The Illaoi Changes

Hello Fellow Summoners,

I usually don't make posts like these (or any at all, really), but I've been looking at the changes that were made to Illaoi, and it seems like the Test of Spirit is now almost not worth the mana cost at early-mid levels. I've only played a couple of games, and I'm planning on playing more to see if that holds up, but so far my prediction has come true, and it's a little heartbreaking :/.

I've found that most enemies will just walk away because the consequences are so sort lived that it makes more sense to just leave for 10 seconds and walk back in, than actually fight and get slapped by tentacles. It was hard enough in the first few levels to actually kill the spirit, so if they did walk away before the changes, it was a decent wait for them to avoid tentacles, or risk going in. If they did enter, they'd have to avoid the tentacles that already existed slapping them. Of the couple games I've played, none of the spirited players's debuff ever lasted long enough to come into contact with any of the pre-existing ones. On top of that, the spawn range is so small, that if they wait for one to attack, they can just stand near it and nothing else will spawn.

If the summoning was quicker after the walk-away, then it might be alright because maybe the first tentacle will get them while they are still slowed, but it doesn't, and it doesn't help the ult at all, because even if you kill it in a team fight, it's so easy to dodge 2-4 tentacles in that short period that there is no benefit for illaoi or her party to kill it anymore.

I know that one of the justifications for it was being able to grab someone just before a team fight so that there would be tentacles up, but I never used it like that, and still can't because the effect is so short. I used to use it as a softener for tanks, or anyone else unlucky enough to be grabbed (grab a guy, weaken him, so he's down 60% health before the fight). While it's still possible to grab someone and do that... they just walk directly away because there is little to no consequence to doing so.

I think there are several ways to maybe make her more competitive, or give the ability some of it's power back (maybe increase the attack speed on the tentacles spawned specifically by it, so they can't dodge once and be good for the whole ability, give them a reason to actually kill it). I'm not sure how easy it is to code anything, so idk what is and isn't possible, but as she was becoming one of my favorite champions to play (because who doesn't love slapping people with TENTACLES!), I'm really sad that she is now even worse than she was.

TL;DR:

-Debuff is too short to do anything effective, and the spawn range on Tentacles is so short that early on, you'll be lucky to get more than 1 tentacle out. -Enemies would rather just walk away and take the slow and mild inconvenience than fight you for it, as the debuff hardly affects them. -Something needs to change for it to be even useful during laning phase, as opposed to just using q over and over. -Using it before a team fight to gain tentacles doesn't really help much either, as the debuff is so short it's over before you can really get into a decent teamfight, and they've killed those tentacles, or just run from them.

Please try and do something to fix her back to something more useable, with you already having to be in the middle of all of their team, with 0 great initiates, it really sucks to have the laning phase also hurt so much.

Thanks for reading,

-BloodLordVorath