I need to get out of bronze. I am going to claw my way out of that hell hole one way or another. I plan on buying Akali shortly. She seems to do very well in this tier. I normally play mid lane. Does anyone have any tips or tricks to help me get started? Good items, little tricks, or anything is appreciated!

Akali is an incredibly strong champion in the right situation. I've won team fights with her almost single-handedly. I also play Akali in mid lane, and I am also in Bronze (although I'll be in Silver in no time, at this rate). Here's my advice.

When to play Akali
• I don't suggest playing Akali against teams with hard crowd control (stuns, suppresses, silences).
• I don't suggest playing Akali when the enemy mid lane champion has a stun/silence/suppress in their kit (Malzahar, Kassadin, Cho'Gath).
• I highly recommend playing Akali when the enemy team is lacking in hard CC and the opposing mid laner is also lacking in hard CC (Lux is an exception; Akali owns Lux most of the time).

Laning
• Don't enter an all-in fight before you hit level 6 unless you are absolutely sure you can win.
• You are a melee champion, so you will get bullied by ranged casters.
• Akali is a difficult champion to farm with. Just do your best while avoiding excessive damage.
• You have no real escape, so be careful of ganks!

Items
• Start out with either: 2 wards + 9 health potions or Long Sword + 2 health potions
• Final build should look like this: Sorcerer's Shoes, Rylai's Crystal Scepter, Liandry's Torment, Lich Bane, Will of the Ancients, Rabadon's Deathcap.
• Build Rylai's Crystal Scepter, Haunting Guide, and Hextech Revolver early in the game!
• Finishing your Deathcap should be the last purchase you make.

General Strategy
• At level 6, you should start harassing your lane opponent by diving in on them and dealing burst damage.
• If they stay in lane long enough for you to bring them to low health, tower dive them for the kill.
• If you win your lane, start roaming and getting kills/assists in bottom lane, top lane, and even the enemy jungle, if you are super fed and confident.

Abilities
• Level up R whenever possible. Max Q first, then E. Level up W once at level 4 if you feel you need it. I find that I don't level up W until way late in the game, because I don't need it.
• I like this combo for bursting down an enemy: R, auto-attack, Q, auto-attack, E, auto-attack. (Those auto-attacks will give you tons of extra damage if you have Lich Bane. Even without Lich Bane your auto-attacks are strong because of your passive).

Team Fights
• As Akali, your job is to kill the carries (yes, both!) and then help your team finish off the rest of the team.
• I suggest killing whichever carry is the biggest threat first. If the ADC is fed, then dive in and kill the ADC in the first few seconds of the team fight.
• You can literally carry your team to victory by killing the enemy carries right at the start of a fight.

Final Tips
• You get stronger as the game progresses. Don't be too reckless early game; you aren't godlike yet, and you'll just end up feeding if you enter Rambo Mode too early.
• If you play well early game and get fed, you can practically 1v5. All you have to do is kill the carries, then deal with the rest of the team.
• If the enemy team has stuns, suppresses, or silences, you will get CCed and focused as soon as you dive. Let someone else (someone tanky) on your team initiate. Once they distract the enemy team, dive the carries.
• Your best friends are: Kayle, Amumu, Malphite, Sona, Hecarim. All of these champions work great with Akali.

I hope this helps! Enjoy!

Mogget covered most of what I was going to say. Very impressive list.

Be aware that your shroud consumes a LOT of energy. Akali might have very short cooldowns, but she soon becomes useless after the first 4 seconds into an engage. If you have to, trade with the enemy, land a combo, then back off. Even if you took equal damage, Akali can just heal most of it back up with her passive spellvamp and single target nukes against minions. Then you can just dash back in and finish the job.

If you're doing well, the enemy will probably get a Runic Bulwark. If you see one on the enemy team, I'd suggest you replace the Liandry's with a Void Staff. It definitely makes a big difference against their tanks.

As Mogget said, wait until someone initiates before you in a major teamfight. I'll usually see the major engage, count to three, then bullrush the enemy carry in the back. Never dive in just because you feel like you need to assist your team in the mosh pit. Your one job is to take out that carry the most efficient way possible.

If you can maintain equal farm with your lane partner until 6, you're winning as Akali, and you should be able to take them out after you hit 6. Until then, maintaining good use of your Q and Q mark is key for your sustain.

Thank you both! Buying right after work today.

If you really want to get yourself out of bronze with Akali then in my opinion that is not the build you should use. Start the game with boots + 3 pots.

After that rush a Sheen. You should be able to pick up your sheen by level 6 when you start doing real killing. The sheen will allow you to dominate your mid-lane, and if not, pick up some easy kills bot.

Afrter Sheen rush Mejai's and Sword of the Occult, Next buy a Guardian's Angel. Then buy your Gunblade and finish it off with upgrading your sheen to a lichbane.

The purpose of this build is to take advantage of every mistake your enemies make without putting yourself in a bad position (get kills and don't die). If you are better than the people you are playing with you will absolutely dominate 90% of games.

Abilities: Max R>Q>E>W but instead of what above poster said you probably want W at level 2. Most ganks these days happen at level 2 so having the shroud to hide in will save your butt a lot of times. Also shrouding in lane makes harassing a lot easier. Be aware that when you are shrouded in-lane a smart jungler will attempt his gank right after the shroud ends because the long cooldown. But definitely use it to harass...Q your opponent, put shroud down, then walk up to them and punch them in the face.

For in-lane strategy at your ELO you want to take advantage of people not playing intelligently against Akali. To do this, hit them once with Q....wait for your cooldown to reset...then immediately R to them, hit them with Sheen Proc + Q proc...then Q them again, and hit them again. Congratulations you just took off 3/4 of their health with one combo.

I skyrocketed myself through Silver using Akali and this build against people who didn't know better. 3 Pentakills in 2 days. Good luck...feel free to add me if you have any questions.

@Disturber

I think I will try that. I'm curious to see how that build works for me. Especially because it allows you to get going earlier in the game. The build I mentioned requires quite a few kills...

Also, Guardian Angel is a VERY strong item on Akali if you anticipate being focused down in team fights.

I once had a team fight as Akali with a Guardian Angel that went something like this:
I dove in, got a kill, then got focused down. While I revived, my team began seriously losing the fight. I revived from the Guardian Angel and bursted down three 1/2 to 1/4 health targets for a Quadra Kill. Because of my spell vamp, I actually ended the fight with about double the health I had when I first revived from Guardian Angel.

You can also build akali tanky

This makes the other team confused as whether or not to focus you

With just a gunblade and a deathcap or lichbane
You can do some serious damage. After that you can go for some tank items


Because you know

You can't be squishy akali diving into teams like that

Should I be using magic pen marks or hybrid pen?

The one facet of Akali that draws me to her (I'm in silver something, but it's all the same) is that she's amazing at surviving by being aggressive. I gave FB to a Jayce yesterday... twice (once to Jayce alone, once in a Jayce + J4 gank) I won fights by fighting instead of retreating. I had revolver, boots, cloth armor and a tome and survived both times with < 50 health. That spell vamp + enormous single target damage makes Akali survive small engagements better by fighting than running.

Also, in small fights, keep track of where enemy minions are. If you can't fight your way out, move away from minions, make your opponent chase, and then ult to minions/creeps. Not as fun as getting a kill when under 100 health, but she's slippery that way.