How to buff Illaoi?
Riot has demonstrated with the buffs in patch 6.3 that they are aware Illaoi is weak and are interested in buffing her. That said, the buffs in 6.3 have not dented her low pick rate and play rate, and the 6.4 nerfs to Sterak's, her corest of core items (even more than cleaver IMO) will probably hurt her even more. So if Riot is still looking for her to be viable, they'll have to try another buff.
The problems are:
- Illaoi's counterplayable kit just favors pub stomping so any buffs to make her semi-viable in high elo will make her pick or ban in bronze-silver
- People hate playing against Illaoi. Only recently has she stopped being banned despite clear evidence that she's usually a liability for her team. Her E debuff and ult tilt people really hard, so any buff that makes her more frustrating to play against will result in permaban status.
So the question then is how do we buff her without breaking her wide open in low elo or making her more frustrating? As someone who plays Illaoi a lot (not really in ranked though), here are some ideas:
-
Higher base AS. A QoL buff more than anything but one that would have real benefits. Illaoi's AAs aren't really core to her kit but a responsive autoattack is essential to farm properly especially under pressure and Illaoi's are a notch above
tier. Buffing this will improve her ability to farm without spending mana or pushing wave (which is a problem now), and also improve synergy with 
and 
. -
Small slow on Q. Illaoi has 1 incredibly situational CC in her kit (vesseling someone). As much as Riot likes the idea of juggernauts having weak cc/mobility, weak does not usually equal absent (
is fast as hell and 
has pull + slow) and trying to balance around 0 cc/mobility without piling on damage and gimmicks is very very hard (RIP 
). Putting a slow on Q would do a lot for Illaoi. She could use it to kite back, chase, set up a pull, keep a priority target in the ult zone longer, etc. Lots of strategic options open up, she'd bring something other than incredibly situational dmg to her team, and it would still be counterplayable (that Q is one of the more dodgeable skillshots in league). -
R resets W CD. Basically, so that you can W->R or W->E->R without crippling your ult dps. Illaoi's strength right now is her ult, but executing it on a team that's paying any attention is incredibly difficult. If you use the mini gapcloser of W (and it is a tiny tiny gapcloser) to get in the fray, you put it on a 4 to 6 second CD. So after you E->R, your tentacles will slap once, you maybe q someone, then you and your tentacles stand around looking stupid for 4-6 s or until you get killed (probably the latter since you're in the middle of the enemy team). As it stands, you have to hold w while you slowly walk into the enemy team to E->R them, or wait for multiple melees to dive you and punish their dumb, dumb decision. If R reset W, you could use W to get in range for E->R, rendering the combo much more doable. There's still counterplay (don't bunch, stay out of the very short W range, run like hell once the ult goes down), but with it Illaoi is actually good at teamfighting like she's supposed to be.
-
Scaling armor debuff or bonus damage against vessels. Pulling souls one after another and turning the enemy team green in a siege is fun, but is more annoying than impactful unless they stand in tether range for a long time. Every once and a while you'll get a stupid kill or a slap on a carry out of it, but usually it just distracts them a bit while they play a minigame for 30 s. Allowing the debuff to soften enemies up brings you real late game utility and further exaggerates her power window (if you're vesseled and you fight Illaoi you should get wrecked). It also might give her some late game scaling without cleaver so she can choose better offensive items (IBG, Sterak's, Maw) or get tankier.
Some ideas. What do you think and what would you recommend instead?
