Board Thread:Game discussion/@comment-4518978-20130220234628/@comment-169.232.92.125-20130312194654

She's just FotM. She still has the same problems she had before. Though I agree that the passive buff wasn't needed. I'd rather have pre-buff Akali than the current one that is getting all this attention. I also liked the fact that you could tell whether Akali knew what she was doing or not by whether she procced her passive at lv 1 with no items or not. The buff to that and the buffs to Gunblade are what are making her so strong right now.

But her laning phase is terrible. Yes, she can sustain herself and she can poke, but it's only a pain if you play passively againt Akali, which you should NEVER do. She has a weak early game, you KNOW she has a weak early game. What does that mean? ABUSE HER EARLY GAME! Her laning phase is her weakness and her early game is her weakness... Guess I should abuse that and play aggressive? Her roaming is her strength. Keep your lane warded so you know when she leaves lane and shove the crap out of the lane and take towers. Zone her early, then shove hard mid-game or roam yourself. If you play her enough and analyze what she's good at and what she's bad at, you can easily make a plan to shut her down or at least keep things even. If you just herp derp and say, "Oh it's another champion, and I want to farm war with her", then you deserve to lose to her.

And Vectus11, Riven had MASSIVE balance issues. But 90% of that was in her ult CD, because if you died to her, she got a lead and had ult back up when you got back to lane, which meant an infinite cycle of getting zoned or killed for 1 mistake in the lane post-6. There wasn't even a laning phase anymore. However, I'd like to see them undo some of the other nerfs to her, because I don't like the current Riven.