Akali combos: cooldowns, costs and the order that matters
Ability-by-ability breakdown of Akali with real cooldowns and costs, the combo worth drilling, and why order changes the outcome.
Damage is a sequence, not a sum
Casting in the wrong order on Akali does not shave a little damage off — it frequently wastes an ability outright, because the setup lands after the payoff.
At 125 attack range Akali has to walk into damage to deal it, so every trade begins with a decision about whether you can afford the walk.
The kit, with the real numbers
Assassin's Mark
Dealing spell damage to a champion creates a ring of energy around them. Exiting that ring empowers Akali's next Attack with bonus range and damage.
Five Point Strike
Akali throws out five kunai, dealing damage based on her bonus Attack Damage and Ability Power and slowing.
Twilight Shroud
Akali drops a cover of smoke and briefly gains Move Speed. While inside the shroud, Akali becomes invisible and unable to be selected by enemy spells and attacks. Attacking or using abilities will briefly reveal her.
Shuriken Flip
Flip backward and fire a shuriken forward, dealing magic damage. The first enemy or smoke cloud hit is marked. Re-cast to dash to the marked target, dealing additional damage.
Perfect Execution
Akali leaps in a direction, damaging enemies she strikes. Re-cast: Akali dashes in a direction, executing all enemies she strikes.
Skill order, and how to reason about it
Take Perfect Execution at levels 6, 11 and 16 — the ultimate is always worth the point it costs.
For the basic abilities, Shuriken Flip (E) gains the most from being ranked: its cooldown falls by 6 seconds between rank 1 and max, which is the largest improvement in the kit. That is the usual argument for maxing it first.
This is reasoning from the cooldown data, not a win-rate ranking — a matchup that punishes you can invert it.
- Q · Five Point Strike — cooldown 1.5s
- W · Twilight Shroud — cooldown 20/19/18/17/16s, improving by 4s across its ranks
- E · Shuriken Flip — cooldown 16/14.5/13/11.5/10s, improving by 6s across its ranks
Reading the cooldown column
Those cooldown figures are per rank, lowest first. The gap between the first and last number is the best argument for a skill order there is — an ability that drops sharply as you rank it earns those points; one that barely moves does not.
Energy refills on its own, so Akali punishes hesitation more than it punishes spam — a bad cast costs seconds, not the bar.
Riot's own notes on playing Akali
These are the designers' words, not ours — the tips shipped in the client for Akali.
- Akali excels at killing fragile champions. Let your team initiate and then strike at the people in the back.
- Twilight Shroud offers safety in even the most dangerous situations. Use that time to save up energy for a quick strike later.
Drill it in practice tool
Practice tool has no MMR attached and lets you reset cooldowns on demand. Ten minutes there beats ten games of learning a sequence while somebody fights back.
What the stat line does between level 1 and 18
| Stat | Level 1 | Level 18 |
|---|---|---|
| Health | 600 | 2623 |
| Attack damage | 62 | 62 |
| Armour | 23 | 102.9 |
| Magic resist | 37 | 71.9 |
Movement speed 345 and attack range 125 do not grow with levels — they are the two numbers that stay true all game.
Full Akali page — abilities, stats and every skin →