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Illaoi in a bad spot?

KneeSockKnight·5/15/2016, 6:23:57 AM·26 votes·3,579 views

Just played a bit of Illaoi Illaoi and I have to say, it felt pretty displeasing. Is it just me, or is Illaoi in a bad state ever since her **E-Test of Spirit **duration was reduced to 12 seconds? They gave her very little in exchange for the massive 48 second decrease. While she wasn't at all fun to play against in lane, after laning phase she is very easily locked down. Marksmen like Ashe or Vayne dominate her so very easily. A bruiser/tank with any CC at all is enough to prevent her from doing anything in fights, and many supports excel at keeping her away from teammates. Mobile mages can fully ignore her as well, and ever since patch 6.9, immobile mages are now tank destroying machines. I may very well be wrong here, but I personally feel that some buffs to other parts of her kit would be nice.

     According to the lore, Nagakabouros is the "God of Life, Ocean Storms, and Motion. Well, Illaoi  isn't a very good priestess apparently, because she gets locked down and dies frequently in teamfights which doesn't reflect the "life" aspect very well (Although I understand that the healing on her tentacles hitting someone is supposed to represent this).  She is also one of, if not the most immobile champions in the game, removing the importance of the "movement" characteristic. And the only  thing that makes me understand the "ocean storms" part, is the storms of salt my team experiences when I slowly trudge towards a team fight, only to be too late. Additionally, she often relies on Flash to even get in a good enough position to ult.

Perhaps in order to better represent the "motion" characteristic, she could get some movement speed for the 12 seconds that she has someone marked, or even just an increase to her base movement speed. Maybe some movement speed after a tentacle hits an enemy champion would be a nice addition. As I mentioned previously, CC often prevents her from doing much in fights. Maybe giving her some tenacity after ulting, or when near tentacles would help her usefulness (Because lets face it, being stunned gives as much sense of motion as a legless sloth). Possibly make her E castable while moving. These are additions that I believe would improve her performance, while maintaining a balance with her lore. I'm not saying that any of this should necessarily be implemented, but some of these things would be nice to see. Or, they could just revert her passive back to the way it used to be, unless they really do hate the 60 second debuff (Which is understandable).

Of course, I don't fully understand everything Riot has to look into when buffing a champion, so some of these things may be impossible. Alternatively, I could be wrong to assume she needs buffs. I'd love to read opinions on other changes that could be made, or disagreements with my opinions on buffing her. Feedback from a Riot employee would be pretty cool. Thanks for taking the time to read this.

56 Comments

Scoroct5/15/2016, 9:11:44 AM10 votes

Long post incoming so sorry about that. TLDR: Illaoi's only reliable dmg is her E and for a few seconds during her ult even if she is entrenched in a bunch of her own tentacles due to just how slow they are. If her dmg was more reliable outside of her ult due to faster tentacles she would probably be in an alright spot (would require dmg to be lowered in return for reliability). Her current way of playing just abuses her E in order to find any success and she becomes very binary like blitz due to this.

She is viable but it takes far more work to just get her to that point than many other champions. A big issue for her is her only reliable dmg is the W AUTO and her E converted dmg. Everything about her is too unreliable outside of her ult when she gets increased tentacle speed, but then when she ults you just run away since her ult/kit lacks CC and its her tentacles that do her dmg not herself so it doesnt matter if she chases you down.

She needs her tentacles to be more reliable outside her ult so that her only window of power is not her ult. If her only window of power is her ult then you just bait it out and then walk away and she has no ways to really deal with this since even if she follows you and sticks to you the tentacles are still back where she ulted and she effectively does no dmg. This reliance on ult is so powerful/annoying that even when you set up a "zone of control" with a bunch of tentacles, it actually doesnt matter cause skilled opponents (or champions with mobility) will sidestep the tentacle swings, meaning that even in this zone you set up you dont work unless you blow a ~1min CD OR land your E.

To kinda show how illaoi players have adapted a lot of high elo ones are building more AD focused builds (with only a couple tank items) to abuse her one reliable source of dmg, her E. This has sorta made her like a weird top lane AD blitz who if she lands her E she wins cause she chunks you so hard as the game progresses that she gets you into execute range so you base, and then she takes your tower.

The way you actually win with her is through the attrition of pushing towers because no one can properly fight you but you cant chase so you just scare them away from a tower using your E poke and then you take it. She doesnt actually get to fight anyone just basically slowly pushes her way down a lane like nasus sorta. (whether this very binary form of play is good/healthy is up for debate, as blitz is allowed to function similarly, but at least he still reliably does a little bit of something when he misses his Q)

What would be nice is if maybe W proc'd tentacles swung at her current ult speed (or if the tentacle speed just somehow scaled with levels or something so that once you have swiftness boots you dont counter her) and in turn her tentacles did less dmg, and her ult was more about the spawining of extra tentacles (or maybe a long cd source of utility like maybe an aoe slow) rather than basically being the only time she is threatening cause the attackspeed buff makes her tentacles viable for a few seconds you can wait out.

Something that helps that many will point out (somewhat, it's not often enough anyway) is IBG but HAVING to build a specific item in order to be functional/reliable is very annoying and I dont find it to be good design (also I feel this problem plagues morde but he uses rylais or gunblade to become functional instead).

Illaoi getting more or less rewards based on when tentacles do hit (such as the healing change testing they did on the pbe earlier) would only make her more feast or famine because the issue is you can't rely on them hitting in the first place except every minute for a few seconds when she ults.

That splitpush style and her still alright teamfight is what allows current Illaoi players to find success, but it takes quite a bit of practice/knowledge and its still iffy reliability is frustrating.

All this said my analysis/thoughts may be completely wrong so there is that but as someone who loves playing Illaoi despite all of this it does pain me now and then when I realize I have to work really hard to make her viable and these are the ideas/things I've seen as I researched how to play her and what others do. Sorry for long post and thanks for anyone who read it all.

Stellafreyja5/15/2016, 6:56:57 AM8 votes

Considering her winrate has never been above 45-46% since her release, she needs a rework, which is incredibly sad for a champion that is only a few months old. It's obvious that Riot cannot and will not ever get her E right because it will either feel super oppressive or utterly useless.

Sahn Uzal5/15/2016, 10:51:52 AM7 votes

I played vs one a while ago as GP... She landed her E on me and killed my spirit, I thought to myself, shit, I messed up. So I dodged 2 tentacles and the curse was gone. Is that it? :l

Troy2426215/15/2016, 6:09:53 PM5 votes

Illaoi is binary, and either smashes or gets wrecked in lane. The worst part of it is, she has no niche to fill. She's a generic tanky damage dealer. You never join a lobby and go "Oh, you know what this team comp needs? An Illaoi."

notmebuthim5/15/2016, 1:30:05 PM4 votes

Illaoi is too easy to out play and has no real gap closer.

Teridax685/15/2016, 11:29:28 PM4 votes

Illaoi's greatest moment is when she gets to land a 5-man ult and obliterate the enemy team within the next few seconds... except that happens relatively rarely, even more so in higher-level games. Until recently, all of Illaoi's effects were designed to scale with the number of enemy champions with no diminishing returns, which meant she was (and still is) always balanced for that one situation where she also happens to be really overly strong, but is underwhelming otherwise. It's good for her niche to be that of a champion who thrives in packed, static battle arenas, but she needs to have more stable damage and healing. A potentially useful set of buffs to her could be to increase her late-game per-tentacle damage and healing, and give those effects diminishing returns (i.e. greater damage reduction per champion, lesser bonus healing per additional champion heal) to keep her at similar levels of best-case power.

I think her E is in a significantly better spot than it was before (the original 48-second Vessel effect felt more annoying than truly challenging), and I'd support shortening the effect even further, but making it significantly more concentrated. If the effect duration were reduced to something like 6 seconds but spawned a tentacle literally every second for that duration, perhaps in even shorter intervals, it could achieve its goal of creating a high-threat zone a lot better, and would do a much better job of harassing her targets from a distance.

rG Thundrag5/15/2016, 6:52:03 AM3 votes

The e change was a very harsh laning phase nerf to the E max strategy and before someone says they just kill the tentacles denying the debuf you could zone them from doing that unless they're literally under tower. However its a lot stronger in team fights I would say with the more rapid spawning tentacles.

Regulas5/16/2016, 4:00:39 AM2 votes

What she needs is more in the way of QoL changes first and foremost.

  • Her W is too slow and awkward and prone to locking up, if it was just sped up that alone would go a long way to improving her
  • Her Ult still has bugs and awkwardness with tentacle spawning
  • And Theres the problem that since W is a closer you want to use it first but then you're screwed for damage, I would make Ult a W-like dash rather then on location
  • She lacks manoeuvrability other then the limited W too, I would at minimum maybe let her W to allies/wards.
  • She lacks the ability to spawn tentacles on demand other then ult, yet the long CD and low hp of passive tents mean they can often just be killed. This makes it difficult to actually have tentacles especially since a smart opponent will just kill them and then you do nothing to them. You could do:
    • Q Spawns a tentacle which smacks target point (target like Viktor laser), it's untargetable for 2-3 seconds but if not attached to a wall disappears after this. This lets her actually create tentacles on demand and makes them less predictable and even makes her less tied to specific walls.
    • Or simpler make tentacles either spawn more rapidly, or have more hits even just 1 more would make a world of difference.
    • Or even let her toggle her passive so you can at least save the spawning for when you need it (even you could add charges)
ltmetal5/15/2016, 11:48:25 AM2 votes

Illaoi's current winrate problem is similar to release Lux. When Lux came out, she had a sub 50% winrate for quite a while due to her damage being unreliable, but as players figured out how to use/build her, she worked her way up without buffs or major meta shifts. After spending enough time on Illaoi to get to level 5 mastery, I learned how to reliably deal the most damage on my team by landing my abilities and maximizing my E windows, as well as discovering a build that enables her potential:

item 3057 item 1001 item 3071 item 3111 item 3025 item 3065 item 3053 item 3512

Last item is highly situational and can also be any of these item 3812 item 3800 item 3143 item 3742 item 3102

Auroramancer5/15/2016, 10:59:32 PM2 votes

I'm voting for buffs, mainly for her team fighting.

1.) Her W leap can be interrupted, and she loses the empowered attack + tentacle command when it is interrupted. If she doesn't lose the attack after being interrupted, it would help her greatly. 2.) Perhaps she could receive some tenacity during her ult's duration, in order to allow her damage to be reliable.

TURBO 5OOO5/15/2016, 4:41:27 PM2 votes

No, she is bad. I dont know why anyone want to play her.

BlkGolem5/15/2016, 7:12:23 PM1 votes

Aatrox in a bad spot though?

SpecterVonBaren5/15/2016, 9:23:50 PM1 votes

It really has nothing to do with the E change, she's always been in a bad spot once people figured out how to play against her. She has all of Heimerdingers weaknesses without any of his strengths. She wants to establish a one of control but she has to sit in one spot for a minute before this happens and people can just kill her tentacles before they start to collect. She has an ult that makes her king in a small area while it's up but unlike Heim she has no way to actually keep you in it. She's SUPER immobile on top of all this so she has to build tanky to even hope to get to someone but her kit SCREAMS for you to build AD on her.

And on top of all of that she has absolutely nothing unique about her. The only thing she provides a team is her E, but why bother with that when you could just take Darius and pull the actual champion to you while getting better heals in the middle of a fight without needing to prep before hand? If she scaled with AP then at least you could build Rylais on her and buy all these other health+AP items to make her tanky while dealing damage. She needs some form of CC in her kit, give her W a mini stun of .5 seconds with an internal cooldown on champions or something, she NEEDS a way to make people stop moving.

Zantumall5/15/2016, 11:23:09 PM1 votes

I think they probably can't just straight up buff her because she already just kills anyone who she gets to melee with. She's too unreliable to be strong, but if she were more reliable she'd need to do less damage. She's really unfun right now, though, for both her opponents and the person playing her - if you're not mobile or ranged she just stat-checks you out of lane but if you're mobile or ranged she's worthless. Her only teamfight contribution is to ult and hope people are too dumb to leave.

KneeSockKnight5/15/2016, 8:27:24 AM1 votes

Probably should have added more options to the poll like "Major Rework" or "Minor Rework", but it serves its purpose.

Quindec5/16/2016, 12:15:37 AM1 votes

or make her e grab someone and snares them for 1-2 sec....im thinking of hentai arent i

Frius5/16/2016, 12:55:00 AM1 votes

even death is faster than illaoi`s animations

Rand0mH3r0X5/16/2016, 5:25:26 AM1 votes

If you just started playing her, then maybe you don't know how to play her properly.

Illaoi is a mid champion not a top. If you were taking her into top lane, there was your first problem.

Illaoi can only be a counter pick, against Zed, Talon, or Yasuo or you risk having a tough lane.

A smart counter-pick to Illaoi is Malzahar or Zyra because of the constant zoning, Ranged AA, and unit collision they provide making Illaoi practically useless.

Wild Geese5/16/2016, 8:30:20 PM1 votes

Her tankiness seems off, like they've built her around this idea of a drain tank, but the drains have cooldowns and are skillshots... All other drain tanks mostly use their autoattacks, the direct approach is more effective, if you can't burst them down you can't beat them, simple. Maybe Illaoi needs stuff like bonus resistances and/or tenacity when using certain skills (No shields, because shields are so played out).

Blue Moon Wolf5/15/2016, 2:31:08 PM1 votes

Her "test of spirit" feels more like the "minor quiz of spirit" anymore. You seem to spawn like 2-3 tentacles and it's over. I know the minute long version was a pain (especially in ARAM where if she vessels you, you might as well kamikaze yourself you allies don't die as well), but why can't we find some middle ground between 1 minute and 12 seconds? I don't know, maybe 30 seconds?

Demondrike3/23/2019, 9:02:03 PM1 votes

I personally thinks she needs a gap closer. My thought was to either have her W range double straight up or increase per lvl bc right now she cant punish anyone trying to kill her tentacles,

Remlap12235/15/2016, 4:02:16 PM1 votes

Illoai is literally Urgot 2.0

She'll make your life a living hell in laning phase because of her E, and then proceed to do Jack shit in teamfights. Rito made one more win lane lose game champ.

ModKnightsKemplar5/15/2016, 5:14:34 PM1 votes

So I checked some stats, and I can agree that she's very weak. She does not need a rework yet... but I do think that Riot needs to think about what exactly her flow is in a game, both in a best case and worst case scenario. She doesn't have many fall-back patterns now that test of spirit works the way it does, and I think that's likely the biggest issue. I think in cases where she's ahead, she's probably fine.

But to get more specific, and I do not think giving her more cc and/or mobility is the answer. She is supposed to be a Juggernaut. If you give her a bunch of tools to reach the backline, you are undermining the entire point of juggernauts, and she will almost certainly be op with that kind of a change. What they need to do is figure out how to make test of spirit good from behind, and a valuable tool to her without making it crazy op. That's the goal here.

macromite5/15/2016, 6:07:56 PM1 votes

honestly, her test shouldn't even end unless you break the tentacles. it's so easy to do, it's not even confusing.