Akali is a hybrid champion, by nature, but most people build her as an AP mage/assassin. When they build her like that, she is very susceptible to being blown up during a fight, as she lacks meaningful defense. Her burst damage is very high, but it is easy to focus her down during the fight.

The base damage on Akali's spells is actually very good, so what I figured out is that Akali can build tanky and use her passive ability, Twin Disciplines, to become a spell-vamp-heavy tanky assassin.

I like to bring Akali as a jungler, when my team has strong early lane champions, because this allows me to power-farm to level 6, when Akali becomes meaningful. Akali typically gets harassed in lane quite hard.