Akali Build Guide by An Aussie Hippo

Introduction

Hey everyone, I'm "An Aussie Hippo", and this is my Akali Jungle Guide I worked hard to make this guide the best I could, and I would appreciate any and all feedback that you guys may provide. Akali is a fantastic champion, and she is by far the most fun - because you can secure kills with your jumpy ult! Sorry for my grammar, I am only 12. This took me very long to do so I hope you put aside some spelling/grammatical mistakes. Credits to jhoijhoi for the template, which you can find here.

Legends/Keys

These are legends/keys I might use throughout this guide, so to stop any confusion please read this.

AD - Attack Damage
AS - Attack Speed
LS - Life Steal
AP - Ability Power
SV - Spell Vamp
SS - Summoner Spells
MR - Magic Resistance
CDR - Cool Down Reduction
GPS - Gold Per Second
LvL - Level

Pros/Cons

Pros

+ Awesome ganks with Shadow Dance + Sustain in jungle + Good escape ( Twilight Shroud and Shadow Dance) + Has great burst potential + Low cooldowns + No mana!!!!

Akali is a amazing pick in soloQ or in any low elo or normal game. She isn't the most tankiest of champions but she does have a built in escape! If you Twilight Shroud then have visions of something to Shadow Dance onto you can make wicked escapes, or pre 6 you can Twilight Shroud then Flash over a wall. Akali's Dueling potential with a sheen or some spell vamp is insane, if you use your Twilight Shroud through the fight your not gonna lose so much health anyway so you can burst down your enemies. In my opinion the best thing about Akali is that you can get behind the enemy and take down there carries quickly in teamfights. eg. Miss Fortune is at the back of the enemy lines about to ult, you jump on her kill her get a Shadow Dance back then jump to there AP carry Ziggs, so yeah you get the point.

Cons

+ Can be easily counter jungled + Ganks aren't as good without Red buff or Shadow Dance + Needs items + Squishy unless built defensive + Only has 1 CC ( Twilight Shroud) + Need to be tactical

As all champions in league, they have there Strengths and Weaknesses. You may think "How can Akali have weaknesses? She is... Akali." Well compared to most other junglers shes squishy and pretty much can't gank until she has Shadow Dance. Her Twilight Shroud can be easily counteracted by a Vision Ward which fails her last second get aways. If Akali's Shadow Dance is only on one stack if she uses it the person she is chasing can Flash over a wall to get away or Flash in general and they will most likely get away. When fighting someone with allot of stuns such as Udyr you can get dominated without items/levels you cant go invisible with your Twilight Shroud very much and even if you did you would most likely have to use it to escape by then.

Masteries

Masteries

4/1

1/1

3/5

3/5

1/1

1/5

2/1

2/1

1/5

3/5

1/1

3/1

1/5

1/1

3/1

I find that theres many ways to do your masteries as Akali such as 21/9/0 or 9/0/21 or a mixture of which I have done. The reason I went 13/5/12 is because me personally I don't find Defense in season 4 strong without putting atleast 14 points in it, because armor is so far down the tree. The reason I put some points in utility because of Runic Affinity and Vampirism . Runic Affinity is pretty much usefull on all junglers it lets you have them red/blue buffs for longer! For Vampirism it took me a while to come to the conclusion of choosing it because I could of put it in Greed but then I thought the Life Steal and Spell Vamp would be quite useful to have early. In defence I went with Tough Skin for Akali because she isn't very tanky and -2 damage from Monsters and Creeps ends up pretty useful and Bladed Armor is very useful again big buffs early because it takes 1% of there health points every time they hit you, Enchanted Armor is just for the extra armor percentage. I went 13 for Offense I put 4 points in Sorcery for the 5% cooldown reduction and the rest of the offense are to give me solid/by level AD/AP.

Runes

Runes
Greater Quintessence of Ability Power 1	Greater Quintessence of Experience 2	Greater Mark of Attack Damage 4	Greater Mark of Magic Penetration 5	Greater Seal of Armor 9	Greater Glyph of Scaling Ability Power 9

• 1- Greater Quintessence of Ability Power and 2- Greater Quintessence of Experience

  
  The reason for running a Greater Quintessence of Ability Power is for the AP so early you get more AP to kill everyone! The 2 Greater Quintessence of Experience are so you can reach level 6 and get Shadow Dance earlier the reason for not going for 3 Greater Quintessence of Experience is because having 2 is enough to get ahead of your enemy jungler and keep up with lanes early game, and I simply don't find 6% necessary.
  
  
  

• 4- Greater Mark of Attack Damage and 5- Greater Mark of Magic Penetration

  
  Attack damage is always a good thing on anyone, when dueling the extra AD helps, especially as a melee, but on top of Akali being a melee her passive Twin Disciplines, so early game dueling is very powerful because you have AD which means more Spell Vamp because of her passive. 5 Greater Mark of Magic Penetration is good on people like akali because she has such high damage that if they have magic defense. Greater Mark of Magic Penetration really helps early and late game.
  
  

• 9- Greater Seal of Armor

  
  9 Greater Seal of Armor is for ADs to make the enemies AD damage not so strong on you, this is helpful for Akali jungle because most commonly there are enemy AD junglers so if they wanna just trot into your jungle and you see them have no fear to run at them and fight, of course under some circumstances!
  
  

• 9- Greater Glyph of Scaling Ability Power

  
  I find that Glyphs can be changed allot for Akali I went with Greater Glyph of Scaling Ability Power because it gives you allot of AP late game, which I find late game is Akali's strongest point in a game. Don't get me wrong! You can change allot of options these are just an extra 2. Greater Glyph of Magic Resist and Greater Glyph of Ability Power.

Summoner Spells

Smite: This summoner is mostly always needed in the jungle role, it secures buffs/ dragon , and does damage to help you take monsters and minions down.

Flash: Flash is somewhat like smite, but a necessity for mostly every champ in league it secures kills and gets you away from death, always helpful.

Ignite: This I don't really recommend but it is a option! It secures you kills and makes your ganks allot stronger but if you get caught out most likely you wont be able to escape but whilst ganking if level 6 as Akali you can jump to enemy minions in a tactical way to escape.

Ability Explanation

• Twin Disciplines(Passive): Akali's passive is amazing. Since you will already be stacking AP, the bonus damage to your auto attacks is a great complement to your ability combo. You will also be building Hextech Gunblade every game, which will give you an additional 7.5% spell vamp. This combination is your source of survival in fights.
  
  
• Mark of the Assassin (Q): This is your most important ability, other than your ultimate of course. It is a ranged attack that requires you to melee your opponent for full effect. You can use this to last hit minions and mildly harass opponents. Your goal is to be able to melee your opponent after marking them. When you do this, you apply extra damage based on your AP and restore a huge chunk of energy. If you don't complete the melee attack, you will become energy starved quickly.
  
  
• Twilight Shroud (W): This is the ability that truly makes Akali the monster that she is. There are so many tricks you can pull off using Twilight Shroud that I have dedicated an entire section of this guide to it. This is your stealth ability.
  
  
• Crescent Slash (E): This is your only AoE damage ability. It is less important and does less damage than Mark of the Assassin, which is why it takes 3rd place on the priority list. Striking an opponent with Crescent Slash will also activate the secondary damage of Mark of the Assassin, which will be a big part of your combo. Take this ability at level 2 when jungling and Twilight Shroud at level 3.
  
  
• Shadow Dance (R): This is the ability that makes Akali a snowballing menace. It is a decently-ranged dash that can be used to chase opponents, escape trouble by dashing to visible minions/creeps, or deal devastating damage with her combo. It has a very reasonable refresh time per charge. Up to 3 charges can be stored at once. Unlike Ahri's Spirit Rush, you don't have to use all 3 charges in a certain amount of time. You can store the ones you don't need for later. The best part of this ability is that you get a free charge (still max 3) every time you get a kill or assist.

Ability Sequence Order

Ability Sequence
1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12	13	14	15	16	17	18

> > >

Twin Disciplines(Passive): Akali's passive is amazing. Since you will already be stacking AP, the bonus damage to your auto attacks is a great complement to your ability combo. You will also be building Hextech Gunblade every game, which will give you an additional 7.5% spell vamp. This combination is your source of survival in fights. Mark of the Assassin (Q): This is your most important ability, other than your ultimate of course. It is a ranged attack that requires you to melee your opponent for full effect. You can use this to last hit minions and mildly harass opponents. Your goal is to be able to melee your opponent after marking them. When you do this, you apply extra damage based on your AP and restore a huge chunk of energy. If you don't complete the melee attack, you will become energy starved quickly. Twilight Shroud (W): This is the ability that truly makes Akali the monster that she is. There are so many tricks you can pull off using Twilight Shroud that I have dedicated an entire section of this guide to it. This is your stealth ability. Crescent Slash (E): This is your only AoE damage ability. It is less important and does less damage than Mark of the Assassin, which is why it takes 3rd place on the priority list. Striking an opponent with Crescent Slash will also activate the secondary damage of Mark of the Assassin, which will be a big part of your combo. Take this ability at level 2 when jungling and Twilight Shroud at level 3. Shadow Dance (R): This is the ability that makes Akali a snowballing menace. It is a decently-ranged dash that can be used to chase opponents, escape trouble by dashing to visible minions/creeps, or deal devastating damage with her combo. It has a very reasonable refresh time per charge. Up to 3 charges can be stored at once. Unlike Ahri's Spirit Rush, you don't have to use all 3 charges in a certain amount of time. You can store the ones you don't need for later. The best part of this ability is that you get a free charge (still max 3) every time you get a kill or assist.

Items

WORK IN PROGRESS

Counters

Vision Ward

Spoiler: Click to view

Vision Ward - A smart team will drop one of these in the middle of every team fight. Once they do, your stealth is basically useless. Do your best to be cautious when you see one, but don't abandon your team because of it. You are still deadly without stealth, just very vulnerable.

Oracle's Lens

Spoiler: Click to view

Oracle's Lens - Just like a Vision Ward, this will reveal you for several seconds even if you are stealthed.

WORK IN PROGRESS

Teamfights

WORK IN PROGRESS

Summary

Conclusion Credits to jhoijhoi for the template, which you can find here.

WORK IN PROGRESS