Greetings Summoners,

welcome to my first League of Legends Guide for Akali, the Fist of Shadow. This Guide will introduce you in how to play Akali properly in League of Legends - Dominion, let's say, in the Cristal Scar.

Let me explain first why I decided to write this guide:
I played Akali from my first week on I spent in League of Legends and I tried a lot of builts, but I found out, that the, at least in my opinion, only way to unleash her full potential is not the hybrid way, it's the AP-Way. You may now want to say that it is not good to throw away her second passive, giving her 10% spell vamp and more. Well, I reflected about that for a long time and tried it out in some games as well, but what I found out was the following:
In most Situations, you will fight 1on1 in the Cristal Scar. If you then would need your 10% extra spell vamp, you should run away anyway. In the rest of the situations you will, on the one hand, fight with your team mates so it is not necessary and, on the other hand, you will be outnumbered, so it is useless as well. And if you study my built, you will find out that I integrated her second passive as well.

So if you think by now, the only real way to play Akali is to play her hybrid or to play her with AD, you better search for another guide for your own salvation.
Okay, then let us now begin with the real guide.

First of all, what speaks for and against Akali? There are some reasons why people should play her and why not. You may want to reflect about those points properly before continue reading.

Pros

• tons of damage thrown out
• the best assasin in game
• nearly no enemy will escape you
• very fast
• her abilities are just awesome

Cons

• she will be squishy all the game trough
• takes some time to learn how to really play her
• you will may not win against more than two enemies
• no tank killer at all
• you will may only cause magical damage

So if you now still decide to go on with playing Akali, then continue reading this guide. Now, we will start with the important things, first of all of course her skills.

What makes Akali so powerful? The most powerful thing of Akali are her abilities, you will not kill any enemy with at least half life with only autoattacks, forget it. You have to trust into your abilities as summoner and into those of your champion. And of course you should know when you should use all abilities.

Twin Disciplines

You may remember that I already talked about Akalis passive above, now let me explain what it really means for her.
With Twin Disciplines Akali gains 10% Bonus Damage for 20 Ability Power and 10% Spell Vamp for 10 Attack Damage. This Bonus will increase by 1% for every 5 Ability Power or Attack Damage. So you will need to have 20 Ability Power and 10 Attack Damage to take the full first potential of this passive. As you can see, Ability Power will make your Abilities much more stronger because it also increase your percentual damage delt and Attack Damage, which will increase some of the Damage your Abilities deal and your auto attacks will heal you by a percentual amount according to the damage you deal.
So it is important to CAUSE DAMAGE, to take advantage of your second passive. The problem is, that most people do not reflect about this point. Of course you can also take more items with Attack Damage and increase the percentage you will steal life with your abilities, but this will not increase the damage you deal. In opposite to that, your first passive will increase the MAGICAL DAMAGE you deal, remember that you will gain spell vamp with your second one, which will increase the amount of life you get AND the amount of damage you cause. So the first passive is definitly the more important one.

Mark of the Assassin

This ability is your way to defeat enemy champions. As you can see it deals about 150 damage on its fith level and gains an additional bonus of 40% of your ability power. So this is your range attack, the only one you got.
As soon as you hit your target with this ability, it will be marked for about 6 seconds. If you will hit your target within this time window, you will deal THE SAME AMOUNT of damage as before again and you will restore 40 energy, which is 2/3 of the energy amount this ability costs.

So it is very important to hit your target again after throwing your kama on it. You may also use this ability to stop an enemy champion from capturing one of your posts before finally reaching him.
This ability deals tons of magical damage so it is your first way to defeat an enemy champion.

Twilight Shroud

You may think this ability is useless, but it isn't... may, it may is not worth to be maxed out in early or mid game, but it is always useful to at least be able to use it.
If you use this ability, Akali will throw a smoke bomb whereever you tell her, of course your target should be in range. As long as Akali stays in this area, she will be stealthed. But remember that she will become visible as soon as you attack something, start to recall or to capture an enemy point. As long as Akali stays in this could, she also will gain bonus Armor and Magic Resist, which will may help you to survive long enough against an enemy to kill him or to run away. If an enemy is about to run away, you may throw the smoke bomb in front of him, because it slows every enemy running through as well, but this was not very helpful by now, her ult is more useful in such situations.

You may want to ask you now: what is this ability really useful for? It may will help you to survive long enough against an enemy to kill him or to slow him down to kill him, but...
Well, I did not mentioned it best aspect before: This ability is your way to escape out of fights. Especially if you would have to fight against more enemies you can beat, it can be very useful. If you use this ability in the jungle, you may are able to escape in any direction you wish to, combined with your summoner spells, the enemy will never ever get you.. at least not alive, but that is probably anyway not what he wanted to.

Crescent Slash

This is your way to cause damage to multiple enemies surrounding you. Especially when facing a lot of minions or more than one enemy champion, it will be useful. When being in late game, you can kill a complete wave of minions with solely using this ability one time.
As you can see, it will cause 130 Damage up in level 5 and gains an additional bonus of 30% of your Ability Power and 60% of your Attack Damage. But don't worry, it will deal enough damage to be worth anyway.

Shadow Dance

THIS is it, your Ultimate Skill. As you can see, you can use it every second when maxed out! The only thing that may will hinder you is that you do not own any of its charges. You will get one charge every 25/20/15 seconds and one additional if you kill an enemy or support a killer of your team, so USE this ability, no matter if you kill your enemy or not.

Shadow Dance will port you to the enemy you're targeting as long as he is in range (and this ability has a huge range), and will automatically cause 250 plus 50% of your Ability Power as additional damage. So as long as you have some charges left, no enemy will be able to escape you. Belive me, they all fear this Ultimate.

To use it properly, you may start with Mark of the Assassin, so your enemy is marked, then charge to him with your ultimate, auto attack him and then use Crescent Slash, which will blast away nearly half of his life instantly. Mostly the sqishy enemies will then start to escape. Just follow them and repeat the order listet above, may you not use Crescent Slash because you only throw away time and energy.

Well, it took me a long time to decide which summoner spells I should take for Akali. You may want to replace those spells trough those you wish to, thats up to you, but I reccomend you to take the following:

Flash
Yeah, well, I hope I do not need to explain why you should use flash as one of your abilities. The only thing may has to be explained why you should use it if you got your Ulti. Well, as you can see, you need a target to use your ulti and your target has to be an enemy. So your Ulti will never help you to escape out of fights, with the exception that an enemy minion is standing on your escape route, which may happens but not always. Also you can use Flash if you need a cheap fourth charge of your ulti, that does not cause any damage but allows you to use one of your other abilities another time.

Ghost
Yeah, well, why did I took ghost? In dominion, it is very important to change the point you are standing at very fast, so Ghost will help you to do so. In combination with the speed shrines, you will be able to move from one tower to another in under 15 seconds. Also it will may help you to escape. In combination with Flash and Twilight Shround it is VERY hard to catch you and most enemies will simply let you get away.



Well, please do not take Heal, Clarity, Smite or Cleanse and reflect well about if you really want to take Ignite, Garrison, Promote, Exhaust or Revive.

I do not want to talk a lot about those points, because if you're not satisfied with it, use others. In order to make Akali stronger and help her to survive a bit longer, I skilled her more magic resist and one point in Hardiness , because I had one left. In order to make her abilities stronger, I took every skill that does so, including Archaic Knowledge , which will help her abilities, who mostly cause MAGIC DAMAGE, to break trough your targets magic resistance. To help the small amount of normal damage you do to break through the armor of your target, I skilled Sunder as well. Her Runes will help her to cause more magic damage and to stay a bit longer on battlefield before she dies. Believe me, I escaped more than one time with the health I got trough my Greater Seal of Vitality. Your Greater Mark of Attack Speed will help you to activate the mark of Mark of the Assassin faster.

One thing I should mention: I used those runes that become stronger with higher levels, because in Dominion you start with nearly level 4 and they are more powerful than the others as soon as you reach level 6. I did not chose those quint essences because they are only useful when reaching level 11, and some games do end before you do so.

Now let us speak about my Skill Sequence. As you can see I max out Mark of the Assassin as fast as possible and Twilight Shroud to the very last. The only reason why I do so is Akalis Damage. Your Mark of the Assassin will be your main ability to cause damage and Twilight Shroud will not help you more because you max it out. So start with two points in Mark of the Assassin and one point in Twilight Shroud will allow you to deal a lot of damage and survive long enough in the first fight arount the upper position in the Cristal Scar.

Of course you should not forget to skill your Ulti whenever possible, but I think this is normal anyway.

Of course the most important thing in every game is: Which Itmes shall i buy? Well, here comes your answer:
You will begin your fight around the Cristal Scar with an amount of 1035 Gold. So you will be able to buy one pair of Boots and two Amplifying Tome to the beginning. Now you may ask why I don't buy Mercury's Treads right at the beginning. I know that it is important to get to the upper point as fast as possible, but this is the reason why I chosed Ghost, you may remember.

After this first fight, you should at least be able to buy the Hextech Revolver, if you are, then do so, do not save your money for Mercury's Treads. If you have enough money to buy [[Mercury's Treads], then do so as well. If you have enough money to buy both, then of course do so.

For the next, you should built Rylai's Crystal Scepter. Always buy the most expensive item you can afford and then built the Scepter as fast as possible. After this, your start is made.

Now it is up to you to decide when you want to built your Guardian Angel. It depends on how often the enemy kills you and how much damage you take. You may will be able to surprise the enemy by completing Guardian Angel right after Rylai's Crystal Scepter. If you do not take that much damage, then built Void Staff first, which allows you to penetrate another 40% of your targets magic ressistance, combined with Archaic Knowledge this makes 55% of the targets Magic Ressistance. Now you should normally start bulding your Guardian Angel but if you don't die without it or have a good team, you may want to built Rabadon's Deathcap first.

I normally never reach this point, but if you built all items above, you can use your Hextech Revolver and upgrade it to a Hextech Gunblade to increase your second passive which gives you more spell vamp, combined with the Gunblade you will get even more Spell Vamp, but as mentioned above, I normally never reach this point.

After you read all this above, you may will be able to understand Akali a little bit better. You may now want to see what you have learned about her, so start a match and play her for a while, test the built above and see what you got here. After that, you may continue reading.



--- Take a break and play a game! ---

So you are still reading, fine. I hope you played your game and won. I also hope you made a lot of kills and got a knowledge about Akali. Now I just want to tell you some last things.

Team work is very important, especially in the Cristal Scar. You may want to help your buddies out of some situations with your huge damage burst you can bring with you. Because of your speed, you are able to stop enemies from capturing your points all over the map, but you will may not be able to kill a tank like Rammus by your own. If Akali is paired with some stronger team mates which can take a huge amount of damage before the die, some like Udyr or Xin Zhao for example, you will survive longer. The longer you can stay in battle, the better you will be able to unleash Akalis power. If you are good, you can also kill two enemies by your own, it depends on you.

You may not want to Lane or to Jungle in Dominion, because it just makes no sense.

In Dominion, you can get three types of buffs. They will all help you to become more powerful and to burst away your enemy. The speed buff will help you to move over the map very quickly, combined with Ghost no single enemy will be able to capture a point as long as you recognize him soon enough.

The Mid Buff is very important. It gives you a shield and allows you thereby to survive longer and to deal more damage. With this buff you will may be able to attack a group of two or three enemies by your own, depending on the enemy champs.

The buffs you will get through quests will help you too, but will be very much more powerful if you combine them with the mid buff.

Do not forget to use the heal shrines whenever you need one or, of you pass one, use it too, so the enemy does not get him.

I hope this guide helped you to understand Akali better and to unleash her full potential. I made this guide by my own and it is my first guide, so i hope you enjoyed reading and you were able to use all those informations I wanted to bring to you. I would be thankful for feedback.

So, have a good fight Summoner,
may our paths will cross one day in Game,
until then, enjoy your life and this guide.

Remember that is not important to make much kills in Dominion, but it is always good to do so!

18.11.2011: Updated Skilltress for new patch