melee she's kinda screwed. There's also a few guys that just outburst you in exchanges like garen or renek.
On July 12 2012 02:59 UniversalSnip wrote: I've noticed strong heroes vs akali tend to be melee ones with strong ranged harass. For example, pantheon or rumble. Usually her whole thing is that she can't do much against ranged harass but as soon as she gets into melee range she just blows her opponent up. Unfortunately if they can hit you from range and then actually hit really really hard when you close to melee she's kinda screwed. There's also a few guys that just outburst you in exchanges like garen or renek.
I think lee countering akali is way overstated.
Against renek/garen/pantheon you just farm, don't brawl. They all fall off. Chainvest/dodge boots/lantern/40 armor page (that's right, forget your passive) are all very good. That's not to say these champs aren't strong vs akali, just that you can prevent yourself from dying really hard. Not sure about rumble, maybe null-mantle->mercs first would work, but then again, akali is not irelia.
Lee is just OP in general (don't give me the high skillcap bullshit).
dont go dorans blades just use 6 ad runes 2 mpen armor yellow 4 flat ap blue 4 ap per lvl blue flat ap quint go boots pots last hit till 6 rush revolver into gunblade then get deathcap and ga usually merc treads. 21-9 get the +3 dmg in masteries then all the ap masteries down to executioner. get whatever armor mastery you need for your lane and get hp per lvl and +30 hp
On July 09 2012 03:11 Ota Solgryn wrote: Could any akali players provide som tips on which heros counters her and vice versa?
Top lane: Lee Sin is a pretty obvious counter, Garen is pretty good as well. Akali does well against mundo, singed, basically melee champs that aren't early game orientated. Also does well against ad carries top especially when you hit 6.
I don't know how Akali works mid-lane these days, but I hear it's not very good
In mid lane she is like Kassadin/LeBlanc as a general counter to typical AP mids, except she also has retarded sustain. I find it a nightmare to lane against her.
I've taken to going orianna against akali mid. Until she hits 6, she can't get on top of you to melee and before 6, you can abuse her hard since you can easily hit her through the shroud. Whenever her shroud isn't up, you can shield yourself and just autoattack akali and there's nothing she can do pre-6 besides Q you and pot up, which isn't much damage compared to what you're dealing.
On July 12 2012 04:30 Lmui wrote: I've taken to going orianna against akali mid. Until she hits 6, she can't get on top of you to melee and before 6, you can abuse her hard since you can easily hit her through the shroud. Whenever her shroud isn't up, you can shield yourself and just autoattack akali and there's nothing she can do pre-6 besides Q you and pot up, which isn't much damage compared to what you're dealing.
And she will proceed to faceroll you anyway after she hits 6.
I recall in a different game I was Cassiopeia against Akali. I got the first blue because we invaded; I zoned the Akali so hard that at one point I had like 70ish CS and she had 20. Then I bought a giant's belt.... then still get facerolled by Akali at around lvl 9-11.
Maybe I am not playing right, but whenever I lane against Akali I don't plan to win the lane; I just try to do barely OK, not feed her, ward both sides of the brushes so she can't gank easily and get fed, and wait for late game when I out-scale her with my "more conventional" AP carry.
On July 12 2012 06:51 TomatoShark wrote: I don't like that guide by pheonix kami when the hell do you ever get crit chance on akali...
If you go hybrid you autoattack a ton, makes perfect sense to get sum crit.
:| ap akali is where its at
I was replying to his quote, which was him disliking getting crit on akali, which you only get when you go hybrid akali. I never said hybrid akali was da bes or the only build. Context and such. Hybrid generally better against high hp tanky targets.
Was arguing with a friend that Mord is a viable counter to Akali. I always thought that he was, when you consider he pushes hard so Akali will risk her tower if she roams, he can just E her in shroud and at Mord will always win 1v1.
Am I right or wrong? I main Morde and have stomped a few Akalis but this is only 1400 ELO so hard to tell.
On July 12 2012 07:58 schmutttt wrote: Was arguing with a friend that Mord is a viable counter to Akali. I always thought that he was, when you consider he pushes hard so Akali will risk her tower if she roams, he can just E her in shroud and at Mord will always win 1v1.
Am I right or wrong? I main Morde and have stomped a few Akalis but this is only 1400 ELO so hard to tell.
Akali Q auto shreds morde since shield is so weak early, and she can usually burst morde down at 6 with ignite.
On July 12 2012 04:30 Lmui wrote: I've taken to going orianna against akali mid. Until she hits 6, she can't get on top of you to melee and before 6, you can abuse her hard since you can easily hit her through the shroud. Whenever her shroud isn't up, you can shield yourself and just autoattack akali and there's nothing she can do pre-6 besides Q you and pot up, which isn't much damage compared to what you're dealing.
And she will proceed to faceroll you anyway after she hits 6.
I recall in a different game I was Cassiopeia against Akali. I got the first blue because we invaded; I zoned the Akali so hard that at one point I had like 70ish CS and she had 20. Then I bought a giant's belt.... then still get facerolled by Akali at around lvl 9-11.
Maybe I am not playing right, but whenever I lane against Akali I don't plan to win the lane; I just try to do barely OK, not feed her, ward both sides of the brushes so she can't gank easily and get fed, and wait for late game when I out-scale her with my "more conventional" AP carry.
Hmm looking at my replays I only actually have one orianna vs akali that's relatively recent (past month)
If you want to take a look, it's around the 1650 ELO level. Not really a fair comparison because our riven jungle snowballed absurdly hard but it's not bad. Despite how far behind the akali got, she was still killing people because I did a terrible job of following my lane and later on, she still did a pretty damn good job in teamfights where they didn't throw.
Honestly though, I don't see how akali is going to reverse the snowball entirely. She's going to get shit on in lane since the ball is purely ground targetted AoE. If she wants to melee to CS, she'll eat ball and autoattacks. If she Q's to CS, she isn't able to harass.
On July 12 2012 07:58 schmutttt wrote: Was arguing with a friend that Mord is a viable counter to Akali. I always thought that he was, when you consider he pushes hard so Akali will risk her tower if she roams, he can just E her in shroud and at Mord will always win 1v1.
Am I right or wrong? I main Morde and have stomped a few Akalis but this is only 1400 ELO so hard to tell.
Depends on if its top lane or mid. Top sucks for morde, mid sucks more for akali. In general the matchup needs akali to take advantage of morde's shitty early game. if she doesnt, it sucks for her.
On July 12 2012 07:58 schmutttt wrote: Was arguing with a friend that Mord is a viable counter to Akali. I always thought that he was, when you consider he pushes hard so Akali will risk her tower if she roams, he can just E her in shroud and at Mord will always win 1v1.
Am I right or wrong? I main Morde and have stomped a few Akalis but this is only 1400 ELO so hard to tell.
More games, dropped rushing dfg. Item fits her well but needs more AP for the active to be worth it and pick is such a horrible item top lane (which is where I've been playing her). Still pretty much always throwing in at least one dblade but otherwise it's straight for gunblade now.
On July 12 2012 07:58 schmutttt wrote: Was arguing with a friend that Mord is a viable counter to Akali. I always thought that he was, when you consider he pushes hard so Akali will risk her tower if she roams, he can just E her in shroud and at Mord will always win 1v1.
Am I right or wrong? I main Morde and have stomped a few Akalis but this is only 1400 ELO so hard to tell.
Depends on if its top lane or mid. Top sucks for morde, mid sucks more for akali. In general the matchup needs akali to take advantage of morde's shitty early game. if she doesnt, it sucks for her.
Yep, learned this the hard way. You just have to realize his shield is horrible at early levels and trade blows til you can completely zone him out of lane. No damage to morde before like 4 minute mark = akali loses the lane.
Also, Mark of the Assassin Restores 20/25/30/35/40 from 15/20/25/30/35 Energy + Show Spoiler [source] +
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.
Ah, hadn't realised you'd updated yr jungle Akali guide on the official forums - I'd been keeping at eye on your blog. Would love to see some VoDs of S3 jungle Akali play if any are around.
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.
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 !
Damn, she feels weak. I hardly see her played anymore in both norms/ranked. Anyone had any success on dealing with her crappy early/midgame? I rarely find myself in situations where I can straight up out-trade someone unless I snowball somehow or get help from the jungle.
She any good this season? I bought her cause she seemed fun but her laning seems awful. I've been playing manaless champs lately (i know, i know) and i'd like to get informed a bit before giving her a spin.
What i know is (or think i know):
Mid > Top Gunblade core Trinity is neat if you go 30-0-0 Build balls to the wall AP, zhonyas/GA for a defensive item
She's probably actually weaker due to the increased gold on supports and junglers. Stronger supports means better protection for carries. Nothing else has really changed for her as the item changes primarily aided supports and junglers.
Well I've been playing her all the time (both before this season and after) - Monte is right that the junglers and supports getting extra tanky isn't ideal, but the vision changes did her a lot of good.
I run 25-5, taking all the obvious things (no %AD though) in Offense and %armor/mres+reduced dmg from champions in offense.
For runes I do hybrid pen/armor/mres/spellvamp - the spellvamp does quite a lot for your sustain pre-6 given you proc the 2nd q on creeps (don't just throw q's to get last hit with 1st proc if you can avoid it). Your peak at lvl 6 is a bit weaker, but as soon as you get your cutlass the 6% extra spellvamp does much more for you.
I play her both mid and top, but I prefer to play her mid, especially since people can't really just place a pink in the middle of the lane anymore.
On December 05 2013 21:05 EquilasH wrote: Well I've been playing her all the time (both before this season and after) - Monte is right that the junglers and supports getting extra tanky isn't ideal, but the vision changes did her a lot of good.
I run 25-5, taking all the obvious things (no %AD though) in Offense and %armor/mres+reduced dmg from champions in offense.
For runes I do hybrid pen/armor/mres/spellvamp - the spellvamp does quite a lot for your sustain pre-6 given you proc the 2nd q on creeps (don't just throw q's to get last hit with 1st proc if you can avoid it). Your peak at lvl 6 is a bit weaker, but as soon as you get your cutlass the 6% extra spellvamp does much more for you.
I play her both mid and top, but I prefer to play her mid, especially since people can't really just place a pink in the middle of the lane anymore.
The new pinks make it so much better to lane with her. Have you ever tried running energy regen/lvl seals, flat cdr glyphs, hybrid reds, and spellvamp quints? I was checking out lolking akali profiles and one guy uses that setup exclusively. He has a pretty good kda too and is around 2k or so elo. I haven't been able to get in touch with him so i'm hoping maybe you have some experience with it.
I don't see the point in sacrificing so much for energy seals - sure you might be able to get one more e off lategame but I'm just not sure it's worth it. Armor early game is detrimental to playing a Melee champion mid since you will get autoharassed a lot.
I do like the idea of the combo between energy regen/lvl+cdr glyphs and I can imagine it working really well lategame (for Akali you need extra energy regen for CDR to work) but I think in 90%+ of the cases the tradeoff is too big from losing armor/mres.
On December 05 2013 21:05 EquilasH wrote: Well I've been playing her all the time (both before this season and after) - Monte is right that the junglers and supports getting extra tanky isn't ideal, but the vision changes did her a lot of good.
I run 25-5, taking all the obvious things (no %AD though) in Offense and %armor/mres+reduced dmg from champions in offense.
For runes I do hybrid pen/armor/mres/spellvamp - the spellvamp does quite a lot for your sustain pre-6 given you proc the 2nd q on creeps (don't just throw q's to get last hit with 1st proc if you can avoid it). Your peak at lvl 6 is a bit weaker, but as soon as you get your cutlass the 6% extra spellvamp does much more for you.
I play her both mid and top, but I prefer to play her mid, especially since people can't really just place a pink in the middle of the lane anymore.
No blade weaving? Is it too unrealistic to Pre mark Q>R>AA>2nd Q>R>AA?
Are spellvamp quints THAT necessary? (i imagine they are but i wanna make sure i like her before buying them)
I mean yeah in a teamfight u want to blow ur load and erase someone however possible, i forgot to include E. Do you have enough time to Q>AA>E after an R if they have no escape up?
The reason for Q>R>AA>2nd Q>E is because it's such a quick combo and the E procs the Q. And I'm pretty sure you will have enough energy for shroud afterwards even with this combo cuz of the refunds from Q procs. The Q>R>AA>2nd Q>E is not a teamfight combo, that's just the fastest way possible to proc 2 Q's (can be used in a teamfight, but it's not ideal to start using E that early cuz of energy).
Doran's Shield is the best opening for Akali in 90% of all cases. The only other option is cloth+5 which I would only do against heavy AD harass like Yorick, Pantheon or something like that (none of the popular champions are annoying enough to warrant cloth+5 start imo). Against any ranged champ (AP or AD) Doran's Shield will always be the superior starting item - the regen+reduced damage from autos is just too good to pass up on. I used to sometimes get rejuv bead+ward+pots but I think that opening is outdated after Doran's Shield change.
Generally your 2 first big items will almost always be Gunblade+Hourglass. Sometimes you can get away with Gunblade+Lich Bane and every now and then I like to get Rylai's after my Gunblade (I can't really explain when, but sometimes I just have a feeling this route is the right choice).
Oh damn im such a bad i forgot about lich bane. What are my dmg options like in terms of best to worst after gunblade?
Ive been doing dcap --> void usually since so far i've never really gotten ahead in lane to consider delaying hourglass but yeah i figured you could delay it.
I haven't done the math but I'm pretty sure that if you have Gunblade and Hourglass, Lich Bane will give you as much dmg as Dcap (while also being a bit cheaper+you get mspd). After your core you have a few options: Deathcap, Void Staff, Guardian Angel and Rylai's are all viable.
Edit: After doing some maths I calculated that with the combo of Dcap/Hourglass/Gunblade does 80 more damage using 2 q's and one r more than the combo of Lich Bane/Hourglass/Gunblade (I assumed 2 Lich Bane procs - you could get 3 Lich Bane procs I guess but it's not that realistic - though if you add e into the combo or another r the Lich Bane build wins in damage)
It looks like as a 2nd item dcap will give more damage but as a 3rd item (when you have the AP from Hourglass to boost Lich Bane) Lich Bane will be the correct choice in most cases (approximately same damage, lower cost, movement speed). Death Cap becomes an incredibly good item though once you have Lich Bane (and vice versa). The problem is that you might want to get your Guardian Angel at this point.
Rylai is very situational and I don't use it often myself (Health is just pretty good when you already have quite a lof of resistances from your shroud+hourglass).
Lich Bane, gives you alot more burst early levels, thus helping your jungler to gank easier or maybe securing your kills faster, you don't really need DeathCap that early unless you want to control the lane with your scary ass items, Lich Bane can give you a "hidden" edge, the opponent will think you dont have enough damage to kill them, thus they will push up faster
Well, when I did the math - Lich Bane and Dcap were around equal in damage with Gunblade/Hourglass to supplement them, while Lich Bane was inferior if you only had Gunblade to supplement (it might still be the better buy due to mspd/lower cost). It's mostly the same experience I have from playing myself and I pretty much never get Death Cap before Lich Bane.
Dont forget, if you manage to ever get Gunblade+Hourglass+Item 3, you are scary, and thus, being scary, could take towers in a scary manner with LB as your 3rd item.
Is anyone still playing Akali? If so, then I have some stuff I'd like to discuss.
Lich Bane vs Trinity Force. I have loosely theorycrafted a hyperaggressive Akali setup which fully embraces the hybrid power of her kit. I put 30 points in offense if I can get away with it, and if I have to go a bit more defensive, go for a bit more classic route. The hyperaggressive build is supposed to build Trinity Force as a second item and relies heavily on this. You get hybrid pen marks en quints, scaling health seals and defensive glyphs depending on the matchup. Against AD you switch one hybrid pen quint for armor since armor glyphs suck. You also take exhaust for the extra armor and mr reduction in all ins. So I've noticed that the build I'm using, which is boots -> Gunblade -> magic pen boots -> TF -> Zhonyas -> Blood thirster -> Deathcap/Rylais/... Is hilariously strong from the TF point onwards. You r, q, aa, q, e, aa/r/w and they're dead. This build also nets your a pretty big amount of spell vamp and lifesteal (I'll give the numbers later). I'm definitely going to do more research (read, play more games with it) to determine if it's actually something I want to keep developing/refining. It really seems to be a go big or go home build.
But in the end I want to ask this: do you guys think it's possible this TF build could be stronger than her traditional build? Could TF outdamage Lich Bane when you have 700 ap?
*Edit: I made a mathematical error here which I wasn't aware of when I wrote the text below, though much of it is still on point.
The math is rough, but unfortunately it's fairly obvious that Lich Bane comes out ahead. The most important factors we ignored (e.g. armor/ressitance, level, gold cost difference) swing things in Lich Bane's favor, so it's fairly safe to conclude that Lich Bane is better for damage. Trinity Force's intangibles (e.g. Phage, crit, Health) aren't adequate compensation.
Moreover, you're following TF with Zhonya's, which eliminates the only advantage TF had (i.e. higher proc damage). At that point you really need to question why you're building Bloodthirster over Deathcap/Rylai's/Void Staff.
Moreover, you're following TF with Zhonya's, which eliminates the only advantage TF had (i.e. higher proc damage).
The TF proc's don't go up with buying more ad, it just uses base ad.
Last two days I've compared TF + gunblade vs LB + gunblade at lvl 18, hybrid pen vs classic ap setup, and the damage between full builds. And, indeed, it's obvious that the Lich Bane offers more damage. I've calculated with in game stats, so masteries are included in the aa damage and the passive bonus magic damage etc At lvl 18 with only gunblade, TF deals 2460,52, while LB deals 2596,56 (136,04 difference in damage). With full builds, the TF build deals 4259,74, while the LB build deals 4903,84 damage (644,1 difference in damage). Same combo's have been used.
However, the BT shield, the spellvamp you get, and the health and movement speed from TF, allow for more survivability, which is also crucial for Akali. Also, 30% lifesteal and 55% spellvamp is no joke. I'm still convinced the lvl11 TF/Gunblade combo is stronger than your lvl 11 LB/Gunblade combo, simply because you do more auto attack damage and you have more survivability.
In the end the classic Lich Bane build will two shot a carry at lvl 18, while the TF will kind of do the same, but might need an extra dash and I guess it comes down to preference which you choose.
Moreover, you're following TF with Zhonya's, which eliminates the only advantage TF had (i.e. higher proc damage).
The TF proc's don't go up with buying more ad, it just uses base ad.
I'm aware. The point was that Lich Bane's proc did less damage than TF's when the only other item you had was Gunblade, and following up with Zhonya's closed that gap.
On October 21 2015 23:21 Uldridge wrote: Last two days I've compared TF + gunblade vs LB + gunblade at lvl 18, hybrid pen vs classic ap setup, and the damage between full builds. And, indeed, it's obvious that the Lich Bane offers more damage. I've calculated with in game stats, so masteries are included in the aa damage and the passive bonus magic damage etc At lvl 18 with only gunblade, TF deals 2460,52, while LB deals 2596,56 (136,04 difference in damage). With full builds, the TF build deals 4259,74, while the LB build deals 4903,84 damage (644,1 difference in damage). Same combo's have been used.
However, the BT shield, the spellvamp you get, and the health and movement speed from TF, allow for more survivability, which is also crucial for Akali. Also, 30% lifesteal and 55% spellvamp is no joke. I'm still convinced the lvl11 TF/Gunblade combo is stronger than your lvl 11 LB/Gunblade combo, simply because you do more auto attack damage and you have more survivability.
In the end the classic Lich Bane build will two shot a carry at lvl 18, while the TF will kind of do the same, but might need an extra dash and I guess it comes down to preference which you choose.
It'd be helpful if you included what you considered full builds, because there's very little I can do to check your work when I'm just guessing. On that point I actually made a mathematical mistake in my calculations. The correct value for TF's damage was 2300.2, significantly closer than I'd indicated.
That said I have a few suggestions for things you should be keeping in mind as you evaluate your build.
First, remember that your build is more expensive than typical builds. Between TF and BT you're spending 1203g more than an Akali buying LB and Rylai's. Timings are important in LoL, and that much gold is non-trivial.
Second, you should ask yourself what building Zhonya's after Trinity Force is doing for you. Are there other items you could be building that have better synergy with your build? WotA? Hydra? Faster BT? Is there something you can alter in your play which makes Zhonya's unnecessary?
Third, keep in mind that most games end long before you complete a full build. This relates to my previous point, as each item you build needs to have clear/strong intent as it may be the last item you build in a game.
Finally, don't let the idea of the build blind you to the reality of the build. It's very easy to have a novel idea and grow enamored with it. Have other people try your build, especially people who don't necessarily approach Akali the same way you do. You can learn a lot that way.
Ah, guess I confused the wording, I thought you implied if I'd go an AD item instead of an AP item the TF proc would go up in damage.
I completely agree with your points by the way. I may have become a bit blinded with trying to have a more hybrid style for her work. It's sad that so little hybrid items exist and ways to go a little bit of both and be as impactful as either full ad or full ap. The initial purpose of the build was to have an insanely strong 2 item timing in which you can splitpush and outmanoeuvre anyone (and it does its job well at that) It does indeed become more problematic once you add more items to the build. It's also the reason I go exhaust instead of ignite or another summoner spel on her.
With full builds I include: -For the TF build: Gunblade, TF, Zhonyas, BT, Deathcap, Mpen boots -For the LB build: Gunblade, LB, Zhonyas, Deathcap, Rylais/Ludens, Mpen boots for the most amount of ap with a LB included. Ofcourse Luden's gives that exrta Statikk'esque proc, but that wasn't included. I've also swapped the last item with a Void Staff, but haven't calculated what it does when accounting for 100 mr for example, just straight up damagecalculation from ap scaling.
The most interesting thing about Akali is her passive imo. At a few items her basic attacks start doing so much damage and she's a terrific turret taker.
Maybe listening to the in game tips and building occult and mejais on her is the actual secret, but is just too troll for anyone to try
SotO + Mejai's is ridiculously fun in low ranks since you can just pick people off and crush your way to victory. That was my go to build for a while until I ended up facing opponents who realized they could ward.
Akali's auto-attack damage does scale extremely well, but runs into the problem you described. Hybrid items are rare, and it's unlikely that will change. Back when you could stack Gunblades you could basically hyper-carry in large part because her auto-attacks would do 800 damage and any ability she used healed her for insane amounts.
That build reminds of playing Akali back when atmogs was a thing - that shit was really never die unless they cc you and burst you for 3k hp. My final build was usually: mercs, gunblade, wota, atma's, warmog's, spirit visage; with wota being one of the last items.
Wow, I feel like they completely gutted Akali with the changes. Sheen is now less than ideal (When it wasn't great in the first place. Well, wasn't bad either, but 200 mana is wasted, now you get 50 more mana and no more ap) They upped almost every single ap item in the game. So basically you'd have to go Gunblade -> Zhonya's -> Lich bane -> Deathcap -> Rylais?
Or maybe I'll entertain a full ad build now that BTs can stack amounting to a silly lifesteal percentage.
Masteries also seem pretty interesting for her, too bad you can't take the hybrid pen AND one of the other pen mastery points.. I guess I'll just wait and see how people prefer her being played.
EPT![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/DUxdy.jpg)
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Thanks anyways. :D
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