Reign of Gaming

Disregard overpowerness, acquire Challenger.

Jayce works vs. him - maybe not exactly a counter, but he can surely stand his ground with proper mana management.

Zed can neither outpoke you nor simply burst you. Assuming you both hit skills, your poke is stronger than his and your sustain is similar. Assuming you both miss your skills - turns into a farm lane, and Zed doesn't completely outscale Jayce like he does with some other champions. Zed doesn't really have the kill potential in the early levels, provided you don't get poked down. Especially since he cannot finish you with AAs cause he will just get thrown away.

She is very strong in low/mid ELO. Once people grasp the idea of peeling, she is a bit weaker.

I've played her a bit on normal games and saw my friends playing her on ranked duo. In non-organised play on this skill level, she is retardedly overpowered. She can bully almost anything top lane (few players tend to think and buy any sustain or MR, they'd rather rush Black Cleaver or Sunfire - sometimes BotRK). Because of this, she will often snowball to oblivion mid-game - I've had games when a fed MPen Elise could take out a full health tank with a (human) Q->E->W->R->W->Q. around level 13-14. Elise would then continue to acquire items and in late teamfights simply Rappel to the enemy ADC/APC, press W, press Q, and get another kill to her collection.

She still isn't nowhere near to as strong as some other champions used to be - for example Rengar after his first round of buffs, release Vayne, etc.

Akali can still play defensively, get a Revolver and wreck almost any squishy level 6 with 3 ult charges.

Plus, buying a pink is not a simple counter. It sets you 125 gold behind and may not give you anything if Akali counterwards - which most good Akali players I've seen tend to do. Even if I gain an advantage, the moment I would leave my lane to roam, my pink is immediately counterwarded. Of course, I can base and get one more, but it takes time and sets me behind with my build.

Jarvan remains strong. He has quite strong early duels, good ganks provided you can hit the knockup combo - especially since he can bypass some wards - and tremendous teamfight presence - he fits into any sort of a team comp, he can dive the enemy carries, protect his allied carries or lock down his enemies in AoE damage. He can make some surprise engages with a Flash -> E -> Q -> R combo. The biggest problem with him is that it is often easy to lock yourself or someone from your team with someone with whom you wouldn't really want to be locked, hence the popular "I'm Jarvan and I'm helping."

Lee got hit a bit by his nerfs, but he still works. His early duels became slightly weaker, but he still has brutal level 2 ganks (or level 3 after a smiteless start), he murders squishies early and mid game and can hold his ground vs. most other champions in those phases - some time ago, not long after the nerfs, I managed to win a 1v3 fight vs. Ashe, Lux and Blitzcrank after I showed up for a teamfight slightly late, while having only Wriggle's, Mallet and Bulwark. When fed, he can play as an assassin - despite what many people say, he has good assassination capabilities even late game as long as he got ahead and could allow himself to build damage items - just make sure someone else is beefy enough. If not, he is great for protecting your carries. He is also a perfect counter to some devastating AoE skills, such as Fiddle's ult. He is also one of the most mobile champions in the game. Again, he can bypass wards.

Xin has extremely high base damages, can murder most enemies in a straight 1v1 duel assuming equal gold value and has great ganks. His strength is that there is really nothing you can fail at - as long as you know how to jungle: when to gank, when to counterjungle, etc. His weakness is mostly that his clearing speed is somewhat low, but he makes up for it with his dueling and ganking. His ult allows him to get some really good engages, especially when backed up with some form of hard CC from the team. He does have issues if he falls behind early - the simplicity of his kit allows little room for outplaying your opponents really hard to make a great comeback. Of course, he can try to separate a target with his ult, but when behind he might die trying to pull it off. He works good for diving enemy carries and protecting allied carries.

I would say that it's dependant on your playstyle. All these champions are a bit different - Xin and J4 have similarities, but I would say that Lee is completely different.

From my experience, Zed has no energy issues when it comes down to bursting priority targets or acting as an anti-assassin for your carries.

I can imagine running out if you are fighting a tank, but on the other hand, I see no reason to fight a tank. When I see one approaching, I will simply try to evade him for as long as I need to get a squishy down. Unless of course that tank is somewhat fed and I would very much need to help my ADC, but then, someone else should focus on doing it.

As mentioned, a blue buff greatly improves his flow, but it is unnecessary - you are a burst assassin, doing sustained damage is not your job. If you can get their ADC down, it will be worth it more often than not.

You can also start a Rejuvenation Bead, pots and wards to be perfectly honest. Quite a lot of Akali players, including pros, will eventually build a Warmog on her - even as a second item after her Gunblade. It still offers good sustain and actually makes you put your gold into permanent items, not just pots pots pots.

Personally, I am not an Akali player - well, I play her from times to times but she is nowhere near being my favorite champ, but I quite enjoy Zed and consider myself fairly good with him - I also often play Kassadin and Katarina, who, as we all know, often suffer issues with early harrassment due to melee last hitting. He is also hurt by the change - he cannot start elixir+wards+pots to stomp some matchups early, nor can he start pots+wards to sustain to 6 against more difficult matchups. But I feel the change is justified and do not see any problems with it. If you want to have a strong early, you can still grab an elixir and pots - it's just that you have to be more careful about the enemy jungler, you can't just recklessly push your lane with no risk. If you need to sustain, just go the forementioned Rejuvenation Bead start. Most champions in this game buy a Warmog sooner or later - no matter if they are bruisers, assassins, ranged carries or even mages. You can even start 2 Beads if you want, but that again makes you resign from an early ward.

Really, Akali was just ridiculous with her laning strength. I am happy to see those nerfs - which as stated by many, only slightly reduce her early game power while her late game is stronger - she doesn't really need that much AP to make up for the base damage she lost.

Not like I am a great player or anything, but a few days ago I took J4 top (my team needed a strong frontline with good diving capabilities and he's my to-go bruiser in those situations) and was matched against Akali. With the amount of early aggression J4 can pull out, with abusing my passive, hitting Qs, etc. I still found it pretty impossible to kill her. I would have to start with a pink ward to think of doing that. When I took her low, she simply backed a little bit and drank 4 potions. And I was already pretty low on mana. Still, I managed to establish a small CS lead and keep her slightly behind until 6. At 6 she backed, so I pushed onto her turret and backed myself. Bought myself a Giant's Belt and a Long Sword, grabbed a couple of wards and potions. She came back with no more than a Revolver.

What happened then was just purely incomprehensible to me. After a while she jumped me, took me down do around 1/4 of my health burning through her ult stacks. I forced her out of the shroud so I could retaliate a bit, but I did nowhere near as much damage to her as she did to me - even concerning the fact that I had much more health at the beginning, I was left lower than her. After she got an additional ult stack, she flash->jumped me under my turret. We exchanged 1 for 1 as I managed to trap her in my own ult. After this happened, I bought myself two Null Magic Mantles to build into Merc's and a Hexdrinker. Unfortunately for me, this didn't help at all. She became so much stronger than me that I was pretty much forced to farm under turret. Of course, I kept receiving constant Qs and my jungler was not really helpful. She slowly wore me down, dove me with the assistance of her jungler, took my turret and started running all around the map, grabbing kills and stuff. Our team didn't really have the tools to peel off Akali, so she gave our carries a really hard time.

No, the elixirs had their price raised to 350, so if you want them, you basically have to resign from a ward - or take only 1-2 pots.

Akali can still lose her lane hard and then stomp at level 6. Also, as mentioned, she has spell vamp for free and basically infinite sustain once she gets her first item, which happens to perfectly fit into her build - it's not getting something merely to fix something else.

Can't see the problem.