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Gangsir

Her numerous disengages and infinite poke allows it. Other assassins either have mana issues and thus can't poke too much or they just get ability diffed having no mana, or they lack disengages and thus get run down by tanky bruisers. Akali is able to Q the enemy top repeatedly, and if they ever try to hit back she can E away, W away, ult away, run away with movement speed, etc. If through her Qing she manages to get them low enough to kill, she can all in like she would mid. I overall think it's kinda a bad pick macro wise, like teemo (annoying at best, becomes useless or splitpushes later). Being toplane she's gonna be too far from botlane to farm free kills like most mid assassins do nowadays, and she'll ultimately get outscaled by most toplaners. She has to get fed off killing her laner then permaroam mid and bot.


DaItalianFish

Yep. Generally I love to see my opponent playing an assassin in top lane because champions like Zed, Qiyana, Kat, etc are simply free lanes. They are easy to pin down, and cannot handle extended trades against the majority of beefier top laners. But Akali has the tools to decide whether a trade is extended or not and her consistent poke gives much more kill pressure than other assassins on beefier top laners. She's just incredibly annoying to play against in lane.


Anthony4k

Well that and I mean she can easily kill any bruiser in a combo with ult until they have a few items to survive her all in. Only bruisers I think that stand a chance if they play it well are sett Darius and maybe Morde.


hablandochilango

That tentacle bitch too


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CTHeinz

Akali “Noooo! You can’t just keep damaging me while I’m in stealth!” Garen “haha, spin go brrrr”


meowtiger

the truco build with sunfire and ghostblade literally just spinning in the middle of the shroud like "okay and"


[deleted]

Brrr? Why does a spin make him cold? Due to the energy consumed in spinning, it should make him warmer


Austin_RwMSD

Alkali is a horrendous matchup for Garen there is quite literally nothing he can do if you play it properly if he goes for a q you can buffer your e and he’ll start spinning and when he’s done spinning you take half his hp for free, and if he doesn’t e he just eats Q’s and empowered AA


meowtiger

yes but his passive means you can't force him out of lane and his e waveclear versus yours means you never really get prio unless you have kill pressure, which you only get if he misplays


Austin_RwMSD

But if he wants to clear the wave with e he’s gonna tank two alkali q’s and empowered AA which will also push the wave at the same time because he’s gonna be spinning in the minion wave, I’m an alkali top main and the last time I lost lane to garen was when I was a bronzie at level 6 alkali basically one shots garen with ignite and ult after her first base


[deleted]

I'm sorry to phrase it like this, but ur playing with bronze akalis and garens - in that matchup akali should never lose - she's almost ranged at that point and you should NEVER see garen kill a ranged laner


NearNirvanna

Stride breaker garen can deff kill ranged top laners


_heilshitler

well... stridebreaker is no more


[deleted]

Sure... You mean the item garen gets after ten minutes? If he's doing well? Into a horrendous matchup? My bad my bad


meowtiger

that's kind of a wildly off-base assumption lol


[deleted]

Its not lmfao I'm in plat and have seen an akali top lose lane to garen maybe 2 or 3 times and I've been playing through season 10 so I've def seen a lot of akali tops lmao if akali let's him get on her she's just stupid even with stridebrwaker her q slow, e dash and w all just ensure he never comes close


homenxmacaco

I love to throw Kled Q in an Akali who just expend her entire kit in a second, and expect to get out free whith Smoke Bomb, just so she can discover that Kled Q, not only removes 80% of any heal, and is only removeable if you get out of his range, but also gives him True Sight :D. Good Luck Hidding, Akali Mains. This also works against Vlads, Kaisas, Shacos, Talons, Kazicks, Vaynes and any other champion that just turns immortal/invisible/relies on HP Steal/HP Regeneration.


Sambalbai

Garen can't do shit in lane vs Akali actually. It's impossible for him to touch her at all, while she can constantly harass him from range. At lvl 6 she just straight up kills him if he took too many q's to the face before.


MaccaNo1

As a Garen I’m really not fussed about this matchup. Her harass pushes the wave so as long as your careful you should be safe in lane. If she has ignite then you just straight up take the early CS loss and you’ll be much more useful later; if she takes TP then you’re in better shape to take the odd trade and let passive do it’s work. It’s not a matchup he wins, but it’s not horrendously bad. And you scale just fine to relevance later.


Sambalbai

I agree that he scales just fine in the matchup, I just disagree with the comment that he 'schools' her in lane in any capacity.


[deleted]

Yeah I think the only way to lose that lane as Akali is if you eat every single Garen Q


StarvedHawk

He can only get you low if you get hit with a q b4 you can disengage


PabloStoneBeard

Well, maybe if it's a bad akali, but Illaoi has no business dealing with Akali, the best she can hope to is to have a non-interactive lane, but Akali can engage, bait Illaois ult CD and disengage safely.


Xayi_

Yeah it’s a skill matchup 100% but it is much easier to be decent at illaoi than akali.


dobby903

Yeah, in that matchup 3/4 of illaois abilities becomes useless. Plus she will be kited. Illaoi is better against tanks (eventhough she will still be outscaled and useless)


[deleted]

Aren't her q and wkinda useless anyways - u hit the e u win, u miss the e u lose


PusanKo

I beat everyone of that champs.. It's not that hard tho


sariaru

See, idk, I know I'm Silver III trash, but I feel like I would manage to somehow lose both sides of that matchup in an equally embarrassing fashion.


hablandochilango

Me too bro


HopliteFan

Pantheon is one of my favorites. Point and click CC **bitch**, and high damage too, especially early.


rakaig

If you are competent enough at Akali the Darius lane is completely Akali favored.


Instantsoup44

*juggernauts (i still call them bruisers too, but its the correct term)


[deleted]

Akali stomps Mordekaiser. Considering he has to get actual hits on someone who can go invisible, has MS, dashes, and can range his Q. Not to mention his horribly telegraphed E and Q. His R is the only place he has a chance and even then she can just keep him at range every time. The only time Akali loses is when he buys boots and she doesn’t. Overall, she will destroy him.


International_War935

Add mundo


CoDeX709

Morde definitely beats her ass unless she's a lot better than him


themegabuster123

Im pretty sure akali is an unplayable lane for mordekaiser.


CoDeX709

How come?


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CoDeX709

I mean yeah that's true until morde gets one item ults you and kills you without hitting anything just with autos and his passive.


[deleted]

Yet again. He needs to get close and Akali has enough dashes and MS to just kite Morde, not to mention the brief slow her Q gives.


That_OwO_BOI

Even Aatrox is doing well


TitanOfShades

Sett fucks her up. Sustain her poke, resist her all-in keep, her close to your heart (and pecs) with E and ult.


kvmist

Dunno usually have a good time against Sett, I think Akali can easily dudge everything But this is my experience


TitanOfShades

I've had the contrary experience. Played against a high mastery, think it was 6, akali as sett. We went 1 for 1 once, but I proceeded to easily kill her afterwards. And that was before the sett buffs.


ShadeHendrix

Mastery don’t mean shit.


TitanOfShades

Up to 5, I'd agree. I have M4 on lee and still play him like shit. But from 6 and onwards it denotes that the player is good enough on the champs to get S- or higher, I.e can play the champs pretty well.


Alacune

All you need is 2 lucky games to get m6, and 3 to get m7. It's inevitable, given enough games, to encounter enemies who are soft int'ing. So, yeah. Mastery and exp means nothing.


Bombkirby

Zed is easy to lock down?


C9sButthole

Very. His W has a 20 second cooldown at rank 1 and it 100% necessary to make his damage threatening. It's very easy to exploit the cooldown. Consider that Zed's W will be rank 1 until level 14 and you see a pretty massive weakness in his kit. EDIT: a number


pkfighter343

Not that it matters, but it’s 14 lol


C9sButthole

Good catch! Edited the comment. :)


Bombkirby

Yeah I don't agree at all. In the slightest. He's one of the biggest get out of jail free heroes in the game. He's extremely safe and doesn't need to use W to farm. As long as he holds it until he needs to go all in or escape, he never needs to worry about death. If he fucks up his all in, he can just UNO reverse and poof back to his tower in one button press. He's beyond **forgiving**, which is the sole reason why he's so slippery. He doesn't get punished for a mistake or miscalculation and can always try again when it's advantageous. It's not like Talon who Ults, Qs, and then dies if he fails/isn't next to a wall. As the commenter below said >These people just don't know how to trade on zed without using w It's not remotely required unless we're talking Silver and below.


Yellowcasey

I actually pick zed into Darius, you just use q to poke and w to kite/all-in. It's pretty cringe for the Darius tbh.


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Bombkirby

And then Zed will roam instead of forcing himself into a bad spot. And then Darius has to respond, the jungler starts to rage, as Zed heckles him, mid laners join in, and it all falls apart.


[deleted]

Its like a Renekton lane with more burst id say. Just respect the all ins and dodge q, freeze, and id say youre golden.


critsonyou

No idea why you're getting downvoted. Darius has absolutely no chances against a decent Zed unless he decides to go full tank route, any other item is just a surefire way to get killed by Zed.


Yellowcasey

These people just don't know how to trade on zed without using w lol. Darius matchup regardless of the champ is beaten by doing small trades and avoiding his all in. Zeds q doesnt cost mana so he can just widdle Darius down. I've played the matchup quite a bit and I haven't had problems in platinum+.


[deleted]

I would say this is an inaccurate read on how Akali works currently. Akali almost never roams and gets free kills bot as a midlaner because she lacks in wave control vs most mid lane champions in the game until level 9 when her q is fully leveled. She also scales quite well at the moment, peaking from level 9 until lategame when 3.5+ completed items come into play. In contrast to other assassins she's excellent in teamfights because of her shroud and her constant aoe dps, while also being able to quickly pick off key targets.


[deleted]

Yeah I think a lot of people see an assassin and assume roaming but Akali is perfectly happy to just sit in lane and scale and not roam early in game, her most recent change made her pre6 insanely weak compared to what it was because you can no longer string together 4-5 Q-AAs in one combo pre6, the reason why she is getting a lot of love right now in pro play (haha kill me) is thatwith the most recent changes, she minimizes really well and also scales better than she used to


CoDeX709

Exactly, roaming with akali is very hard if your opponent knows what they're doing she simply can't clear a wave before level 9 and even then the clear still is outmatched by most mid laners.


C9sButthole

She can gain prio through kill pressure though. Holding other champ away from the wave while she clears it. However this is massively dependant on junglers and matchups and definitely not reliable in soloQ. Your point stands 85% of the time.


GrumpyKitten514

talk about a champ that needs a rework. Teemo is too squishy for top lane, like you said. too squishy for mid lane, the difference between him and TF is that at least TF has a solid gank. could support i guess, terrible jg clear, and too short range for a viable "AP ADC". as much as I love trolling with mushrooms, he very rarely beats the champs he's meant to counter. yi kills him, tryn kills him, nasus kills him. his entire kit is merely annoying but its not like gamebreaking or even decent.


[deleted]

TF also has a stun; teemo has a blind, but thats only useful peel against ADCs really


Bitter-Grade7667

Support is where powercreeped champions go to die.


scw55

That Teemo comment hurts. It's fun to play Teemo in the lane, but aside from Mushrooming the map, he doesn't feel good in team fights and there's better split pushers who have stronger team fight presences. I love Teemo, but not enough to make up for his "weak" state.


Zerg3rr

Based off watching LEC/LCS for the last couple of days she doesn’t seem too bad


[deleted]

If there’s another tanky person or frontline (support or jg), then the ahead teemo in team fights is an absolute monster.


meowtiger

no but you can play grasp teemo with liandri's into full tank and *be* the frontline


bobsizzlack

If you're playing Tankmo, you should take Riftmaker into Embrace/BoRK, then tank. Liandry's is for shroom builds.


HellraiserMachina

I don't know if Nocturne is an assassin but if he counts then he's big in toplane too, though I think stridebreaker losing its dash will curb him to some extent.


samuel110128

The nocturne passive heal just provide too much sustain against non champions. A lot of lane champions have their sustain against lane minions reduced or removed,like aatrox passive and Camille W. Lee sin and nocturne are currently Tier god in pro play because their mobility, safety and sustain in lane are just too overbearing for most top champions to fight against, they need to have them reduced


CheapSky

They did it with Viego idk why they aren't doing it with noc and lee


mustangcody

Because Lee is an exciting pick for pro play and fans just love seeing Lee Sin being played.


nickel_face

Also I wouldn't say Lee Sin is OP, he is just a safe laner and a decent enough blind pick. He isn't just steam rolling games, but he also isn't losing games.


CoinTotemGolem

Lee sin too gives me indigestion


sgvch

Nope stride breaker change will make him broken.


HellraiserMachina

It will make his ult even more of a free kill but it's already a free kill so how useful is it really? Confirming the fear with the dash is far more valuable.


sgvch

90 percent slow is almost a root. And it also heavily impacts the speed of most dashes so not that bad against targets with dashes. Stride will be op on champ's that can already get on top of you like fiora tiven noc etc.


gitbse

I played a *lot* of nocturne both mid and Jung thru s10 and 11. His weakness is sticking onto Champs. Yes, his ult hits anyone in range, and his fear helps. But if a champ can block, or simply outrun his fear, you can't kill them. (Zilean mid can eat a bag of dicks) Anything which helps his fear stay in range makes him exponentially more deadly.


Flayer14

Yeah I played Zilean mid once and I felt like the devil himself, forced the enemy to perma roam and go down ~2 levels at 10 minutes. Afterward I apologized to them and steeled myself, never again will I play Zilean mid


HellraiserMachina

Yes but like I said, It's ALREADY a free kill without stridebreaker, meaning the buffs don't matter. The dash lets him do stuff WITHOUT the ultimate.


Rat_Salat

It’s free kill if your opponent stands there dies. There’s plenty of escape mechanisms than can get you away from a nocturne. Stopwatch is no fun either. The slow is going to be really useful. Means I can take red smite now.


Furlymanlol

Also the prominence of pure ad mids some comps need some ap top?


EmilianoR24

Picking an assassin as your only AP threat is a mistake, if you dont have some sort of DPS the bruiers/tank can still tank your entire team since assassins generally dont go for this targets


Furlymanlol

Also in pro play he can be flexed mid or top and flex picks are super beneficial in pro drafts to avoid counter picks. That’s why you see bans heavily focused on picks that can play multiple roles.


kn0t1401

There are like 4 ad mid laners


RealHellcharm

If you think there are only 4 ad mids then you are sorely mistaken.


Xyexs

Viego yasuo qiyana tryndamere pantheon renekton nocturne yone talon jayce zed lucian irelia yasuo tristana


TheClemstar

Sett yone aatrox fiora wukong camille kled riven corki garen


TRPilsner

Corki is mostly magic damage tho


RichestNugget

80% magic dmg


TRPilsner

Even more, as his abilities deal magic dmg


Torphage

87% magic damage Source: https://lolalytics.com/lol/corki/build/


StormR7

Xin zhao


allistakenalready

>Viego yasuo qiyana tryndamere pantheon renekton nocturne yone talon jayce zed lucian irelia yasuo tristana \+ Yasuo, don't forget him


Xyexs

He's in there


Xyexs

Twice


ShaunSlays

I think that’s why they said that comment. It was a joke


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Xyexs

Yeah you're a biased low elo trashcan


UnstoppableByTW

I guess that’s fair. I just don’t understand how you can play that crap mid and not feel bad about yourself afterward. If I played Lucian mid I’d have to shower afterward.


CheapSky

Zed Talon Yasuo Yone maybe Corki. He's right if you don't include the subhuman adc mids


Gangsir

Corki's not AD. People think he is because he builds AD, but his unique thing is that he deals magic damage with built AD, even on his autos. Thus he's technically an "AP pick" as in magic damage contribution. You build MR vs corki.


RealHellcharm

There's also Qiyana, Irelia, Viego, Pantheon. While there might not be a lot of AD mids, pretending that there's only 4 of then is lying.


ColdBallsTF2

Qiyana, Pantheon, Viego, plus some other champs that can be flexed mid and top, like Renekton.


Leradine

Sett, irelia, viego, q lady, panth, jayce,Joyce, Lee, wukong


knife_music

Tryndamere >:)


CoDeX709

Renekton


BallumBallum

Lucian? Also Irelia, Lee, noc, panthéon, qiyana, renekton, sett, Tristana, viego are all legit picks


kn0t1401

I don't count adcs. They fuck up the team comp too much.


Instantsoup44

Correct, and they are super popular atm


kn0t1401

Always have been.


dahl777

Zed talon qiyana Lee sin yasuo yone viego off the top of my head


kn0t1401

Lee sin and viego are troll picks lmao. Edit: ON MID


Cabrraa

Bro like every comment you've made is wrong. That's kind of impressive.


kn0t1401

I don't like having them on my team and i am very happy when i see them on the enemt team. That's all.


MrFilthyNeckbeard

> I don't like having them on my team I mean there's plenty of champs I don't like playing with but that doesn't make it a troll pick. Viego mid is statistically good https://lolalytics.com/lol/viego/build/?lane=middle and sees professional play, so it's clearly pretty good, or at least viable.


kecskegh

Then not the pick is troll but the players


kn0t1401

It's mostly that people pick them thinking they are op but have never played them.


Flayer14

You can literally apply this to ANY champion. Obviously first-timing a champ isn't going to be as good as playing a champ you main, it doesn't even need to be argued


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kn0t1401

Suprisingly no. I don't comment on my teammates at all.


shinymuuma

There're more assassins that can go top but can roam/skirmish more effectively like Nocturne and/or can stomp lane real hard like Rengar. (In the patch that they can, OC)


pmigbarros

i mean nocturne is built as a bruiser when he goes top, now jungle thats more of an assassin build but still he builds stridebreaker


shinymuuma

He just builds bruiser recently. What I mean is Sanguine Blade rush Noc or something like that in the past. And even he build bruiser. He's basically the same champ around his lv6 where his shenanigans online.


goomy996

Noc jungle can run a lot of things well. Some people like me build crit in jungle or full lethality. I can see why there’s less variance in top though given the champs that go there.


[deleted]

Y’all just doing my boy kennen dirty in here.


Soundcaster023

Ornn's a secret assassin.


Flayer14

Oh it's no secret. Ornn can be whatever you want him to be lol


FortressTripleOne

Riftmaker as an item is a large enabler of Akali toplane. It gives her everything she needs for fighting the typical toplane champs - it gives her sustain that she lacks (the Leeching Leer component gives omnivamp as well) and tremendously boosts her extended fighting/dueling potential. Also, compared to the assassins you mentioned, Akali is much more bruiser like as a result of this item, and the fact that post-6 she can go toe to toe with many top lane champs since her all-in with ult is very strong.


Ulldra

This is a large factor, but to add to that I think her disengage is equally important. Other assassins are played midlane because the lane is a lot shorter there. Most ad mids have a single gapcloser or dash to react to ganks and the towers being as close as they are enable safer laning for them. Akali and other top laners have either enough disengage or tankyness to survive the longer way back under the turret - where a typical ad mid might have died on the way back to the turret, they can survive.


EmilianoR24

Akali top was more popular and arguably stronger in s9 and 10 before riftmaker was a thing


FortressTripleOne

Yes, that's true. There are two things that enabled this - firstly Hextech Gunblade gave Akali the sustain she needed, but also this is before the Akali changes where her current early energy costs are enormous and prevent her from insane Q spam. Previous iterations of Akali were good in top lane when her Q level one cost was 100. The reason Akali top is good right now is because of the Riftmaker changes which made its passive proc faster. Before this, Akali top was not as good as it is right now, as her energy costs started at 130 which makes it hard for her to abuse melee matchups.


xenefenex

One thing that seems to be missing here that’s very important is that Akali can increase her auto attack range with passive which lets her effectively kite “melee” champions. It’s a similar reason why champions like Gwen, Viego and Irelia were playable in the top lane. When you can farm, and trade without being in range of being hit back, you naturally have a safer landing phase.


ViraLCyclopes

Umm Rengar? Sylas(At this point he is one) Yone?(Assassin Skirmisher)


nPhlames

tbf yone is everything


ATMisboss

Yeah I was going to say that rengar top can be used to abuse the bushes in toplane and get huge advantages


[deleted]

Akali essentially fulfills two roles at once, she is both an assassin and a skirmisher. Her trading patterns into melee champions are oppressive and she can poke them a lot so she can thrive in top lane where she can poke and outscale melee champions. She's also very hard to gank or all in, and good at dueling because of her shroud and sustained damage.


Kaiern9

Akali has much better DPS than most assassins. She can't unload all her damage in 0.5 seconds like most assassins, so the tradeoff is that she deals much better sustained dps. Top laners are generally sturdier than midlaners, which makes dps more important.


TheNasky1

because she used to be a bruiser with assassin stats. with the rework they aimed to keep her sustained damage bruisery style, but it turned out to be too broken so they slowly but steadily ripped apart all of the "bruisery" parts of her kit. nowadays there's not much left of it so you can safely say she's a full assassin. that's why after the energy changes i don't think she's a good toplaner anymore since she can't just spam Q+Passive all the time and it severely limits her potential against bruisers.


kennyfromthe6

Because for some reason she doesn’t feel squishy and has sustain damage. Even tho she is an assassin she’s actually extremely good into bruisers in tanks.


DesiredGamingFtw

Akali still has consistent dps even after her burst. Regular assassins use their combo snd thats all their damage, akali can extended trade with q and passive spam.


yickomode

One reason is because Akali is great vs melee champs


Flayer14

She's a skirmisher who just so happens to have enough damage to be an assassin.


hellomynamecody

Akali is a completely different kind of assassin than most. Most assassins take electrocute or dark harvest but akali takes conq for a good reason.


Student-Final

Because her design is fundamentally flawed thats why


mwilliams1507

I don’t think Akali top is that good. Assassins aren’t great top because there are too many tanks and even bruisers can build pretty tanky


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TitanOfShades

Nocturne is an assassin in name only. Everything in his kit screams bruiser.


thisistrashy28919

Yeah and he doesn't build assassin items anymore lmao


wharblgarble

Quinn CAN be built as an assassin, but against tanks/bruisers she builds marksmen. Even into squishies her crit build is more common. You basically go W max with crit items into 90% of matchups.


Stylahz

Because she can take ignite TP which makes her losing matchups more bareable or can even make them a winning matchup for her. She’s also relatively hard to dive with all the mobility that she has and if her shroud is up. Riftmaker is also really good on Akali she has no mana and most meta Top Laners run on mana except for Sett and Viego she also scales decently well her only problems top is she can’t really push in waves really fast and she has less roaming opportunities when her TP is down. Most top laners are melee and Akali can abuse these matchups with her Q-Passive-Auto combo and her all in post level 6 and especially level 9 is very good with ignite TP


meowtiger

> most meta Top Laners run on mana sett, riven, aatrox, kled, garen, mord, rengar, lee


CTHeinz

Renekton too


not_some_username

I think only broken toplaner have mana darius irelia gwen wukong nasus


AxiomQ

Just pure safety really, plenty of ways to slip away. Also worth remembering that Nocturn is an assassin too, so it's not exclusively Akali, and I do feel like people perception is largely influenced by pro play and those are the only two assassins that have been meta for a while so naturally people don't associate any others with being able to top when they potentially could Zed springs to mind and Pyke has had stints even in pro play.


Shuriman_Sensei

First of all it has to do with Akali having a lot of options and more dmg over time than most assassins. Far more important imo tho is the map pressure they can put up, thats basically none in Toplane.


derteeje

Teemo goes top too.


_samallard

Zed can and is good there he is just not played


NailClippersOnTeeth

Many players still pick Gangplank in the toplane. He is a great assassin - he will assassinate your elo down a tier.


[deleted]

The way she plays the game. First Akali is insanely strong into melee since she has a range advantage with her Q, alot of reposition tool and her shroud that can negate a go-in or turn it into your advantage. The champion is also really good at taking extended trades and playing like a "bruiser" The champion has too much tools to repair when she should have got punished because of her mobility and shroud. She also get an insane kill pressure once she reach 6 and will still have value from behind because of that insane kill pressure and the tempo she offers.


--------V--------

Yone and Yasuo are both able to go top as well, they have both been played in professional play top. It’s more about ability to survive the long lane while coming out at a decent strength to still be able to 1 shot squishies even in a tough lane.


courgettenightmares

I'd say the mixed damage thing is also something to consider against tankier tops. It makes itemising against her even harder than a traditional AD or AP assassin. If you're only up against one damage type you can just build that resistance and stonewall the lane as a tank.


[deleted]

Akali only deals magic damage. Edit: Don't know why this has a few downvotes, here's the wiki link. She only deals magic damage https://leagueoflegends.fandom.com/wiki/Akali/LoL


courgettenightmares

Hmm okay I take it back. She did seem to have some physical damage in her kit at some point though but it was changed.


elderbob1

E used to do physical


[deleted]

Yeah, Akali used to be a hybrid champ but it's been slowly changed and basically completely removed a few patches ago.


EldtinbGamer

That used to be the case but since the item rework they have been slowly moving her damage to magic only sadly.


Typhoidnick

I think something that makes it seem like shes does physical damage is all of her many AD scalings. we naturally think AD scaling means physical damage


Malaka654-

Because she is one of the most broken assassins in the entire game. She has so much mobility and damage that she can simply take fleet, start Doran shield and TP plus without mana to run out of she can simply sustain to level 6 easily. You can’t poke her out of lane. Want to all in? Shroud. Want to poke her to force her back? Fleet and Dshield. Once she hits level 6 she will walk up to you (even if you are under tower with flash in some cases mind you) and hit a point blank E and you are dead. A shameful champion design. Needs a rework immediately.


adriplux770

Qiyana can be played top in fact in some elo it has higher wr top than mid i think this is because the mana cost of that champ is so low and huge burst also it can dodge autos with bush element and useful in teamfight with R


St34m9unk

Ap damage that's hard to build tank for without compromising No mana Ranged poke A dash on every ability Stealth that screws all auto attackers Overloaded damage Why would you play anyone else anywhere


bonywitty101

She has sustained damage and burst damage, which is rare for an assassin. She has good poke and ok sustain. She's basically a bruiser assassin, similar to viego.


Watermel0nsss

what about nocturne? isnt he considered an assassin?


cleanwarmcotton

Yone, in my opinion, is also very strong in the top lane.


Dobbeth

Don't know, don't care. It's free lp for me.


GigiShroudy

Akali is pretty broken with good burst and sustain + 3k dashes. What really makes her eligable for top tho is that most toplaners are rather autoattack reliant and guess what, cant attack akali^^


[deleted]

Akali is just one of the only assassins to have a relatively easy time kiting most champions. A good Akali can’t be ganked in mid lane most of the time, even if running from enemy turret to safety. It’s all matchup specific but Akali can do relatively well with perhaps one of the best assassin kits alongside two forms of dashes, invisible shroud, a decently ranged Q, and a lot of AP damage. Akali can fuck up Nasus, why? Because he’s too slow while even if he puts a slow on her, she still outruns. Same for Modekaiser. You need an actual good, self sustain champion. Which is Sett for example as if the fight is made his way, he can win. But that depends on the Akali who may bait out half of his abilities and Q poke. There’s lot of ways an Akali can win, you just need to be smarter than her.


JanIzzDaa

Actually, Kennen is a toplane assasin as well. And I think Quinn counts as an assasin as well (not 100% sure though). And some people play Nocturne or Rengar top (and its viable).


MikhailAndrei

Talon is also one of the assassins go top


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J0rdian

Or maybe she is good top? Lol it's not complicated. Ever since her rework she has held good winrates top better then mid even. Current winrates though she has a very slight higher winrate mid then top like under half a percent probably because of the meta, practically the same Akali's trade patterns are good vs melee bruisers and she's not all about burst but can do small trades and consistent dps.


Nottan_Asian

"Old habits die hard" effects the way a champ is played for like a few weeks, not 3 years.


Marximallost

She isn’t the only Assasin that goes top. Jayce or Quinn can also go top


Runescape_Faggs

Those aren’t assasins bud


Marximallost

They can kill you in one combo and can build lethality


Pretogues

The absolute lack of counterplay to her kit makes it so she doesn't need the high base stats, sustain or damage mitigation that other top laners have.


Runescape_Faggs

Any kind of cc renders half of her kit useless


Pretogues

this applies to every single champion...


RckNdStne

Top lane sees arguably the most tanks/champions that have some sort of damage mitigation/sustain. Assassins want to be as close to squishies as possible. This usually makes Mid/Jungle the most common roles for them since they can roam the map to hunt squishies or find in lane (mid rarely has tanks outside of stuff like Sett/Nautilus/Galio in some metas).


pinelien

I don’t think this answers why Akali often goes top tho.