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Choose Champion Build:
Spells:
Ignite
Flash
Ability Order
Assassin's Mark (PASSIVE)
Akali Passive Ability
Introduction
In this guide I will try to give you a basic understanding of what Akali is capable of. I'll explain how she performs in 1v1, 2v2 and team fight situations, as well as how to take most benefit from her abilities and styles.
If done correctly Akali really shines at destroying enemy squishies. She is a perfect Anti-Carry with amazing mobility.
With her great chasing abilities she can easily stay on her enemy's tows and almost no running champion may escape her. Akali's burst damage is one of the highest in the game, so walking into battle alongside a strong control champion like maybe Blitzcrank (Greets to Breetzl <3) or Morgana really helps you to completely tear apart single enemy champions.
I'd like to apologize in advance: I'm not a native speaker, so my english might be messed up a bit here and there. Just tell me if you find some really strange sentences and I'll correct them ;-)
I would appreciate your feedback. Don't hesitate to vote, comment and/or ask questions!
UPDATE SECTION:
04.09.2011 - Guide published, some videos are yet missing. Will add them soon. Those parts are written in brackets "[]".
29.02.2012 - Guide is still viable for the most parts. Just reworking mastery section and item builds to fit present meta/gameplay.
Let's have look at the up- and downsides of Akali in general:
Ups:
Ups:
- Huge burst damage
- Fantastic chaser
- Amazing mobiliy after level 6
- Really mid/lategame profit from a well played earlygame (Snowballing)
- Great at farming/laning
- Squishy (At least against early
Vision Wards and/or oracle -- Akali hates
Oracle's Elixirs :-/ )
- A bit prone to crowd control abilities
- Requires a feeling for when to go into the fight, respectively when and whom to chase
- Timing is essential on Akali. Simply blowing cooldowns will make enemies get away and you getting killed
Here we go. Akali's abilities:
This is what makes Akali incredibly strong early game. Her passive actually consists of two effect which can be activated separately. Those are:
Discipline of Force:
This is the ability power part of Akali's passive. Upon gaining 19.5 ability power from runes, masteries and items Akali recieves a permanent buff which adds a magic damage component to her auto attacks. This starts at 10% for 19.5 AP and increases by 1% for every 5 additional AP. In this build we want to activate this at level one.
An example: Let's say we have 70 Attack Damage at level one. Akali's auto attacks now hit for 77 damage with 7 damage being magic damage. As this scales greatly with AP we are mostly buy AP-boosting items.
Discipline of Might:
This is the attack damage portion of Akali's passive. As soon as she gains 9.5 attack damage from again runes, masteries and items Akali recieves a permanent buff which increases her spell vamp by 10% at 9.5 AD. For every 5 AD this effect is increased by 1%.
We will activate this at level one too. As Akali's damage is much more AP dependant we won't primarily go for AD items. AP is just so much more worth it.
Mark of the Assassine is the base of Akali's burst damage. This is a relatively short ranged ability which applies a debuff (Mark) to her target. After a 0.5 second delay the debuff is active and can be triggered by Akali's next auto attack within 6 seconds. This consumes the Mark and deals additional damage to her target. The missile on its own does not hit very hard, but comined with a triggered Mark and its therefor required auto attack this deals damage lots of damage:
Missile damage + auto attack damage (including min 10% from passive) + triggered Mark.
Triggering the Mark also refunds 20 to 40 energy depending on level.
Akali's swiss army knive. This can be used both offensively and defensively. It helps you last hitting minions, escaping ganks etc. Hang around on the edge of the cloak as most enemy players will most likely cast their abilites to the center of your shroud. Twilight shroud also has a slow component which may be used to slow escaping targets or constrain chasers who want to reach you or your teammates while running away.
In addition while Akali stays on/under the Shroud her armor and magic resist are increased by a flat amount. She always recieves this buff while in the area of effect whether stealthed or not.
This is Akali's AoE farming tool which also contributes to her high burst damage. Crescent Slash hits all enemies in a small area of effect. This is Akali's only ability which deals physical damage alone. That contributes to the fact that we build for strong attack power.
Crescent Slash recieves both a damage bonus from AP and AD.
Now this is where the magic happens. Shadow Dance. This ability makes you an incredibly strong chaser. It does not cost energy but has its own ressource. Essences of Shadow. Those are added to a buff in a regular interval or can be obtained by scoring kills or assists. Each kill or assist provides you one charge of Essence of Shadow. Each use of
Shadow Dance consumes a charge. Essences of Shadow can stack up to a maximum of three at a time. I'm going to explain different uses of this ability in the strategy part of the guide.

Twin Disciplines:
This is what makes Akali incredibly strong early game. Her passive actually consists of two effect which can be activated separately. Those are:
Discipline of Force:
This is the ability power part of Akali's passive. Upon gaining 19.5 ability power from runes, masteries and items Akali recieves a permanent buff which adds a magic damage component to her auto attacks. This starts at 10% for 19.5 AP and increases by 1% for every 5 additional AP. In this build we want to activate this at level one.
An example: Let's say we have 70 Attack Damage at level one. Akali's auto attacks now hit for 77 damage with 7 damage being magic damage. As this scales greatly with AP we are mostly buy AP-boosting items.
Discipline of Might:
This is the attack damage portion of Akali's passive. As soon as she gains 9.5 attack damage from again runes, masteries and items Akali recieves a permanent buff which increases her spell vamp by 10% at 9.5 AD. For every 5 AD this effect is increased by 1%.
We will activate this at level one too. As Akali's damage is much more AP dependant we won't primarily go for AD items. AP is just so much more worth it.

Mark of the Assassin:
Mark of the Assassine is the base of Akali's burst damage. This is a relatively short ranged ability which applies a debuff (Mark) to her target. After a 0.5 second delay the debuff is active and can be triggered by Akali's next auto attack within 6 seconds. This consumes the Mark and deals additional damage to her target. The missile on its own does not hit very hard, but comined with a triggered Mark and its therefor required auto attack this deals damage lots of damage:
Missile damage + auto attack damage (including min 10% from passive) + triggered Mark.
Triggering the Mark also refunds 20 to 40 energy depending on level.

Twilight Shroud:
Akali's swiss army knive. This can be used both offensively and defensively. It helps you last hitting minions, escaping ganks etc. Hang around on the edge of the cloak as most enemy players will most likely cast their abilites to the center of your shroud. Twilight shroud also has a slow component which may be used to slow escaping targets or constrain chasers who want to reach you or your teammates while running away.
In addition while Akali stays on/under the Shroud her armor and magic resist are increased by a flat amount. She always recieves this buff while in the area of effect whether stealthed or not.

Crescent Slash:
This is Akali's AoE farming tool which also contributes to her high burst damage. Crescent Slash hits all enemies in a small area of effect. This is Akali's only ability which deals physical damage alone. That contributes to the fact that we build for strong attack power.


Shadow Dance:
Now this is where the magic happens. Shadow Dance. This ability makes you an incredibly strong chaser. It does not cost energy but has its own ressource. Essences of Shadow. Those are added to a buff in a regular interval or can be obtained by scoring kills or assists. Each kill or assist provides you one charge of Essence of Shadow. Each use of


Have you ever had an enemy who got away with about 20 hitpoints? This helps solving the problem.


Later Ignite is particularly good against nasty supporter heals or any other strong life regeneration like






Well







Alternatives:
Of course there are more possible ways to go with your Summoner Spells. Some good examples below:

You could switch










This spell is great in laning phase, if you want to go for a quick shopping trip back home and be back in lane 5 seconds later. Later in the game it helps you defend your towers, quickly move to approaching large minion waves or backdooring a lonely enemy tower.
Other Summoner Spells like maybe



In case of masteries this build goes a classic 21-0-9 style.
Particularly important are the +3 AD from
Brute Force
to activate the AD part of
Twin Disciplines,
Archaic Knowledge
for its +15% magic penetration and
Burning Embers
to benefit from Ignite, even if it is on cooldown. The rest is picked quite as normal. We spare points in critical hit masteries like crit chance (
Deadliness
) and crit damage (
Lethality).
Akali is build to deal massive AP damage and has no items to get insane melee crits.
If you stick with
Exhaust you should go with
Cripple instead of one point in
Deadliness
. Put the point from
Burning Embers
into
Alacrity
then to have 3/4 here.
In the Utility tree we get
Good Hands
for less time spent dead and
Perseverence
on tier 1 though Perseverence is a really bad mastery. Its regeneration effect is minimal. Still we have no other possibilities unless you picked
Ghost. Then you go with
Haste
instead.
Offensive:
Particularly important are the +3 AD from






Akali is build to deal massive AP damage and has no items to get insane melee crits.
If you stick with





Utility:
In the Utility tree we get




With this runes we activate both passive bonuses from
Twin Disciplines as early as level one.
This way Akali starts with both 10% Spellvamp and 10% extra magic damage from auto attacks (right clicking targets)
7x
Greater Mark of Attack Damage
- For AD passive in combination with
Brute Force
2x
Greater Mark of Magic Penetration
- A bit more magic damage late game
9x
Greater Seal of Armor
- Here you may mix in whatever you prefer. Greater Seal of Vitality might be a good alternative. I like flat armor since early game damage often comes primarily from enemy autoattacks
4x
Greater Glyph of Ability Power
- The minimum amount of flat AP glyphs to activate AP passive
5x
Greater Glyph of Scaling Ability Power
- 5x per lvl AP glyphs for more AP in mid/late game
3x
Greater Quintessence of Ability Power
- 3x flat AP so we trigger Akali's AP passive when added up with AP from glyphs
In sum this gives us following boosts at level 1:
1.9% Magic Penetration (MP)
19.66 Ability Power (AP)
6.65 Attack Damage (AD)
15.3 Armor (Ar)
Thus with
Brute Force
mastery we have 9.65 AD triggering 10% spell vamp passive.
Furthermore having 19.66 AP activates Akali's 10% bonus magic damage passive. (+0.6 from
Archmage's Savvy
)

This way Akali starts with both 10% Spellvamp and 10% extra magic damage from auto attacks (right clicking targets)
Marks:
7x

- For AD passive in combination with

2x

- A bit more magic damage late game
Seals:
9x

- Here you may mix in whatever you prefer. Greater Seal of Vitality might be a good alternative. I like flat armor since early game damage often comes primarily from enemy autoattacks
Glyphs:
4x

- The minimum amount of flat AP glyphs to activate AP passive
5x

- 5x per lvl AP glyphs for more AP in mid/late game
Quintessences:
3x

- 3x flat AP so we trigger Akali's AP passive when added up with AP from glyphs
In sum this gives us following boosts at level 1:
1.9% Magic Penetration (MP)
19.66 Ability Power (AP)
6.65 Attack Damage (AD)
15.3 Armor (Ar)
Thus with

Furthermore having 19.66 AP activates Akali's 10% bonus magic damage passive. (+0.6 from

Starting items:
Our first items will be







However there is one important thing I want to point out right at the beginning of this section:
Buy Sight Wards. More Sight Wards. Everytime you've got both the money and a free equip slot when leaving home. Everytime (Except on starting items of course)! Wards are king. Wards are OP. Wards save your life and secure kills. Wards let you control the map. Get a ward on you first trip home and place it on key positions on your lane. It is not your job to be the only one to place wards but you can easily complement your teammate's wards to gain control over the map. Wards have saved me countless times.
Follow ups/Mid game:
Now this is the point where the two builds up top of the guide differ. And my decision which way to go depends on how I peform on the first few levels. If I can secure a kill or two early I go straigt for


If things don't go so well I buy



If I get



Rylai's Crystal Scepter is crucial. This item is meant to be build with Akali. It has all the stats she needs. Lots of AP, a massive health boost, and last but not least: An amazing passive bonus. Rylai's is key in this build (as for most of the Akali builds) since its passive effect helps you so much in staying with your enemy. It excels at chasing down targets. Every single




So if I went straight for Rylai's without any




Mid/Late game:
Now the time has come to boost damage output. We achieve this by building



Depending on the situation in the game and whether I bought



Finalyzing:
Now that we have quite some AP and our survivability is increased we can work to counter enemies who are building up magic resistance.


The final item, if you have not build



Situational items
Of course there are more items of use for us. But these mostly depend on the situation in the game.







Against AD heavy teams I like






Another item which comes with a lot of very handy uses is











There are more options of course and I will add items to this assembly if I can put them to good use in a game.
Ability usage:
To maximize burst damage on enemy champs it is most important to not use your abilities at random but to think about when to use what and why first. You will easily end up energy starving if you just dish out spells like crazy. Thus I will try to give you the idea of how to place and time your spells correctly:
Early game: Last hitting and basic burst
First of all and most important is (as with almost any champion, maybe except supporters) last hitting minions.
Akali snowballs very well, so constantly last hitting throughout the game combined with some neat kills will give you a decent gold advantage leading to better items and eventually help you getting even more kills.
From early on you can use

If an enemy decides to come close just punish him with your standard

Missile damage + autoattack + 10% magic damage (from passive) + triggered Mark
At level two we get

At level four we get

We also use it to even increase burst damage output by using our standard combo first followed by a Crescent Slash. However remember our golden rule: Don't dish out ability cooldowns at random. Prevent beeing energy starved. You will be easily finished off by a gank if there's not even energy for a

Mid game: This is where the fun starts
There we go! Once you hit level 6 you can inflict some real pain. Still focus on last hitting minions. But if you find yourself in an opportunity to make some dead people: Go for it! This works best if performed like this (Your standard combo move):
Throw your




As soon as your enemy starts running away or tries to keep you off with crowd control abilites/slows you can close distance by hopping on him again with Shadow Dance. Shadow Dance may also be used to deal additional burst damage if you need to finish off an enemy real quick.
We throw

Yet remember that tiny bit of activation time your Mark needs before it can be triggered. Throw + instant jump may not trigger it immediately. Also try to have at least two Essence of Shadow before engaging. Otherwise your target's chance to escape is far bigger than you want it to be. In this phase of the game Akali really shines in securing the kill.
Late game: Domination and teamfights
Now that the game comes to big team fights Akali's main role is to take out enemy squinishes. For most of the time: Enemy carries.
But first I want to tell you what you don't want to attack: Any champion with a real good amount of health. Those are mostly tanks and tanky dps champions. Some examples:






You should only engage in a situation like this if their team out of place and you can be sure to have the time it takes to bring down one of those bulkies.
Here comes what targets you do want to engage to fulfill your role. As said above destroying enemy squishies is what you excel at. In general that is any target with a low health pool. I want to give you some examples here so you get the basic idea which champions should be prefered:
Ashe - She has no strong defense mechanism. If her arrow is on cooldown she can hardly do anything to get rid of you
Annie - Almost same as above. Just watch for her stun (white circle floating around her)
Caitlyn - She may try to hop over a wall using
90 Caliber Net
Cassiopeia - Try to catch her when her ultimate is on cooldown. Then she dies quite easily.
Ezreal - Has a skillshot
Flash-like spell.
Shadow Dance.
Heimerdinger - No escape mechanism
Karthus - Same as above
Miss Fortune - Again.
Tristana - She can push you away with her ultimate and jump out of range. Have
Shadow Dance ready to follow her
Twisted Fate -
Pick A Card can stun you and he may try to teleport away using
Destiny
Veigar -
Event Horizon stuns
In team fights timing is of the essence. You can't just hop in on the first target in sight (even if it is a carry) as the enemy team will quickly CC and kill you. Your role is not to engage a team fight. You sit in the back and wait for the opportunity to burst down your target. Let the fight commence first before going in. As soon as the first big crowd control spells have been blown and dangerous ultimates ended your time has come! Run your standard combo (You remember above?), go into battle, devastate them, chase down runners. If things don't look so good or you have to escape a tricky situation pop

You have to be aware of


Let's do some magic shall we? In this section I want to tell you how you can juke (Urban Dictionairy: To defeat an opponent by using subtlety, cleverness, or a trickery) your enemy, how to escape ganks, to chase runners from far away, how to maximize burst damage and so on.
As stated above
Mark of the Assassin is key to burst down squishies. Due to its low cooldown it is possible to have the ability ready again while an enemy still got a Mark on him. What this means is that since a Mark is active on your enemy for six seconds, you can delay the triggering of an applied Mark until you got your ability off cooldown (which takes 6 to 4 seconds, depending on level). Let me show you this in a video:
/league-of-legends/ability/mark-of-the-assassin-250
standard combo):
First I'd like to show you how to abuse
Twilight Shroud in different ways:
When leaving your Twilight Shroud area of effect you won't become visible again immediately. It takes a tiny bit of time until it happens. Thus it is indeed possible to move from a Shroud into a nearby brush unseen. Look at the following picure respectively the video to see what I am talking about:
/league-of-legends/ability/twilight-shroud-251
/league-of-legends/ability/twilight-shroud-251
Second I am going to tell you how your
Shadow Dance functionality can be extended.
Since it is also possible to target opposing team's minions you can use them to travel great distances in no time.
[whole screen travel with
Shadow Dance and
Flash]
As such it is also possible to catch a running opponent using this. The following video shows you how:
This feature may also be used as an escape mechanism. While beeing chased by an enemy champion run into a nearby brush and immediately hop out of it and onto a minion using Shadow Dance once the enemy gains sight on you when entering the brush himself. This can bring a lot of distance between you and your opponent. Let's have a take at this in a video:
[Video move to brush -> hop to minion to escape]

Mark of the Assassin:
As stated above


Twilight Shroud:
First I'd like to show you how to abuse

When leaving your Twilight Shroud area of effect you won't become visible again immediately. It takes a tiny bit of time until it happens. Thus it is indeed possible to move from a Shroud into a nearby brush unseen. Look at the following picure respectively the video to see what I am talking about:

Shadow Dance:
Second I am going to tell you how your

Since it is also possible to target opposing team's minions you can use them to travel great distances in no time.
[whole screen travel with


As such it is also possible to catch a running opponent using this. The following video shows you how:
This feature may also be used as an escape mechanism. While beeing chased by an enemy champion run into a nearby brush and immediately hop out of it and onto a minion using Shadow Dance once the enemy gains sight on you when entering the brush himself. This can bring a lot of distance between you and your opponent. Let's have a take at this in a video:
[Video move to brush -> hop to minion to escape]
While laning with a helpful partner you can completely dominate your lane. As mentioned in introduction strong laning partners are
Blitzcrank,
Morgana,
Amumu,
Fiddlesticks,
Lux,
Sion,
Maokai,
Xin Zhao, to name just a few examples. Basically helpful champions are those who own some sort of strong crowd control ability or stun. They basically hinder your enemy's escape.
Various combinations are possible. One I happen to use frequently thanks to a friend of mine is the following:
Laning with
Blitzcrank:
[Video of Blitzcrank hooking a target - bursting it to the ground]








Various combinations are possible. One I happen to use frequently thanks to a friend of mine is the following:
Laning with

[Video of Blitzcrank hooking a target - bursting it to the ground]
I hope you enjoyed reading and that you may find some of my ideas/tips/strategies useful for your play. Don't forget to comment, vote and rep if you like. Please tell me if you have any improvements.
Now have fun laying waste with
Akali - the amazing bursting ninja girl ;-)
--xenomes

Credit: http://asktheleague.tumblr.com
Now have fun laying waste with

--xenomes

Credit: http://asktheleague.tumblr.com
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