Jungler: Akali (Season 3)

I've released a new jungle Akali video. It's just the basic route, but it still provides a good point of discussion.

It's been well over two years since I first started experimenting with jungle Akali. In that time she's gone from a joke, to low tier, to viable but inappropriate for the meta, to her current state. This slow but steady progression is fairly well documented in my numerous video guides archived on Youtube. It's funny to look back on her early jungling days, which were a very far cry the from the safe, fluid jungling she is now capable of.

Season 3 is perhaps the zenith of Akali's viability as a jungler. Dive compositions are becoming more popular due to the reduced effectiveness of tanks. At the same time early ganking junglers have much greater pressure to succeed, or else face falling behind their opponents who simply farmed for level 6 before ganking. That Akali has weak early ganks is no longer quite the handicap it once was.

Akali's weakest point is level 1, she does not do quite enough damage to clear a small camp before a buff spawns. With assistance at level 1 she can easily gain 10-20 seconds on her clear time. Add in Bladed Armor and taking Golems rather than Wolves before Red, and her clear speed is actually substantially faster than the video may lead you to believe. The video, however, was largely concerned with the basic, safest route and demonstrating Akali's strong sustain for the benefit of inexperienced junglers.

Whether jungling or laning, Hextech Gunblade is simply the best single item for Akali. Hitting 41% Spell Vamp turns Smite into a personal Heal when fighting near creeps. The slow is extremely good for chasing, especially with Akali's high single target damage. This also feeds into what I believe to be Akali's ideal build, Gunblade + Deathfire Grasp + Lich Bane. With those three items Akali can absolutely decimate any carry before they can react. The ideal build isn't possible in all games, but Gunblade is absolutely and irrefutably the core item.

Once you've hit level 6 or 7 on Akali you should be extremely aggressive, especially if you have enough gold for Sorcerer's Shoes or Hextech Revolver. Even without crowd control Akali's ganks are incredibly potent due to her extreme chase potential. So long as her opponents are not in the immediate vicinity of their towers Akali can easily force Flash and other summoners. She's absolutely terrifying one on one, capable of taking on practically any champion in the game (especially if she gets first strike). Your goal is to less to farm the jungle and more to farm the enemy team.

Your late-game role is the same as any assassin, be enough of a threat that if the enemy team doesn't pay attention to you and blows cooldowns on your allies they're guaranteed to lose one or more carries. The hardest targets to kill are typically carries with stuns and roots, as they can potentially use that time to flash out of your ultimate's range. Otherwise any target you have vision of is probably a dead target.

With the meta warping under the influence of Season 3, now is finally (I swear, really, this time it's true) Akali's chance to shine as a jungler. Try her out and enjoy emerging stealthily from the jungle to complete your covert assassination missions.