Akshan is swinging into League of Legends on patch 11.15. To wrap your head around League’s newest marksman ⁠— made for the mid and top lane ⁠— we’ve got a guide to everything you need to know, from the best runes, builds, and tips and tricks to master the Rogue Sentinel.

Diving deep into the Sentinel lore thanks to the Sentinels of Light event? Well, it’s time to learn about one of the originals ⁠— Akshan.

The Rogue Sentinel is swinging onto the Rift to save his allies as they fall to Scoundrels across Runeterra, and he can pack a punch ⁠— as long as he gets ahead. Here’s what you need to know about Akshan, so you can jump into your first game with the knowledge you need to get that dub.

Akshan’s abilities

Passive: Dirty Fighting

Every three hits from Akshan’s attacks and damaging abilities deal a burst of physical damage. If the target was a champion, Akshan also gains a shield.

After attacking, Akshan fires a second attack that deals reduced physical damage. The second shot can be canceled like a regular basic attack. If Akshan cancels the second shot he gains a burst of move speed.

His passive combines elements of Lucian and Vayne, adding a significant amount of damage and utility to his already stacked kit.

Q: Avengerang

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.

It’s like Sivir’s Q, but with a bit less range (and a very fast return).

W: Going Rogue

Passive: When enemy champions kill one of Akshan’s allies, they are marked as Scoundrels. When Akshan 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 from all other enemies.

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.

There is no cooldown between marking enemies as Scoundrels and reviving allies, so if you stack your kills perfectly in a teamfight, you can ace your opponents before reviving your team to look for that game-winning push.

E: Heroic Swing

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 in the direction of the cursor and fire a final shot.

Heroic Swing’s cooldown resets when Akshan earns a takedown on an enemy champion.

R: Comeuppance

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 Akshan unleashes the stored bullets, each dealing physical damage based on missing health to the first minion, champion, or structure hit.

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Akshan can move normally and cast Heroic Swing while channeling and firing Comeuppance.

The longer you charge, the more damage it does. Plus, it has an insane 2500 range (Caitlyn’s Ace in the Hole has a range of 3500 for reference), so you can do some epic fadeaway kills with it, as long as you weave it in between opponents.

Best runes for Akshan

Like most marksman, Akshan gets the biggest benefits out of the Precision tree. Conqueror and Press The Attack are both solid rune options, but the extra survivability on Conqueror wins out in our eyes as the go-to pick.

Partnering this with Presence of Mind (his mana costs can stack up late), Legend: Alacrity, and Coup de Grace allows you to ramp up into the later game.

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As for secondary runes, Revitalize and Shield Bash in Resolve is a strong secondary combo for making the most out of your passive, but aggressive players may opt for Taste of Blood and Ravenous Hunter instead.

If you want to go all out on the one-shot build, then Hail of Blades is for you. Taste of Blood, Eyeball Collection, Ravenous Hunter, with Presence of Mind and Coup de Grace in secondary can nuke targets and get you out with the extra mana.

His shards should always be attack speed, adaptive force, and a flex defensive option depending on lane opponent (armor for AD champions, magic resist for AP).

Best build for Akshan

Akshan has a pretty flexible build in the Mythic department. All three marksman Mythics ⁠— Kraken Slayer, Immortal Shieldbow, and Galeforce ⁠— have their merits on the Rogue Sentinel.

Out of the three, Galeforce is the best. The number one issue with Akshan’s kit is his own survivability, and while Immortal Shieldbow might seem like a tempting option to have, the mobility Galeforce offers just compliments the rest of his kit too well. The extra execute is handy too.

Speaking of executes, the Collector is one of Akshan’s best items. The extra gold generation off of kills is nice, alongside boosting his critical strike chance. To really cap that off, you really want an Infinity Edge.

Boots-wise, he can go with either Ionian Boots of Lucidity (if you need a bit of ability haste) or Berserker Greaves (if you need more auto attack damage). The defense options of Plated Steelcaps and Mercury Treads are also good options into full AD or AP teams respectively.

Anything with attack speed is also a must. Runaan’s Hurricane allows you to spread your passive, and you can stack Guinsoo’s Rageblade pretty quickly thanks to the two-hit basic attack (and it has great synergy with the on-hit Kraken Slayer build). This will help your E damage scale well into the late game.

Outside of that though, his build is remarkably flexible. Struggling against a magic-damage lane opponent? A first item Wit’s End isn’t a bad idea. Need to drain some tanks? Blade of the Ruined King is great. Even more survivability? Guardian’s Angel is your friend.

This leads to two pre-dominant strong builds. If you want to play on-hit Akshan, go: Blade of the Ruined King, Kraken Slayer, Guinsoo’s Rageblade, Runaan’s Hurricane, and flex last item. If you want to play crit Akshan, go: Galeforce, the Collector, Infinity Edge, Runaan’s Hurricane, Guardian Angel.

How to play Akshan in League of Legends

The one thing you have to note before putting your hands on Akshan is that he’s a very feast-or-famine solo queue champion. Despite his kit singing the praises of “revenging allies”, Akshan needs to be decently ahead for that to become true.

So, navigating Akshan’s weak early game is a must. His base stats are actually quite low ⁠— which is one way Riot has balanced him to make him stronger in the solo lane (so he can ramp up more effectively when getting solo XP and gold). He needs jungler support, because if he falls behind, it’s very hard to get back into the game.

In lane, you’re basically playing to poke. He’s super strong into melee champions that can’t really dive on top of him and CC him to death. He has the high mobility to get around trades as long as he isn’t tied down. His waveclear isn’t spectacular either, with his Q doing negligible damage to minions (it’s mostly used as a passive applier).

Against ranged champions ⁠— including the likes of Azir, who already dominate marksmen mid nlaners like Lucian ⁠— he will suffer the same fate. His short 500 range is equal to Sivir, Lucian, and Samira, but those three have reliable ranged farming tools that clear waves. Akshan doesn’t have that luxury.

Maxing Q will help you navigate the early stages somewhat, but you won’t really come online until around Level 11 to 13 ⁠— once you get that rank-two ultimate and rank-five E. Once you hit the mid-game power spike, it’s time to live up to that high-mobility, revenge-getting fantasy.

With both his Heroic Swing and his passive, he can chase down targets with ease, no matter if it’s through the jungle or up the lane. Just be sure to cancel your second auto and swing to get close ⁠— if you get the kill, the cooldown is refreshed, so you can get out no stress.

If the enemy is out of sight, no problems, just hit your W and chase them down with the bonus movement speed towards Scoundrels.

Be sure to max out your ultimate too to the execute threshold ⁠— compensating for any heals and shields too. There is an indicator when you hit it, but it’s worth exceeding it if you have the time to just doubly ensure no one can sweep in and save the day.

Akshan is live with the release of LoL patch 11.15.

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