Lets Talk Illaoi (LONG)

Illaoi is my go to top laner and one of my favorite champs because of 3 reasons.

1. it is extremely fun to slap people with tentacles especially when u get a >3 man ult
2. it allows me to make tentacle porn jokes in game
3. Her dance emote spam is honestly the best thing ever (if you haven't tried it you wont regret it i promise) all this is well and good but Illaoi is honestly so frustrating to play as and according to most people and her ban rate frustrating to play against.

I want to address the frustrations of playing as Illaoi. I don't feel qualified to speak on playing against her as i mostly play her not against her .

Illaoi suffers from what i would like to term "Kogmaw Syndrome" What this means is that in the perfect scenario Illaoi will completely obliterate the entire team but this perfect scenario is so hard to reach that leaves the champion just feeling weak otherwise. The perfect scenario would be a 6 man ult (soul extra) with one person already a vessel. Now if you've played Illaoi you know this happens like 1/1000 times. Illaoi takes so long to set up for all this that about 5/10 times you are already at 10%hp or dead by the time you manage to ult. Her e animation is so long couple that with her ult animation which is also takes about a second then the extra half a second or so for the tentacles to actually slap down all while being forced to stand in the same position to be hit by every skill shot, cc and attack that the enemy can throw at you while not really being that tanky is just the most frustrating thing. i cannot count the amount of times i have gotten a great ult off just to die before i can even hit my w key. Before you even get to teamfighting you have to get through lane phase. There are so many videos out there of illaois double killing the jungler and top laner that i think people have gotten the idea that illaoi is strong in lane. Illaoi does not become an actual league of legends champion till level 6 when she gets her ult. her cooldowns are so high that in any engagement she basically uses her q which is so easy to doge if you are close to her and her w which starts at a 6 second cooldown. what this means is that Illaoi can basically not do anything tangible except poke with q until lvl 3. If you take W lvl 2 then you cant really hope to win a trade unless they get hit by both your w tentacles and your q which is pretty hard with how slow moving they are. I personally take E lvl 2 and allow myself to be pushed in early so i can grab their soul under turret because there's no way i'm killing a full health soul at lvl 2 by myself without w. i don't want to go in depth here maybe in another thread with tips on her if anyone wants it.

Second thing and i think this is something rioters would actually care about is that there is absolutely no real reason to pick illaoi over other champions. The main thing that leads to this is the fact that Illaoi has next to 0 real utility she is all damage. This wouldn't be a problem but her damage is so unreliable that it does not make up for her lack of utility. Lets look at her in comparison to other juggernauts. Darius straight up beats her in a 1v1 I've tried it numerous times, And yet Darius out-teamfights her due to his passive stacking black cleaver and his passive giving him absurd amounts of ad and his 1000 true damage ult that he can use multiple times. He also isn't that kite-able due to black cleaver, and deadmans plate. Garen is super tanky so he doesnt actually care about being hit he has a speed up to reach his targets and can silence you into his full combo which will almost certainly kill you if you are squishy and lets not even talk about if you made the mistake of doing really well and becoming the villain. Im not going to use skarner because they suffer the exact same problems and as such are both pretty weak. The tldr of this part is that illaoi has no compensation for not having any utility in her kit and her damage isn't that much better than people who do have utility when they also have reliable ways of dealing damage.

Now lets get to honestly for me the most frustrating part about her kit which is also the main point of her kit, Her tentacles. Their so goddamn slow. I don't think her tentacles need to be like Veigars q which is as close to a targeted skill as a skill shot gets but come on. their so easy to dodge. I understand you made them slow because they deal a lot of damage but the fact remains unless you're getting hit by multiple tentacles the damage isn't that much. and when their multiple tentacles their basically impossible to dodge anyway without a dash or blink. With no boots You can still spam laugh then walk out of the range before it hits. Not only does it show you where its going to hit so you can walk out of it, it has that whole tentacle spawning animation which basically says time to start moving i'm coming for your booty in like 2 seconds how much warning does one need. its virtually impossible to get hit by a single tentacle if you even remotely know what illaoi does. You think getting turned to a vessel is frustrating. It is more frustrating for the illaoi player. After you play illaoi you start learning some tricks on how to best use her e but that's for another thread id be happy to. When you hit her e you pull out their soul. Note that hitting your e without damaging the spirit doesn't even grant an assist so if they die before you get to hit it no assist. There have been many threads stating when illaoi pulls your soul you should fight her to reduce the duration. please keep doing this so i can keep my wins up. unless you can outright kill her which a lot of people actually can the best option is to simply walk out of range. This mostly applies to lane phase because if you get hit it by her e late game you're screwed end of story. In lane e is maxed either second or third. Which means for a majority of lane pre 6 it is on a whopping 20 second cooldown . and only transfers 25% of the damage which shouldn't be that much if you get out of the zone quick. When you walk out of the zone illaoi just gave you gold basically cause its pretty hard to get hit by the tentacle. its outright harder to get hit by the tentacle than to dodge it. you can basically dodge it by mistake just by walking. I've seen people dodge it even when they only realize its coming mid animation. yet they still dodge it. The frustration only goes up for the Illaoi player if the opponent has any form of dash or speed up ( pls nerf fiora). I get what the aim was for the vessel mechanic but its just frustrating for both players. The only time it feels good to have a vessel is if you get ganked while your opposing laner is a vessel which shouldn't happen if anyone is smart. Basically the only real use of her e till far into the midgame is to get an extra tentacle for your ult apart from that until late game the damage transfer isnt' that strong because most people will walk out of it. if illaoi was tankier it would make sense but as it is you really don't want to be the first person in the frontline as illaoi because unlike other tanks and bruisers cc renders you absolutely useless you already have such a long setup time that adding any more time to that kills you. I dodge more things when playing illaoi then other champs just because that stray howling gale completely screws you over. Because of this you cant really use your e as an offensive tool because it puts you at risk not to mention if any key spells are wasted on the soul the opponent can use the window to engage if they are smart.

I don't think its right to complain without saying the good parts. So the fact remains Illaoi's damage in a perfect scenario when you hit anything is absolutely disgusting. Sometimes even i am surprised by how much damage she does. Most people build iceborn gauntlet and black cleaver which is cool and all but i have taken to abusing Illaois absurd base ad. I go trinity force into steraks gage into full tank preferably with spirit visage as first defensive item. I know people will say you have to build her tanky but the fact remains illaoi is just not a good tank especially early in the game. if you want a tank pick one. Another thing people will say is illaoi does not use crit chance. I understand but when you w and crit for 600 damage comeback and tell me how its not useful. thanks to the way crits work this is basically guaranteed to happen AND IT WILL BLOW YOU AWAY. Illaoi was supposed to be a sustained fighter with her heal but as of right now she is a burst champion because know one will stay in your ult zone past 2 seconds after. so you have to maximize your slaps in this short time . Her ult coupled with flash is downright amazing if you play it right you can instantly delete a squishy with an ult and a w. if you go tank then the other team simply walks round you then kills everyone else while you continue to do mediocre damages.

Proposed Solutions Im Just going to spitball a some suggestions to get a discussion started note: i am not asking for all of these at the same time they are all suggestions to pick from

1. Increase the speed of her tentacles. Not to fast but not as slow as they currently are
2. Instead of making her spawn tentacles on a wall let them spawn ult tentacles that dissapear after striking but reduce the duration of vessel status to like 20 or 30 seconds, previously spawned tentacles still attempt to strike at vessels once if they get in range and are vessels.
3. Make another way to spawn tentacles because right now if you are not near a tentacle and get caught especially if your ult is down sit back and enjoy your grey screen.
4. give her some form of tankiness when she ults. I mean shes basically punished for using her e q and ult by standing in place for extended periods of time at least let her do something afterwards not just die before the tentacles even reach the ground

TLDR: Pls help Tentacle women she has so much potential but its being wasted because of her perfect scenario same way skarner is being kept weak because he can be a monster in his zones.

Thank you for reading Hail Nagakabouros

p.s i apologies for the wall of text and any grammar errors i just have been playing more of her and felt something needed to be said if anyone wants to hear about how i play illaoi I'd be happy to answer. ^_^