Does Illaoi need a base nerf?
It's been a little while since Illaoi was released, and having played both with and against her, I think she might need some base nerfs. Her level 6 is such a huge power spike that it doesn't make sense that she's also super oppressive in lane at early levels.
Mana Her base mana costs are very low considering she starts with 300 mana; her Q starts at 40 mana; her E at 35 mana and her W is locked at 30 at all levels. This means she can effectively shove the lane hard without ooming, making it hard for less pushy champions to take down her tentacles as they'll be facing a whole wave of minions on top of Illaoi and her tentacles herself.
Tentacles Her tentacles deal 120 % total AD + 10 per level, increasing to 160 % total AD as you level your Q. Also, her passive spawns a tentacle every 20 seconds (reduced by CDR). These last infinitely until killed or until Illaoi leaves the area, after which they become "dormant", dying if Illaoi does not return within one minute. While I think it's fair to have her tentacles deal a good amount of damage if and when they hit people, she easily becomes immensely threatening in lane after just a few tentacles have spawned. As long as she hangs near just one of her tentacles, winning trades with her (unless you're ranged) is extremely hard since she effectively more than doubles her AD when standing next to one. Every one of her abilities trigger a hit from the tentacles - including her E - so trying to go in on her will usually result in a lot of tentacle smacking, not to mention the E is easy to land in melee range.
Those things aside, her base movespeed is 340. Considering her W and E effectively increase her combat range, I don't think it would be outlandish to propose a slight nerf to force her to use those abilities if she really wants to fight instead of being able to freely run a lot of people down with just her base speed.
Is the solution to fighting Illaoi just to get a lot of ganks? Because I've found that fending off the jungler by hanging near a tentacle and threatening with an E to the face is easy, and getting 1½ kills in 2v1 situations is equally easy. Also, a champion requiring ganks to be beaten/held under control in lane effectively leaves the enemy team with a 3v4 fight. Compared to Renekton, Illaoi's team fighting is much more explosive, yet I feel like her laning pressure at least rivals the crocodile's, which is why I wouldn't be sad to see her get kicked down a notch
Opinions?