Ever since Riot Games reworked Akali, players simply stopped building Lich Bane on her.
They always go for the same 6 items to get as much Ability Power as possible without even giving Lich Bane a chance.
This is especially interesting because Lich Bane was a must-have item for the old Akali before her rework. Yes, back then she was much more dependent on her basic attacks.
But today, Akali’s passive still requires her to auto-attack at least once during her combo.
And so, the question has to be asked: Is Lich Bane good on Akali?
Yes. Lich Bane can be a fantastic damage booster for Akali if it’s used properly. The item fits Akali’s champion design perfectly, allowing her to empower her basic attacks multiple times within the same fight.
Akali can combine Lich Bane with her passive to deal a lot of extra magic damage to her enemies.
The rule in League is that all auto-attack enhancers, such as Fizz’s W or Akali’s passive, are good pairs for Lich Bane. This is because the two effects stack together and can be unleashed with only one basic attack.
But is it worth building Lich Bane on Akali and sacrificing items like Morellonomicon?
Lich Bane will always deal direct magic damage while Morellonomicon is only useful against healing teams.
On top of that, the damage from Lich Bane can’t be avoided since it comes from your auto-attacks.
And since you’re already using your basic attacks on Akali, you don’t need to get used to Lich Bane.
That said, let’s jump into the runes and items you should have for this build to work!
Lich Bane Akali – Runes

Here are my recommended runes for playing the Lich Bane build on Akali:
- Conqueror – increases both your damage and your healing while in combat, which is by far the best effect out of all other keystone effects in League.
- Presence of Mind – helps you manage your Energy consumption by regenerating it every time you damage a champion and restoring 15% instantly upon a champion takedown.
- Legend: Tenacity – significantly increases your Tenacity, which shortens the duration of all stuns, roots, sleeps, and fears.
- Coup de Grace – gives you a damage buff against champions that are below 40% HP, making it easy for you to finish off enemies.
- Taste of Blood – is a helpful rune that heals a portion of your Health when you damage an enemy champion with an ability every 20 seconds.
- Ultimate Hunter – allows you to lower the CD on your ultimate so you can use it more.
As you can see, this is the standard rune page for Akali. That’s because these are really the most effective choices you can make for this champion before the game even starts.
However, that doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t experiment with runes on Akali either.
For example, you can swap Taste of Blood and Ultimate Hunter for the Bone Plating and Overgrowth runes.
These will make you a bit tankier overall, so you won’t need to heal yourself all the time.
Optional Runes
Here are other runes that I like to take on Akali:
- Sudden Impact – gives you Magic Penetration each time you use your R or you enter stealth.
- Triumph – helps you stay alive in team fights by healing you on every kill/assist.
- Bone Plating – reduces the damage you take each 45 seconds.
- Overgrowth – passive increases your Health.
- Gathering Storm – is a great rune for scaling in the late game.
- Read Also: Lich Bane Ahri Build Guide
Lich Bane Akali – Items

Here is the complete item build you should run on Akali with Lich Bane:
- Riftmaker – increases your damage done in combat up to 9%, but it also converts it into true damage. Additionally, Riftmaker also grants 2% Omnivamp per item.
- Lich Bane – is your basic attack damage-booster that scales both with your base damage and with your Ability Power.
- Zhonya’s Hourglass – is the best defensive item for assassins, including Akali. It allows you to reduce or completely avoid damage and crowd control.
- Demonic Embrace – burns your enemies for a percentage of their maximum HP, and it synergizes with Riftmaker because it helps you stack it up to 9%.
- Rabadon’s Deathcap – is the best way to increase your Ability Power in the late, making your base abilities significantly stronger.
- Sorcerer’s Shoes – grant you enough Magic Penetration in the early game and mid game.
This is your bread and butter build for Akali. You don’t have to change anything here if you just want to pog your games.
For example, you can exchange Riftmaker for Night Harvester and Demonic Embrace for Void Staff.
Night Harvester and Void Staff will give you more burst damage, but you’ll lose your damage-over-time effect and a bit of your healing. So, choose for yourself!
Read Also: Stinger Akali Skin Overview
Optional Items
Here are all the items you can build on Akali together with Lich Bane:
- Night Harvester – gives you one-shot potential on 40 seconds cooldown for each enemy separately.
- Hextech Rocketbelt – offers a very fun playstyle for Akali and has excellent stats overall.
- Morellonomicon – is your best anti-heal tool as an AP assassin, so you should always purchase it against champions with a lot of healing.
- Void Staff – offers the most amount of Magic Penetration and is a must-have against tanks.
Summoner Spell and Ability Order
The best combination of Summoner Spells for Akali is Flash and Ignite. You can sometimes swap the Ignite for Teleport, especially if you’re playing in the top lane.
And the best ability order for Akali is:
Q > E > W > R
Read Also: Lich Bane Evelynn Build Guide
Lich Bane Akali Explained
If you still aren’t sure how well Lich Bane fits Akali, let me break some numbers for you.
Akali’s passive – Assassin’s Mark empowers her next basic to deal 29 − 170 (based on level) bonus magic damage, plus 60% of her AD and 40% of her AP.
But let’s say that Akali is level 11, and she has two items completed already, Riftmaker and Lich Bane. These items grant a total of 155 Ability Power.
And so, Akali on level 11 would deal 193 bonus magic damage with her passive only after every Q.
Now, if we look at Lich Bane, we can see that the item scales with 60% of the champion’s base damage and 40% of the Ability Power.
In translation, Akali does 116 extra damage with Lich Bane alone.
And if we combined all of this together – Akali on level 11 deals 309 bonus magic damage with her passive and Lich Bane combined.
309 extra damage is a considerable amount, mainly because it comes from an auto-attack that Akali will hit anyway. Of course, she’ll hit even harder with more Ability Power, possibly even one shotting the enemy ADC.
Akali is one of the best champions for abusing Lich Bane’s power. Her whole playstyle is about going in and out of range, delaying your attacks.
This fits perfectly into Lich Bane’s cooldown, which is only 2.5 cooldown. In other words, Akali can always activate and use the effect of Lich Bane simply by doing her regular rotation.
Lich Bane is also useful for taking down turrets and split-pushing.
Read Also: Lich Bane Seraphine Build Guide
Conclusion
Lich Bane can be a great item for Akali, especially in games when you need the extra burst. Lich Bane can also give you more consistent damage simply because of its low cooldown.
As Akali, you can activate it all the time and take advantage of its effect.
Should you build Lich Bane in every game?
Of course not! Sometimes it’s worth sticking to the regular AP build, especially in games where you won’t be able to auto-attack freely. However, you can build Lich Bane in most matches.
Good luck!
Read Also: Lich Bane Sylas Build Guide