Abilities revealed for Akshan, League’s new marksman. His W seems kind of OP

After months of teasing, primarily around lore since he's related to the Ruination event, Akshan is arriving in League of Legends. The new marksman is designed to be playable in solo lanes as much or more than the bot lane. He features some abilities inspired by previous champions and a new W that may or may not be broken. Lets take a look.

Every 3 hits deals a burst of physical damage. If the target was a champion, Akshan gains a shield. After attacking, Akshan fires a 2nd attack that deals reduced physical damage. If Akshan cancels the 2nd shot he gains a burst of move speed.

We have another 3-hit passive with Akshan. This ability is structured similarly to Vayne's W, though it deals Physical damage instead of True. The shield and mobility also make this quite strong: expect a significant damage decrease compared to other 3-hit passives to make up for this.

Akshan throws a boomerang that deals physical damage and reveals enemies hit, extending its range each time it hits an enemy. Enemies can be hit once as the boomerang goes out and once as it returns.

This ability seems to take inspiration from Gnar's boomerang. With the massive mobility of Akshan, though, it will play much differently, perhaps handling similarly to a Draven ultimate. It also appears to apply his passive to targets in the video Riot released - it seems "hits" doesn't simply mean Auto Attacks.

Passive: When enemy champions kill one of Akshan’s allies, they are marked as Scoundrels. When he gets a takedown on a Scoundrel he gains bonus gold, all allies killed by the Scoundrel are resurrected at their base, and Scoundrel status is removed.

Active: Akshan becomes camouflaged for a short duration, or indefinitely while near terrain. During this time, Akshan can see trails leading toward Scoundrels and gains move speed and mana regeneration while moving toward them!

And here we have the big unique feature in Akshan's kit. This ability is overloaded and will certainly make him very powerful. We begin with the resurrection. It's important to note that your allies are resurrected at the fountain, meaning this ability likely won't turn teamfights. Instead, we could see it lead to quicker Baron calls or some exciting base races.

The active seems very similar to what Twitch can do. Again, though, the difference is that Akshan comes loaded with mobility. We may see this active allow him to play a Jungle or assassin role, and it certainly makes him want to leave lane. Riot introduced this champion as a mid lane marksman, and this may be one way they're pushing him in that direction.

Akshan fires a hookshot that embeds in the first terrain hit. While embedded, he can recast to swing around the terrain in the cast direction, firing physical damage bullets at the nearest enemy while swinging. While swinging, he can recast again to jump off.

Anyone familiar with Apex Legends will immediately notice the similarity of this ability to Pathfinder. It swings him around terrain in a similar fashion. This ability will give Akshan huge mobility, especially for players that put the time in to learn the mechanics. Similar to the W active, this may push him in a Jungle or assassin direction, instead of the laner Riot want him to be.

Akshan locks onto an enemy champion and begins channeling power into his gun to store bullets. At the end of the duration or after recasting he unleashes the stored bullets, dealing physical damage based on missing health.

This ultimate looks similar to Twitch or Lucian ultimates, but plays much differently with its channeling time. It's also important to note that it does % missing health damage, which can often be underwhelming. However, it has the upside of helping him shred tanks.

Overall, Akshan seems to be a very powerful and loaded champion. He doesn't necessarily have to be broken, it will depend on the stats and damage he's given on release. But it seems likely that Riot will have a difficult time balancing him going forward. He'll be very strong in the right hands, and if his numbers are solid, it seems likely he'll be picked in professional play. Akshan arrives in League on Patch 11.15, scheduled to release on July 21st, two weeks from now.

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