Since Akshan’s release in LoL patch 11.15, he has been seeing play in various roles with various builds. However, now that he has been out for several patches, players have found much more steady and reliable ways to play him. Here, we will debunk some pre-release predictions, go over Akshan’s overall performance, and his popular build paths
Understanding Akshan
When most champions in League of Legends are released, they tend to start at a higher power level so that players can get a better understanding of how the champion works before Riot Games nerfs them enough to balance out their playstyle. Akshan is still very much a new champion, so this rule applies to him as well.
It may have taken a little while to understand Akshan and his strengths, but now that players have tested him out, they have realized how to play him and how to make him powerful in their matches.
Akshan was predicted to see a decent amount of play in the jungle because of his Going Rogue ability. However, he is seeing almost no play in that role since his jungle clear was simply not good enough. He was also predicted to see some play as an ADC, but that was quickly cleared up once players realized how weak he is into ranged matchups.
Surprisingly, he is mostly seeing play in the mid and top lanes to decent success. So far in the mid lane, Akshan has almost a 50% win rate in his games, which is followed up by a 47.6% win rate in the top lane.
While neither of these win rates are nothing to gawk at, Akshan is still a new champion and with some more time for players to practice as well as a few changes to balance him out, his win rate can be much higher than it is now.
What to build on Akshan
When deciding what runes to pick on Akshan in LoL, there isn’t much debate on what to take. Typically, players have been choosing Press the Attack as their Keyrune. This is because Akshan can easily stack this with his passive, allowing him to deal a massive burst of damage all at once. He also takes Resolve secondary to get Shield Bash, which also synergizes with his passive. Once he can get the shield off of his passive, and with Shield Bash up, he can take towers much faster and his opponents can do little to fight it.
When building items on Akshan, players have found the most reliable Mythic item to build is Kraken Slayer. The reason for this is similar to why he takes Press the Attack: it simply works well with his passive. Being able to constantly deal more damage with his passive and PTA gives Akshan all the more reason to take Kraken Slayer since it will get him that extra damage much faster.
After that, he wants to build items like The Collector and Blade of the Ruined King (Bork). He takes The Collector because it works well with his ultimate ability, which deals damage based on missing health percentage. With it, he can much more easily execute enemies and deal that extra bit of damage to pick up a kill.
The reason he builds Bork is that it offers him a little bit of everything he needs. It gives him attack speed to help activate his passive, it gives him damage so that he isn’t all attack speed, and it gives life steal, which is key in fights where Akshan may be at a low life total.
Overall, Akshan is a good champion in the right hands, but it takes some time to get the hang of him in LoL. There will certainly be more balance changes in the future to nerf some of his damage and moves, and in the long run that will make him a much more well-rounded champion that players can reliably take into their ranked matches.
