LoL - Akali: Early Game or No Game? Season 2 OUTDATED

It's been a while since I've gotten on League of Legends. In fact, my Akali build had no seal runes, since I used to play with a dodge build for fun before the dodge stat was removed. I ended up replacing them with Seals of Resilience for now, but I may grab some Seals of Vitality to help out more in late game, perhaps. But really though, I wanted to talk about what my current build is, in contrast to the most popular build out there for Akali, found here.

Edit 7/31/2014: Thanks for visiting the page, but this guide is for Season 2 and is outdated for the current League of Legends version and meta. Many stats are outdated, and even the masteries aren't the same anymore. Although I don't write in my blog much anymore, I do still listen to comments on my posts. If you have any questions, feel free to ask me or others on the blog. /EndEdit

Here are my current runes for Akali.

7 Greater Marks of Strength (+ 0.95 Attack Damage)
2 Greater Marks of Insight (+ 0.95 Magic Penetration)
9 Greater Seals of Resilience (+ 1.41 Armor)
9 Greater Glyph of Shielding (+ 0.15 Magic Resist per Level (+ 2.7 at Champion Level 18))
1 Greater Quintessence of Frosty Fortitude (+ 26 Health)
1 Greater Quintessence of Sugar Rush (+ 1.5% Movement Speed)
1 Razer Quintessence of Speed (+ 1.5% Movement Speed)

And here are my current masteries for Akali.

Edit: These masteries are from Season 2. Season 3's will be up shortly.

The first thing I want to talk about is how most people like taking 21/9/0 instead for the additional health in the defense tree. I can understand that, but I personally like having lots of mobility. Being able to move around quickly helps with getting kills and escaping as well. Of course, the +3% from runes and +2% from masteries to movement speed may not be that great of a difference...

The second major difference between my current build and the top rated build is how I get both of Akali's Twin Disciples passives at the beginning of the game. The top build will try to get them both active through runes and masteries to start with boots and 3 health potions at the beginning of the game. However, I like starting the game with a health potion and an Amplifying Tome for the +20 Ability Points for the second passive, while the +10 Attack Damage requirement is covered by my runes and masteries. Sure, having those boots at the beginning makes a much bigger difference in movement speed at the beginning than the +5% I have from runes and masteries, but I just don't see a big enough difference when it comes to laning. Most people will pop their Flash when things get ugly for them, and with the distance to their turret being fairly close by then, usually, that regardless of the movement speed from boots or runes and masteries wouldn't be fast enough to catch the target before they go in their turret range. That doesn't matter too much though, until Akali hits level 6 and get her Ultimate skill.

I understand that Akali is one of the champions that tend to snowball hard by getting kills early on help fund for her better equipments earlier to be able to kill more enemy champions, but how much focus should her build go for her early game? I feel that my build meets all the requirements for what she should be able to do, just that the pros and cons would cater more towards my later game in comparison to the build focusing entirely on her early game. Here are the rundown on the Pros and Cons when compared to the top build.

My build's Pros.

• More Armor and Magic Resist from Runes than the top build's masteries.
• Armor: +13 VS +6
• Magic Resist: +(1.35 x level) VS +2
• More Movement Speed after getting boots, which is fairly early on.
• Increased buff time by 20% from Runic Affinity mastery.
• Reduced respawn timer by 10% from Good Hands mastery.
• Reduced cooldown on Flash by 15 seconds from Summoner's Insight.

 My build's Cons.

• Less HP from Runes and Masteries. +26 VS +30 +(6 x level)
• Less Ability Power from Runes. +0 VS +15 +(0.17 x level)
• Must start with Amplifying Tome for both Twin Disciples passives.

To me, the biggest con is the less Ability Powers, because.. well, being able to dish out even more damage is always nice. But I would end up having to trade off my other benefits, which I greatly question doing, since I do like what I currently have as well. I wouldn't be too happy about having more health but less defense with the top build, since that means it's more health for me to try to recover through Life Steal and Spell Vamp, although the additional Ability Power will definitely help with that.

In the end, I feel that my build has more benefits in utility (I mean this figuratively, mind you. >_>) with additional movement speed, which will make a difference when I use Akali's Twilight Shroud properly, and the other benefits like longer lasting buffs that I would nab from my targets that have them. These benefits seem to help me more throughout most of the game, I feel, than having slightly more AP and HP, especially around mid game.

Well, that's all I have to say about my current build so far. I don't see a clear reason to change it just yet, but who knows what minor changes in the future patches can cause. ... I still kind of miss my dodge build though.

Feel free to leave a comment, or to use this build. Next, I'll be covering Janna, most likely, my second main on League of Legends.