Akali's Rework - Riot's WORST or BEST Rework? | League of Legends
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- Опубліковано 14 вер 2021
- Sorry for the delay on this episode! I got caught up working on a bunch of other ideas, but we finally have the next episode of the Rework Retrospective series: Akali. This one might be a surprise for some of you, as I'm gonna contest the idea that she might actually have been Riot's BEST rework. (No I don't have a gun pointed to my head. Watch the video to find out what I mean!)
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#LoL #Akali #Rework - Ігри
"... She might actually have been Riot's BEST rework. No I don't have a gun pointed to my head."
Vars, I know K/DA ALL OUT Akali has some amazing abs and you want her to be your wife, but she's not real bro. You don't have to stan her.
Say that to the seraphine stans.......or many sexy looking females tbh
@@phoenixflamegames1 Rek'Sai best girl
@@panlis6243 i fully agree
A cham that isn't gankable and has too much going for her is indeed 200 years
@@galeforce8155 This isn't Akali that you're talking about, it's Katarina, which was reworked wayyy before Akali.
I still can't believe rework Akali's shroud turret invulnerability made it past testing, that was the most obvious busted mechanics Riot has ever introduced
and now Voli have it, seems fair
@@254trojan ? Are you trolling lmfao it fits volibears character and disables turret for 5 sec
@@254trojan Voli is a completely different case. Both thematically and gameplay wise it fits Volibear, and late game the turret disable doesn’t even make a difference because he can just tank turret without taking much damage anyway. All it does is open up his early ganks more, where usually he’d suffer.
@@Wildcat12 its really good vs nexus turrets too but by then the game probably over with anyway
this shows that the play testers are not competant players and should be trusted thats all. this is not being negative, but look how irilia got striped from most of what she used to have, akali and aatrox. still waiting for the big nerf on Deiago Invulnerability
The best rework ever in league history is fiddlesticks,change my mind
Your right fiddle is right up volibear and oantheon taric and poppy for best reworks
Katarina and Talon maybe?
Well he is up there, but we, poppy and voli(to name a few) are really good too
Warwick
wrong. the best rework without a shadow of a doubt is mordekaiser
From a design perspective, it’s really good.
From a gameplay perspective, I would rather stub my toe into a chainsaw
A good design is important and making it flashy and impressive is great, but at the end of the day this is a video game, not an anime.
Gameplay > Spectacle
design = gameplay??? no?
Sometimes you just gotta disagree with the person you are watching.... And that's okay!
Says non akali player xD
From a design perspective, is she really that much worse to fight than an a typical assassin, though? Are you going to argue any other assassin character is any better?
I would like to mention that historically ninjas were spies and messengers. They rarely ever did assassinations and avoided combat if at all possible. The whole idea that ninja are master fighters able to take out groups of people with ease was made up for movies and cartoons to make them more appealing
Yeah ninjas needed to be small and light weighted for some of their missions so them having a lot of muscle mass is a mixup with other "fighters" in Japanese history.
iv'e heard/read in multiple places that historically, ninjas didn't actually exist.
@@slimfastsubaru2043 There are documents of ninja being executed, as well as manuals on how to be a ninja that date back pretty far
Don’t forget they were mostly farmers and peasants.
Hence their choice of weapons such as the kunai which historically was used more as a gardening tool and the small japanese sickle which could be found almost anywhere and could be hidden easily.
Tokugawa leyasu was spirited away by Hattori Hanzo and other shinobi in 1582 across Iga province and various “ninja” networks.
@@slimfastsubaru2043 They most certainly did exist, just not in the lense we were presented.
The Iga and Koga are the most prevalent ninja clans and it’s their history from which we can draw the clearest picture and even then we only know so much.
I hate the fact that now everyone can burst, there is no more extended fights outside on early game, everyone dies or kills in 1-2 skill rotations, with the exception of skill that make you not die (fizz e, trynda r, Kayle r) you will die or kill in less than 5 seconds.
When orn can burst we know theres a problem😂
So sadly true
@@theimmortaleye7511 well I got bad news for you
As a support player I couldn't agree more protecting my adc is a nightmare. Hell some ADCs have higher winrates building assassin items like Miss Fortune and Varus. Don't like the state of the game right now at all.
I think there's just too much damage in the game in general, and it snowballs even faster than ever on top of it.
I think Akali is the prime example of "fun to play, miserable to play against"
Akali's rework is the proof you can have a good idea and fuck up extraordinarily in the practice
It's a great example of scrapping flawed base instead of fixing it. Same as Aatrox, actually
The problem with Akali is counter play. She has invisibility so you can not target her, she has movement speed buffs so you can not hit her with skill shots and she has dashes that give her agency while taking it away from other champions.
I want you to imagen for a moment if Trundle's W circle also gave him invisibility throughout. It would be broken to have a Trundle just pop out beside your ADC take half there health walk away and become invisible to do it again seconds later. All the while you can not target him or even properly know where he is due to the limitations of Sweeper. All the counter play that you can use against Akali applies to other champions while her kit makes that counter play significantly more difficult to use.
I do not mind Akali in isolation you are correct she is great for her theme however creating champions with options that take away other champions options is in my opinion inherently bad design. This is a PvP game not a PvE game if they wish to keep making champions that break the conventions of there own game that they made, enforce and strengthen then I am well within my right to call out this nonsense.
Champions are constantly and immediately nerfed the moment that they become viable in something which is not META to stop 'flexi picks' in pro play despite all of the new champions or reworks that you mentioned being viable in multiple rolls. An entire item was deleted and replaced because it gave a dash to champions that do not have it built into there kit for balance. While at the same time a nearly identical item for another class of champions that do not dashes built into there kit for balance were allowed to keep there version.
The problem with Akali is the problem with the new design for the game in general you can not have your cake and eat it, if everyone can do everything why dose team play matter? Just get fed, you can do everything anyway so just 1 v 9. This is the core problem, limitations exist to show creativity these new champs are constantly removing limitations inherent to the class leading to a poor experience for players in general. How do you describe enchanters in general to a new player? You have to add on an explanation of all the champions that do not fit within these conventions but are considered part of the group. At which point is there any point to the grouping at all?
TL;DR
Overloading champs is problematic because a champ with access to too many mechanics invalidates the need for teamwork in a team-based game.
I agree she has little to no counterplay at all.
@@eryalmario5299 no u guys are just bad
@@NoxMox thanks for taking it like a champ 🏆 💪
almost like youtubers who talk positive about the game have to desperately find something positive to say in order not to lose partnership or social credit xD its pure denial
"Akali's Rework - Riot's WORST or BEST Rework?" - Yes.
12:47 "I used her as a prime example of what you shouldn't do when designing a champion. But after reflecting on it a bit a lot of what they did for the rework made sense."
But the more important question: Is she fun to play as and against? Imo, she is too frustrating to play against. She was definitely a first of her kind, but their kind has all been frustrating to play against, at least for me. I have not enjoyed my experience of playing against Sylas and I would not recommend league to anyone today as I did back in season 2, 3, and 4. The reason primarily being the modern design philosophy of league that you can so clearly see in the Akali's rework.
Don't get me wrong, their designs are done incredibly well and the designers are probably amongst the best of their kind. But as Aphelios has shown: being a capable designer doesn't mean your design is fun to play against. It just means that it is incredibly well designed frustration, but frustration nonetheless and no matter how much they say that frustration is good and engaging, it only is if I at the end of the experience feel better for having had it. I don't.
I hate the fact that the champion design nowadays mostly all suffer from Main Protagonist syndrome, making 1 person on the game (the player playing it) enjoy it and the other 9 hate to have it in the game.
An example of this is yasuo, nobody likes to have yasuo on their team, nobody likes to see yasuo on the enemy team. Yasuo is only fun for 1/10th of the players in game.
A champion like Orianna is fun for the player, provides helpfull utility to the team and so you enjoy playing with her, and she is mostly skillshots and very squishy (besides her lvl1 Q abuse) she is fun to play against.
Champions like Akali rework, Irelia rework, Viego, Yone, Sylas are all champs that you never want to see in the game due to their volatile gameplay (10/0 or 0/10). It makes the game worst for everyone playing it except, of course, for special Me (the main character obviously) playing it.
The new designs are all a direct result of how league is played nowadays because they are meant to have an easier time coming back when behind
Funny you should mention Aphelios (and other people mentioning Yasuo) because all of these champs (or their reworks) were designed by the same dude. CertainlyT, the spawner of cancer in League of Legends. Visually, yeah, he always knocked it out of the park. But they never should have let him do anything other than make visuals and imagery, because he clearly has no idea what the fuck he was doing when it comes to actually designing abilities or balancing. His shit was outrageously unbalanced even for fucking *Riot*.
@@Aleph3575 and most other champion designers seem to have taken advice from him. So, though he used to be the only guy making this nonsense, but now every champion seems to have at least some of it.
She is still a problem, and it all comes down to something you've brought up several times: moments of weakness. If played correctly, Akali never has a moment where she is vulnerable, and that is a problem because a champion that has no weaknesses is a design failure, no ifs, ands, or buts. Any champion who can only be beaten if the person playing them makes a mistake is a mistake of a champion, because it takes away agency from other players through no fault of their own. It tells the playerbase that if you get better and want to climb, you have to abandon champions with fair and balanced weaknesses for those who lack any because no amount of skill and mastery on your champion will matter if the other champion simply cannot be beaten by your own efforts. People might dislike champions whose purpose is to shit on their mains and/or role, but people hate champions who take away their agency just by existing. This is why people hate champions like Yuumi or Yone, who completely ignore the main weakness of their class/subclass (being untargetable/hard to pin down for Yuumi when she is an enchanter/mage, and being able to easily engage/disengage for Yone who is a skirmisher/assassin).
Well at least Yone is shit when he's behind.
I understand where this is coming from but I feel that it isn’t taking in all of the facts into play even if akali is played correctly she is still vulnerable. As Someone who has mained akali for years I feel that there is a lake of understanding for from those who don’t play her and those who do. And a lot of champions in this game take away agency just by existing that is kind of the intire point of enchanters. You will not always have agency in this game no matter who you are playing. Akali isn’t overpowered if played correctly she is overpowered if played perfectly which is hard, that is why you will see akali with a 56% winrate in challenger but then a 46% winrate everywhere else. She has a high skill ceiling and a high skill floor. because of the consistency in nerfs to her kit, some more understandable then others, makes her require more skill to play making her harder to kill because the people playing her are those who can consistently use her kit to the best of its ability. Complaints about this to me fall on deaf ears because other most simple champions do consistently better then akali. I am not saying she is the most perfectly designed champion but the people complaining about her having no counterplay are causing a bigger problem because now she has less skill expression. Rather then having a small number of really good akali players that are unkillable because they understand the mechanics really well, now you have a bunch of people with 5 games on her doing really well because in order for them to get rid of skill expression in her damage they have to add what she lost somewhere in order for her to stay afloat in this shitty as game.
@@jaiydiamond9785
Yes and yes….A good akali player has to understand how and when she can go in.
Akali can not just go in and than kill the backline….she needs to know:
- do they hav cc skills up.
- how man champions hav cc
- can they focus me during one AA
And most of the time players play dumm agains her….pick the wrong supp agains her…like a Senna or sona.
U need cc agains her…the moment the dives the backline….everyone split or stay and cc her ass.
@@jaiydiamond9785 spoken like a true akali main. I've been playing her for years as well and this is incredibly spot on. Whenever I play into an enemy Akali I win my lane at least 75% of the time because I understand very well how her mechanics work. Her design is questionable even to me as a one-trick, but she does have weakness albeit not very clear ones. It's only through experience though that players know they can be exploited, because her weakness are not entirely centered around her kit. A prime example is her ramp up period; the first 10 min of the game imo will 9 times out of 10 drive/determine the rest of the game. Exploiting her very weak early game will punish her more than what the average player thinks, if not completely derail her from ever being a threat.
That's something that I've been saying to my friends for a while now. A champion that can only be killed because they themselves made a stupid mistake and not because they got properly outplayed feels awful to go against because it means that, if the enemy is first timing one of those champions, they won't really know much about how to play them and they can be caught out easily, but if it's someone who's experienced, good fucking luck catching them out.
I think you're right to say that she's a good rework if you look solely at design. She fits with her theme and does what an assassin should do. I think the issue is that she can do it too well. Her long invisibility duration and multitude of dashes makes it very hard for any pre-2020 champion to outplay her. Each champion has a max of 4 skills, and invisibility alone invalidates any point and click ability. She then has 2 dashes (not counting W2 and R1 since they're targetted dashes, making them very predictable) and and a bunch of movement speed to avoid any remaining skillshots. In theory, if played perfectly, akali can avoid many champions kits. I think this is where most of the hate towards her comes from. Her shroud effectively nullifies so many abilities that it makes it extra punishing to miss whatever else you have, and even then her mobility makes it hard to do so.
Thanks , Btw you forgot to add Her previous W could be revealed by a vision ward not like now that she can be 5 sec invisible just because she leveled up W once XD
Exactly. She has very little counterplay cause she can dash in, do a ton of damage all of a sudden, and then go invisible. It's broken as hell. And her dashes are way too long range. If they were shorter range she would be a lot more telegraphed which would make her fairer to fight against.
i play a good amount of adc and akali causes me pain because they press the funny shroud button and then i can't do anything to fight back for such a long time, windwall is even worse because it blocks it for their allies too, and it blocks from both sides so if an enemy stands inside it they are completely immune to projectiles until it goes away, and they can still attack while it's happening without putting themselves at risk
both of these abilities just invalidate all counterplay for an extended period of time and me no likey
Not to mention that since she gets range and move speed from her passive, most melee champions can't auto attack her back when she does come out of invisibility to hit you. Imo, reducing the range from her passive or R2, or increasing the time it takes for her to become invisible would allow for more counterplay, because rn, she can hit melee champions without any possibilty of counter attack.
Honestly, I think her rework was pretty good she just has the 2018-2019 design philosophy flaw and needed time for that to be sorted out. Def not best, that goes to fiddle or urgot imo but I think its good.
As for her base rework, I think her passive and q gameplay style is an amazing design. They basically took Akali's point and click q auto playstyle and deconstructed it into having the mark based on her q and passive and around your movement which is a really ingenious design.
The problem with her rework comes with two things: the initial overloaded design with low counterplay (signature of 2018-2019 designs) and how she interacts with energy.
The first one is not surprise, 2018-2019 had some of the most explosive releases (irelia akali aatrox sylas) all of which dominated the meta and pretty much had no counter play on release. Akali's specific issue isn't really as apparent as aatrox having 2 dashes which gives his combo no counter play. Its a balancing act between her being a skermisher and assassin. On release akali passive had a massive ap ratio (70%) and her e had no ap ratio. Her damage came from almost all of her passive gameplay. Now her passive has a 40% ap ratio and her e has a 120% ap ratio.
Second massive problem is also one of the most interesting points of her design. She uses energy as the cooldown of her bread and butter ability. At the time of Akali's release there were no external ways to gain energy in the game aside from blue buff. Then in later patches presence of mind was reworked introducing energy into the rune. This rune was then reworked 3 times changing how it gave energy. When a champion is this reliant on how energy works in the game you will always have to change them. Modern example? Aatrox getting his healing reworked with the introduction of more healing items into the brusier pool. Hes a drain tank whos healing is based on him buying blackcleaver first and not gore.
On top of this, with all her balance changes they insist on trying to her for all mmrs which is not something they usually do and it makes it incredibly hard to balance a champ. Overall I think shes in a decent spot now, I just think her e does way too much dmg and that should've been turbo nerfed instead of removing her eq.
Damn bro
They took away her e-q and refuse to buff her (that thing they did is not a buff sonas bug fix had more impact on akali that whatever they did)
Earlier this year with the mini rework, they also took away getting energy back when hitting ur passive. That took alot of skill expression out of her kit in my mind, because it punished bad akali players for only spamming q, and not weaving in auto’s in between abilities. I wouldnt mind having a higher energy cost on q, if they bring back the energy on the passive. The W change is also fucked. With how it used to be, I felt like it kinda balanced her out abit, in the sense that wasting W early in a fight would punish u later, by not having that energy. I feel like taking away skill expression from a champ thats meant to be flashy and dashy, just sucks. Shes felt like shit too play all year, and I dont see that changing soon.
what i think is a big issue is that people complained about her "having no counterplay" while below dia no one actually saw a good akali. i used to be an akali main, but i couldn't play her rework for shit.
what i did then was hover her so my allies wouldn't ban her, then let the enemy pick it. this strategy won me so many games, as the enemies had an akali on their team, which was the worst thing at that point.
even low elo akali mains, not just people who had just picked her up bc she was OP, couldn't actually carry half their games, even though they destroyed their enemy's mental and started surrender votes. (that's the worst part, she had 47% winrate, but most of her wins were early surrenders because people thought the game was over bc she got fed a double kill after 5 deaths and was still super far behind)
now she got more and more simple, lowering her skill ceiling and her skill floor, making her stronger in most elos than she was back in the day, but people don't complain anymore. i am more scared of a person having played her 5 times over the last 30 days nowadays than i was scared of an akali back then who has played her 100 times / 30 days shortly after her rework.
the main reason for me against the new akali was that she was completely unplayable below dia at the beginning, basically ruining all old akali mains from before the rework as their main got a lot cooler, but only playable if you want to drop elo first.
i really loved the rework, but i hated how i couldn't play her ranked anymore :(
The last part really hits me as someone who did main Akali from Seasons 9-11 when I stopped playing ranked and pursuing improvement in League (made it to Plat btw). I had this same sentiment with Zed in Season 5 with the snapback delay removal. If you were a good player, you would CC Zed out of his ult. With S9 Akali (without turret stealth), it really seems Riot really refuses to tell people to "git gud" and often can pander too much to low elos. When they gave Shuriken Flip an AP ratio, they consistently started knocking her down to try and make this faceroll hit E into oneshot play pattern. So many of the Akali nerfs have been just middle fingers to mains and people who pursued champion mastery. I'm sorry I actually try to master a champion instead of just complaining like an idiot when I don't 1v9 as first time whatever.
If that sounds a bit toxic, well to be honest thinking about how Riot punished Akali mains/people with champion mastery through things like removing Q during E, energy regen from landing passive autos, making E a oneshot spell, etc really tilts me.
I have two issues with Akali's rework: her teamfighting and consistent damage.
I think it's fine having one of those, but having both just kinda ruins the "assassin" part by making her excel at too many things she shouldn't excel at, both from the gameplay perspective and from the design perspective.
In the game, due to her having both aoe and consistent damage it feels like there's not much you can do unless she messes up. She can 100-0 squishies in the matter of seconds, and can shred frontline with the riftmaker + conqueror. It's extremely frustrating to play against, since it doesn't feel like she's got a weak side: 1v1, skirmishes, teamfights, burst, dps -- she has it all. Tanks/bruisers/juggernauts are supposed to counter assassins by surviving their frontloaded damage and then killing them afterwards, yet you can't really do that against akali.
They fixed it a bit removing her energy restoration, Akali with riftmaker+demonic embrace level 13 will lose against Fiora with goredrinker/stridebraker+ ravenous hydra/ sterak at level 13 same with sett with a similar build but against some juggernouts like Urgot, Darius, Garen at same level Akali probably will win cuz her high movility.
shes in a really bad spot now due to all the nerfs. The fact that they removed her eq combo and nerfed the energy restoration made her really bad. They nerfed her a bit too much now and because of this she now has a 46% winrate. A lot of alkali players have been complaining, and I think RIOT is scared to buff her until worlds is over.
you have no reason to hate akali in her current spot. way too many nerf, eq gone mean no burst which sucks because you cant really be an assassin without burst, no matter how hard she is to catch. So yea then she is a skirmisher now right ? Well yea its now the only way to play her but she provide only damage and need time to put it into place which means 1. she cannot be behind to be effective since she only has damage. BUT akali lane isnt good until level 9 due to energy cost (exception made if ennemy int/you severly outplay in lane OR matchups you can kill at 6, but then again you need time to chase and do your all in which is why she is better toplane rn than mid at higher level which is sad), if you compare it to zoe she is good in skirmish but has an excellent laning phase, so she has the right to become strong for those skirmish, akali doesnt, she rely on ennemy missplay or midgame well farmed to be good in those fight, but midgame well farmed akali only happen in pro play because if you do that in solo q you have no control over the game. Also she is suppose to somehow be a non bursty assassin which again doesnt work, but even with that non burst (yes she has no burst i repeat, when compared to any assassins ig, fizz ekko talon zed qiyana rengar khazix...) she doesnt even outperform skirmishers at their own game. A yone would be 100 times more effective than an akali at what she does now, stick to target and heavy damage but over some times.
SO yea, tldr akali sucks now and if your issue is that she can do all. now she cant do anythng x')
And eq removal not only means no burst btw but it also prevent the dive combo eqR2 out because you cant eq anymore, so it also indirectly nerf the 'get out' option they seek to get into her kit with the rework
She doesn't have consistent damage lmao. She so bursty
I think her main problem is that she has two playstyles.
Her burst assassin playstyle (which is the one Riot is leading her towards) simply just causes frustration because what can you do if her E and Ult can 1 shot you while she gets away with her 4 dashes and shroud.
Her second playstyle, which is like a diver, closer to someone like Irelia, while a little bit fairer, it leaves her pick or ban in proplay because of her safety and team fighting.
And no, if you mix the two playstyles that will still leave her broken.
As a new Akali main, I personally think they need to nerf e and revert the energy increase with passive hits. Alot of her damage comes from e, so it would be cool to redistribute her damage more.
Personally I too would like this, but you have to consider that this would move her drastically further from being an assassin, and much more towards a bruiser playstyle. Bruiser Akali is... widely reviled. Personally I'd love to play it, and I'm not certain I'd hate to play against it, but many people feel otherwise. Additionally, thematically and historically it may be very important to many people to keep Akali as an assassin rather than a bruiser.
They removed that for a good reason. When used properly she not only had the burst of other assassins but better sustained damage than them too, being able to continuously Q + passive trigger without much resource related issues.
@@simone8172 then if they don't want her to be a bruiser, revert her EQ mechanic and reduce her E ap ratio by like 20%-40% ? then atleast add some 10% ap ratio to her passive to compensate the damage lost. I know it will reduce her bursty damage but Akali dealing 180% ap ratio in 0.1 second is just pure cancer
@@jei5229 That would make her a bruiser. A good talon/rengar player kills u in like .3 seconds, what makes akali weird to balance is that she has a spell she's supposed to use multiple times quickly, which is a bruiser/duelist trait. Your change makes her more bruiser, a full assassin akali would be like only 1 q in a fight.
@@jesuswept8522 but her consistent damage was there long ago before she is even reworked when she can use her ult 10 times in a fight so I don't think they will be removing that soon
I miss old Akali :(
She was my old main and she was so fun in the jungle!
I love your content my dude.
yeah stealth under tower is really balanced and a healthy game mechanic
She in every patch note. It would make more sense to rework her but this is riot games so lets keep throwing stats at the wall and hope something sticks
That was removed so long ago
@@Hi-xg9qr but why was it ever in the game?
I think Vars definitely could've made it clearer, but he was certainly not advocating her *release* rework, but rather her "final" (current) state as the "true" rework. A much healthier, much more fun to play against champion than on release, and way healthier and more fun for *both* teams than old Akali. A great rework indeed... eventually.
@@simone8172 Cancerous rework. Still too much in her kit and ungankable. Very poorly designed champ and can understand her ban rate
She deals too much damage considering the amount of mobility that she is given. I think you were the one that addressed power budgets and she feels like she is way over stated in both damage and mobility to be considered good. If there isn't healthy counterplay, I think it's a bad rework regardless of thematic vision success
This, thematically and as a champ I think she is ok. But playing against her, she outdamages and often outranges you with Q + auto, but even if you trade like a god, she has so many options to just get away. She's very mechanical, but once you get the hang of those she has so many get out of jail free cards it's not fun to play against at all. Not even in the 'she beats you' way. But in the 'killing her is only possible trough her mistakes and you will barely get to farm' way.
Yea have to agree. I think vars had a gun pointed to his head on this one. A champ that has no counterplay will not ever be a successful rework. Why not make malphite invincible then to keep with his thematic of being a rock and practically unkillable? Its thematically accurareeeeee reeeeee
@@3rl0y Wow, that's a really good way of putting it. I would add, it feels like the game isn't in your hands and it's on hers. Sure, she is hard to master, but if the game YOU are playing is on the OTHER players hands, that's not a fun experience. Theres counterplay and then theres handing the reigns to the enemy. Thicc line between those two and akali falls on the second imo
@@galeforce8155 I would like to see her in and out play style, but just lower her numbers or gate her escape based on a timer so you create windows of opportunity for the opponent to punish. This concept is my favorite part of all of the champs I don't mind losing to.
@@NYKIKE her kit is still overloaded. Remove the q slow and add it to e why she gotta have a slow with 3 daahes and movement speed already and invincibility and.. just 200 years honestly.... i hate champs that have no counterplay. Riven is another good example. Fun for user but cancerous for playing against better nerf renekton
I completely agree that it's a great design. For another kind of game.
For league, it's a cool but extremely unhealthy design to play against. That's why her numbers must remain so low and STILL she can become a huge threat.
Yeah. Imagine her as a playable character in a top down/third person RPG like Diablo or Genshin Impact.
I can just imagine the dizziness from crappy camera control when you dash around omg.
@@fanficologist6621 high level extreme mobility looters already play like dizzying acid trips tho, Akali is tame compared to that
@@fanficologist6621 thats just genji dude chill out.
I can actually respect Akali a little bit, I like her character design a lot. Her mobility is mostly gated to being in combat, which sets her apart from a lot of roaming champions who can gap close from screens away, Akali has to get in range to click on you, and if she tries to E and misses it’s over for her getting back in.
That said, I can’t exactly forgive the three years it took to get here. Healing, turret untargetability, regen, stuns, and free targeted ult dashes... she had no counterplay. That’s something I think unfortunately is sticking to her kit still as well, is that her losing is almost entirely on HER, not her opponent. She has practically no windows of vulnerability, and you still need to rely on her making mistakes to deal with her.
Also I’d be bemoaned if I didn’t mention how gross her lane matchup into melee vs ranged is, her Q, Passive and W are a melee champions nightmare, while ranged matchups she cant hold her own at all. At least in my experience
She actually has alot of bad matchups. Mostly mid, imo. Galio is permaban for me atleast.
she still has no counterplay as half the character roster, especially in top
@@lucasnadamas9317 play fiora, you won't need anything else
@@lucasnadamas9317 Sion also destroys her, but playing sion means that… well… youre playing sion.
@@EmenussGOamazing I refuse to play that broken anti-cc/fastest character in game/one shot both squishyes and tanks and heal off of the defense items tanks build/ and heal for 3 healthbars as you're one shotting people busted assasin character
She's getting buffed next patch for worlds. Which means she will get 3 nerfs before the end of the season
Haha tru
@@einnormalergooglenutzer3843 Comming to think about it akali did get a skin recently so maybe not true.
@@komgoo4974 have you seen the buff though? (If it can even be called that) XD
@@ihateallluxplayers3590 By the time I commented no but now I've seen it. Still, I think she will get 30 changes
@@komgoo4974 logic says it will do nothing but past experience says you may be right XD
I think that the visual update was sorely needed, but it is beyond me how anyone could think that being able to become untargetble by turrets was a good idea.
The fact that Gwen, Akshan and Samira were released after doesn't make her and Irelia retroactively better. She was the most overloaded champion on release and the literal sole reason I personally stopped playing for a while after that. I think we're just getting used to suffer and to me that's unacceptable from what's literally a game.
Legit at this if it wasn't for Lillia existing I wouldn't keep playing League of Legends and this thing started it all. . . Maybe I should just be looking for something else to spend my time on.
Almost every champion has been overloaded or broken on release, both before Akali and after. Zoe, Irelia, Qiyana, Aphelios, Sett, Viego, Gwen, Akshan, Yuumi. It's not like she's the only champ to ever have this problem.
I dislike most assassins but Akali grinds my gears in a special way. It´s because of her obnoxious trading patterns that she´s designed to win. Unless you are playing very specific champions, there´s nothing you can do against her Q-aa, she´ll just slowly widdle down your hp to like 50% uncontested. Then she´ll get six and she´ll ult. Suddenly she´s behind you, you can´t go to your tower. What do you do then? You can´t fight her because she more than likely has more damage than you. You can´t run away because she´ll dash after you with R2, and, if she needed more, she still has E. What can you honestly do except sit there and die? She´s anxiety made into a champion. With this video you did make me realize that she perfectly encapsulates the fantasy of a ninja... and that is is no game for that fantasy.
"Shen's... weird, but you know what I mean"
For some reason that had me laughing my ass off
River Shen
Really love your content bro. Please keep it up💓
I've found out about your channel a few days ago. I've been watching 1 or 2 of your videos every day since then. They're good. Very good. I can already see you get more subs if you keep tackling such interesting subjects
Prior to akali's rework... we already had the seeds
to me the turning point was the thresh, kalista, yasuo year.
Thresh skill expression, and popularity paved the way to the rest of highskill cielling champs/monster comboing, was here due to riven.
Yasuo, New Akali, Azir, new Irelia... are babies of Riven & Thresh
While off topic, the mental image of Riven and Thresh making babies will haunt me for the rest of my days.
Or you can just blame CertainlyT who created Yasuo. Reworked Akali, and it all started with Darius. The only good thing he actually made on both ends was Warwick's rework and that's only because the design team kept a leash on him to keep the rework beginner friendly, the guy wanted to do even more to his kit.
I think you missed the actual issue with Akali, it is not only the fact that she is frustrating to deal is just that if executed properly she doesn't have any weak state, her early is fair enough, she can even run Tp - Ignite she doesn't need flash, unlike Zed she doesn't fall off because she's AP and lets be honest, ap is a stat that by default scales a lot so the more the game progresses the stronger she gets.
I also feel like ignite should reveal her in her shroud giving you the chace to actually trade with the champ and her E should have a range to be recasted like lee Q2.
It's ironic because arguably someone like Zed scales because he does so much dmg he can actually just go another item for tankiness after 3 items.
AP as a stat by itself doesn't scale harder than AD. Crit exist, attack speed exist, ability haste functions for both stats. And generally speaking, AP has lower ratios than AD to compensate . But in general, being locked behind ability cooldowns exist. Limitations of champions exist. If your using scaling as a broad stat stick term then you don't know how scaling works.
@@2BsYummySoles This makes sense and I completely agree. Its not the fact that her ap ratios are different but its her bruiser play style that gives her consistent damage while her assassins like kit allows her to mitigate dmg and stay in a fight longer than an assassin should while also giving her an out for misplays.
@@RockJoe Yeah, mobility with tankiness. My friend once argued to me that LeBlanc hard counters Akali. ANd I told him, bruh, she takes like 2-3 rotations and she has insane mobility to even escape your ss.
I get pre6 but like once Akali gets 6, she's just way too mobile and tanky for her mobility to reliably do anything. And there isn't any reliable way to predict her since nothing is condition based.
Even her base stats besides her armor (which imo her shroud makes up for since you need ss to do anything) she is reliably tanky.Then add the fact she can go brusier build yet still do immense amounts of dmg.
@@2BsYummySoles I wouldn’t say Leblanc counters per say but she is a hard lane to play against due to her insane early kill pressure. A lot of inexperienced players do not respect her dmg and her ability do early trades that can kill you at lvl 2 especially Akali players. So I can see why they said that she counters.
@@RockJoe Yeah, I'm not saying I don't understand the mindset. I was more so saying I think he overestimates the idea that LB only has to hit one E. and more so, how difficult that is.
If you respect her, I don't see much of an issue in the lane because I've faced many Akalis and even the bad ones get away with a lot due to how mobile and stat checky the champ can be. I only used the MU as an example of a theoritic counter but the MU isn't how it plays out on paper soley due to Akalis stats alone. Not even just her mobility. It's really difficult to one shot her lvl 6 without a pretty big lead. But it's not very hard for her to one shot you with no lead honestly.
Another great video - which got even better by the music choice
.......this should have been hard to gather and make. thanks for your hard work.
good to hear we'll get more documentaries like this.
quality content as always. keep up the good work. wish you well. take care.
I want to know more about Swain and his rework since compared from the rest, it feels like he's rework has the "sleepiest" update, don't know why.
The problem is that she is too good at what rito made her for: an assassin with multiple, hum hum MULTIPLE, options and great mobility. Like the real kung fu said how can you beat someone that's is more faster than you. I know some of you here are smart and gonna say with intelligence. But im the majority of the Cases Akali will beat your asses.
i love these videos but specially i love how they come out every single day, how does this man produce such good videos so quick?!?!
11:35 this csing sequence is just perfect
I'm mixed because I consider current rework better interms of not being a stat stick, but I perfer playing the old and found it more fun do the diversity of builds and one of the only champions with many dashes that I enjoyed(I don't like her current dashes tbh). I really feel like it a worse katarina rework because I felt like katarina became very skillful while just enhancing what she had with little changes vs akali where they kept the idea but they changed a quite a bit. I don't think it's the best or worst because I see some clear winners on both sides before hers.
Its funny because I loved both kata and akali pre-rework, and haven't played them post rework at all. They both become more complex champions, and not the champions I learned when I started league. And I agree old Akali dash was super satisfying imo.
I feel you. I was of 2 different camps pre rework. I loved akali but cat was eh for me. I was excited for the akali rework before playing it for a while and decided I liked pre better and kat I went from. Not wanting to try her to actually liking her right now. Rework champs are just a different beast. Like similar to how you don't play either anymore, I rarely play aatrox irelia or swain anymore because they aren't the champions I love anymore.(Though I kinda still like irelia but I just don't feel incline to play her much.)
I dunno about 8 months ago but Akali is in that funny state now where she’s being built in alternate ways occasionally and it’s seemingly quite fun, Goredrinker AD bruiser Akali has popped up a little more and she seems pretty in-line nowadays.
"There's gonna be one on ryze"
Just one?
Edit: excuse me but on release the rework WAS completely busted.
Tower stealth was BS and minion based sustain is broken in every champion it's in (until it gets nerfed or removed).
Now it's alright, after ripping off some mechanics.
Watching this video made me remember when I used to play pre-rework tank Akali top in season 6, good times
My favorite thing about this series is seeing everyone in the comments talking about all the different reworks and which are the best and why.
i actually didn't like this rework, i used to play old akali and got my first penta with her, when the rework came i didn't care, though she was overloaded, but no one knew how to play her correctly, nowadays it's really annoying to face against a main akali because against her feels frustating.
I think it was an improvement because Old Akali was just an unhealthy stat checker
All assassins are stat checkers.
Now we have an unbalanced assassin who can outplay you 6 different ways (I've mained akali before btw)
This video made me respect the Akali rework a lot more, especially when you showed her old gameplay and I had war flashbacks in 2014 midlane
yeee bebe keep the wids up so enjoyable to watch
I don't know if I agree that she's improved, or that she's more like an assassin. To be honest she plays more like a skirmisher/fighter but can also be an assassin at the same time given the situation and let's be real here, akali can still be a diver too. I liked old akali way more because even though she was very feast or famine it wasn't nearly as impossible as you implied to keep her in check as it is with current akali, and honestly I don't understand how simplicity is a bad thing, I have 1 mil points on old akali and I definitely felt very ninja like.
I'm not saying everything was a miss but you can't sit there and tell me akalis rework was one of the best even with the balancing issues aside, she went from a cold blooded, wise, and humorous badass ninja to a edgy teen and honestly that was the nail in the coffin for me.
She needs to be reworked again and be more reminiscent to what she was beforehand. :/
Terrible take
I personally love this kind of champions, their complexity is really rewarding once you get to use all their mechanics properly, and I also think they are healthy for the game since they diversify the meta. I personally get mad when people say they want simpler champions because must of them (Lillia, Neeko and Seraphine jsjs) are forgotten as soon as they are released or really poorly received.
It's good that she's a complex champion but calling her healthy for the game is *very* far from the truth, considering how much she had to get nerfed to be anywhere near balanced. Let alone how she still causes problems today despite all those nerfs just due to her combination of 4 dashes and shroud + huge burst and low windows of vulnerability when played properly.
@@sweetillusions5495 I'm of the belief that newer champions are only powerful into old champions and that league has a lot of outdated champs. I don't think akali would be as problematic if a lot of champions were updated and built around the idea of countering newer playstyles while being countered by other newer playstyles.
My soul felt that when he showed mystic mine. Its just a "you dont get to play" card
12:18 Old Morde's options:
> Could build Full AP, AP DoT/Bruiser, AD Bruiser and On-hit
> Could be played Bot, Mid and sometimes Top
> Kit rewarded intentional ability timing, team play and good Macro
> Even when behind, coordinating an ult on their fed adc could swing a game
> DRAGON
New Morde's options:
> Only has various flavours of AP Bruiser - AD and on-hit scalings removed
> Near-exclusively played Top (Jungle viable now tho, neat)
> right click, walk forward menacingly, if abilities miss it's fine
> QSS? hey, at least you can 1v1 Janna
> no dragon :c
(Yes I'm being extremely hyperbolic here)
Ninjas dont fight...
They were spies, thiefs and messengers not fast killing machines
Edit:
The reason no one plays monster champions is cus they are made with a nieche that Riot keeps gutting down
As an ADC main, I like playing against Akali more than playing against Irelia.
Yes, i hate her shroud, but I'd rather die to someone with a really small window for counterplay than Miss. I kill you even without stacks.
CertainlyT would be one of the greatest designers of all time if he actually took the time to think about what makes a champion fun to play both with and against, rather than just loading in as many cool ideas as possible.
He always hit the mark on the fun to play department... can't say the same about playing against.
As a new player (s11 first ranked season) I love these videos
Its really cool to see these older versions of heroes and what they were like in old league
As a Akali main imo she's the best rework ever, period. BUT as a league player, no she's not.
I was an Akali main, not anymore
A rework so bad that they had to dedicate several patches to stripping her of features on top of nerfing her stats. This champ and Irelia are a prime example of how not to do reworks.
yessss 100% ..... "Best rework" yet nerf after nerf after neft after neft. She was "PLAYABLE" before the "rework"
now we are left with reading more nefts
Tends to happen when you overload a kit. I'll always say it simple and straight forward kits are easier to balance and healthier for the game, rather than overloaded kits
Hey vars! I have been following you since you had 20k subs, and I really love the vids! another amazing video this one tbh. Are you thinking of covering viktor's season6 rework allong the way too? it really changed him quite a bit i think even though it didnt touch his core abilities too much, but it changed all augments as well as his passive a lot. Like idk if its a gameplay adjustment or rework since they also changes his lore, look everything.
This is perfect cause I just got back to picking her up and learning her a couple weeks ago
Old akali was not balanced, it needed rework but this new one isnt good either.
Old akali had 3 point to click dashes, dont come and say "it was balanced 😭"
It still had more counterplay. New invisibility sucks.
It was one of their best reworks along with Fiora's and Katarina's reworks.
It gave several layers of complexity to Akali, a relatively simple champion, while making her stand out as an assassin option, keeping her relatively low skill floor, but massively increasing her skill cealing.
But unlike other two reworks, hers was not regularly overtuned, but extremely overtuned.
Not only was she the only assassin who ever had an ability to counter best, most reliable and most common assassin counterplay (staying under turret), she also had both really good sustain and heavy, easy to apply, crowd control within her kit, which, considering she is an assassin, was kind of insane.
Those, along with her dual scaling, not only made her a nightmare to face against in the midlane, due to mages' inefficiency in itemization against her, but also made her a viable pick in the top lane, due to her newly found skrimisher nature.
Considering that she could have been flex-picked for both top and mid, she was dread to see even during the champion selection, because of uncertainty of counterpicking against your (presumed opponent), making her a must pick-ban champion.
TL;DR:
Amazing rework overshadowed by Riot's drip marketing tactics.
shes like all the superhyper mobile champs. Fun to play but a mess to play against. A good champ at least for me is fun to play while at least "okay" to play against. I like to play Akali but i can understand anyone that doesnt like to play against her(a decent one not a first time akali).
Ohmwrecker's rework was pretty cool they made it into a whole champion
subbed for the future taric rework vid
Good video but NO, old Morde had sooo much more options that current Morde who has literally 1 combo
Uh... former Akali main here, and... no. Just no. Akali had 3 auto attack resets in her kit (Q, E, R) got resets on her E if she killed with it (meaning it was actually to her benefit to fight in a minion wave, for resets and spellvamp) and was slippery AF. W was a (short) blink, in addition to stealth, and could be used to wallhop. R could target minions, monsters, and for a time jungle plants. The trick with old Akali wasn't "feast or famine" it was knowing what your escape route was before going in. Usually that looked like "hop wall into jungle, ult to jungle camp"
Can't wait for this vid
god I miss old Akali so much, it was by far my favorite char to play and have fun, winning or losing
this champion (and some others) is extreamly toxic to play against, riot implemented main character syndrome in her fucking dna that anyone who main it automatically wins the laning phase, there is not a single opening for a counter play unless they troll or a first time akali, and even IF somehow you cought her doing that mistake she still has E to escape + double dash ult, players who play champs like this are sow inflated (if they are dia, there real elo is gold), and im talking about akali riven fiora irelia yone yummi mains, you can see there macro level when there champ gets picked/banned and most time they just dodge knowing the fact they are bronze without it
Reworked Akali is a decent champion, but I must say the rework is a huge failure because the old Akali was a lot more fun and the reason behind her "needing" a rework in the first place is absurd. Riot justified her need of a rework because her W and ult made her a drag to play against, but then they went and made her W a lot more busted and now the likes of Irelia and Yasuo have a much more OP version of her old ult in their basic skill set.
I love akali. I think she has the perfect assassin kit and is so much fun to play
Can't wait for the Sion video!
nah, it's not fair to judge a rework after it has had years to fix itself and is now only borderline tilting. If you look at the insane amount of power creep and overloadedness her kit had when she was released then you'd get a better insight into riots design philosophy. They want to make champs with a high skill ceiling but are still gratuitous and easy to play for newcomers- they can't commit to the fundamentals about how the game works and keep trying to break it with new champions releases. I mean it's a good rework in that she is now an powercreeped version of her old self but not really in that it's a well designed, fun to play with and against while still being true to the original rework. You're setting the bar too low for riot man.
Im not with you in this one, i do understand the concept of a more tactical and strategic assasin that doesnt acomplish its title just by waiting in an unseen corner. The thing about akali is that she deals it from a safety that even most tanks dont really have. She has one of the highest stick pottencials of the entire game, but once the target attemps to strike back she also has kiting and defensive tools WHILE also keeping her e and her second ult as an escape tool that can go trough walls. Its just a balance nightmare to keep a champion with so many tools to react in every situation. If her second ulti were also a targeted dash i can assure she wouldnt be such a headache
Love the Red theme remix in the background.
Here's an idea for a video: *Champions We Love to Fight*
What I mean by that is, we have Champions we love to play as, and Champions we hate to fight, but I'm sure that everyone out there has one or two Champions that, for whatever reason, they love to fight against.
For me, those Champions are Jhin, Nunu, and Shen. They might be annoying to fight against sometimes, but working around their abilities and figuring out the best way to get the jump on them with whatever Champion I'm playing at the time, is just a lot of fun.
I honestly think that answers would just come based on who your champion counters for the most part. You're either going to get katarina mains talking about how they love veigar, or you'll just get the average low elo response of hating everything but what they play.
Honestly, I hated the Akali rework when it came out, and I still hate it to this day. In my opinion Riot butchered Akali. She used to be such a fun and simple champion to play. She felt like a true assassin, both by her visual design and by her gameplay. She was OP, yes, but she was interesting to play! This new Akali is the complete opposite. Not fun and not simple. Her W is probably one of the worst abilities Riot added into the game, she is still OP (but in a bad way) and the situation with her energy management is a joke. This was definitely Riot's worst rework. Riot's best rework, in my opinion, is a tie between Urgot and Swain. Those reworks were absolutely amazing, and they made these 2 champions so much more fun to play.
P.S This is just my opinion tho, and I don't judge people who like the new Akali, I can see why they do, but for my taste the new Akali is just utter garbage.
The ideas being good or bad is irrelevant. The important thing is how they are implemented. Old akali was a way better designed champion than current akali.
First, they are many contradictions or arbitrary statements that don't really makes sense. For example, you say "it is good that each champion has a unique playstyle" but also "old akali had a different playstyle than other assassins, which is bad"
Second, some arguments lack substance to prove them (for example 7:10). Old akali had a good design because her strength and weaknesses were well defined which means that you can play around them. She can go in and do a lot of damage, be very sticky to her targets and has a little bit of durability with her passive and w, but she can't get out easily because her dashes need a target and you can cc her in various way to counter her. New akali has the same strengths, but none of the weaknesses attached to these strengths. It makes for a fun to play champ but not a well designed one
Finally, some things (especially on release) in her rework completely broke the rules of league which is inacceptable. For example, turrets are supposed to be a safe outpost by bringing vision and damage making it harder to kill you. Akali being able to stay invisible while under an enemy tower has no place in the game (and was rightfully removed) but to say that she was one of the better reworks while having that in her kit is ridiculous. A lot of reworks stayed true to the nature of the champion without completely breaking the game (karma, poppy, fiddle, warwick, taric...)
Can’t wait to see the taric rework video
Basically, the main thing that keeps champions like Akali, Irelia and Yone from being more broken than they already are is the fact that their kits inherently allow for player error. They have a number of ways for their abilities to be used together, and come with the inherent risk of the person piloting them messing it up. It's why they are mainly played by people who main them, and why the random Akali or Yone you see in a Bronze game usually feeds their ass off.
Her rework certainly isn't an unholy abomination like Aatrox. That said they've drastically reduced the amount of ways one can play against her and basically completely removed her windows of vulnerability. (granted that is an issue many modern assassins share)
Okay, no. I hate Akali's rework because it released immediately after them standardizing stealth with a new "super stealth" she didn't need that broke the way she interacted with several game mechanics that it took them a crazy long time to get rid of. Her power's been toned down, and she's alright now I guess (still kind of a fuck you to ADCs when shroud re-stealths her faster than you can auto), but she'll forever leave a bad taste in my mouth because she directly violated the rules for stealth design Riot had JUST finished presenting to the community.
As someone who fell in love with Akali pre-rework, I'm of the opinion that they didn't rework her, but made a new champion entirely just to fit a theme. For me, Akalis identity, was single target damage, Lifesteal/Spellvamp/Omnivamp, and sticking power. With the rework they simply took away the single target part, and slowly patched away her leaching power in favor of Extreme mobility and High AOE damage. I think i champ with that would be fine, and it would fit the theme. However, just like the Aatrox rework, it just felt like her old kit was removed in favor of their new ideas, instead of actually modernising her old kit.
I believe they easily could have done Akali the way they did Pantheon.
Passive: Healing/Damage Amp for hitting champions with abilities
Q: Skillshot that deals damage and marks them. Mark can be popped for bonus damage or healing.
W: The rework W is fine, increase her movementspeed significanlty in the shroud, make her deal bonus damage with her next AA/ability on exiting the shroud
E: Just remove the clunky cast time, make it interact with her Q or W
R: A dash in a straight line that stops on hitting any opponent, hightly reduced cooldown if she hits a champion with it. Reset Cooldown on takedown.
Something this simple would have worked perfectly FOR ME, and they could have made rework Akalis kit on a new character.
I do realise i sound a bit butthurt and like every main after a major rework, but i do believe they could have kept the INGAME gameplay characteristics without removing her kit entirely.
Yeah, look how they massacred my girl...
Yeah, look how they massacred my girl...
Great video as always, V.
Though I do wanna nag a little bit about Gwen's untargettabiliity. The gwen player has to actually be good at using it to get its full value. You've all seen how a Gwen presses W and thinks she's invincible so she charges in only to see the entire team is in her safety bubble. It's worse than Xin's ult, which everyone compares it to.
Akali's kit is fine on a conceptual level. Passive boosts your poke, Q is poke, W is situational stealth (technically her most "OP" ability but easy enough to play around), E is a telegraphed dash, and R is an untelegraphed dash. The problem with Akali is all the unnecessarily bullshit they piled on top of it. Why does she do hybrid damage? Why does she have some of the best sustain in the game? And good fucking god why did her stealth let her ignore towers?!
The problem with Akali was never her abilities: it was all the stupid passives attached onto them. Same can be said for a lot of the newer champions like Akshan and Gwen. Riot needs to stop saying yes to every "what if" ability and give a character with 200 years of random bullshit that pushes them over the edge just because they're overtuned to hell and back.
Akali is good rework even though I fucking hate her kit, it's still a good and needed update. Except that absolute bullshit with shroud able cloak under tower, that was some wtfuckery right there.
Thematically speaking, akalis is definitely one of riots best ever made. yeah, she was broken and all and adcs hate her. But her kit in theory and visual design is what makes her such a strong contender for ones of the fan bases favorites. Of course, rito had to blew it, but moving around, weaving abilities and landing r executes, as a ninja would, has to be one of my favortie things to do on the rift.
Its amazing how in all of the rework videos I've seen from so many creators, they never even mention Urgot.
Better than Mordekaisers rework.
Akali rework went from low to high skill.
Mordekaiser went from high skill to low skill trash
I've always called them differently because rework has such a strong connotation. "Remaster" when their kit is being updated, which can include number tweaks, but the core premise/abilities of the champion don't change. (Tahm Kench for example). "Rework" when the core premise/abilities of the champion are gutted for something almost completely new (Akali, Aatrox, Mordekaiser). For all other less important updates like graphics, number tweaks, etc... I don't even bother calling them anything other than "update", because nobody cares about it.
For the video itself, honestly it's just very poorly thought out. You don't take into consideration anything, just comparing both of the kits side by side like they just added old Akali into the game today. It also sounds like you never played old Akali, watched any vods on her and how she typically played, nor asked anyone that did because you takes are very odd like "new Akali takes skill, whereas old Akali didn't".
Pink wards completely countered her shroud, which forced her kit to compensate over time with damage updates, gunblade was the most broken thing in existence with a 40% slow for 2 seconds, instant damage, and insanely good stats (coming from someone who abused the new kat with it and old akali), not many champions had a lot of dashes so she was very unique, she was practically a cannon minion in laning phase and into mid game until she got her gunblade insane power spike (no map pressure, very low farm, easy to free farm off of, etc...), she used to be part of a type of champion that was intentionally weak early, but would scale late and be a monster if you let her get to late (Kassadin, Katarina, Malzahar, Kayle, etc...) which no longer exists (Kass/Kayle/Kat are still monsters but their laning phase is incredibly strong compared to how they used to be). There is so much more but I've already spent 5-10 minutes writing this out and you get my point.
I've said this for years and years, but the assassin class needs a major update to their items, idea, and their kits. An assassin should have to wait out of view to find a low hp target to execute, not just dash onto someone and be able to kill them in 0.0 seconds. Kha Zix is the closest to a true assassin in my opinion because he typically can't just jump on a target at any point due to his reliance on isolation, but even then he is still incredibly strong and can sometimes do it. Champions like Katarina/Diana aren't even assassins anymore, but are both abusing the benefits of having the title of assassin.
Also your ending point is just... interesting. I would love to have a conversation with you to understand the thought process because I've been a part of many communities that talk about this type of thing over the years and I've actively thought about these things and talked about them with friends.
you know... as a pre-rework akali main, even tho the new akali is very cool and fun, I still miss the old akali, because today I really dont feel like I'm playing "akali" anymore.
I really enjoying these series can u please make a leblanc one too i would love to see ur opinions on her rework~
0:24 mini series on ryze reworks should be a series itself lol
I respect the *intentions* of the rework, and where it eventually landed, but just reworking and releasing with an overloaded kit for the sake of having an overloaded kit?
That's a bad rework, even if it eventually *got* to a healthy state after the fact.
I would say the same thing for Azir's kit on launch: getting bonus AD/CDR, chunking sand soldiers on towers, effortless shields... it was a bad launch, even if he eventually got to a "healthy" spot later on.
Same idea: the rework was necessary to get Akali to a healthy state, but the rework itself was anything but.
The way he say true draco and floodgate really crack me up to no end
When you say option do you mean diffrent things for unique senarios ? Great video as usual. Cant wait for irelia
Can't wait for the feature film length ryze rework retrospective
The major problem with the akali rework is that she was THE go to easy to learn assassin. A low skill floor, manaless champion with a simple build pattern/playstyle. Now we really don't have that. If you want to learn assassins now, you have to pick something like kha or zed, which have a much higher skill floor than old alkali.
since there will be a video for each major rework, how many ryze videos will you make?
i think the fact we have Sett and now Vex with their two sentence abilities vs the other PhD level doctorate thesis abilities; i suspect there are still some designers with enough chill to say "you know what, f it, it's 2011 baby
Imagine League in 20011... Around 72000 champions probably... still only a single played map
@@MrLuzakman oh, whoops
Hi, Akali main here. I agree with practically every point in this video. I loved old akali, but I ADORE new Akali. I still have so much to learn and skills to home but her outplay and combo potential is just insane. Also her visual update is GORGEOUS!!!! Thanks for the video and understanding Vars
"yea these bombs on japan in 45. might have been a little overpowered but the design was innovative and new- and as it is with all that came after, it got better with time"
Powercreep irl. But hey, its cool as long as it is creative and innovative right?
Best in a sense she's a lot more fun to play now, but that's becouse she's simply op. Op ≠ good
I would like a mini episode on Teemo from when they tried swapping abilities and regret it