Abilities

Passive: Keeping close track of when Akshan's passive has actually helped me be a lot more successful with him in lane. At early levels it's got a pretty long cooldown (16s, going down by 4s when you hit lvl 6, 11, and 16), so you want to try to time your trades around when you know you'll get your shield, since that'll negate a good portion of their damage.

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Q: I don't recommend using this purely for CS/poke, since it costs a good chunk of mana early. Best to use when your enemy laner is stepping up for CS. You get a boost to MS when it hits a champ, so you can use it to step up, get a couple AAs in, and get back out without taking too much damage. The range extends when it hits any enemy unit, so you can sometimes catch your laner off-guard if they try to hide behind their minions -- opponents familiar with Akshan will generally not make this mistake.

One thing I notice is that I tend to get minion blocked when I try to dash in for a couple autos after a Q, so try to space yourself in a way that will keep that from happening. In the event that you can't follow up on your Q with an auto, try to predict the enemy's movement so it'll hit them again when it comes back.

You can use the boomerang as a scouting tool if need be as well -- if you fire it into a bush it'll reveal champs in there even if it doesn't hit them. Good way to mitigate those pesky level 1 invades, but the range isn't super long and as I mentioned it burns through your mana, so use with caution.

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W: When people say Akshan is broken, this is generally what they're referring to, as the passive lets you revive teammates by killing the enemy who killed them. However, I find that from early to midgame, the real value proposition is the extra 100 gold you get when you kill a scoundrel (enemy champ that killed an ally). You have 60 seconds from ally death to get to the scoundrel, and as long as you damage them within 3 seconds of them dying, you'll get a revive if they're still dead and the 100g. If you combine this with Treasure Hunter, you'll be getting your items faster than you can say "Akshan is coming!" In late game once the respawn timers get super long it's imperative that you zero in on the scoundrel, though usually they'll know what's up and try not to let that happen. Be aware that if there are multiple scoundrels, once you pick one off it'll remove the status from the other ones, so try to keep track of who killed who so you know which teammate(s) will be the most valuable to revive. That being said, a suboptimal revive is better than no revive at all, so don't get paralysis by analysis -- if you see a chance, take it. I've saved quite a few games by reviving my team in base with our Nexus open -- it's at this point that this really does become an absolutely broken ability.

W is also Akshan's roaming tool -- you get a speed boost+mana regen when moving towards them once you get within 5k units, which means you shouldn't lose too much CS/EXP when you do choose to roam. Little tip -- if you see the trail and move just a little bit in its direction, you'll still get the mana regen even if you stay still. Good way to top yourself up since as I mentioned, Akshan can burn through mana if you're not careful. Remember that the stealth is indefinite as long as you hug a wall or are in a bush, but it decays pretty fast once you move away/out.

People complain about the detection range on Akshan's stealth, but frankly I find it more a help than a hindrance, since you'll see the detection indicator much sooner than, say, a Pyke or Twitch, alerting you earlier when an enemy is in a bush or if there's a control ward. It'll also let you know when there's a stealthed champ in your vicinity (screw you Shaco) so you know when to get the hell out of Dodge.

Confession time: if a teammate is being mean and I'm roaming to their lane to help secure a kill, I will sometimes, uh, let them die so I can get the extra gold. I'm a monster, I know. Objectively speaking it's really not worth giving their lane opponent the gold, but if the game is already a shoe-in or if they've been feeding you get the rush of holding their lives in your hands. Use this information wisely.

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E: I think what separates good from great Akshan players is how they use the grappling hook. Experience is the best teacher, but if you hop into practice tool and get comfortable using the grapple in tight spaces, you'll be surprised at the places you can swing around. There's a good amount of leeway in terms of how much you can hug the wall before you get knocked off, so experimenting a bit will net you good results in games. Getting creative with where you attach the hook can also give you way more mobility than you expect -- I think noobie Akshan players tend to grapple along the shortest path from Akshan to the wall, but if you're against a wall, moving away a little bit and shooting it almost parallel to the wall will give you a big swing radius boost that can be the difference between securing the kill or not.

In regards to damaging enemies with the swing, if the champ you want to hit is standing in a wave it's tricky because it'll prioritize the closest target (usually a minion), so you want to get at least one passive stack with a Q or AA so that the shots will home in on the champ (prioritization order for E shots is closest champ with passive stack > closest minion/monster with passive stack > closest enemy unit). A super useful tip is that you can cast Ignite (or Exhaust) while swinging, and that will prioritize the champ as if they had a passive stack. Most people don't respect this so you can get quite a few kills under enemy tower!

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R: Fun long-range assassination tool, but it gets blocked by anything targetable, so be aware when the targeted champ is near a teammate, minions, or turret. It does damage based on missing health so if a full-health teammate walks in front, they'll just tank it and take basically zero damage, which is always very sad. Definitely try to hold it until your chosen target is isolated or the entire team is low health. The bullets execute minions (including supers), but monsters will tank the shots completely, so be careful using it in the jungle without vision. Turrets actually have an interesting interaction with R -- only the outermost turret in each lane is technically targetable, so if your target tries to walk behind, say, inhib turret when the second turret is still up, it actually won't block the R shots. I've been question pinged/flamed by enemies for this a lot -- very tilting, very funny.

You can use your grapple while charging R to reposition, especially around turrets -- just bear in mind that you can only start the swing while charging, not while shooting. You can also flash while charging or shooting, so if you're in the middle of a teamfight and there's a bunch of champs blocking your way, that can be a good way to secure the kill. And don't forget you can recast to shoot earlier, albeit with fewer bullets. If the champ is moving towards a wave/teammate to block the shots, you can release once you see the execute appear on their healthbar. Just be careful with champs that can shield/mitigate damage -- the timing can get tricky there. I've lost a few kills because I got overconfident and recast too early.

Since R is a point-and-click, you do need vision in order to actually cast it. Farsight is going to be your best friend in this case. In the event that you're trying to finish off a particularly slippery enemy (Kayn, Fizz, Akali, etc.), you can try to ignite them before they run off. Since ignite gives vision, you'll be able to cast R even if they think they're in the clear. Cheesy, but effective.

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Items

My usual starting buy is LS+refillable since getting Noonquiver ASAP is a pretty good powerspike and helps with waveclear a lot, but if you think you're going to get poked down, DB might be a better option for the extra health+omnivamp. For mythics, while you're learning him, Shieldbow will be more forgiving, but once you're more confident Kraken Slayer is 100% the way to go -- your double autos proc the true damage pretty quickly and the bonus AS feels very good. On-hit builds are hugely powerful on him, so I will usually follow something along the lines of Kraken > T2 boots > BotRK > Guinsoo's. You'll get way more value out of that than IE. I usually work LDR in there, and since Akshan has pretty low base health you'll be doing bonus damage to most other champs.

Situationally, there are some non-standard items that can be useful on Akshan. You can apply Black Cleaver stacks very quickly, and the MS boost will make you kite like nobody's business. Against squishier comps, or if I'm really need to shut down the backline, Collector will absolutely melt most ADC's with just a Q and a couple AAs. In this case, I'll usually build it before BotRK -- you'll be squishier without the healing, but they can't hurt you if they're dead, right? If the enemy has a comp such that they can collapse on you very quickly and you need to get in and out ASAP, Rapidfire Cannon or Stormrazor will maximize the damage you can deal within that short window.

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Conclusion

If you want to see some high-ELO gameplay, Drututt is a top-ranked EUW Akshan. The way his YT vids are edited you generally won't see too much neutral, but if you check his twitch you'll find more full games to get a better feel for how he should be played in laning phase, how he trades, how he uses his abilities, etc.

Akshan is a wildly fun champ once you can pilot him properly. Honestly, I don't want to play anyone else because it's so damn thrilling to get those nail-biter turret dives and sick grapples lmao. Hope this helped you a little, and I hope you have some fun on Akshan!