Akali: Mid-Scope Update

Mid-Scope Update: Akali

This is Akali's Mid Scope update that i worked on.

Due to her decline in both Winrate and Popularity, i wanted to refresh the champion by trying to bring her closer to her Old Post-Rework playstyle which resembled a Fighter more than an Assassin.

The intent is to try to match that old View of the champion, while also avoiding the pitfalls the plagued her at the time.

The numbers are used to give a general idea of how the powerbudget should be allocated, more precise and tuned numbers require playtesting.

IMPORTANT NOTE: Tooltips are available in both ENGLISH (Top) and ITALIAN (Bottom)

PASSIVE: Assassin's Mark

Passive has been adjusted to fit a more Fighter-y playstyle. 

The Movespeed and Additional Range have been reduced, this has been done to decrease the frustration caused by Akali slipping away extremely quickly after hitting her target. The decreased Movespeed and lower Range provided, will give enemies more opportunities to catch Akali and retaliate. 

Lowering the frustration caused by her Passive is fundamental to this Midscope success, as it will play a much bigger role in her Fighting Pattern.

To aid with the longer Fighting Pattern, Level based bonus Energy regen has been added. Upon hitting a Champion with the Empowered basic Attack, Akali will gain Flat bonus energy regeneration. This should reward good Passive usage, as opposed to just repeatedly casting Q.

The regeneration has been kept as a flat number, and not a Percentage, to prevent possible overly synergistic combinations that may happen if some sort of % Regeneration is added to the game. This way, the Buff can be simply filtered out by having the % Regeneration only apply to Akali's base regen.

Additionally, the Base Damage has been decreased, but the Ability has been granted a TOTAL AD Ratio alongside a slightly higher AP Ratio. This is has been done to let Akali more freely opt into AD Items, but also to skew her Passive dependence on Levels towards Gold, and to keep her tied to Damage Items.

PRIMARY ABILITY: Five Point Strike

Five Point Strike has been partially reworked.

The base damage has been substantially reduced and the Slowing effect it had when hitting a Champion with the Tip has been removed, and substituted by extra damage.

The goal of these changes are multiple: It aims to disincentivize mindless Q Spam, via a significantly lower Damage output when the ability is used carelessly, and to instead incentivize more skilled and well thought out usage, by rewarding the Akali with increased damage when maximizing the ability and successfully hitting an enemy with the Tip.

It additionally aims to increase Counterplay, alongside the Passive Changes, especially against Melee Champions, by not impairing their movement and instead giving them a window to retaliate against Akali.

This has all been done, whilst also trying to keep the ability satisfying, interesting and fun to use, by rewarding player for learning to correctly use it, instead of it being just a Button to Mash as fast as possible.

The Ability also received some Early-Game focused changes, via a reduction in early levels energy Cost, and some waveclear buffs, via a specific modifier against Minions and Monsters.

This has been done to let Akali be more proactive in the early game by being able to more easily control the wave and contest the enemy for lane control, but also to help her out in Early Skirmishes now that most of her burst damage has been removed.

Her newfound early game power,  granted by lower costs, is counterbalanced by the Ability itself losing some base damage, but retaining most of the scaling, which should keep Akali away from Tank Items and stick to Damage ones.

The Damage modifier should also additionally help later on in the game, by letting her more Freely move around the Map to gain advantages for herself by either stealing Jungle Camps more easily, or quickly pushing sidelanes to join her teammates in Fights.

SECONDARY ABILITY: Shuriken Flip

Shuriken Flip has been changed to aid with the new intended Fighter-y playstyle.

The goals are to keep it satisfying and useful, whilst changing its identity from a Extremely high burst ability, which wouldn't fit the Playstyle goal, to a DPS enanching and mobility tool.

As such, it lost a lot of its direct damage and scaling, but gained extra duration and a new Passive!

The Duration of the shuriken itself "sticking" to a target has been increased to give Akali more leeway with the ability recast timing, as since the ability isn't as threatening and not as much of a "Damage nuke" anymore, it doesn't need to be as telegraphed. 

The increased time window should also let Akali play around with her energy Regen and general cooldowns better, before being forced to either egange or lose the Ability

The Magic Penetration on "last target hit by Shuriken Flip" has been added to provide some much needed power to what otherwise would be a very underwhelming ability, and to keep it Relevant and very important to land, as it will provide a significant damage Boost in 1v1, but in a way that fits the intended Fighter playstyle, by proving a constant DPS increase as Akali hits the target with Qs and Passives, instead of casually dealing 800 Damage on Impact, or as it was the case earlier in her rework, being just used as a "Gap Close" without much care about landing it on an enemy or not.

The penetration has been kept single target and its base numbers not particularly high, to keep Akali from once again drifting into Tank itemisation by leveraging her base numbers.

UTILITY ABILITY: Twilight Shroud

The goal of all the changes listed below, is to make Shroud more interactive and interesting to play around for the Akali player, while also trying to avoid past issues it had.

Shroud has been adjusted in a way that makes it more interactive for Akali, via giving her an active "mini-game" by trying to extend its duration with Attacks, and also by having the Movespeed tied to her being invisible, this will entail some critical thinking from the Akali's perspective to decide if to attack and increase Shroud duration or if to remain Shrouded and keep the speed bonus to try and dodge enemy abilities.

This is to hopefully make it more than a Set-and-Forget ability.

The base duration now does not increase with Rank, which aims to punish bad usage and reward good usage. This double dips with the Cooldown starting when the ability is initially cast, since if an Akali is correctly able to extend Shroud duration, not only the will have (for example) an additional 2 seconds during which it is active, but these 2 seconds will also be 2 less seconds off the Cooldown, double benefit for using the ability correctly.

This new way of extending shroud duration, in actively needing to hit an enemy, means that Akali has to actively expose herself to gain the bonus, unlike in the past where she just had to briefly walk out of it. This should give enemies more ways to retaliate and punish her when exposed.

ULTIMATE ABILITY: Swift Cuts

Akali's ultimate ability "Perfect Execution" has been completely scrapped. In its place, "Swift Cuts" has been added.

Swift Cuts goal is to more closely fit with a Fighter playstyle, while also retaining a similar look to her current ultimate, and still serving as a consistent source of mobility for Akali. My intention was to fully keep the VFX and SFX, whilst also significantly changing part of the goal functionality.

The ability now serves more of a Mid battle reposition and damaging tool, than a finisher type Ability, an execution, ence the name Change.

The ability retains its "Free cast" tied to a cooldown, this has been kept, to still let Akali use it as her "Engage" tool on enemies, but it additionally has "conditional" casts that let her keep using the ability Mid Fight.

The newfound Ability uptime comes with a hefty damage reduction and a significant Energy cost for all but the "Cooldown tied" cast.

The ability has also been kept relatively simple, Akali just Dashes and gains damage every time a Dash hits an enemy, but it is also much more interactive and hopefully Fun to play around.

An additional change has been added, which significantly lowers the Dash speed and distance traveled, when using the ability away from an enemy. This has been added to decrease Akali's slipperiness and punish her for committing into bad fights, it provides "In-Combat" Mobility, but won't double down as as her escape tool anymore. This should hopefully reduced frustration with the Champion and give some much needed counterplay to her enemies.

This is in theme with pushing her towards a Fighter-y playstyle by having her have to commit to a Fight fully, instead of being of a Hit and Run playstyle, as that gameplay is more fit to a slippery and squishy assassin.