Hello everyone, this is my first guide so bare with me. Comment some tips if it looks bad in certain areas please. I play Akali all of the time, she is one of my favorite champions. She is one of the only champions that can constantly be doing burst damage without the fear of using mana or energy, or even health for that matter due to her passive. Akali is an assassin that can hold her own against anyone.

So you want to have Akali's passive in mind when making a rune page, and trust me you need a full page dedicated to her as she has a unique page that's not shared with many other champs.

Greater mark of strength x9 Will proc her passive heal with masteries. A must with Akali.
Greater seal of resilience x9 or Greater seal of warding x9 depends on if you want to go mid and will be up against an ap champ, or go top and against ad champ. the flat armor or MR really helps with Akali's early game Greater glyph of potency x9, and the Greater quintessence of potency x3 give Akali flat ap and procs her passive as well increasing her early game to do massive damage and in turn up her sustain more.

Akali is an assassin, so i like to build her as one. I use 25/5/0, an aggressive mastery page. The only thing that is an absolute must are the 3 points in "Brute Force" as it gives her the necessary attack damage to proc her passive heal without having to waste your starting gold on a sword. Other than that i get the ap masteries and also "Summoners Wrath" because you will be running Flash/Ignite so when your Ignite is on CD (cooldown) you wil get an extra 5 ap.

Like most champions you will want to start "Boots of Speed" and 3x pots, which is great for Akali because if you have your runes and masteries right, you will proc both passives and still get the survivability and aggressiveness from boots and pots. Your first back should be at lvl 6 with 1200 gold assuming you are farming enough and a "Hextech Revolver" should be purchased. If you have to back before for whatever reason (ganked a lot, zoned, out harassed etc.) then you want to buy an "Amplifying Tome" for 435 until you can get that revolver. Once you have the revolver you want to start building into a "Sheen". DO NOT RUSH "Lichbane". A lot of people will just grab a lichbane early on because they are doing well and have a lot of gold, however lichbane does close to no damage early game and is very expensive. So just grab a sheen for some extra damage. Once you get the sheen you want to upgrade your boots to either "Sorcerer's shoes" or "Mercury's treads" depending on the enemy team. If the enemy team has a lot of cc that scares you, grab merc treads, if not and you can squish them, grab sorc's. Once you get those boots you want to finish out that revolver into a "Hextexh Gunblade" which is a must on akali. It gives you lifesteal and spellvamp which can make you unkillable, also some crazy damage with ap and ad, and on top of that an active ability that slows and damages to help chase and stick to a target. From there you are going to want farm up a new hat, the "Rabadon's Deathcap" giving Akali massive ap. Then you can finish that sheen into a "lichbane". The next item is a toss up. I typically go with an "Abyssal Scepter" because you will be in close quarters so the ap and ap reduction is nice. But if you find yourself against a more ad team you might want to grab a "Rylai's Crystal Scepter" for the hp and slow. By now the enemy team should have quite a bit of mr so grab a "Void Staff" for that gorgeous 40% magic pen and if the game even last that long, then gg.

Passive - Twin Disciplines
Upon obtaining 20 ability power, Akali's basic attacks deal 8% bonus magic damage, increasing by 1% for every 6 ability power gained thereafter.
Upon obtaining 10 bonus attack damage, Akali gains 8% spell vamp, increasing by an additional 1% for every 6 bonus attack damage gained thereafter.

This is what makes Akali the game winning champion. You buy damage, you get more damage from passive. You buy different damage, you get healed by it. Her early game is amazing with this passive.

Q - Mark of the Assassin
Akali throws her kama at a target enemy to deal 45/70/95/120/145 (+0.4*AP) magic damage and mark the target for 6 seconds.
Akali's melee attacks against a marked target will consume the mark to cause 45/70/95/120/145 (+0.4*AP) magic damage and restore 20/25/30/35/40 energy

I put 1 point into q at lvl 1 at max it first for the insane damage. This is Akali's bread and butter skill. The trick is to land two of them as fast as possible. the cd of your q is shorter than the mark, so you want to throw your q out at champion, wait until your q is back off cd then hit enemy with either an auto attack or e to proc mark then q again and hit again to deal massive damage
q-> couple sec's-> r-> auto q-> r-> e

W - Twilight Shroud
Akali throws down a cover of smoke that lasts for 8 seconds. While inside the area, Akali gains 10/20/30/40/50 Armor and Magic Resist and becomes invisible. Attacking or using abilities will briefly reveal her.
Enemies inside the smoke are slowed by 14/18/22/26/30%.

I put 1 point into her w at lvl 2 for the utility and max it last. The skill that gives Akali an easy way to land massive damage and be tanky an invisible. what else could you ask for? There is a brief second after leaving her shroud that enemies cannot see you, so use it next to a bush rather than on it they'll never know you left your w to get in bush. Use it in the middle or above an enemy minion wave you want to farm, enemy you want to harass, to get out of a gank, or to slow an enemy trying to get away from you because i mean come on, you are Akali. There is no escaping Akali.

E - Crescent Slash
Akali flourishes her kamas, slicing nearby enemy units for 30/55/80/105/130 (+0.3*AD) (+0.3*AP) physical damage.
Triggers Mark of the Assassin on targets affected by it.

"How did she already get back to full health i just full rota'd her!" I put 1 point into her e at lvl 4 and max it second. Crescent slash is a small aoe that does fairly descent damage, but i mainly use it as a heal because it uses a large amount of energy. Just go between the melee minions and casters and pop your e, the more you hit the more you heal. It also procs Akali's q.

R - Shadow Dance
Akali moves through shadows to quickly strike her target, dealing 100/175/250/300 (+0.5*AP) magic damage.
Akali stores an Essence of Shadow on kills and assists as well as every 0.5*AD seconds up to 3 total.

Juke! Juke! Juke! This is one of the most fun ults in LoL. Very low cd and refreshes one every champion kill or assist. Use it to chase enemies, use it on enemy minion to escape or juke. DOES NOT PROC Q. But it does close the gap so you can.

FARM! Your main priority should be to farm as much as you can prior to lvl 6. I am not saying that you just never harass, but you are not trying to get kills, you need to farm. You should only harass if they make a mistake and you can punish them for it. Do not get out of position in your lane to harass. Farm farm farm i cannot stress it enough. Use your abilities you have no mana so take advantage of it. Make sure you are trying to farm as much as you can with auto attacks, throw a w down if need be it scares most of the other champs away so free farm.

At this point you should have tier 2 boots, hextech revolver, and sheen, and as always a couple of wards. It is not only the supports job to ward. Now is when you want to be aggressive.try that q->q trick a few times. Ult him a couple times, but you want to save at least one unless you are going for the kill. Once you get the kill or force him back, push your lane to tower and either take it, gank mid, or if you know their jungler is close, kill him. If a team fight erupts, your job is to kill the carry or mage. Take out all the squishy champs. You do not want to be the first into a team fight though, matter of fact you want to be the last. wait for it to start and people focusing other targets, then r squishy, pop w so you cannot be focused and qq till you win. Do not be afraid to leave a team fight for a second if you have to, you are not a bruiser don't try and be. You also want to be constantly farming as much as you can. DO NOT however be bottom lane when your team is all mid or top. take some wraith camps every now and then. Make sure while you are taking towers/inhibitors, that you watch the sheen/lichbane cd in your item bar. every time you can you want to proc it, it will take towers very fast.