The goal of this guide is to quickly and accurately inform you on the must-knows of Akali, and provide you with what I feel is the best runes, masteries, and item build to start with. Most of learning to play a champion and determining your favored build should come from actually playing them, so I have created a simple and decisive guide to suit new Akali players that will allow readers to finish reading and begin actually playing as quickly as possible.

If you have already been playing Akali and just are interested in working out optimal runes, masteries, and items you can skip this part.

Twin Disciplines:

Upon obtaining 20 additional ability power, Akali's hits deal 10% bonus magic damage, increasing by 1% for every 5 ability power gained thereafter.

Upon obtaining 10 additional attack damage, Akali gains 10% Spell Vamp, increasing by an additional 1% for every 10 attack damage gained thereafter.

-This gives Akali laning sustain, and extra damage on attacks. This passive is why Akali scales well late game. You should note that while mobafire states that the initial activation is 19.5 and 9.5, it is actually 20 and 10, respectively. You should have these at level 1. Also, Akali is still an AP champion, and you will not want to worry about getting ad (past +10) for the spellvamp until you have a very large amount of ability power. Akali's very unique runepage is a result of having to get this passive at level 1.


Mark of the Assassin:

Akali spins her kama at a target enemy to deal 50 / 75 / 100 / 125 / 150 (+40% of ability power) magic damage and mark the target for 6 seconds.

Akali's melee attacks against a marked target will trigger and consume the mark to cause 50 / 75 / 100 / 125 / 150 (+40% of ability power) magic damage and restore 20 / 25 / 30 / 35 / 40 energy.

Cost 60 energy
Range 600

-This is your primary damage skill. It can be used to last hit minions when you cant melee, and to return health. For harassing champions just throwing the ranged bit can work as a poke, as long as you are able to use your melee to get last hits on minions and they don't have alot of regen. An effective bursting method for this is to throw it on an enemy champion but wait before going in. You then wait till your cooldown is almost up again. You can now do an attack to consume the mark for damage, throw another kama at them, and then consume the second kama with another attack. This allows you to do alot of damage in the period of one melee attack cooldown. This also will return alot of energy, allowing for increased use of your other skills. This is obviousl much easier to pull off once you have your ultimate. (level 6 ability)


Twilight Shroud:

Akali throws down a cover of smoke that lasts for 8 / 8 / 8 / 8 / 8 seconds. While inside the area, Akali gains 10 / 20 / 30 / 40 / 50 armor and magic resist and becomes stealthed. Attacking or using abilities will briefly reveal her.

Enemies inside the smoke have their movement speed reduced by 14 / 18 / 22 / 26 / 30%.

Cost 80 / 75 / 70 / 65 / 60 energy
Range 700

-This is a great ability for laning safety, escaping, and team fights. In the laning phase, unless you are sure you are not in danger of being ganked by the jungler, you should just leave this up at all times, and use it to escape jungle ganks. If you don't need to have it available for this, it can be used to zone out a low hitpoint enemy laner, or to prevent yourself from being zoned out. The high energy cost means you should not (usually) use this as a slow when trying to burst someone down for a kill, since it will reduce the amount of damage you can do considerably. It is obviously great for escaping, and checking brush, which is something you will get the hang of as you play Akali. The restealth time after doing damage is fantastically low, so if the enemy team has no stealth detect it can be great for attack enemy carry's in team fights, since you can stealth whenever enemies try to switch targets to you.


Crescent Slash

Akali flourishes her kamas, hitting nearby units for 30 / 55 / 80 / 105 / 130 physical damage (+30% of ability power) + 60% Attack Damage.

Cost 60 energy
Range 325
-This is Akali's secondary damage skill, and will do much less damage/energy than Mark of the Assassin. It is good for pushing lanes, with its aoe. Also if you just want to do huge amounts of burst and don't care about using up your energy you can use this to dump energy for maximum immediate damage. If you want to use shroud in a team fight, using this will decrease your overall damage output since you will not be able to use mark as much. However it is still great for killing a ranged ad very quickly.


Shadow Dance:

Akali moves through shadows to quickly strike her target, dealing 100 / 175 / 250 (+50% of ability power) magic damage.

Akali stores an Essence of Shadow on kills and assists as well as every 25 / 20 / 15 seconds up to 3 total.

Cost 1 Essence of Shadow
Range 800

This ability gives you fantastic chase-down capabilities, and makes you immune to most kiting. The use of this is fairly straightforward. You can use it as an escape, as a jump in, or just repeated use for maximum burst. You will get the hang of it after playing her.

Akali's runes need to contain at least 7 ad, since with the +3 ad from offensive masteries you will get the ad portion of your passive.

The runes need to contain at least 9.4 ap, since with the + .6 ap from offensive masteries, and +10 from the ignite mastery you will get the ap portion of your passive.

Using the +10 from ignite is the way to go since it allows you to still get a full set of magic-pen reds, which are pretty ****ing awesome. Also you don't have to get too many offensive yellow runes, which don't have all that much stats.

These masteries are the way to go. The +3 damage from offense help you get your passive early. You get damage n' stuff from offense, which is cool. Also you get experience n' **** from utility, which is also cool. You can get extended buff duration instead of greed if you will be getting the buffs.

Boots + pots start is excellent. Getting a hextech revolver helps keep you up against increased damage in later laning and lets you be a massive ******* with your ultimate and mark in lane.

The overall goal of items on Akali is to get as much damage as possible while still being able to survive. You really do not want to build overly defensive on Akali, basically all you need is enough survivability to be able to expend all your energy without being killed. The recommended item build at the beggining of this guide is the one you "want" to do if able. Don't get in the habit of building too defensively just because got bursted a couple times one game.

Stuff you can insert into the build situationally:
Mercury Treads
This is ok to get if you really need the magic resist and tenacity immediately after getting your revolver. Usually you really want to get sorcerer's boots in order to keep your damage high.
Void Staff
You can get this if the enemies have a ton of magic resist. This will be useful more often in cases where you get mercury treads instead of sorcerers boots. Since Akali is great at getting on squisher opponents, you will only occasionally want this.

Play Akali in mid or top lane.

YO JUNGLE AKALI, I HAPPY FOR YOU AND IMMA LET U FINISH, BUT BOTTOM LANE AKALI WAS ONE OF THE STUPIDEST IDEAS OF ALL TIME.

OF ALL TIME.

Setup your runes and masteries, close your browser, open league of legends, and pwn some people.

-Strawberry