Akali Build Guide by TexasDeviant

I think you should really add in a quicksilver sash as one of the supplemental items that you can get. You mention throughout the guide how CC will be your demise when you play Akali, and a QSS can really help you out in so many situations

Nice in depth guide mate, voted fo sure, but 1 riot said that her burst will be nerfed :< I still think it wont stop the good burst

@C4k3CooKieZ - thanks for the compliment. Enough requests have come in now, that I think it would be generally desired if I expand the length of the guide to include a countering section. Also ranked. Yes, ranked will be coming. The complete reason for this is that I typically play with my fiancee. She is only level 27 still, so I am content in waiting for her to move up before I jump into ranked. I capitulated for I think 3 ranked games so far, and with the exception for the 5v5 I had (bunch of random friends), the 2 solo's I did exceptionally well in, losing to other factors that just shouldn't have existed. (Don't get me wrong, I am not saying I play Akali to the fullest potential yet. This entire guide creation was a learning process for me too, and I have ideas where I can improve my gameplay as well). But like I said, as soon as she hits 30, I will be posting some ranked stats :P

Ahead of making that section though. I can leave a few tidbits. 1) I have never, ever, had a hard time against cassiopeia. She seems like she should be a decent counter, and maybe every single one I have played against do not know how to counter Akali, but I generally find Cass too squishy to stand much a chance.

The general play is this. Run in, dodge any range aoe, and through mark of the assassin. Wait a few seconds, ult in, proc, mark proc. At some point here, she is likely to throw her ult and stun me. But mercs, combined with anywhere between 100-150 mres ensures I should survive it. If she runs she dies. If she stays and fights.. maybe she will have a chance depending on how much hp I entered with, but 90% of the time she will die.

Played right, there is no situation where Cass seems to be safe when trying to solo or defend against akali. If I find some more successful Cass's countering me, I will develop a more detailed strategy for taking her on.

If anyone wants to help with this.. let me know. I'm TexasDeviant in game as well ^^.

Lee Sin is a difficult one. Sometimes. If he gets fed, it typically takes an entire team to down him anyways. The best result there is to ignore him outside of a team fight. If he isn't fed. It is an even match. Be wary of his vision attack, and what that does for your shroud.

The key to fighting lee sin, is anticipating his skill shots and avoiding them. Leading with your mark, and delaying as much as possible. Ult in, burst him through 2 marks and retreat if he isn't easily killable at this point.

The short version, harass until he is in a dangerous zone (usually at half life or less) and then throw everything at him. Make sure to save an ult in case he kicks you away with his ult, so that you can jump back on and resume killing him.

---

@VexXel - Thanks ^^ And yes I can give a few pointers. Several people have asked how long it took me to write this. I would say over a period of 3 or 4 weeks, from inception to finish, I spent at least 24 hours making it. A few hours here or there and stuff life that.

This was definitely a marathon, not a sprint so take it slow. Think about it in your dull points (some of mine was in class, I would be crunching numbers and revising the scope of what I wanted to express in the document).

Get some friends or willing participants to help to. Jhoijhoi is a good reference. Read her guide to making a guide to get started. (see my signature).

When I started out, my guide looked nothing like this, even from a conceptual point. I did have an idea on what I wanted to include though, and those became placeholders to expand.

For example, originally there was going to be a tips-and-tricks section. But I broke this up and made an advanced twilight shroud section and zoning section.

Just things like that. If you find someone who would be willing to read certain sections at a time (ask me politely and sure :P) just to give a little feedback, it really goes a long way.

Originally the item section was 5 different parts, and included the game play in it. This changed radically as I fully formed the damage section, and condensed items in to 1, pulling the gameplay separate as well.

Two more things. 1) Edit. Edit. Edit. and edit. This takes up at least 40% of the work of the guide. Look through guides and find formats you really like. Avoid dull spots in the guide with colors and formatting that encourages the reader to read. A true danger of a long guide is people not wanting to read it.

Not being able to read it because they don't have time is a minor set back, but if they are genuinely bored reading, then you will lose major points. So again, see jhoi's guide, and if you have a concept, send it to my inbox and I would be glad to critique or give feedback in some sections.

Also, have someone else edit for you. I am a pretty decent speller, and use spell checks regularly. Put it this way, before this guide was published I had viewed my own guide over 650 times. And EVEN THEN I still had a few errors throughout the guide. Axl4002 was kind enough to catch most of these.

And even then, I still have mistakes :P I find typos to be a #1 disengagement from a guide. Inaccuracies and a non-fluid flow through the guide bore me, or annoy me, so it is tantamount to lead with your best foot forward.

2) Another 10-15% of your time should be dedicated to defining the scope of the guide. For example, I refined included a specific countering session in here. I had planned to add it, but it was removed. I will probably add it back in. However, there are a few things (especially in the damage calculations) that I have left out. The complete task of this thing is definitely daunting sometimes, and if you can decide on a clear path to traverse, you may never finish it. So either you give up on it, or you release it before it is truly ready.

Gauge what is truly important to be in the guide, and then decide what just isn't important enough to make it.

Long winded again >.> Just seems to be my answers on here.

---

@MisterSantos - I can admit that I haven't explored QSS as much. And this really was an oversight on my part. You make a great point, and I promise to get some games in with this item and let you know of the results. I expect results to be pretty decent with this, as I can already think of a few game match ups where this would be more than appropriate.

---

@InnerZerg - Hmm. This link here gives the riot feedback on her. Right now, it might be that she will be nerfed for the sake of dominion, but in 5v5 she still has some pretty hard counters. It seems ridiculous to say after everyone can see the potential Akali has, but she really has some countering strategies out there that just ruin her day and game. It is a feeling I definitely hate. And like I mentioned earlier, I may include a counter to Akali situation. At the same time they also mention the fact that Lee Sin as a hard counter to her is kind of frowned on : )

lol this guide.. so AMAZING..
i read this guid and i was totaly amazed :D
i just had time to test one game with this guid/build.. only 5 numbers 17/6/12 ;)

@Blacksw0rd - Thanks for the compliment. I am sorry if the reason you had time to only play one game so far was because you spent the rest reading my guide ^.^

And that definitely isn't a bad score. I hope you can continue to use this guide to develop your Akali play.

If you want to, and anyone else for that matter, upload results of your matches from using this guide, I will make a nice spot for you in the guide.

---

-Went ahead and bought a photobucket membership. Half the allotted bandwidth (5 of 10 GB) was used within a single day even after compressing the images to as small as I could get them >.>

Lastly, I have decided I will expand this guide further based on popular request.

Here are the things I am currently planning on implementing:

-Add quicksilver sash results.
-Section: Countering Akali
-Section: Countering Specific Champs with Akali
-Add ranked results


If you have more things you would like to see, please make your requests in the comments or a pm, and if the idea if wanted enough, or I feel it would be really important to have, I shall add it to this list.

Just incredible build. Very indept and it deserves to be the most high rated guide on mobafire of akali in one day.

Just some constructive feedback

Today I played akali for the first time, and I used a build similar to this one. Exept I didn't have the runes and I used mejai's soulstealer + boots of swiftness instead and I carried my team. Maybe include boots of swiftness in item section? And I disagree with ur section about mejai's. It's a really cheap item and ur build is very expensive. U will have to farm like hell to finish it. And you shouldn't be doing this. As akali you have to be in fights non stop. Mejai's is a good item because it cheap and akali snowballs very well.

But that is my opinion. +1 by me

Nuke values look kinda fake.

@marisi - Thanks. Admittedly, boots of swiftness do deserve a mention. If you can get away without using mercury's treads this is a viable alternate. However, I might suggest the following as well. Boots of swiftness serve the ability to move inside teamfights, while boots of mobility do much more for roaming / ganking. As Akali has no issue moving around in battle due to her ult, I would suggest it would be better to have the extra 2 runspeed you get with mobility over swiftness.

About Mejai's. There is nothing saying that it would just make you decimate with Akali. None at all. If you are able to build Mejai's and get stacks on it, you will dominate for sure. The problem if stability.

Can you reliably stack Mejai's every time? Chances are probably no. There will be games that you do of course, but a good team, especially in the ranked situation will turn you into their number 1 target. You will get cc'd and you will die. Every time you solo somewhere, you can expect the full team to come after you.

This presents a problem because you have given up a good item slot for power that you no longer have, and furthermore, you are setting yourself behind most likely because you want to avoid the spotlight of focus if you can.

That being said, you can still have good games with it ^^.

---

@Baxxie - does it? You will find that many champs if built right can do this. An AD built Sion can critically hit someone (reliably too) for 1500 damage. So it certainly isn't non-feasible. If you read here and check the Akali section, you will see that the design is fully aware of high damage values.

They have to be there in order to accomplish filling the assassin's roll.

Furthermore, I spent a great many hours working on damage, running the numbers and stuff. I have it all down in an excel sheet, but in general can do it by heart.

First calculate the AP:
Masteries: .6/level = 10.8 at 18
Runes: 14.85(quint) + 8.91(glyph) = 23.76
Total: 34.56

Items: Hextech Gunblade (75) + Rylai's Crystal Scepter (80) + Lich Bane (80) + Rabadon's Deathcap (140) + Void Staff (70) = 445

Modifier: Rabadon's Deathcap = AP * 1.3

Total = (34.56+445)*1.3 = ~623 (rounded down) (I am rounding so there will be slight deviations)

Next Calculate attack damage:
Akali base attack damage is: 52.8, her growth is 3.2/level. At 18 = 110.4
Runes and masteries = 7*.95 + 3 = 9.65
Hextech Gunblade = 60
Total = ~180 (rounded down)


So AP = 623 AD = 180

Skill Time

Physical

Auto-Attack = AD = ~180 physical damage
Crescent Slash = 130 + .3*AP + .6*AD = 130 + .3*623 + .6*180 = ~425 physical damage
Lich Bane = AP = ~623physical damage

Magical

Passive Auto = AD*(10+(AP-20)/5)/100 = 180*(1.306) = ~235 magic damage
Mark of the Assassin = 150 + .4*AP per hit. (So this is x2 when activating mark)
= 150 + 249.2 = 399 damage * 2 = ~798 magic damage
Shadow Dance = 250 + .5*AP = 250+.5*623 = ~562 magic damage

I described a nuke as a baseline in the glossary. It is possible to achieve this at least and more on a nuke (see the combo video there as well). So for my baseline I used:

2 Mark of the Assassin + 2 Crescent Slash + 2 Shadow Dance + 4 Auto-Attack/Passive-Auto + 3 Lich Bane

This nets:
Magic = 798*2 + 235*4 + 562*3 = ~4222
Physical = 180*4 + 425*2 + 623*3 = ~3439
Total before resists = ~7661

Since I am using base-line items (merc boots and void staff)
Calculate the reductions:
Sunder = -6 armor
Magic Pen Static: -2*.95 = 1.8
Magic Pen Percentage: ((1 - Archaic Knowledge (.15)) * ( 1 - Void Staff (.4))) = (.85*.6) = .51 So mag pen reduced to 51% (or for the other side 1-.51 = .49 Meaning 49% reduction)

Using the values I explained in the tables (80 armor) (150 magic resistance)

Armor = 80-6 = 74 Modifier = 100/(100+74) = 100/174 = ~.5747
Magic = (150-1.9)*.51 = 75.531 Modifier = 100/(100+75.531) = ~.57

A nuke, as described above = 4222*.57 + 3439*.5747 = 2407 + 1976 = 4383

Once you factor in Havoc this becomes 4383*1.04 = ~4558

If you are still skeptical, I can provide more details if needed : )

Wow. I can really tell that you've put a lot of time and effort into this amazing guide on my favorite character. She was my first champion and through the many games I've played with her, I can agree on almost every single point this guide makes. Very detailed, good points, and some excellent examples of how to use her correctly.

Well thank you very much ConTrollers. Let me know of any feedback you would like to see inserted into the guide ^^.