Akali Build Guide by Spoaleggur

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.

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
Greater Mark of Magic Penetration 9	Greater Seal of Armor 9	Greater Glyph of Ability Power 9	Greater Quintessence of Ability Power 3

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 IVTIP: 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 )

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.

Here are some facts about Mark of the Assassin that's worth keeping in mind:

- Mark of the Assassin is a single target ability that applies a debuff.

- Rylai's Crystal Scepter will apply a 40% slow for 1.5 seconds.

-This ability is considered to be a projectile for Unbreakable and Wind Wall.

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.

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

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.

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

- Crescent Slash is a point-blank area of effect.

- Rylai's Crystal Scepter will apply a 40% slow for 1 second.

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 Resonating Strike 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.

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.

- Shadow Dance is a enemy targeted dash.

- Rylai's Crystal Scepter will apply a 40% slow for 1.5 seconds.

- Shadow Dance uses an ammunition system.

-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).

Items

-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.

-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 Mark of the Assassin because you can't consume the mark with Crescent Slash 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.

Liandry's Torment

"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 Cape 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 Cape.

- Sunfire Cape 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 Cape 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 of Speed earlier in the game, if possible ).