Akali/Strategy

Champion Spotlight

Recommended Items

Tips

Playing As Akali

• Akali excels at killing weaker characters. Let your team initiate and then strike at the people in the back.
• Find the balance between storing Essence of Shadows, and using Shadow Dance before having max charges.

Playing Against Akali

• Akali can still be hit by area of effect spells while invisible inside Twilight Shroud.
• Akali greatly benefits from both The Dark Seal and Mejai's Soulstealer. Watch which items she gets and prioritize her accordingly.
• Return to base if your Health is low and Akali has multiple charges of her ultimate.
• Akali's ultimate allows her to strike through and deal damage to enemies. Her Crescent Slash deals crazy damage when built right. When at the nexus and the team crowds, be watchful of Akali, she can ultimate and Crescent Slash. Depending on health and proximity to the Crescent Slash, the entire team can be wiped out.
• Akali's passive is used on her auto attacks. The first attack will give Akali back a percentage of her health. The second strike deals increased damage. If she's low health and has her Twilight Shroud, be careful because she will auto attack to gain health and, if she has it, summoner heal and turn the tables on your engagement.

Tricks

Ability Usage

• Her bread and butter combo involves proccing Q twice in quick succession. Akali's Q mark lasts 6 seconds, and its cooldown at 0% reduction is lower than 6 seconds at all ranks except the first, when it is 6 seconds exactly. This combo comes into effect once you get your ultimate at level 6, and consists of Q - [wait for Q cooldown] - R - AA - Q - AA. You can then add any Es or additional Rs as you want, as well as more Qs if the fight lasts long enough for the cooldown; however this combo will proc (if off cooldown)  Thunderlord's Decree and her passive damage, meaning big damage to the enemy. This will likely put your target below 150 health if not kill them, which can easily be finished by auto attacking, Igniting, using her E, ulting the target again, or any combination thereof.
• Akali's W is a very versatile ability. After the rework, there are 4 important things to note: First, Control Wards do not reveal you in your shroud, nor will anything other than a turret or an ability/effect that specifically says it reveals stealth. You will have a shimmer similar to Sweeping Lens / Oracle Alteration (except not red) when taking damage while invisible. [NOTE: There is currently a bug on the stealth where many hard crowd control abilities will actually reveal her and make her targetable] Second, the movement speed from shroud is now on at all times while you're in the shroud. Third, it is no longer placeable. This means that some previous advanced tactics, such as placing the center of the shroud in a wall to make the shroud invisible to enemies, are no longer possible. You can still do the aforementioned tactic using brush, however. Fourth, her shroud now has a small blink on cast. This is useful for gap closing, dodging abilities, and juking. But a very unknown mechanic on it, because it was never listed although it is confirmed intended, is that you can actually use her blink to negate displacements, such as knockups and knockbacks. This is shown here. Look at how Lee Sin's Dragon's Rage is negated. In order to negate the displacements, you must cast her W at about the same time as the displacement; it just has to finish the cast time after the displace begins. Akali will be moved to the center of her shroud (not to where you targeted to blink to).
• You can fake blinking over a wall with Akali's W by running up to a wall and then targeting somewhere not over the wall. Enemies will likely expect you to have gone over the wall and will use their own abilities or flash to cross the wall, allowing you to get away safely.
• Akali's  W will allow you to Teleport and be invisible, but it will reveal you for a moment after casting it. Keep in mind that this will put your W on cooldown, meaning you won't have access to it when you arrive, which is especially important to be aware of if you are joining a teamfight. Make sure to weigh the pros and cons of being able to immediately Teleport at the cost of your shroud against the value of having it for the teamfight at the cost of having to back away from danger first.
• Akali's E is a point-blank area of effect ability with good damage and a relatively low cooldown. It is especially useful for wave-clearing: E's cooldown is reduced 60% if it kills a unit, so make sure to utilise this when trying to clear a large wave.

Mastery Usage

•  Thunderlord's Decree is very important to being able to burst down targets early, as well as for trading in lane. It can be proc'd fairly easy using a Q - autoattack combo, as the damage from Q landing, the damage from the autoattack, and the damage from Q proccing are all considered separate. This also works using the damage from the second auto attack of her passive.
• Once you have it, use your mastery emote after every kill. This is a very important part of Akali's kit, as it lets your opponent know how grave of a mistake they've made by underestimating you. This allows you to establish your dominance as the alpha-laner. Follow in Best Akali FL's footsteps.

Item Usage

• Use Hextech Gunblade as part of your burst combo.
• Use Zhonya's Hourglass to survive large burst, sustained damage, or to survive long enough for ability cooldowns required to kill a target or escape, especially when you are very likely to die before those cooldowns come up.
• Lich Bane can be very useful for boosting your burst as casting your Q will activate Spellblade on your next auto attack, which means you will proc your Q and hit the damage from Lich Bane at the same time; Lich Bane is guaranteed to add Tons of Damage to your combo. Keep in mind Lich Bane comes with mana, which means some wasted gold efficiency on Akali.
• Abyssal Scepter is a great pickup if you are against a lot of magic damage. It's passive also boosts your own magic damage by 10%, providing a nice boost to your burst.
• Rylai's Crystal Scepter allows you to stick to targets easily, as well as giving a large amount of Ability Power and Health. The passive slow activates as single target on both parts of your Q, your ultimate, and the second autoattack of your passive.

Countering

• Like most assassins, Akali can be countered through extensive hard crowd control. Examples: Wukong's Cyclone, Veigar's Event Horizon, Annie's Pyromania (passive) or Nautilus.
• Akali is a champion that snowballs well into the game. She will target the ADC and Support primarily, although anyone squishy is fair game- always ward the river to let you know when she is coming- then hard Crowd Control her. She can easily 1v2 due to the level advantage and pure damage output/sustain that comes with a Hextech Gunblade. When you see her coming, try to hug your tower effectively force her back to her lane, causing her to miss CS.
• Try to gank her early while her shroud is down. Do not go into the shroud - Akali can burst you down from half health to 0 with a Q - E - Ignite combo, even in the early game. Using champions like Lee Sin will make this easier with his vision debuff from Sonic Wave or Tempest.
• Stealth detection abilities like Lee Sin's Sonic Wave, Rengar's Thrill of the Hunt, or Twisted Fate's Destiny can reveal Akali while she is inside her shroud, making her vulnerable.
• Akali is considered a squishy champion. Fighter Champions, particularly Juggernauts (like Mordekaiser, Garen, or Darius) and Divers like Diana and Irelia can counter Akali thanks to their high damage and extensive toughness. Champions with high burst and reliable hard crowd control such as Annie are also excellent counters, as they can kill Akali before she is able to take any action.

Passive

Akali's passive is used on her auto attacks. The first attack will give Akali back a percentage of her health. The second strike deals increased damage.