Let's talk a bit about Illaoi

Hello friends and summoners,

Quickly about me : I'm a fellow Season 1 player, Jungle main sitting around Master low lp and I have an OTP Illaoi account which is currently ranked D3 on EUw where I only play Illaoi Top or Mid.

Since Illaoi release I've been playing her quite a lot and loved her kit. The interaction beetween the Tentacles and her spells, the way you had to play her in lane with attrition and force ennemy to dance around was a jewel of design for me. I'm here today to talk a bit of what I think about her, and share with you and hopefully some Rioter, thoughts on the champion since a lot of work is being made on her kit on the PBE.

In the current competitive state of LoL, she has a hard time being a viable champion. I won't list here every reason but obviously her big lack of mobility coupled with her reliance on ultimate to be a threat in teamfight, the ressurgance of high mobility champions that can escape her area of pressure (which can be pretty limited, I'll tell later why) and the lack of hard scaling (which is being corrected on pbe) made her just a poor man Darius or Skarner : she has the damage but no way to either stick on her target or good scaling. Does she need to be competitive viable ? I don't know, and I'm not really here to answer the questions. I'm here to suggest some few tweaks and share my experience with the champion so far because she needs some love.

What is she good at & why I love her -Laning phase -Teamfight in chokepoints (therefore objective control) -Outnumbering opponents make her stronger (with ultimate..) -Punish positionning with E. -Awesome tentacle interaction set

What is she bad at -Sticking to her target -Teleport usage -Engaging without Flash -Dealing with high mobility champions in general

1. Q : The way tentacle scaling was changed to basically increase her power with level rather than AD will make her more efficient with tanky stats in the midgame. It make her basically better in the mid-game than her previous state with the same item. So it's a good change, even tho I wasn't sure she need more dmg with LVL. But the whole point was to take off that big TOTAL AD scaling to allow a softer powercurve weither you build full tank or AD'ish (BC into Sterak / Maw).

2. W : The W on 4 sec CD basis is good because you need this to actually be able to lane. Your AA animation is awful and you never get more than 5/10% AS bonus from Runes / Masteries so W on 4s CD => Excellent change. The second change to W to put it on a %HP Dmg is to give her a form of scaling is also fine. It's gonna get relevant Dmg trough the course of the Early to Mid game since it's the spell you always last max. So again +1

3. E : The 60 sec debuff going to a 12 sec debuff was needed just to be able to balance the spell down and the whole interaction of her kit. You cannot have a 1 min debuff without huge takedown on other spells, therefore I understand the direction choosen. The E Is the spell you'll max first. Because %HP Dmg, because scaling, because shorter CD = more often agression, the number around it are balanced fine. The spell will naturally scale over the course of the game with LVL and is relevant siege / zoning tools. It doesn't need more change.

Here I've listed all the positive change that went trough PBE / Live on the last few patch that seems good to me. I want first to clarify something before adressing some issues : I don't think Illaoi is in a "bad state" right now, she doesn't need to get buffed to death to find some love or viability. I'm not here to make her broken but discuss how we could articulate a bit more her kit around her identity which is to use her tentacle to fight. But first I have to talk about her passive.

Her passive is really hard to exploit and it's really bad because it's the core part of her whole kit. I can't say the number of times where my tentacle don't setup the way I want in lane. I can walk and do the same pattern on 100 games and sometimes I'll get the first tentacles at the left of my top tower, and sometimes I'll get it to stick to the tower which cause 2 thing : -I can't put another tentacle on the opposite side of the wall (due to the range limitation) -Therefore it limit the way I can setup the tentacle the way I want.

Explanation : Lvl 1 I always do the same setup, I put 3 defensive tentacles nearby my tower, on the opposite wall and a bit upside, therefore if I get pushed in by any pushing matchup (Ekko, Nautilus etc..). Sometimes, the randomity of tentacle placement make it so sometimes your usual placement will get messed up.

What could / should be made :

-Be able to make the tentacles setup on a reliable way. Either give us charge and tune in an internal CD or make it so the spawn is reliable (always spawn on the left of the champion, or prioritize wall over turret when you are nearby both). Because sometimes 100 range is what allow a tentacle to hit on E, or help clearing the wawe with W. It's really frustating to have no control over the spells that allow her whole kit to function in a proper way. Sometimes being able to E in beetween 2 tentacles setup rather than 1 will definitely change the trade.

-Give her any form of CC. I've thinked about a lot of way to give her CC that isn't gonna make her kit totally toxic in lane and I've came with one idea : Give her a 0.5% Slow/LVL on tentacle hit on her passive. If you hit ennemy with 2 tentacles or more, they are "stunned" for 0.25 sec with an internal delay of 10 sec. Rather than give her a big slow on her Q spell which is just an another way to reward her for hitting skillshot, she should be rewarded when she hit the good tentacles combo on her opponent. It's hard to make 2 tentacle hit a champion without ultimate, and with ultimate it become easy, that's why putting a CD on it, prevent her from being a CC bot in teamfight while giving her a brief breathe time to reposition in a teamfight.

-Correct the way W interact as an AA reset : Right now the spell is half a dash, but rather than working like an Ekko E, it can be interrupted mid-air and therefore interrupt every tentacle attack that come in after. When you rely on this spell to do dmg in teamfight if you have no E target / setup, it's really hard to get everything off of the champion.

-Make her tentacles hit feel rewarding : If those are hard to get off, if you need your flash to engage, and your W to hit / not get cancel to actually deal somethiing in a teamfight, supposing that the ennemy doesn't run from you is hard.

I'll conclude relatively fast (because I have to go to work !) by saying that this is post is far from being a rant. Overall I think that Riot has made a wonderful champion in Illaoi and has been working really good those last month to balance out a champion around their identity which is what I would like to see with my tentacle Lady. I don't think Illaoi need to be overtuned right now, her number are fine, she just need a better way to interact with the game because even if she provide one of the highest dmg of the game for a Juggernaut, if you compare her to Darius, the kit feel weak. Where Darius can have bonus MS, %healing not based on an slow IA hitting the ennemy and true DMG, Illaoi get godlike teamfight and laning, but feel like a double edged sword to your team if you never get the opportunity to go ahead / even.

Dear friends, thanks you for joining me today and reading everything.