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Illaoi's E can force you to miss 1-2 waves each time it hits.

Elastoid·11/30/2015, 2:32:01 AM·13 votes·1,214 views

K so posit that you're playing a champion who CAN'T go toe to toe with Illaoi. This is most champions (that's the idea behind Juggernaut).

Say she lands a pull on you near a tentacle. You now have two options -- run or fight. If you fight, you die, because you can't go toe to toe with her, so you elect to run.

Now, at level 1 you take a full 25% of your health from this. That's forfeit. That's "whatever, she can take 25% with a single hit." If you can't sustain back 25% of your health, you're in a lot of trouble. But it gets worse.

We've already established that you can't go toe to toe, so you have to handle your "vessel" status before you go back to try farming, so you retreat to (or behind) turret to kill the tentacles and remove the vessel status. That takes you out of lane for a minimum of 30 seconds (to kill 3 tentacles). You can't go near HER tentacles, because they're also near HER, so you have to go find a spot, spawn your own, and take them down. So if we don't count the time it takes you to find a safe spot or the time it takes to return to lane, we have a flat 30 seconds minimum. In practice, of course, you lose closer to a minute.

One to two minion waves will spawn in that time. One pull from the ability... even if you have the sustain to NOT worry about the 25% health, the time it takes for you to be able to return to lane safely is enough to lose lane early.

Her E costs 35 mana. That's all it takes to deny you all that health and farm. I mean, sure, it takes more to actually engage, but pulling your spirit is really all she needs to do. It's not an expensive skill she needs to make decisions with, and if you back off, she can keep doing it over and over.

18 Comments

Krinu11/30/2015, 3:28:20 AM3 votes

Illaoi's pull is actually an opening to punish her pretty heavily, especially if she uses it wrong. If she's not using it near a bunch of tentacles - so if you've been good about clearing them as they spawn or happen to not be parked near some - then she's actually in a rough position. If you engage on her, she can either DPS the spirit, in which case you take a fraction of the damage and win the trade when she's forced to back off, or she can DPS you, in which case you trade relatively evenly until you back off. The spirit then fades without dying, and you're both left at lower health.

This all goes out the window if you A. run away, in which case you just take some damage from the tether for no gain and eat the debuff, or B. if she pulls your spirit near tentacles, in which case she flat out wins any trades and you're better off walking out and eating the CS/HP loss.

Note that it's not as simple as "OH MY SPIRIT GOT RIPPED AND THEIR AREN'T ANY TENTACLES, #YOLOSWAGENGAGE." You need to position so that she can't double-dip her AoE abilities on you - if you get slammed and your spirit gets slammed, you're taking a ton of extra damage for no reason. You also need to keep a rough track of her tentacle spawn timer. It starts at 20 seconds and drops by 1 second every 2 levels, so if one hasn't spawned in a while and she lands her E, just back away and eat the loss because you're going to get slammed.

Lastly, every time you hit her while your spirit's out, the duration of the spirit drops by one second, so if you can land a few hits, you can make it very hard for her to make you into a vessel.

GroundedEagle4511/30/2015, 2:57:41 AM2 votes

Blitz pulls you, same situtatio. So?

I am PewdiePie11/30/2015, 10:07:06 AM1 votes

Her E hits first unit hit.

Her E duration is reduced by 1 second each time you attack her.

Her E is shorter and slower than blitz and thresh grab.

I assume she does not max it first, so in laning phase, you're only taking 25% of the damage she deals to it. So it's really more effective for her to just attack you instead. You don't become a vessel if you don't run out of range and you will probably do more damage to her before she can kill the spirit since you're reducing its time up.

Illaoi as 7th worst win rate overall right now, with her win rate getting worse as you go higher in elos. She has the worst KDA right now. I'm sorry but if she was as stupid broken as the forums make her out to be I'd assume she'd have better numbers than that. People just not knowing how to play her yet cannot possibly make that bad of numbers (if once again she's as OP as stated). And even if she's doing bad because people don't know how to play her, then you shouldn't be having a problem anyways because you're against a bad player.

Every argument you're making can be argued against. You say, "Further, it's when you're going to clean up a tentacle that she has the easiest opening to E you, as there most often won't be minion cover around them." Why are you cleaning them up when you can get grabbed? That's like going off to clear a ward where blitz/thresh can grab you and throwing a fit when they do. The tentacles don't hit you unless she's hit you with W or E. A tentacle will only hit you once if you're a vessel, too.

JackMcSnipeyz11/30/2015, 10:56:36 AM1 votes

I posted the same concerns and all i got was "git gud learn 2 dodge" i dont excpect them To understand how much of a problem a good illaoi is in land

InSingedWeTrust11/30/2015, 11:03:05 AM1 votes

No Illaoi with common sense goes pull @ lvl 1.

Social Justice 111/30/2015, 11:19:41 AM1 votes

{quoted}

K so posit that you're playing a champion who CAN'T go toe to toe with Illaoi. This is most champions (that's the idea behind Juggernaut).

She's not really that good at 1v1s unless you run into her Q. A champion that can't go toe to toe with Illaoi in the laning phase is somebody like Lulu who can't take a hit in the first place.

Meep Man11/30/2015, 6:10:50 PM1 votes

What I do is position myself beside (but not inside my minion wave because creep block OP) and make her tentacles hit my wave, but not me, making my lane forcefully pushed to my turret, opening up a gank from my jungler.

AL00011/30/2015, 7:33:46 PM1 votes

exactly! this drove me crazy... why riot allow this kind of unfair game during lane phrase? when you face illaoi, you have to be prepare to lose a lof of golds....

destroy tentacle for 5 gold is not worth for compensation...

yes its easy to avoid or whatever but not easy to try to last hit and trade with her...

EvilMerodach12/1/2015, 1:17:46 AM1 votes

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8alIxvD1sr8

Nanuk Pihoqahiak11/30/2015, 9:40:42 AM1 votes

I feel like this is an ability that could 'benefit' from having a higher mana cost. There's a reason something like Blitzcrank's Rocket Grab has a high mana cost and that's to prevent it from being spammed early game.