As an assassin, Akali does not have the strongest laning phase. Overall, your goal is to reach level 5 without missing any minion xp or dying. Akali does not have great gank set-up and mid-lane is not often ganked anyway, so don’t expect your jungler to bail you out of bad situations. Akali often won’t have lane priority either. Don’t be tempted to abandon your farm to follow bad plays or random invades by your jungler.

All that being said, Akali’s laning phase is not so weak that you cannot look for good trades or solo kills, especially when running electrocute. In almost every mid-lane matchup, you want to allow the enemy to push the wave level 1 while you yourself only go for last hits. This will allow the wave to be on your side of the lane, where you can freeze, farm safely near your turret, and give you the space to look for Q>W>AA>Q>AA trades on the enemy once you hit levels 2-3. Important to note is that if you land a Q>AA on the enemy level 1, it’s typically not worth it to follow up with second Q>AA. The reason is because the second Q>AA will likely be damaging the wave, making it difficult to bring the wave near your turret.

In the early levels, especially when you don’t have W, Akali’s energy cost is quite high and so you want to be getting value out of every Q you throw out. A high value Q for example is one that last hits a minion and hits the enemy laner at the same time. A low value Q is one in which you last hit a minion, but don’t deal damage to the laner, and you take damage yourself. It’s okay to farm with a max range Q if you’re not taking damage as a result. When you walk up to last hit a minion, if your enemy laner walks away from your Q range, it’s better to last hit that minion with an auto attack rather than a Q, and then walk away from the enemy. This is how you avoid low value Qs. You need to adapt to your enemy’s movement. An inexperienced Akali will forcefully try to last hit a minion and the enemy champion at the same time, even when they see the enemy champion walking out of their Q range. The reason you can’t force a Q like this is because the further you walk up the lane to force a trade, the more damage you’re going to take when you walk back when you’re defenseless and no longer have an energy bar.

It’s important to know that Akali excels at short burst trades. You don’t want to extend a trade so long that the damage you take in return makes the trade no longer worth it. Don’t look for trades unless the enemy is walking up to last hit. As a general rule of thumb, you want to trade around your W (shroud) and electrocute rune. Try to get a feel for the duration of your shroud so you know to save enough time to walk back to a safe position in the lane through your shroud, avoiding damage as you walk out of the enemy’s attack range.

When you become skilled at taking good trades, you’ll become better at recognizing all-in windows even before level 5. When you’ve chunked an enemy’s hp enough while maintaining your own hp, you can look for an all-ins with ignite or an aggressive flash to finish them off. Alternatively, you can even begin zoning some enemies off the wave when they’re so low they’re afraid to take more damage and die. If a low hp enemy recalls on a wave you’ve frozen, they will miss gold and xp. When they return, you can continue pressuring them when they walk up for last hits as you’ll have the level advantage, and you can even begin slow pushing the wave to set up a dive and solo kill them under their turret, as you’ll hit 5 before they do.

You should be tracking the enemy jungler and have a general idea which side of the map they’re on so you know which side of the lane to play on and when it’s safe to all-in an opponent. Jungle tracking is also important because as Akali it is not uncommon that you’ll solo kill an enemy under their turret and end up on the complete other side of the turret, leaving you to choose which side of the enemy’s jungle you’re going to escape from. You should choose the side you know the jungler has cleared already. I frequently ward enemy raptors level 1 to know which way the jungler is pathing. If you ward raptors and a pink ward is present it is likely the jungler is starting blue side. Remember that Akali is not strong level 1, so if you’re spotted going for a level 1 ward on raptors, immediately turn away and avoid fighting at all costs.

Generally speaking, hitting level 5 is your best first recall timer. Don’t immediately look for all-ins just because you’ve hit 5. If the enemy still has flash, exhaust, barrier, or a near full HP bar, you’re not killing them. It’s better to base, spend your gold, and come back to lane and look for possible plays with your ultimate. This can be a solo kill on your enemy laner if they don’t have summoner spells or waste key abilities (like Ahri’s charm), or it can be ganking another lane where the enemies are low hp/overextended, or diving another lane’s turret if your allies are pressuring and poking the enemies under their tower. That said, don’t force plays if you don’t see any good opportunities. Simply keep clearing your waves and use the downtime to place vision, spend gold, and continue gathering information.

When it comes to roaming in the early game, just remember to always clear your wave before roaming, and be back to your lane as soon as you can to not miss the next wave. As previously mentioned, it’s common that enemy laners will have priority to roam before you do, and so assess if you can have an impact on any fight that breaks out in a side lane, or just go for gold from turret platings if the roam is too risky and the enemy jungler is not a threat as you hit the plates. If you manage to be able to get priority over your opponent and roam first, remember that brush camping your laner in the river or elsewhere is always an option if you think they’re likely to follow you.

Generally it’s not a great idea to be roaming or looking to join plays when your ultimate is on cooldown, since the likelihood of you having impact goes down significantly.