The latest addition to League of Legends‘ champion pool is Akshan, a ranged marksman who’s meant to be played in the mid lane, according to Riot. While he’s not available on the live servers just yet, his revealed kit gives us a brief idea of what itemization and runes will benefit him for maximum performance.
As it goes for all champions in League, Akshan will build different items to suit the situation he finds himself in during a particular game. But there are some core items that will provide an Akshan player with the best chance at securing a victory on the champion.
Here are the best runes and items to go for on Akshan.
Runes
Precision
Press the Attack: As with Lucian, Akshan is going to benefit a lot from short trades in the mid lane. Press the Attack is the perfect keystone for this tactic, ensuring you get some additional burst damage every couple of seconds whenever you trade with your opponent. If the enemy mid laner goes for a tank, then Conqueror might be a good alternative to better scale into the late game.
Presence of Mind: Akshan is most likely going to run into mana issues if you’re going to look to trade often with your opponent. As a result, picking Presence of Mind is a good idea to solve those mana issues. Both Triumph and Overheal, for example, can be good alternatives against assassin champions who want to all-in you whenever their cooldowns are up. While Overheal will give you a more effective health pool at the start, Triumph can save you from imminent death if you get a takedown.
Legend: Bloodline: Since you won’t have any life steal early on outside of your Doran’s Blade, going for Legend: Bloodline can be a good choice until you get to the mid or late stages of the game when you can acquire some life steal. The attack speed rune can be a good alternative against tanks since you’ll maximize your damage output early on.
Coup De Grace: As a marksman who’s going to often go for kills during the laning phase, Coup de Grace will act as a good finisher and give you the much-needed execute damage to finish off targets.
Inspiration
Magical Footwear: Free Boots of Speed at 12 minutes (which can be reduced by takedowns) is perfect for Akshan, who’s going to go for kills quite often. For every takedown, you’ll reduce the timer by 45 seconds, allowing you to have them by the eighth or ninth minute with ease.
Biscuit Delivery: Biscuit Delivery is one of the strongest runes in the Inspiration tree. It gives you three biscuits over six minutes that restore missing health and mana and give you an increased mana cap that you can benefit from throughout the entire game.
Bonuses: 10 percent attack speed, adaptive force +9, armor +6
Early-game items
Doran’s Blade
The most popular choice in terms of starting items for marksmen, Doran’s Blade is perfect for Akshan. The item grants early stat increases including attack damage, life steal, and health. This gives you durability and extra damage that will provide Akshan with an easier way to farm in lane and poke down your laning opponent.
Health Potion
Spending your remaining gold on a health potion is a great call for most champions. This is going to give Akshan another way to heal off any damage he may sustain without the need to return to the fountain.
Core items
Berserker’s Greaves
The easy choice in boots for marksmen, Berserker’s Greaves grant the same movement speed bonuses as many other boots while also including a 35-percent attack speed increase for the champion. This is crucial in helping you last hit creeps and poke down enemy champions in teamfights. Without attack speed, you’re going to feel like a mage who can’t auto attack properly and won’t be able to maximize your damage output.
Kraken Slayer
Kraken Slayer is the core Mythic item you should rush in most of your games since it’s easy to use and doesn’t require much thought. It synergies well with your passive that deals extra damage every third hit. With this item and Akshan’s passive combined, you’ll be delivering a huge amount of damage to your opponents regardless of whether they’re squishy. On top of that, you get access to Kraken Slayer’s Mythic passive that gives you 10 percent attack speed for every Legendary item.
Bloodthirster
Bloodthirster is a defensive item option to give you some much-needed resilience. It gives you a nice boost of stats in the form of 55 attack damage, 20 percent critical strike chance, and 20 percent life steal. This should help you start fights with a huge shield before diving into the fray and killing your opponents. The passive from W that allows you to resurrect allies will make you a heavily prioritized target in every fight, so having additional survivability instead of damage is going to be a must for Akshan players.
Late-game items
Infinity Edge
Building a high damage critical strike item is the best call in the later stages of the game. Infinity Edge offers just that with 70 bonus attack damage and a 20 percent bonus critical strike chance. The item also has a powerful unique ability that will increase your critical strike damage by 35 percent if you have at least 60 percent critical strike chance. Kraken Slayer alongside Bloodthirster will give you the needed 60 critical strike chance to have additional damage on your crits, which will make you a menace in teamfights.
Essence Reaver
Essence Reaver is an amazing item in the later stages of the game to ensure that you have the needed burst to take a target down and never run out of mana. The item gives you 45 attack damage, 20 ability haste, and 20 percent critical strike chance for only 2,800 gold, making it a gold efficient item. Your abilities will make your next attack do additional damage as well, giving you a nice opportunity to deliver a huge amount of damage if the attack crits.
Lord Dominik’s Regards
If you’re facing a composition with a lot of tanks or frontliners, then get Lord Dominik’s Regards to increase your damage by up to 15 percent depending on the health difference between you and your opponent. The item has a great build path and you can even rush it early on if the enemy team has a lot of armor-stacking champions. But if there’s at least one assassin who can easily target you in teamfights, Bloodthirster will be much more useful.
Situational items
Mercury’s Treads
If you’re facing a heavy ability power-focused composition or a team that has too much crowd control, then Mercury’s Treads is a decent alternative to Berserker’s Greaves. It will give you a nice amount of magic resist and tenacity to reduce the duration of incoming CC. But this should be your last resort if you can’t lane since the lack of attack speed from Berserker’s Greaves will be felt.
Plated Steelcaps
Plated Steelcaps is a decent alternative boot option if you’re facing a composition with a lot of AD divers who want to kill you as soon as possible. If you can maintain your distance from them, though, going for Berserker’s Greaves will allow you to kite and kill them before they reach you.
Guardian Angel
Building an armor item that can add durability is a great way to round out Akshan’s build. Guardian Angel offers bonus armor and attack damage, as well as a unique ability that will allow you to come back into action after a small delay. This effect relies on your team to cover for you, though. So if you’re unsure about your teammates, then be wary of this effect that can be easily wasted.
Quicksilver Sash
Quicksilver Sash is a cheap 1,300 gold investment to get Cleanse as an item. It can be a lifesaver against compositions that rely on picks. If you get stunned out of the blue in the later stages of the game, you can easily lose the game off that. Quicksilver is here to save you from situations like that, though. It also can be upgraded into two different items, giving you a nice damage boost later on when you want to finish your build.
Immortal Shieldbow
If you feel like you need additional survivability, then Immortal Shieldbow is a good Mythic item to pick up instead of Kraken Slayer. But you’ll be losing quite a lot of damage in exchange. On top of that, you’ll be losing the 10 percent attack speed bonus for every Legendary item, so be wary of that if you want to go for a more defensive build.
Executioner’s Calling
Against champions that have a lot of healing, Executioner’s Calling is a decent early game 800-gold investment. It reduces healing by 40 percent and gives you a nice item to upgrade later on for powerful stats. It can be picked up against champions such as Sylas, Katarina, Yasuo, or Yone who heal a lot to ensure that they don’t get out of control.
Serpent’s Fang
If you go for a lethality-oriented build, then this item should be your priority, especially against champions that have a lot of shields or stack items to get a huge shield. It will allow you to easily penetrate the shields and deliver the killing blow. But it’s unlikely that the lethality build will pop off on Akshan. The traditional critical strike marksman build will most likely be the go-to option for this champ.
Eclipse
If you want to forego the critical strike chance build and instead go for lethality, this item should be the first one you get. Eclipse is one of the best Mythic items available if you want to go for lethality, giving you a good stat boost and a strong passive to deal additional damage, while also providing a shield and movement speed boost. It’s already used on some marksmen, so it could be useful on Akshan as well.
Manamune
This is a great cheap item that you can get to increase your damage if you go for a lethality-oriented build. Manamune gives you a lot of mana, converts a part of it into attack damage, and also gets converted to Muramana when fully stacked, giving a nice damage boost to your attacks and abilities whenever you attack opposing champions.
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Published: Jul 20, 2021 03:13 pm