Akali. An assassin that isn't as popular as others. Some people say she's weak, some say she's OP. I personally think she requires a little more skill than some assassins since she doesn't have free escapes like others .

You generally think of assassins as squishy. I'm about to change that. Say hello to Tankali, a completely different outlook on Akali. Building tank on her will not only increase your survivability but also your lethality. Enemies will cower in fear when they see you. No more fighting for dragon or baron; nobody will dare touch you.

Ok, MAYBE that's an exaggeration, but you will be very, VERY powerful if you reach nearly full build. Having 150 Armor & MR, over 2500 HP, and still keeping 300-400 AP will make you the most powerful champion on the Rift. I'm here to show you how!

Note for this guide: All base stats are in light blue, with respective AD/AP/Level scaling colors.
...dealing 70/100/130/160/190 (+40% AP) (+70% AD) (+10 per level)

PROS

• +One of the best assassin burst damage combos
• +W gives her utility for 8 seconds
• +Very low cooldowns after Level 11
• +Higher Base HP than most assassins/mid laners (588-2033)
• +Versatile build options (She is technically a hybrid)
• +One of the best 25-40 minute mid-games of all champions.

CONS

• -Horrible pre-6. No damage output whatsoever without massive trade.
• -CC is death (the case with most assassins)
• -Many champions counter her
• -Weak against AOE
• -Not effective in lane until she has Gunblade (depends on situation)

Let's face it: I could start babbling about runes and masteries, but what's the point of that if you don't even know how Akali works! Let's go through her spells.

Twin Disciplines
Akali gains 2 unique bonuses:

She deals bonus magic damage on basic attacks equal to 6% (+16.7% AP) of her AD. I'm not actually sure how the scaling works b/c I have been in games where the magic damage is twice my AD which isn't possible with the listed scaling. Just know, it will do a lot of damage later.)

She also gains 6% (+16.7% Bonus AD) spellvamp.

This is amazing! Not only do you gain free magic damage every attack, which makes it very hard to itemize against you also get free spellvamp! And this spellvamp can become INSANE. If you get 200 Bonus AD in a game (If you want to AD Akali, not very recommended), that's 32% spellvamp! Plus the Gunblade and you're healing about half of your damage output. Talk about unkillable!

Mark of the Assassin
Akali spins her kama at an enemy, dealing 35/55/75/95/115 (+40% AP) magic damage and marks the enemy. If she basic-attacks the marked enemy, she deals a bonus 45/70/95/120/145 (+50% AP) magic damage.

This is Akali's main ability. You use it in every engage, poke, etc. The tricky thing about this ability is that in order to deal maximum damage, you need to follow it up to proc the mark. However, the mark lasts for 6 seconds, and the cooldown at max level is only 4. This allows you to activate 2 marks immediately after each other, by doing Q-Ult-Auto-Q-Auto. This would deal up to 160/250/340/430/520 (+180% AP) magic damage! Wow! Plus your ultimate it would deal even more.

The advantage of going tank in this case is that you can engage in riskier scenarios. You can take 2-3 tower shots to get that extra proc on a champion. Additionally, the range on this ability is very low, and you will likely take trade damage, more than you're dealing. Akali with tank items can reduce the damage from these trades and increase sustain.

Twilight Shroud
Creates a zone of invisibility for 8 seconds. Akali gains 20/40/60/80/100% MS for 1 second when passing through, and enemies are slowed by 14/18/22/26/30%. Attacking anything in the shroud will reveal you for 0.65 seconds.

This is your utility ability; this kind of utility is rare on assassins since most have very fast utility while this is more of a drawn-out, methodical-type utility. You can use this for offense and defense; the MS buff is great for getting away and you can cast it on enemies to catch up to them.

Also use in lane to poke; use Q, shroud so the far end is near the enemy, run through, proc and Q-proc again. This is more effective if you're playing top though; mid laners have more distance between you.

Bad sides? Firstly, sometimes you start autoing the minions around you, which reveals you. Make sure to keep clicking on empty ground.

Also, only useful in certain scenarios. You can't just place it down and expect the best. Usually the enemy will camp inside it or block your side. You have to get sneaky:
Juke them out. Hard. If you are trying to escape, run towards THEIR tower and go hide in jungle. You can also use the fake flash near a wall, but you risk a death and a summoner spell wasted.

Finally, it has a long cooldown that never actually decreases. 20 seconds. You have to use this sparingly.

Crescent Slash

Akali deals 30/55/80/105/130 (+40% AP)
(+60% AD) physical damage to all nearby units in melee range.

Honestly, this ability doesn't do much besides clear minion waves. It used to proc your Q but not anymore. It has a 1 second cooldown at max, but you should max it last b/c it doesn't help in teamfights.

Shadow Dance

Dashes to an enemy unit up to 700 units away, dealing 100/175/200 (+50% AP) magic damage. She stores a charge every 30/22.5/15 seconds, and has a max of 3 at once.

Some parts of this are better than others. The damage really isn't that much in the scheme of things. I guess if you get to late game it deals about 450 damage but with MR it isn't that much.

However, the cooldown is so low at max level that you can abuse and spam this ability so so so so so much. Get some CDR items and you're looking at a 10 second cooldown. It's just short enough so you can chase, chase, chase, but long enough that you can't continuously dash ( Yasuo).

Let's move on to laning phase! (I'm skipping runes, masteries etc. b/c it's not important.
Runes: Scaling HP, Attack Speed, AP. Masteries: Strength or Thunderlord's).

Laning phase for Akali changes drastically as you level up. I'm going to go through it in parts:

Level 1-5

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Levels 6-10