Akali was the first champion I really liked to play when I first started playing League of Legends, and remains my favorite to this day. Among friends, they plead me to play Akali when they just want a quick win. I've pulled scores ranging from 10K | 2D | 15A to 35K | 5D | 5A as Akali and have pushed her to her limits.

By no means is she a faceroll auto-win champion. I've seen many Akali players fail hard because of basic flaws, and I am writing this to attempt at a solution for all those aspiring Akali players out there.

Please, read before rating, and leave me any comments!

Strengths

• Perpetual damage output, due to low cooldowns and energy mechanic.
• Great at one-on-one fights against almost any champion.
• Good at cleanup in team fights.
• Amazing burst Damdge with the three or four hit Mark of the Assassin combo.
• Amazing chasing Ability with Shadow Dance.
• Twilight Shroud is the only non-interruptable stealth in the game, and can be used effectively for harass and face-checking.
• Decent farming ability with Crescent Slash
• One of the best passives in the game, Twin Disciples, which can get you to 99% Spell Vamp!

Weaknesses

• Inability to initiate without exploding soon thereafter.
• Not a facerolling auto-win champion, due to the fact that maneuvers require timing, positioning, and experience to get down.
• Can be shut down by effective focus fire.
• Really bad early game utility. Without smart play, an Akali can be shut down due to her weak early game.

Twin Disciplines:
This passive is what allows you to easily reach 99% Spell Vamp, by building straight hybrid. Early game, this provides you with survivability, and late game, this allows you to become unkillable!


Mark of the Assassin:
What many people think is two skills is two parts of this skill, Akali's main damage that scales with just Ability Power. The main damage is just a projectile, but by attacking them again, it effectively doubles. Low on health? Attack some minions with this!


Twilight Shroud:
The only uninterruptable stealth in the game. Using this, you can facecheck bushes freely, and get out of sticky situations with ease.


Crescent Slash:
A farming and healing tool. This skill has no maximum number of targets, so you can hit an entire minion wave and heal for that amount times your Spell Vamp for more survivability.


Shadow Dance:
One of the coolest skills in the game. This is what allows Akali to chase so well - it's incredibly long range, with a neglectible cooldown. The only downside? You can only hold three charges at a time, recharging upon kill or assist. So, to avoid running out of charges in a fight, don't bounce from target to target, focus one person down before switching targets.

Always use this ability at maximum range, unless the next hit will score a kill - it saves you charges and allows you to chase harder, as well as setting you up for the 4-Hit Combo (see Advanced Techniques) with the spacing in between chases.

Now, there are many possible combinations, but my preferred loadout is
Ghost and...
...Flash.

I prefer Flash over something like Teleport or Exhaust because especially early game, before Level 6, which is Akali's weakest phase, Flash can be used as both an offensive or defensive positioning tool, almost in the same way as Shadow Dance as well, to score a kill. Using Flash and Ghost I have scored First Blood many times. Exhaust I feel is not as effective due to the fact that Akali can chase extremely well upon reaching Level 6, and will not need to slow the enemy down at all. Ghost, of course, is the perfect escape + chasing tool, and can get you out of situations unscathed.

Allow me to explain my reasoning for the 9 | 0 | 21 mastery set, instead of a full offensive or a offensive/defensive set.

While Akali is a hybrid burst damage champion, most of her damage will come from AP rather than AD. This is because the majority of her damage comes from her Mark of the Assassin damage combo nuke + chasing ability. This basically means that she needs to be built almost as a caster, with pseudo-range. Basically, as you do with all champions, playing to her strengths. Therefore, the only points you need from the Offense tree are the ones put into Ability Power and Magic Penetration increase. Since the only real utility of Attack Damage on Akali is to provide a nice boost to Spell Vamp, for starters we do not need more than what we load out with runes.

In the Utility tree, we basically work our way down to the bottom, avoiding any masteries that grant Mana-based bonuses. (She is, after all, a flippin' Ninja!)

Greater Quintessence of Strength x1
Greater Quintessence of Insight x2
Greater Mark of Insight x9
Greater Glyph of Force x9
Greater Seal of Force x9

With the single AD Quintessence, this will allow you to activate the AD half of your passive at the beginning with just a Doran's Blade instead of a Long Sword. The rest of your runes are there to strengthen your beastly endgame burst damage, providing both Ability Power and Magic Penetration to maximize your damage endgame.

Starting Items:
If you have the runes upon entering the game, you will purchase a Doran's Blade. You only need 10 AD to activate your Spell Vamp passive, so with one Greater Quintessence of Attack Damage, you will be able to activate it with a Doran's Blade. If you don't have this quint, get a Long Sword instead. Also buy one Health Potion.

Core Items:
The core items for Akali are:

Which are basically the core items of any Hybrid-Burst based champion. Don't forget about the Gunblade's active ability!

Many people argue that Guinsoo's Rageblade is not good on Akali, due to the fact that she is not an auto-attacking champion. However, I like the fact that this ramps up AP, and allows her to be able to backdoor to some extent late game as well. As a champion with many escapes, backdooring is a legitimate possibility.

Boots:
The first choice of boots you will want to buy are

if you want to reach your full damage output potential.

However, of course, many times you will see a crowd-control(CC) heavy team and will need

in order to protect yourself from exploding. Even against a high CC team, more often then not, I will pick the Sorcerer's Shoes over the Mercury's Treads because if you have good micromanagement and maneuvering, you will not need to reduce CCs, as you won't often be in a position where it will be a life or death problem.

Laning Phase:
After farming, and hopefully pulling First Blood, go back and try and rush Boots as well as a Hextech Revolver. At least try and get the boots and two Amplifying Tomes. I like to grab this item before Sheen because at this stage in the game, while Sheen will help your damage output greatly, I feel that survivability in laning is more important than ganking during laning phase, and this allows you to farm more effectively with your Q and E plus your spell vamp.

Once you get your Hextech Revolver built, start working towards your Sheen and soon, your laning phase should be coming to a close.

Midgame Phase:
Start building the rest of your Hextech Gunblade by purchasing a Bilgewater Cutlass. You now have an active slow that you can use to chase that much more effectively. From this point on, you can decide to complete your Hextech Gunblade, Lich Bane, or work on your damage even more by starting your Guinsoo's Rageblade with a Blasting Wand. Remember, Akali, although Hybrid, is more Ability Power focused than Attack Damage focused. I usually prefer to complete my Hextech Gunblade, followed by Guinsoo's Rageblade, then followed by Lich Bane. By this time, a few team fights may have broken out, and you should be entering endgame.

Endgame Phase:
Hopefully, you are well farmed at this point. You will be destroying squishies with your chasing ability and burst damage, and even tanks may start to be afraid of your continuous wailing on their face and heals. This is where the rest of your build can become more interesting.

Branching out from there:
Most games, I will try and complete a second Hextech Gunblade, driving me to a 99% spell vamp, which provides a ridiculous amount of healing. However, if you want to focus on even more damage, you can get a Rabadon's Deathcap for an amazing 30% AP boost as well as an extra +155 AP worth of damage.

Akali, at a micromanagement level, is a fairly straightforward and simple champion, especially when compared to a champion with a level of complexity as Nidalee. However, there are some combinations you can use to increase your damage output.

1. The 4-Hit Combo
The 4-Hit Combo is a combo that will essentially double the damage of your main chase combo. This is, at its roots, essentially using your Q => Auto-Attack burst twice in a span of about 1.5 seconds. Basically, throw your Mark of the Assassin at your target. Let it sit there until the cooldown goes back up, allowing your opponent to think you're just harassing. Then, when the cooldown is back up, run in, either on foot or with Shadow Dance, attack him to trigger the burst, hit him with Mark of the Assassin again, and attack him again. Then, either chase him down, or go back to harassing him.

Button Combo:Q => Pause => R => Attack => Q => Attack
*Remember* Each player has, as I like to call it, a "safe health" zone. This is basically a health zone where the player feels safe, as if nothing can kill him instantly. Exploit this! Know how much damage you can do, and trick your opponent into thinking you cannot kill him! Then, out of nowhere, one hit him!

2. Stealth Juke
There will be many times when you will be targeted to die. If played correctly, the enemy team will hate you, but not be scared enough of you to run away, effectively leaving enough hope inside their minds that they won't die if you really felt like they should. Fools! These situations are when the Stealth Juke will help you survive. This is a technique in which you enter your Twilight Shroud and become unpredictable. Since this stealth cannot be broken no matter what the enemy does (except ward and Oracle's of course), you can use it to your advantage.

Always, always, ALWAYS, throw down the shroud in a fork or a jungle entrance when you are escaping. Many people will just walk into the stealth and expect you to go into a bush or something. Think of what you would naturally expect yourself to do, and do the exact opposite. Sometimes, people branch out. Use your Shadow Dance to jump to people or minions, and run away in that direction, far away from the rest of their team! Hopefully if you're truly in trouble, your team can come to your assistance.

3. Jungle Rush
Jungle Rushing is a tactic that will allow you to quickly escape any threats that may be following you around. Basically, ward the jungle off around monsters, and just use your Shadow Dance to jump from mob to mob and eventually, you'll be home free. You should only use this when you're always running clandestine operations (i.e. backdoors or solo assassinations), so don't waste too much money warding the map for the whole game!

4. Single target Assassinations
The wonderful thing about Akali is that she can kill anything. :) Of course, within limits. There will be some situations where if you were anyone else, you would say "AWWWW she has ONE HEALTH ADAIWHDAWPIHIPJAPWDIHN!!!!11!!oneone"

Even if their whole team is there, Akali can easily run in, burst the sad individual down, and get away easily, because firstly, no one expects you to team dive, and secondly, no one expects you to get away with it. Using Stealth Juke and Jungle Rush, you can easily get the **** out of there.

I hope you enjoyed reading my guide, and I hope that it will help. Feel free to add me, Panzer Thirteen, in game, and feel free to play with our regulars (we use Mumble - the superior VoIP!) as well as discuss builds with me.

I pride myself on being able to play almost any champion competently, and always encourage feedback. Please, comment on anything you may disagree with, and help make this community even better!

-Panzer XIII