Akali Build Guide : #128 Best Akali in the World : The Tank Destroyer

Introduction

Hello guys,
My name is AOS Spóaleggur ( EUNE ) and I am an Akali main. I've been playing Akali for almost 2 years now and just hit Diamond 5 this week. I am currently sitting at the #128 rank of all Akali's in the world.

And just for the comparison, here are some famous Akali players and their stats compared to mine:

There are a few things that I would like to point out before starting:

[*] I won't say that I'm abnormally good or that I have crazy mechanics or anything like that, but I can say that I do know something about Akali and I will do my best to help you out with understanding her kit a little bit better, as you go through this guide.
[*] I will also just be going over this specific build and not all possbile builds and strategies for Akali.
[*]And just keep in mind that my English isn't that good, but I'll still try to explain everything as best as I can.

Pros and Cons

Pros

+ INSANE MOBILITY
+ HIGH BURST DAMAGE
+ LIFE STEAL AND SPELL VAMP
+ GREAT ROAMS
+ SNOWBALLS OUT OF IICONTROL

Akali is an ideal champion for all of you out there with bad mechanics like me. Her mix of single-target burst, mobility and survivability makes her a great champion for Solo Q. She is able to burst down high priority targets before they even have a chance to survive which allows her team to gain advantages over the enemy. If you don't want to rely on your mechanics and rather focus on outsmarting your opponent, Akali is the right champion for you to pick up.

Cons

- VULNERABLE TO CC
- FALLS OF LATE GAME
- STEALTH-REVEALING ITEMS
- USELESS WHEN BEHIND
- ONLY SINGLE-TARGET IIDAMAGE

Akali, however still has weaknesses that you will have to learn to work around. She falls of late game due to the defensive items the enemy carries will begin to start buying such as Guardian Angel and Banshee's Veil. Her teamfight potential is pretty weak because of her lack of reliable AOE damage. She is heavily countered by crowd control and if behind she becomes almost useless.

Runes

This is the Rune Page I like to take when going against almost any matchup in the top lane. To many it may seem weird and just straight out bad, both lacking some form of defensive stats against magic damage dealers and armour penetration. But as Akali you shouldn't be taken much damage early in the game, and is this rune page mostly designed to help you farm safely with your Mark of the Assassin.

Runes

Precision

Fleet Footwork

Phase Rush

And as you can see on the picture below I will start the game with 52 AP, which makes it really easy for me to farm safely with Mark of the Assassin until I reach level 6.

Masteries

This is the Mastery Page I use in 95% of my games. You can really do whatever you want with this, I just personally like this setup the most and you may of course feel free to use it as well.

Spells

This is pretty self-explanatory, you'll need Flash for either initiating a fight or to get out of a sticky situation. And then we have Teleport, which is a really common summoner spell for top laners nowadays. It offers great utility, whether it's used to get back into lane or to gank / counter-gank another lane.

TIP: When inside your Twilight Shroud you can Flash and the enemy will then only see the animation of the spell. This can be useful to pulling off some sick jukes ( very similar to the "flash to bush" juke ).

All credit goes to the rightful owner which in this case is PanSnake IV

TIP: Akali's Twilight Shroud will almost keep her invisible the entire cast time of the Teleport if it's used as she teleports. There will only be less then a 1 second gap between the time when you Teleport to when you become invisible. This is demonstrated in the video below:

All credit goes to the rightful owner which in this case is EvilNessi

Skill Sequence

At level 1 you want to take a point into your Crescent Slash in order to make your jungle clear as fast as possible. After clearing the jungle camp you should hit level 2 if everything was done correctly. Then you immediately recall and Teleport back into your lane ( and remember to Teleport on the tower and NOT a minion, since it will leave your Teleport on a much lower cooldown ).

When you have arrived to your lane you will most likely take a point into your Mark of the Assassin since you will have to farm under your turret a lot. If everything goes as planned you level up your Twilight Shroud in case you'd get ganked early. But if you feel there is no kill pressure from the enemy jungler nor the top laner at that time you should be fine with just keep maxing your Mark of the Assassin.

But if your lane opponent has pushed the wave really fast and made it bounce back to the middle of the lane where it will slowly push towards you, you might want to level up your Twilight Shroud second. And especially if you're versus a lane bully that will punish you if you walk up too close. If you choose to go this route you'll take a point into your Mark of the Assassin at level 3 and keep doing that until it's maxed out.

Despite how the first 3 levels turn out to be for you, your main goal should always be to max your abilities in this order:
Shadow Dance > Mark of the Assassin > Crescent Slash > Twilight Shroud.

Akali

Akali's Passive is called Twin Disciplines and it basically just transforms her bonus AP into AD which is applied with her auto-attacks. And as well transforms all her bonus AD into spell vamp.
( Her passive is one of many great reasons why Hextech Gunblade is such a good item on Akali )

View detailed statistics for Akali's passive

Akali's Q is Mark of the Assassin which is a targeted spell that deals a small amount of damage and marks the target for 6 seconds. However if you consume the mark which you do with an auto-attack, you deal significantly more damage to the target. This is Akali's primary source of damage and burst. Akali can only apply 1 mark to each enemy before consuming it. But on the other hand you can have 3 marks on 3 different targets at the same time, when your cooldown reduction is capped. If you Mark of the Assassin a target that is already marked, the previous mark will disappear. One of Akali's best combos, once she has reached level 6, is to Mark of the Assassin a target and wait for the cooldown of the spell to come back up and then Shadow Dance onto the enemy, consume the mark that was already applied, then instantly throw another Mark of the Assassin at the target and consume it, without having to use Shadow Dance again. If you are still very close to the target you can use Crescent Slash as well to finish off the combo.
( Note that this combo shouldn't take longer than 2-3 seconds to perform ( if done correctly ). If the enemy decides to fight back or if you're in a bad spot you can use your Twilight Shroud and wait for all your cooldowns to come back up, then you just do the same over again.

View detailed statistics for Akali's Q

Akali's W is Twilight Shroud. When cast Akali places quite a big shroud ( circle ) onto the ground, making her go invisible as she stands inside the radius of it.
-It takes around 1 second for the invisibility to be applied and she will break the stealth once she uses an ability.
-Akali also gains a short burst of movement speed as she goes invisible which decays over 1 second and this can be triggered often in the same shroud.
-Enemies inside the shroud will also be slowed.
-Just be careful with the timing when using this, because this uses a significant amount of your energy and can really put you in a bad situation if not thought properly through to the end.
-Twilight Shroud also gives vision of the area that it's placed on.

View detailed statistics for Akali's W ( Twilight Shroud )

Akali's Twilight Shroud will stealth her until the Twilight Shroud ends or Akali steps outside of Twilight Shroud. Whenever Akali casts an ability or autoattacks inside of Twilight Shroud, she is revealed for 0.5 seconds. The Twilight Shroud also gives to Akali bonus movement speed for 20 / 40 / 60 / 80 / 100% and slows enemies inside for 14 / 18 / 22 / 26 / 30%.
RANGE: 700 / 400
COST: 80 / 75 / 70 / 65 / 60 ENERGY
COOLDOWN: 20
SLOW: 14 / 18 / 22 / 26 / 30%
BONUS MOVEMENT SPEED: 20 / 40 / 60 / 80 / 100%

Twilight Shroud is a ground-targeted, persistent area of effect that slows enemies within, while granting
Akali a self-targeted buff.

Source: http://leagueoflegends.wikia.com/wiki/Akali
http://leagueoflegends.wikia.com/wiki/Stealth

The following abilities can reveal invisible units for a period of time:

Caitlyn's Yordle Snap Trap and Ace in the Hole, if her target stealths themselves during the channel.
Corki's Phosphorus Bomb.
Fizz's Chum the Waters will reveal a stealthed unit if this attaches to the fish.
Karma's Focused Resolve.
Lee Sin's Tempest and Sonic Wave.
Lucian's Ardent Blaze.
Lulu's Help, Pix! will reveal enemies if they stealth themselves while Pix is attached to them.
Morgana's Soul Shackles.
Nidalee's Prowl.
Thresh's Death Sentence.
Twisted Fate's Destiny will reveal all enemy champions.
Rengar's Thrill of the Hunt reveals all nearby enemy champions inside the ability radius.
Zyra's Rampant Growth will reveal stealthed units that step over the seeds.

Akali's E is Crescent Slash. This spell isn't all that useful now since you can't consume Mark of the Assassin anymore with it. When activated Akali spins her kamas dealing damage to enemies around her. Though it did get some buffs recently, now it goes down 1 second cooldown when maxed out. This therefor makes it a decent waveclear tool for Akali. But just be careful when using spamming this ability since it will make you use up your energy ( in case you didn't know, Akali uses energy as a resource for her abilities ) incredibly fast. This ability should mainly be used when farming and in long lasting fights. This can also be used to get some free damage onto your lane opponent since it will not draw minion aggro and also out-ranges your auto-attacks.

View detailed statistics for Akali's E

ACTIVE: Akali flourishes her kamas, dealing physical damage to nearby enemies.

RANGE: 325
COST: 60 / 55 / 50 / 45 / 40 ENERGY
COOLDOWN: 5 / 4 / 3 / 2 / 1
PHYSICAL DAMAGE: 30 / 55 / 80 / 105 / 130 (+ 40% AP) (+ 60% AD)

Here are some facts about Akali's Crescent Slash that's worth keeping in mind:

- Crescent Slash is a point-blank area of effect.
-Applies spell effects as an area of effect ability.
-Spell vamp is reduced to one-third effectiveness.
- Rylai's Crystal Scepter will apply a 40% slow for 1 second.
-Spell shields will block the ability.

Source: http://leagueoflegends.wikia.com/wiki/Akali

Akali's R is Shadow Dance. Akali dashes to a target dealing damage and using one of her stored stacks. Akali can store up to 3 stacks at any given time and she also gains a stack on kills or assist. When Shadow Dance is first leveled up ( usually at level 6 ) she only start with 1 of the 3 stacks that she can have. And also when Akali respawns after dying she will always revive with 3 stacks of her Shadow Dance. You should always try to avoid using your Shadow Dance on a target if you haven't marked the target with Mark of the Assassin. Though if you're in a 1v1 and you're just trying to output as much burst as possible you can just go and spam your Shadow Dance on the target since it will also give you some health back. When spamming this ability you should try to get at least 1 auto-attack in between using your stacks, since the cooldown of Shadow Dance is too long for you to do it instantaneously.
Also keep it in mind that Akali's Shadow Dance now places her behind her target ( this was implemented a few patches ago ) and therefor you have to be careful when using this ability now.
F.x if you're playing against a Lee Sin in the top lane and you're fighting near his tower, although your minions haven't made it to his turret yet, you can try to dodge his Sonic Wave with your Shadow Dance. But by doing that you put yourself in a very bad spot and you basically set yourself up for being kicked at tower by Lee Sin using his Dragon's Rage.

View detailed statistics for Akali's R

PASSIVE: Akali stores an Essence of Shadow periodically and upon taking down an enemy champion, up to a maximum of 3 stored at once.
ACTIVE: Akali dashes to the target enemy, striking through them and dealing magic damage in the process. The strike-through distance increases the closer Akali was to her target before dashing, and is halved against targets affected by Mark of the Assassin.

RANGE: 「 700 / 100 / 200 」
COST: 1 ESSENCE OF SHADOW
COOLDOWN: 2 / 1.5 / 1
RECHARGE TIME: 30 / 22.5 / 15
MAGIC DAMAGE: 100 / 175 / 250 (+ 50% AP)

Here are some facts about Akali's R that's worth mentioning:

- Shadow Dance is a enemy targeted dash.
-Applies spell effects as a single target ability.
-Spell vamp is fully applied.
- Rylai's Crystal Scepter will apply a 40% slow for 1.5 seconds.
-Magic damage will be mitigated by magic shields.
-Spell shields will block the ability.
- Shadow Dance uses an ammunition system.
-If ranked, Akali will start with 1 charge, and will respawn with 3 charges of Essence of Shadow.
-The closer Akali is to her target, the greater the strike through distance. At point blank range Akali will be placed 200 units behind her target, while shadow dancing at maximum range will only result in a 100 unit strike through. Additionally, if Akali's target is affected by Mark of the Assassin, the strike through distance will be halved (50 at maximum range, 100 at point blank range).

Source: http://leagueoflegends.wikia.com/wiki/Akali

Items

[*] You should always try to start with an Amplifying Tome, 1 Health Potion and a Stealth Ward. But keep in mind that if you start with these items you must start by clearing a jungle camp ( usually wraiths or wolves ). This starting build will leave you at 52 AP at level 1 which is a really high amount of AP this early in the game. So for the cost of wasting your Teleport and using 1 Health Potion, you get to go into lane with 53 AP, 5 Health Potion and also getting an advantage by being a level ahead of your opponent.

[*] If you feel like you can get away with starting with a Doran's Blade or a Doran's Shield and a Health Potion then you can easily do that, but just remember to start by clearing a jungle camp as well if you decide to start with either one of these builds.

[*] But if for some reason you can't start with a jungle camp or jungler won't allow you to do so, you'll just have to start with a Cloth Armor and 5 Health Potion and then you'll just start in the lane as you normally would.

You could also start with Boots and 4 Health Potion, but if you choose to do so you won't be able to clear a camp and therefor you won't get any advantage in lane. I personally do not like this starting build and wouldn't really use it under any circumstances. ( Just including it if you'd dislike the other builds )

If you want to start with a Long Sword and 3 Health Potion you could also do that. But the same applies to this as with the boots, I DO NOT RECOMMEND starting with this build. You could clear a jungle camp at level 1, but since you can't buy more than 5 Health Potion there's really no purpose of doing that. And you won't be needing wards either since you will most likely be pushed under your tower the majority of the laning phase.

So here is the really weird part about this guide and that is the build. This build not only allows you to deal with squishy targets and blow them up almost instantly, but it also gives you the power to deal with tanks.

[*] I have had some success with this build, since almost every jungler in this current meta builds
Enchantment: Cinderhulk and gets really tanky and hard to deal with. Most of the junglers also have some kind of CC and this build should also prevent them, or at least decreasing the chance of you getting blown up, if you were to get CC'd.
[*] This build is also great when you have a lead. This build will almost guarantee that you will keep being strong throughout the game.

[*] When going over the build you can see that you buy Hextech Gunblade first ( which you should really do whenever you play Akali ). After that you buy a Sheen and then upgrade that into an
Iceborn Gauntlet. This item is not really bought often on Akali since it has so much mana, that she

obviously can't use. But simply the reason why I build this item is because it both slows and has theSheen proc which synergises really well with her because you can't consume the mark with anymore.
[*] The Sheen proc that you get from Iceborn Gauntlet is also very helpful when it comes to split pushing and by spamming your Crescent Slash you will almost be able to have a Sheen empowered auto-attack whenever you desire.
[*] Iceborn Gauntlet also offers some defensive stats with the armour that it provides, but as I

mentioned earlier, you're really wasting a lot of gold on the mana.
[*] If you really don't like the Iceborn Gauntlet or feel like it's not needed, you can swap it out for Rylai's Crystal Scepter.

[*] The next item on the list is Liandry's Torment. Liandry's Torment is one of the best AP items against tanks since it does % magic damage, instead of a flat amount.
does double the damage to slowed targets and as it is stated Liandry's Torment's Wiki Page:

"This item has synergy with items with crowd control effects, like Rylai's Crystal Scepter or Iceborn Gauntlet, because the item will apply the slow debuff and Liandry's Torment which will deal double damage."

[*] Besides from being a great damage item, Liandry's Torment also gives a fair amount of health that will surely help you to stay alive in fights.

[*] Then after that you can either buy either a Sunfire Aegis or a Void Staff, depending on how you're doing, what team you're up against and how they are itemizing. If you think that your team lacks damage then go for Void Staff, but if not go for Sunfire Aegis.
[*] Sunfire Aegis is a very good defensive item and becomes really gold efficient when combining it with all the magic penetration and magic resistance reduction from this build. So you're ignoring 35% of the target's magic resistance, as well as getting 30 flat magic penetration from the Sorcerer's Shoes and the Haunting Guise. In most cases that should also be enough to leave the enemy squishies with almost no magic resistance.
[*] Just remeber that Sunfire Aegis will draw turret aggro when sieging and the burn from Liandry's Torment and the slowing radius of Iceborn Gauntlet as well. So just be careful around the enemy turrets.

[*] And last but not least you have to Sorcerer's Shoes which you can really buy whenever you want, though I highly recommend buying it as your 3^rd or 4^th item ( and it's genuinely good to buy Boots earlier in the game, if possible ).

[*] If the enemy team has a lot of Magic Resist and/or a lot of magic damage dealers you could swap either your or out for an .
[*] So when you're getting to the end game and your build is complete, you should have somewhere between 300 - 400 AP. ( which really isn't much, but you'll have to trust me, you will do a lot
of damage )

Champion Matchups

[Difficulty: Medium]

Recommended Starting Items:

DETAILS ABOUT THIS MATCHUP

-Ok, so Renekton is actually a really easy opponent for Akali. But as with almost any matchup as Akali you're not gonna be able to do much before level 6. And to be honest you don't wanna fight him before you've backed and gotten your items. If things play out as they should you will have at least a Hextech Revolver when you go back and some consumables to go with it Renekton will most likely buy health, magic resist or attack damage. Good items for Renekton in this case would be Hexdrinker, Spectre's Cowl, Tiamat or a Bami's Cinder.
WARNING: CHECK FOR STEALTH-REVEALING ITMES.
-This lane is gonna really focus on baiting out his abilities. First of all you should be able to bait out his Dominus as you fight him behind his wave of minions. So basically once you see that his minions arrive to the middle of the lane, you want to fight him between his minions and his tower. ( you cannot do this if the wave is pushed up to his tower ) And if he eventually uses his Dominus you can just use Shadow Dance to jump back to his minions and then that's out of the way.
-Also note that you should never be too afraid of buying to many Health Potion, they will actually help you out a lot in this particular matchup.
-Try to fight him whenever his Cull of the Meek is on cooldown because that's most of the time his main source of damage.
-When Renekton uses his Ruthless Predator he is able to hit his enemy freely without taking back any damage. But in this case you can Twilight Shroud right as he uses his Ruthless Predator and then you'll become invisible if you're reaction time is good enough. You should be able to do this even when he's standing almost on top of you.
-If Renekton decides to buy a Hexdrinker you should also try to bait out the passive shield. So when he's about 30% of his maximum health left you want to try to poke him as much as you can with your Mark of the Assassin. And once you activate the passive you'll wait for it to wear off and then you're ready to go in and kill him.
-Watch out for his Cull of the Meek when you're getting pushed under your turret. Renekton will go under your tower and hit you with his FURY empowered Cull of the Meek while you're farming and that can cost you quite some health. He will often times take a turret shot for his troubles, but at the end of the day he'll surely win the trade.
-A good Renekton player will always Slice and Dice away from you right as you Shadow Dance onto him which will make you unable to proc your Mark of the Assassin, since your auto-attack's animation takes so long time to go through. You can't really prevent him from using the first part of his Slice and Dice, but you should be patient the next 4 seconds, right after he uses his Slice and Dice, and wait for the second dash to go on cooldown before jumping on him again ( so that the same thing won't happen again ). It's also a really good habit to throw your Mark of the Assassin before you use your Shadow Dance.

#128 Best Akali in the World : The Tank Destroyer

#128 Best Akali in the World : The Tank Destroyer

Recommended Items

Spells:

Teleport

Flash

Items

Ability Order

Assassin's Mark (PASSIVE)

Five Point Strike (Q)

Twilight Shroud (W)

Shuriken Flip (E)

Perfect Execution (R)

Introduction

Pros and Cons

Runes

Runes

Masteries

Spells

Skill Sequence

Akali

Items

Champion Matchups

League of Legends Champions: