I feel Akali is just a tanky Katarina with a slightly bigger potential for Attack Damage and not so much with the Magic.

I personally wouldn't compare her to Kat too much, but they do serve the same role in a team. AP Assassin.

The problem with Akali is she was great because she meshed well with hextech, which was also great. In the same patch she and it got nerfed, effectively pummeling her into the ground, which is why you never see her anymore. If she could trade a little more effectively in lane without needing to be up close and personal, or if her ult could fly to friendlies, she'd be pretty good I guess, but right now there's not too much of a reason to take her unless you desperately need an AP assassin top.

You're better off killing their wards so they don't have vision, and your ult has something like twice the range that oracles does (and can go over walls).

Oh, then that's counter-intuitive to what I'd thought. Ooops. XD

I've a feeling that she's good enough of a character to get me out of my rut, but I'm kinda sad to hear she's not as viable in upper level games as I'd once thought. ~.~;

Her passive got nerfed but it wasn't that big a deal because if you were able to play her well the "nerf" wouldn't of hurt to hard!

With her nerfs and the need for her to snowball quickly I find it more viable to put her mid and roam around once she hits 6 to potentially get those much needed kills/assists from bot/top. I feel she can do well against mids that have a targeted ground spell, like Brand, Swain, etc.

Akali is a lot stronger if you play her ability power!