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What is Illaoi's "Strategic Identity"?

GuiltyGecko·4/27/2016, 9:24:33 PM·11 votes·6,131 views

Before mains kill me, let me explain myself. If you remember posts like this and this by Riot, they give design values for champions and League. One of the design values that I think is the most important is Strategic diversity. What is Illaoi's niche? What does Illaoi do that no other champion in the league can do? Some might say "Tentacles!", but you don't pick Illaoi for that strategically. You pick because you want hard engage, and maybe an armor stacking tank. You pick because you want a global shield. You pick to shred tanks.

You pick Illaoi to...just do damage? With Tentacles? That's all she brings really. She just brings damage. She doesn't bring any real CC, or engage. Just damage. If all you bring is damage, then you aren't useful unless you're doing the top damage in your class (unless you're an ADC...). Think about it like this. was played because of his crazy damage until he got nerfed. did crazy damage, then got nerfed. I feel like if Illaoi ever sees serious play, it will ONLY be due to the fact that she's just the best damage choice at the time. Then, once she gets nerfed, she will no longer bring anything unique to the table, and just go back into obscurity. Honestly, I'm not sure how she made it out onto live without having a more strategically unique and useful set of mechanics.

Don't get me wrong, I think Illaoi is fun, but there's never really a good reason to pick her besides "I feel like playing her." I never look at a team comp and say "Ya, this could use an Illaoi." There's just better options for any STRATEGIC reasons you could think of to pick her.

50 Comments

RiotZenonTheStoic4/28/2016, 1:10:06 AM21 votes

Illaoi is a Juggernaut who thrives if she can set up an area pre-teamfight (by seeding it with tentacles) and who punishes the enemy team for clumping more than the typical Juggernaut does. Secondarily, she has a spell that gives your team access to an enemy's healthbar when they normally wouldn't (damage proxying through spirits). My personal feeling is we landed too hard on the first goal and fell victim to a design pattern I like to call "balancing for infinity". That is: by allowing her ult to scale aggressively with number of enemies hit, we made a nigh-unbalanceable high case (Illaoi hits all five enemies with her R and continues to tentacle-smash them into oblivion) that happens maybe once every 10 games, and which requires us to balance in such a way that anything but that high case doesn't feel particularly good.

Secondarily I've always wanted Illaoi to be more about her test of spirit E. I pitched a version where spirit damage can kill the host (spirits would always have a certain minimum hp, and if the host was under that number then killing the spirit would kill the host) and where some form of CC is propagated along the spirit link (we'd detect incoming soft/hard CC on the spirit and then apply corresponding generic slows/stuns with, say, 50-90% of the original duration to the host; so if the spirit got knocked up for 1s, we'd stun the host for .5s). This is rework-scope though, and there's a good chance I'd try it and find it's awful in the very first playtest.

Let's see how her shorter vessel state change does and then reassess! Illaoi is near and dear to my heart and I'd love for her to be in a better spot.

ModWulf Helhammer4/27/2016, 9:44:06 PM5 votes

Teamfight juggernaut. Illaoi will completely destroy a team with her ult.

Garen is a diving juggernaut. He pushes through the front line to get to the squishies and take them down.

Darius is a ramping juggernaut. He's made to get pentakills

Skarner is objective control

Mordekasier just for tons of damage (may be wrong on this one)

Zero Skill Tank4/27/2016, 9:33:51 PM3 votes

I feel like Illaoi is meant as this unstoppable objective control juggernaut - once she sets up her zone of control near sieged tower or Nashor's pit as he is about to spawn, she is almost impossible to remove from there. Kind of like Juggernaut version of Heimerdinger.

But she has many game health problems, i.e. intended counterplay to Test of Spirit doesn't really work, once she hit you, you lost the lane, period. And that makes Riot keep her in her weak state. Not the amount of damage she deals.

Asyde4/28/2016, 12:45:49 AM2 votes

Illaoi was designed to be the ultimate "set-up for teamfight" or "terrain-advantage" champion. When a big teamfight errupts (and they're all bunched together, Illaoi can pretty much 1v5 everyone.

I think RIOT had Baron/Dragon bait 5v5 fights in mind when they made her. Get there there, set up some tentacles and when the enemy tries to stop you you blow their shit up.

Her ultimate team fighting power was countered by a lack of CC and mobility. Which, when played primarily in the top lane left her with limited options to deal with high-mobility/CC champs.

She's actually a very strong champ, which does very significant damage. She just has almost no ability to stick to anyone and is easily kited.

Zok724/28/2016, 6:05:04 AM2 votes

To some extent it seems to me that Illaoi is to other juggernauts (darius and garen for example) as Azir is to marksmen. She does what they do to an individual and applies it in an area. Unfortunately, marksman strengths scale well with multiple opponents because of the mobility they are often afforded as a class allows them access to more targets. Conversely, juggernauts scale poorly with number of opponents because they only can damage accessible targets and multiple opponents are rarely simultaneously accessible.

Narasimha4/28/2016, 12:26:31 AM2 votes

She's the tanky AD version of Heimerdinger. Think of her that way.

Twitch Chat4/27/2016, 10:31:21 PM2 votes

Counter engage I guess. She just likes fighting a lot of people at once in melee range but doesn't have any way of getting to her targets to do so or any way of keeping them there. Even though her kit doesn't really look like it has anything to do with split pushing I've seen a lot of illaois do it simply because it's the only way to make people come to you. She's also got some vague sense of zone control that doesn't really ever pan out because tentacles are picky in choosing their location and die in 2 hits.

Garbage is the only description that accurately fits illaoi right now I feel.

Quepha4/27/2016, 9:29:38 PM2 votes

Her E allows carries to deal uninterrupted damage on an enemy while remaining safe.

Her tentacle spawning makes her grow more dangerous as the teams remain stagnant in an area, usually dancing around an objective, allowing her team to specialize in slow pushes or defense from sieges.

It does all come down to 'damage' on her, but the damage shows up in certain situations that she require set up and have counterplay, so it can be balanced around being the most damage in these specific instances.

Chatillon4/28/2016, 4:13:06 PM1 votes

I think the best way to balance illaoi is if anyone gets hit by her ult they must play the release minigame and if they fail one challenge they die.

Sounds fair to me

Tentacle Love4/28/2016, 5:55:38 PM1 votes

{quoted}

You pick Illaoi to...just do damage? With Tentacles?

Why yes. ;)

angery pout4/28/2016, 10:35:34 PM1 votes

Illaoi is like Aatrox and Kalista. She was designed during the juggernaut hype and was influenced heavily by the ideals of the reworks. She was beefy and high damage with little CC or mobility. Just like how Aatrox was designed when split pushing and the ability to endlessly sustain yourself between duels was the ideal for top lane and Kalista was designed when mobility and kiting through fights was a popular concept. Honestly I like Aatrox a lot, but he's doomed to be obscure until another split push meta comes around. And there are better split pushers for solo queue like Tryndamere. The same happened to Illaoi, especially since juggernauts without true damage in their kits struggle vs tanks.

Kalista is the only one who's not doomed to be obscure outside of favorable meta just because of her playmaking potential as an ADC and her potential to secure objectives (plus utility and stacking rend.) She's the ADC version of Thresh.

ReZisT Lust4/30/2016, 6:47:30 AM1 votes

i play illaoi in the mid lane so i can get the easy all around tentacles and it shuts down mages if played correctly also good freeze potentially

JayHog19924/27/2016, 9:36:22 PM1 votes

Honestly, I think Illaoi 's design was almost like Teemo 's. Where they take advantage of the enemy's lack of knowledge of the skills.

You'd be surprised how many times I got a kill because some guy's soul I pulled 20 seconds ago died under their own turret.

And you don't know the frustation of having to explain to someone how does the vessel debuff works and how to get rid of it.

And not to mention that if you think she's a free kill and group... A good ult from her will prove you wrong.

Partholonian4/27/2016, 11:19:03 PM1 votes

I think the point of Illaoi is that once she sets up tentacles somewhere, the enemy team REALLY doesn't want to try to push her out of there with anything remotely resembling equal force. But you really have to know at least a minute in advance where you're going to want to fight, which is hard.

MrLlamaWaffle4/28/2016, 1:21:01 AM1 votes

Thematically, one would think that a champion with a bunch of tentacles would be a bit more about CC

Unstoppable Monk4/28/2016, 1:28:14 AM1 votes

Illaoi is one of those champions that is best used as the ONE TRUE YOLOSWAG MASTER.

LadyRenly4/28/2016, 1:48:30 AM1 votes

the main reason i dont like illaoi is that all the squishy yolo carries expect me to be the initiator, when in truth illaoi is the follow up

CasterGilgamesh4/28/2016, 2:37:47 AM1 votes

[deleted]

Spoofghoul4/28/2016, 11:08:01 AM1 votes

Illaoi's niche is that like darius she is incredibly hard to 1v1 and lane against.

And has the ptotential to wreck her opponents in a teamfight just like darius.

Except she has more zoning power & aoe damage. Darius needs to work towards his noxian might apply hemorrhage to his enemies and dunk them to pieces. Illoai can do different things, for starters she isnt dependant on stacking up stacks to reach a high moment, her ult can do that for her instantly. She also has the test of spirit which allows you to deal good damage to one of the carries if they get caught.

But like all other juggernauts she is easy to engage from or engage on. Typically you do not really want to engage on a juggernaut. So she is good as a zoning tool vs hard engage because of her ability to face block it with her team behind her and then just healing up during the fight.

If you didnt pick her into something like an annie or malphite. The consider picking some of these hard engage in your team. Add something like a nautilus or alistar in there aswell. Have your APC pickup a rylais. And see if you can get an ADC with some cc too.

Illaoi just like Nasus and Darius actually requires a teamcomp built around them for maximum potential.

Just think of it this way, everyone knows the good old juggermaw comp where its pretty much 1-2 tanks and 2-3 supports protecting and buffing up kogmaw. Making sure nobody can actually kill him through shielding healing and peeling and then just roll over your opponents.

With these juggernauts its sort of the opposite situation where you need hard engage and lockdown on your team to prevent disengage and kiting.

And that is where i think the biggest designflaw is in Illaoi and most other juggernauts. They pretty much only work in the toplane, facing other melee's and fighters. Ranged champions like adc/mages tend to shut them down i laning fase when they are still low level with no items. They also aren't very good junglers, except for skarner, who also happens to not share many of their weaknesses, hes fast and has his own cc so he is pretty much the only juggernaut who doesnt require a team setup and fight setup. And then the juggs force their other lanes into cc heavy champions.

But anyway this is what a teamcomp with a juggernaut should look like alot of lockdown and hard engage tools.

TOP Illaoi JUNGLE JarvanIV MID Lissandra ADC Sivir SUPPORT Alistar