Akshan Guide: How to Play Akshan and Dominate the Rift!

Suppose you ever wanted a combination of Twitch, Zilean, Camille, and Kai’sa in one champion. In that case, it’s your lucky day because Akshan embodies everything you love about those champions 😆. Akshan is designed to be a mobile marksman assassin for the mid-lane. He’s so awesome that he can even revive his dead teammates! He can also work in the bottom lane in some situations that we will discuss later. Still, primarily, his ability set complements the playstyle of mid laners who are always looking to get an early advantage in the lane to influence other parts of the map.

Many aspects of Akshan will change the game when introduced into professional play that we will discuss later in this Akshan guide. Prepare yourself as we embark on a fun journey to learn how to play Akshan in League of Legends!

Pros to Picking Akshan

1. High Mobility AD Champion

There are champions out there who have fallen to the lowest champion tier due to having no mobility in their kit. In the current League of Legends meta, there is so much crowd control involved in the game that champions with mobility are required to win the games. Akshan offers you precisely that. Champions like Twisted Fate, Ryze, and Karma have been popular in the mid-lane this season due to having a say in other parts of the map. However, Akshan offers great mobility too!

There are champions out there who have fallen to the lowest champion tier due to having no mobility in their kit. In the current League of Legends meta, there is so much crowd control involved in the game that champions with mobility are required to win the games. Akshan offers you precisely that. Champions like Twisted Fate, Ryze, and Karma have been popular in the mid-lane this season due to having a say in other parts of the map. However, Akshan offers great mobility too!

Most of the champions that dominate the mid-lane are mages. Yet, Akshan is an on-hit marksman who can quickly burst down opponents while gliding to other lanes and offers a lot more flexibility in the drafting phase.

2. Global Revive!

There is no other champion in the game that allows you a free get-out-of-jail card like Akshan. If you play your cards right, then you can revive every member of your team that is waiting to be respawned. However, you will need to be really careful and make sure that you have enough damage to eliminate the target. This could prove difficult, especially in the late game when there is a lot of lifesteal involved.

3. High Skill Ceiling

You might feel that this is a disadvantage but hear us out. Many champions in the game perform terribly in lower ELOs, like Ryze and Irelia, but are absolute nightmares in professional matches. It is due to these players mastering the ins and outs of these champions. This allows them to do so much more with them than an ordinary player.

If you know how to play Akshan properly and can put your opponent on the back foot from the very beginning, then you can pull tricks out of the hat no one would expect you to do. We will discuss these in the later sections of this Akshan guide, particularly how flexible he is in building items.

Cons to Picking Akshan

1. Roaming Might Cause You to Fall Behind

Akshan is designed to be a roamer. You are playing the champion wrong if you aren’t roaming on Akshan and helping your teammates out. However, consistently roaming to other lanes can make you lose many minions in the lane, which can put you in a difficult situation.

If you want to know how to play Akshan properly, you must learn wave management because you will be in serious trouble without that.

2. Squishy Champion

Akshan is primarily designed as a mid laner so that he won’t have access to healing or a tank taking up damage like other marksman champions mainly played down in the bottom lane. As an Akshan player, you will need to be careful and plan your trades to ensure that your opponent doesn’t get the better of you. You can start corrupting potion on Akshan to avoid this, but that will take a lot of power away from his laning phase. Hence, that is something we won’t recommend to you in this Akshan guide.

Akshan is primarily designed as a mid laner so that he won’t have access to healing or a tank taking up damage like other marksman champions mainly played down in the bottom lane. As an Akshan player, you will need to be careful and plan your trades to ensure that your opponent doesn’t get the better of you. You can start corrupting potion on Akshan to avoid this, but that will take a lot of power away from his laning phase. Hence, that is something we won’t recommend to you in this Akshan guide.

3. Mana Drainer

Akshan is a champion that relies on his auto attacks and uses a combination of abilities with it. Thus, he depends on practical mana usage, especially in the laning phase. You being unable to use a spell could be the difference between killing your lane opponent or going back to the fountain yourself.

Akshan’s Abilities Explained

Akshan’s Passive Skill: Dirty Fighting

Akshan’s passive grants him a shield and deals bonus magic damage to the opponent if he can attack a single champion three times consecutively. You need to understand two critical things about this ability if you really want to know how to play Akshan. You can use this passive in two ways.

The first is that you can go ahead and fire two immediate auto attacks, which will allow you to gain a shield with your third auto attack very quickly. However, there is another way to use it. You can stop the animation of the second auto-attack and gain a burst of movement speed in its place. Stopping the animation early can be used to escape situations where you feel like you won’t get your shield in time and can also be used to chase down that last remaining carry of the opponent team.

This is definitely something you need to master if you want to play Akshan at his full power. We highly recommend you go and practice this unique mechanic in the practice tool with the help of some dummies.

Q: Avengerang

Akshan is primarily designed as a mid laner so that he won’t have access to healing or a tank taking up damage like other marksman champions mainly played down in the bottom lane. As an Akshan player, you will need to be careful and plan your trades to ensure that your opponent doesn’t get the better of you. You can start corrupting potion on Akshan to avoid this, but that will take a lot of power away from his laning phase. Hence, that is something we won’t recommend to you in this Akshan guide.

Akshan is primarily designed as a mid laner so that he won’t have access to healing or a tank taking up damage like other marksman champions mainly played down in the bottom lane. As an Akshan player, you will need to be careful and plan your trades to ensure that your opponent doesn’t get the better of you. You can start corrupting potion on Akshan to avoid this, but that will take a lot of power away from his laning phase. Hence, that is something we won’t recommend to you in this Akshan guide.

Akshan launches a boomerang that delivers physical damage and reveals foes attacked, extending the boomerang’s range with each strike. Enemies can be hit twice: once when the boomerang is launched and again when it returns. If the boomerang hits an enemy champion, then Akshan gains a burst of movement speed you can use to either escape or chase an enemy champion.

This ability is relatively weak in the early game, so don’t look to spam it just for your wave clear in the game’s laning phase. However, things change up when the late game arrives. Avengerang is even more powerful than Sivir’s Q in the late game, as you can deal a lot of damage to opponents in a straight line.

W: Going Rogue

His Going Rogue ability is undoubtedly one of the most vital abilities in the game for Akshan since it can revive your teammates in intense situations. This ability has two parts, so you need to understand them to know how to play Akshan effectively. The first part is easy; its passive states that if an enemy champion kills any allied champions, they are marked as Scoundrels. If you kill one of the scoundrels, the mark disappears from other champions.

This example will help you understand how to use this ability. Three of your allies died to champion A, while one champion died to champion B. If you takedown champion A, the three killed are revived after one second, but only the ally they killed will be revived if you kill champion B. We hope this would be enough for you to understand how crucial decision-making is to be an excellent Akshan player.

The ability can also be activated to grant Akshan camouflage for two seconds or indefinitely if near terrain. It also allows him to move towards Scoundrels with bonus movement speed, so be careful not to spam it without any real purpose.

E: Heroic Swing

Akshan can cast this ability thrice, but that doesn’t mean you need to use all of the casts every single time. Akshan fires his grappling hook at terrain nearby with his first cast. Then swings around the landscape in the desired direction while firing at the nearest enemy with the second cast. The third cast will allow you to end the glide and attack the opponent once more immediately. You can use the ability as you like and catch your opponents by surprise based on your creativity.

Akshan can cast this ability thrice, but that doesn’t mean you need to use all of the casts every single time. Akshan fires his grappling hook at terrain nearby with his first cast. Then swings around the landscape in the desired direction while firing at the nearest enemy with the second cast. The third cast will allow you to end the glide and attack the opponent once more immediately. You can use the ability as you like and catch your opponents by surprise based on your creativity.

It is interesting to know that the cooldown for the ability resets if you can secure a takedown against enemy champions. You also apply on-hit effects, which will take your damage to the next level in the late game. Unfortunately, you are still vulnerable to crowd control abilities while gliding, so be careful while you enter the scene like Tarzan because there might be no escape after that.

If you want to master the champion and teach your friends how to play Akshan, you need to dive into the practice tool and practice Heroic Swing as much as you can.

R (Ultimate): Comeuppance

Akshan focuses his gun on an opponent champion and begins pouring power into it to stockpile ammunition. Akshan unleashes the stored bullets after the duration or recasting, each delivering physical damage depending on missing health to the first minion, champion, or structure hit. While channeling and firing, Akshan can move normally and cast.

It is important to remember that the ultimate is fundamentally a tool that you will use to kill low-health enemies. This is the case because you will deal bonus damage to enemies with missing health. If you want to make sure that you hit them with all of your bullets, then a good trick is to use your Heroic Swing to ensure that there isn’t anything in the way of you and your target.

The Best Runes for Akshan

1. Press The Attack

There is only one viable option as the primary keystone for Akshan: Press The Attack. There are so many ways you can proc the rune while playing Akshan and deal a lot of bonus damage to the opponent from the very first level. You might see Fleet Footwork here and there, but we can guarantee that this is the best rune for Akshan. You will see the damage the rune provides in your combos that we will go through later in this Akshan guide.

2. Presence of Mind

If we talk about mana draining champions, then, Presence of Mind always comes to mind. You will often use your Avengerang in the laning phase, which is your primary ability to trade. However, it takes up a lot of your mana, Presence of Mind is a good option and sort of a necessity while playing Akshan.

If we talk about mana draining champions, then, Presence of Mind always comes to mind. You will often use your Avengerang in the laning phase, which is your primary ability to trade. However, it takes up a lot of your mana, Presence of Mind is a good option and sort of a necessity while playing Akshan.

3. Legend: Bloodline

Every marksman needs lifesteal in the current state of the game to have some sort of sustainability. Since Akshan doesn’t rely on attack speed or tenacity, this is the best rune for him of the three choices. This will also free up an item slot in the late game as he will get almost 9% lifesteal just from this rune.

4. Coup De Grace

Akshan isn’t your everyday ADC but an assassin marksman who can execute his opponents out of nowhere. This rune offers him more damage against enemies that are low on health already, and you shouldn’t be surprised if you one-shot someone out of nowhere with its help.

5. Relentless Hunter

As Akshan, you will aim to roam throughout the map and provide assistance to your teammates. Relentless Hunter will grant you that extra movement speed you need to reach your destination just in time to not only save your allies but the game!

6. Sudden Impact

There is so much mobility built into Akshan’s kit, and this rune will compliment it perfectly. Whenever you use your W or E, you will gain a burst of lethality and magic penetration that will be really beneficial in the early to mid-game.

Best Akshan Items

There are several builds you can go on Akshan, and it mainly involves two categories: On-Hit or Crit. As of right now, Akshan’s passive gives your second auto-attack 100 percent effectiveness for on-hit and on-attack effects, making it extremely good for on-hit items. You can find more about what the most effective items are right now for Akshan using our updated Akshan build page. We update our data regularly based on millions of recent LoL matches.

If you enjoy crit items more than on-hit items, you can easily flex your build to them. Akshan will work well with critical strike items too, but usually won’t be as powerful as his on-hit version.

How to Play Akshan in the Early Game

In this Akshan guide, we have previously talked about how you need to roam and influence every lane to be successful, but this is where we tell you how you will achieve this and what will happen if you don’t. Riot Games have always said that Akshan is the first champion of his kind, and they are right. He is the only marksman assassin in the game. However, let’s talk about his fundamental identity. We will still lean closer to him being a marksman rather than an assassin.

This means that he still doesn’t come online until he has completed his core items. This is unlike champions like Talon or Katarina that can blow you away even before their first item is completed.

As a result, you will need to make sure you aren’t roaming here and there every wave and need to only do it when you feel like you will somehow get your team an immense advantage by doing so. Always look for short trades in brief intervals. Use your passive creatively to escape or shorten the distance between you and your lane opponent.

If you are up against melee champions, you will definitely have a rough time in the laning phase if they can close the distance to you. You should practice auto-spacing in the practice tool as much as you can to avoid being hit like a truck by champions like Yone or Yasuo. If you come out of the laning phase without dying, you definitely won the game’s laning stage.

It is your job as Akshan to push the wave continually to gain lane priortiy when you look for roaming potential. Good ward placement will help ensure you don't roam into an ambush. Still, we previously talked about how your Avengerang is an actual mana drain ability. Please don’t use it in the laning phase early on as it won’t do much for you. We will talk more about combos you can use in the laning phase in the final section of this Akshan guide.

While we have talked about how mindless roaming can cause you to fall behind in the laning phase and become a liability for your team. You should always do something while playing Akshan. Always secure the scuttle crabs with your jungler. This will give you so much protection in the laning phase and will allow you to make an informed decision if you should roam towards the top side or the bottom side.

How to Play Akshan in the Mid and Late Game

When the laning phase is over, and critical objectives start spawning on the rift, then it’s time for Akshan to shine. You will have maxed your Avenerang by now and will have upgraded your ultimate already, which are big power spikes for you combined with your items. The teams will start grouping around the map. It will be up to you to wait for the perfect opportunity to find that key target on the enemy team out of nowhere.

Even if your team loses a team fight, the opponent team will not gain priority over a neutral objective or extend their lead if you can obtain a kill on the appropriate target. You should constantly be mindful of who you should target as an Akshan player.

You can either play behind your team in team fights but be careful of your positioning as you don’t have much range to play around. As an alternative, you should hit the enemy champions with your Avengerang whenever they are in line. This will deal a lot of damage to them and make them think about proceeding with their plan to engage.

You can either play behind your team in team fights but be careful of your positioning as you don’t have much range to play around. As an alternative, you should hit the enemy champions with your Avengerang whenever they are in line. This will deal a lot of damage to them and make them think about proceeding with their plan to engage.

Another playstyle looks to flank and takes down the enemy team’s carries to catch them off guard. This will depend on how your team is playing, and if you are behind, we definitely recommend you to look for that flank that can turn the tides for you and your team. Always keep in mind that your E resets with every takedown you get, and a single kill can result in you chasing low health opponents that are trying to escape.

Akshan Guide: Combos!

Akshan is a champion that is similar to Jhin and Kai’sa in terms of his playstyle. You don’t only rely on your auto attacks but need to combine them with your abilities, and that’s what we will discuss in this part of our Akshan guide.

1. The Great Escape Trade

As Akshan, you really don’t have much power early on, but you have the mobility to play around with and a passive that hits like a truck. A basic combo you should look for is to Q your opponent whenever they are within the range and then auto them until your passive procs. All of this will happen really fast, so you need to make sure that you get the better side of the trade by using your E to get out of your opponent’s range of play.

Summary: Q -> AA -> AA -> AA -> E

2. All-In!

If you feel like you will take down your opponent by engaging, then go with this. You have to make sure that you mark your opponent with your Q before using your E ability. This will ensure that all of the bullets fired due to your E will target the enemy champion marked by Q rather than others around them. This has insane all in potential, and you can easily proc your passive while doing so too. If the enemy survives, you can use your ultimate to ensure you secure that kill.

Summary: Q -> E -> R(If they survive)

3. Basic Lane Trade

This is your bread and butter in the laning phase. Every time your opponent looks to get in your face, just auto attack them once and use your Q on them, making sure your passive will proc and get you a shield while dealing a lot of damage to them. You can then use your E to escape or all in on them if they are low.

Summary: AA -> Q -> E

Final Thoughts and Akshan Guide Conclusion

We hope that you are excited to try out Akshan in your Solo Queue adventures. We hope you have a better idea of how to play Akshan properly with our Akshan guide. Indeed, the champion isn’t the easiest, but he might just be the most fun champion right now in the game if you want to pull off flashy moves and change the game with a single takedown. If this guide really helps you dominate and you are looking to activate an xp boost to earn even more experience, we've got a guide for you.

If you have any suggestions or other advice you feel we should incorporate into this guide, please leave us a comment below.

Images Courtesy of Riot Games.