Akali Build Guide by nickatt

Introduction

So here is my first build, with Akali, the girl (the ruthless assassin) I fell in love with recently. Why I'm doing this guide? Well, I saw a lot of guides encouraging the AP/Lich Bane Akali when the build I use is extremately hybrid and utility focused, so I felt like needing to post this to the world.

WARNING: If your battle-cry is "AP AKALI FTW OR BURN!!" read other guides more suited for you.

This is a "guide", made to help you figure out how to play Akali in 'one' especial way. And please, keep for yourself comments like "AD on akali? Trinity Force? NOOOOOOOOOOOB". Of course, I'd love to see your opinions and suggestions, we grow stronger in community :). Hope you enjoy this as much as enjoyed writing it. I hope you like it.

Plz, try this build, and let me know what you think about it ^^.

Pros/Cos

Pros:

• Good sustain in lane before Hextech Revolver, and even more with Phage
• Bye bye mana issues!
• Extremely good assassin on 1vs1
• Decent poking damage with Mark of the Assassin before lvl. 6
• Extreme harrassing before lvl. 6 with R>W>Q>E combo
• Gap closer
• Escapist
• Heavy DPS damage when builded hybrid ;)
• Can perform well in both top and mid lanes.
• Sexy ninja

Cons:

• Susceptible to CC and Oracle's Elixir
• Susceptible to area effect damage skills, since those can hit you when sthealthed
• Very squishy if not played well
• Low AP ratio on skills
• Takes skill to survive a team fight
• Low CC aside from Twilight Shroud's slow
• This build is a lil expensive :/
• Not as sexy as Ahri but deadlier

Why should I take hybrid akali?

There are many reasons. First of all, Akalis AP ratio is kinda lame: 40% on Mark of the Assassin, 30% on Crescent Slash and 50% on Shadow Dance.

Her skill kit is made for building hybrid as you can aprettiate on her passive Twin Disciplines: bonus damage will give you bonus spellvamp, and bonus AP gives bonus magic damage on hit based on your attack damage. So getting full AP its useless if you are not building some damage also. For instance, lets say you achieved 100% bonus damage on-hit. Having 100 damage, your basic attacks will deal a mixed damage ammount of 200. If intead you build hybrid, you'll have 300 AD + an aproximated bonus magic damage of 80%, ending on a total of 540 damage per hit, pretty big number for a mage, huh?

Additionally, Crescent Slash also scales with AD, giving you a nice farming capability and even better, huge sustain through spell vamp.

Masteries

Odd mastery tree you'll say. Whell, as an stealth assassin it's normal to take heavy damage output masteries, since you are not going to head the team, that's a job your tankyer teammates should do. Besides, I think the Twilight Shroud's magic resist and armor buffs + the stealth should keep you alive in most of the enemy encounters, not to say, you should be a shadow beneath the enemy lines, ready to strike from nowhere when a team fight initiates or just when chasing a roaming guy in the jungle.

Taking both Weapon Expertise and Arcane Knowledge is crucial to boost your damage, especially since Armor penetration is difficult to achieve through items, since there are not many that synergises well with akalis kit. The % armor pen will help boost the damage of Trinity Force proc and your few but not less important critical hits.

The other points are pretty self-explanative, but feel free to take masteries like Havoc , Vampirism or even Lethality .

Runes

Marks

I take magic penetration runes since this build wont provide any of it. AD runes are also a viable option in order to unlock that 8% passive spell vamp, however, I don't feel like losing the precius pentration for a mostly unnoticiable sustain. Desolation marks are the standard stuff for hybrid champs like Jax or Kayle.

Other viable options:

• Greater Mark of Attack Damage: to achieve the 8% bonus spell vamp through Twin Disciplines
• Greater Mark of Insightt: if you prefer magic pen

Seals

Ap will give you a little damage boost. You can take more defensive runes if you feel confortable with those.

Other viable options:

• Greater Seal of Scaling Magic Resist: for more damage through skills
• Greater Seal of Vitality: for extended survivavlity

Glyphs

Glyphs give better defensive and utility stats, so you should definitily take either magic resist or health runes for these.

Quintessences

Flat or per level AP is a good choice since these will sinergyze well with Archmage and your late game Rabadon's Deathcap.

I like to take per level runes since those give you bigger benefits long term, but the choice is yours: you prefer early or late game domination?

Summoner Spells

Taking Flash and/or Ghost is crucial to either take you out of a pinch in jungle skirmishes and team fights or helping you chase a bleeding target.

Ignite is a good choice for terminating those low hp enemies or prevent ******s like Master Yi, Sion, or Vladimir from healing themselves and finnally out sustain you in a fight. Exhaust is also a good choice for 'right click to win' champs. You could even take Surge since it's dps an AP boost goes well with hybrid Akali's kit, though I haven't tested it yet in game.
Teleport is a good choice if you want to be there when it matters, for setting ganks, saving towers, or even get some low guard enemy on their warded jungle.

Viable Spells

• Flash
• Ghost
• Ignite
• Exhaust
• Surge
• Heal
• Teleport

Non-viable Spells

• Revive(...)
• Clairvoyance
• Promote(NO! let those two por other support characters!)
• Garrison(..............)
• Clarity(lol you don't need mana)

Abilities

Twin Disciplines: these passive is the source of your DPS damage and your spellvamp. It's important to boost it by getting both bonus AD and AP.

Mark of the Assassin: these skill allows you to put a decent amount of damage from a distance, and since you'll never run out of energy you can (and should) spam this to death, speacially on people who doesn't have any ranged ways to harass you. Max this skill for damage.

Twilight Shroud: Akali's own smoke bomb to say "good bye!" or "Hi :3, im here to kill you!". These gives you bonus armor and magic resist so try to fight inside it's effect radius, and the stealth makes it a pain on the *** to hit Akali with autoatacks or abilities. The slow also will help you escape and stealth away from varius forms of annoying CC.
Remember that even when you are stealthed you can be hit by abilities like Noxious Blast or Rupture.
If you are on pawning streak a wise enemy team will begin to pop out an Oracle's Elixir. You really dont have any counter to this. Just tell your teammates to help you take the Oracle's carry out quicly and stay away from him.

Taking a single point on lvl. 2 should suffice.

Crescent Slash: This is skill unloads physical damage and it's ideal to farm, get huge ammouts of life with spellvamp and keep your lane pushed.

Shadow Dance: with this you can get high damage and close gaps. It even can help you scape if you are lucky enough to dash into an enemy minion. Also it's superb for getting into teamfights across walls, giving you a "Fell like a ninja" style. Remember it only can target enemy units, but turrets. Don't waste the Essences of Shadow on minions, try to keep with you at least 2 of them.

Skill Sequence

Harrasing Combo:

This combo unloads a heavy burst of mixed damage and allows you to safely retreat stealthed. If you have all 3 Essence of the Shadow feel free to continue on attacking while casting abilities as they go off CD. If you have the feeling the target it's gonna escape try an Ignite or Exhaust or even pop out Ghost. Taking Red Buff and a Phage will help you chase anyone to death. Late game, using Hextech Gunblade's Passive will assure a kill. Anyway try not to go into a suicide mission. If Twilight Shroud is on CD you may be getting into a sure death. Warding your lanes can prevent this, alonside knowing your enemies ways.

Keep an eye on your energy. If you spam too much just for farming you may run out of energy to fight back harrasing combos. If you fell like being about to be ganked keep 80 energy for casting Twilight Shroud and escape.

Twilight Shroud wont protect you from area effect abilities so take care when trying this combo on Cassiopeia or Malzahar. These champs are heavy counters to Akali so take that in mind and don't engage this way until you got at least Hextech Revolver and Mercury's Treads to counter their damage.

Items

Movement

• Mercury's Treads: This ones will give you a nice magic resist boost, and, above all, the Tenacity that will help you chase and scape those heavy CC spells. Consider this boots core.
• Sorcerer's Shoes: Who wouldn't like options? These boots are more suited for AP Akali but can greatily boost your damage output.
• Boots of Mobility: For mobility, help teammates all around the map and escape at cosmic velocityes when stealthed!
• Berserker's Greaves: These boots will boost your DPS but anyway your Guisoo's Rageblade should do the job.

Core

This items will give you enough DPS, damage, survavility and movility to do big damage ninja style. This ones will be upgraded into Trinity Force and Hextech Gunblade. Late game you can get Rabadon's Deathcap for a massive AP boost and a AD item. If you feel you have enough damage it's time for a Guardian Angel, a Warmog's Armor or a Rylai's Crystal Scepter. Maw of Malmortius is also a good survavility item since your main defense is your masive spell vamp (over 40%) and life steal.

Damage (AD)

Getting more AD will boost your damage, the magic output from your Twin Disciplines Passive and wil also raise to the skyes your spell vamp. You should take one of these:

• Infinity Edge: Paired with Trinity Force you have now 40% crit chance. Slighly expensive :(.
• The Black Cleaver: This mighty axe gives 45 armor pen, 30% atack speed, and 55 AD. Basicly a rocket launcher for your DPS.
• Phantom Dancer: crit chance, attack speed and a nice movement speed boost. Escape like a little girl running like a Chita and chase like a boss.
• Maw of Malmortius: Mostly defensive item. It has a nice passive of wich you'll do good use since your fluctuacting HP bar.
• The Bloodthirster: 100 final AD, 20% life steal. Good item but not entirely neccesary. Infinity Edge will give you a better damage output.

Survivavility

You dont really need these, but in case you are feeling insecure, on being on the loosing side consider taking one of these instead Rabadon's or the AD item:

• Guardian Angel: for a mega boost of defensive stats, plus the "Guardian Angel" effect. Carrying this item should get you out of focus by itself. Get back from death and kill those bastards!
• Warmog's Armor: Massive HP boost.
• Rylai's Crystal Scepter: Core item for AP Akali; this baby will get you 500 HP, 80 AP, and a massive boost to your slows.

Good friends to play with

You just engaged a 1vs1 fight (I'd rather call it murder) in enemy territory and in turned into a 1vs3 ********? Dont worry, throw an smoke bomb and wait for Shen. Triple kill assured :D.

In team fights you will be one of the biggest sources of damage, but don't rush into combat. Wait for someone of your teamtes to initiate with some heacy CC, then jump in and your bussinnes like usual. Take out the most fed person in the team, that LeBlanc or that OP Draven. Your ninja abilities should keep you safe, but stay near your teammates; you may atractt the attention of the entire team if you chase an escaping target too away from the main site of the team fight, wich will mean sure death.

You can also defend towers even in a 1vs3. Just pick the squishyest target and do the killing combo. Your smoke sreen will keep you safe if you are in the tower range. If that isn't enough to kill someone, at least they will retreat.

You can also defend yourself from dives by stealthing. If the dude escapes and you got the guts just Shadow Dance into him and unleash all your skills into him.

Summary

• Play like a ninja
• Harrass
• Hide and strike from brushes
• Have a Shen near

Real Life Scores

This are some of my last scores with Hybrid Aka in ranked. Send me yours!