Akali Build Guide by PoisonFang

Introduction

Well this is my first guide, so I dont know how good it will be, but here it goes. I'm doing the guide for Akali, because she is my favourite (and best champion). She is a good pick vs anyone who you think your comfortable playing againts, because as long as you dont die and farm OK, you will sooner or later start snowballing like NO OTHER CHAMPION ! You would say "you should only pick champs who you can counter blahlbahblah" , but in reality countering only works if you are vs people on your skill level (people you know how good they play ) and you cant realy play vs allot of people you know are good, unless you are VERY high ELO or play in tournaments, but in that case I doubt you need a guide.

The only champs I advise you to not pick againts are , because he NEEDS to get countered if you ever want to win lane vs him and , because his E screws up your W and without it you can never farm vs him.

Runes

Runes are THE MOST important thing for Akali so if you are lower than lvl 30 I suggest playing other champs untill you can afford good runes. The runes you MUST always have in your rune page for Akali are runes worth - more than 6,5 dmg (with my runes its 6,6) and 14 AP. The reason for that is in combination with your masteries you will start with exactly with 10 dmg and 20 AP, which will activate both your passives. For the other runes you can put anything you want, but I recomend Magic Penetration and Cooldown Reduction. The runes I use for her are:

9 blues for 1,19 AP

6 yellows for 0,59 AP and 3 yellows for 0,29 % CD

7 reds for 0,95 DMG and 2 reds for 0,16 % CD

1 quint for 1,64 % CD and 2 quints for 2,18 Magic Pen



These are the runes I found work best (in my opinion).

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Masteries

Masteries for Akali are standart, except for the fact you put 22 into the Offense tree, instead of 21. That means you masteries should be 22:0:8 taking the standart AP masteries + the masterie and getting in Utility. If you dont want the movement speed masterie you can, also take the masteries in the Defense tree and . The reason you should take full AP masteries in the Offense tree, is that you mostly do magic damage and will mostly build her as an AP champion, so they give you good early game by inmpoving your skills and giving her enought AP combined with your runes to active your passive.

Items

You should play Akali as a AP/Hybrid, so build items around that.

Always start with Boots of Speed and 3x Health Potions. Build those Boots of Speed into Sorcerer's Shoes if you feel skilled enought to have a good positioning and stay safe while dealing dmg in team fights or take defensive boots ( Mercury's Treads or Ninja Tabi) if you feel you can die easy.

Also before upgrading your Boots of Speed consider buying a Hextech Revolver, which is a great early game item for Akali. It will help you stay on lane and have some extra durability while fighting, because of the bonus spell vamp. Dont waste your money on building it into a Hextech Gunblade, before buying other items. After your boots and revolver consider buying a Rylai's Crystal Scepter (if you need the slow and tankines earlier) or if you are geting fed just buy a Rabadon's Deathcap, but always buy the scepter sometime in the game, because its one of the key items for Akali. After you finish one of those items build your gunblade, and after that build the other item you didnt build earlier (build rabadon if you built scepter and build scepter if you built rabadon).

For the late game get a Guardian Angel, because you will do SO MUCH dmg, people will always try to focus you, and probably get oracles so your W wont be enought to save you. For you last item get a Lich Bane which will make your dmg go skyhigh (some people buy this item earlier in the game but I like buying it late, because it realy has only 1 good thing it gives on Akali and thats the passive so waisting your money to build it will slow you down if your not fed).

Some people think you should buy Hextech Gunblade on Akali, before Rylai's Crystal Scepter , so if you like you can also try that.

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Skill Sequence

The skill order on Akali is easy always start with your Q and max it first. Get your W until lvl 4 and max it last, and get your E on lvl 2 or 3 and max it second.

The skill order is easy and always should be the same, but how you use these skill can be preaty hard to master. Always keep in mind that your Q is a skill you ALWAYS want to proc, because it does most of its damage after you proc it and it also returns much needed energy to continue your combo. Always try to start your combo with your Q followed by 1 use of your ult to close the gap and give you a chance to proc it with an auto attack or your E. Your W can sometimes be your best friend, not so much for the slow it offers (that rarely comes in use), but for the protection it gives you in the midle of the battlefield. You can use it for waiting for your cooldowns when fighting in small fight or use it for protection yourself untill the right moment to focus the easy targets in teamfights. You can also use it to bait other players or for tricking them. It can also be used for escaping gangs with the combination with your ult or flash. Your E skill is mostly usefull for farming big waves and procing your Q when chasing, but late game its a prety good way to get tons of helth from spellvamp.

Your ultimate is the hardest thing to learn when playing Akali. A good Akali player can find 1000 diferent things to use it for. Some of the thing u can do other than using it to do dmg are :

- Closing gaps. Sometimes you cant just use your ult on the chapion you want to kill so you will have to jump on minions or jungle monster or even other players to do so. Always remeber that, because I see a lot of Akali players forgeting that.

-Escaping gangs (the same way as closing gaps)

-Engaging and disengaging. By having such low cooldown your ult can be used to engage a small team fight, get a kill (remember use your W) and get the hell our of there by using your ult on something on the oposite direction.

And many more.

Summoner Spells

The summoner spells I found work best on Akali are Flash and Ignite.She needs that flash, because before lvl 6 she has no mobility and can get ganked easy, but if you use your W and flash you can get out of almost any gang. Your ignite provides a good amount of free damage in combination with your burst and screws up any kind of anoying heelers. You can aslo use , or in the place of your Flash, if you realy want to try and experiment with spells vs different teams, but I dont recomend it.

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Pros / Cons

Here are some pros and cons of playing Akali

Pros:

-Good damage sustained damage (able to poke)
-Good burst damage (able to 1 shot low resistant and low hp targets - caries)
-Has stelth (your oponets must always be carefull and if fed must spend money on )
-Hight mobile champion (they will need to waste CC on you if they wish to kill you easirt)
-Good farmer
-Good sustain (for an AP that is)

Cons:

-Easy to counter (if you cant realy play good with her)
-Easy to focus (if they have good CC or a way too see you when your invisible)
-Hight priority target (they will almost always try to focus you first because your mele)

Jungling

DO NOT JUNGLE WITH AKALI !!! I cant stress that enought. The few times I have seen people jungling with here were horible. Even I have tried to jungle with her once and I failed miserably. She just doesnt have the early sustain and clearing speed to be a jungler. She is strictly a top laner (I see some people using her on mid, but in my opinion she is NOT a mid champion).

There are much better champions for jungling simmilar to the Akali playstyle, like

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Playing with Akali on your team

There are a couple of thing you must have in mind when a player in your team is going to play with Akali.Always remember that if the summoner playing her is good, he can easily carry your team, so be the bigger man and get champs to help the guy destroy them.

First remember that Akali is not very tanky, so try and get a tanky jungler. Good choices are not simply tanky champs like Dr. Mundo, champions like him dont realy work well with her so try and pick junglers with CC. Good teamates for Akali are and others.


And second remember that you can also be helpful to an Akali player even when you are a support.So if you AD carry agrees you can pick supports with CC like these Alistar, Blitzcrank or Leona, but I found that the best support you can get for when you have an Akali in yout team is , because she has good CC from her ult and in the same time provides bonus AP from her .

Playing againts an Akali

If your going to lane vs an Akali, remember to always try and pick or . If she desides switching lanes (with mid), follow her. Dont let her have an easy time.

If you dont have the chance to pick these champions (baned or taken}, try and take either a top champion you are comfortable playing and wont die from her, but still be able to farm or take a champion that is tanky enought to survive her combos, but still be able to do some deacent damage of your own like or .

Also the junglers I said in the PLaying with Akali section above, are good againts her aswell, most specificly .The reason he is so good vs her is because he can pull her out of her W and after that can keep her in one place with his passive and ultimate.

Good supports vs Akali are healers like or , because if Akali, doesnt manage to use her you can easily save your low resistance ally by breaking her combo with you sustain and that will leave her without cooldowns and energy (uselees).

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Summary

To sum up, Akali is a great champ, that requires you to spend some IP on runes and some time on mastering the use of her skills, but pays off because she is a realy fun champ to play and if used in the right matches, by the right people will win you a lot of games.

P.S. The guide will constantly get upgraded and improved, and for information I am a 1600 ELO player so trust my guide only if you want it, im not any kind of pro gamer or player im just, more than average player who used to main Akali .