This is build is designed to give Akali nearly identical damage to the all-out offensive builds, but adds TONS of survivability and support. Survivability and support are critical in ranked matches, not so much in normals where all you want is kills and don't care if you lose. Clairvoyance is the keystone here. With a 38 second cooldown and 10 second duration you can literally spam it and keep your non-warding low-elo teams alive.

Why Clairvoyance on Akali you ask? Simple, my dear. Akali barely benefits from any mastery trees or summoner spells in general. In addition, Ghost and Flash, the 'best' summoner spells in the game, do not synergize well with Twilight Shroud or Shadow Dance. This makes Akali particularly a better candidate for odd summoner setups.

My items are optimized to give the maximum DPS possible without being pure damage.

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Pros:
-INCREDIBLE support for the lesser-aware players you may end up carrying.
-Good survivability, enough to get in, kill carries, and get out, rather than sacrificing.
-Safer farming
-Can save you ward money

Cons:
-Not perfect on damage, but ends up doing plenty
-Can't kill tanks until endgame, if they stack MR
-Requires you to be a map aware player so you know where to Clairvoyance and when

For summoner spells, I use Clairvoyance and ignite. Clairvoyance is the obvious one, for preventing gank situations (bye bye needing ghost to pop). I prefer ignite as my second spell, mostly for tank burning, but this is really open to player preference.

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The key to this build's success and the only thing keeping your early game afloat.

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My preferential choice, as it is really necessary for early game kills and still works great all throughout. Ignite does help a TON before you get to Rylai's, seals some kills you couldn't get normally on tanks, etc. A lot of the other spells could work just as well if they fit you better, though.

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Can work if you prefer it, since Rylai's takes a while to build. This would probably be best if you are low summoner level.

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Another good option if you don't like ignite, it adds to your support power when you can teleport to save feeders and possibly reverse gank. More useful at moderate pre-30 summoner levels, but definately viable AT 30.

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Another good option, adds a little survivability, just for "that one time" when you had no minion to shadow dance to.

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Again, good option if you want it. Helps a little in teamfights with your mobility.

There are a couple things you will need to get used to doing with this build which you have probably never done before. Clairvoyance takes some getting used to, but if you are a good player most of the use comes naturally.

- Clairvoyance IS YOUR EXTRA ESCAPE MECHANISM. YOU MUST PROTECT YOURSELF WITH IT.

-Use Clairvoyance on dragon or baron if you suspect they are doing it. Lots of good things can happen as a result, such as scaring them off the monster.

-Use Clairvoyance on ANY bush you think the enemy team can/should be in before facechecking.

-You can pop Clairvoyance during chases for free LoS to Shadow Dance

- Clairvoyance the enemy fountain at the start of the game to see where they are going and what items they are getting. This won't work at high rating.

-Help your other lanes with the level 1 facechecking by popping CV instead, and then maybe they won't die to Garen in that bush.

I won't get into typical Akali play, as it has been covered MANY times before on other guides here. I will go over the most important goals though:

-Kill squishy dps first always, even if the positioning is more difficult (just don't suicide, go after an engage). Your role is to kill enemy carries, and after that your job is mostly done as Akali.

-Clairvoyance to gain information. This the point of having it.

-Kill as many minions as possible.

-Die as little as possible, including at the expense of a kill or two. You'll get your chance later. This tip applies more to teamfights than laning.

STANDARD BUILD:

This starts you with the 10% spell vamp passive and adds hp surv. Very standard.


I rush these because you get almost exactly the same damage increase as Hextech Revolver, but you trade 15% spell vamp for the movespeed (which really increases damage and survivability potential MORE)


Another standard early-mid akali item.


This is where I start to deviate from ordinary Akali builds. Instead of rushing straight into AP stacking, I build up the backbone of the character. This feeds your enemies less gold plus gives you more farming time. At this point in the game, it will typically give you the health buffer needed to land kills as well.


Standard Akali item, rushed for the control and support to synergize with the rest of this build.

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Non-standard mid-game item. Ordinarily you would only want this on Vladimir or an AoE champion, but we use it to help kill carries who decided to get mercury treads. Alternatively you can get a Void Staff here if at least 4 of your enemies are going to use a single MR item.


Standard bulky AP item.


This is the strongest component of Lich Bane, so get it first.


Adds another 100% AP scaling attack to your combos, which were not much higher than that per skill before. This is a key item if your enemies rushed MR, as it deals physical damage.


Endgame polish. You could replace this with a defensive item if you want, but my games never last to this item.

4 MAGIC ENEMIES, NO ENEMY AD CARRY:











4 PHYSICAL ENEMIES, NO ENEMY AP ASSASSIN: