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So, uh, why is Illaoi AD again?

Holy Malevolence·12/1/2015, 4:04:37 PM·4 votes·3,415 views

If I recall correctly there were three reasons given by Riot. None of which made sense.

The first is that "They wanted a champion who used magic in a physical way." By my recollection, however, getting your soul ripped out and getting hit by etherial tentacles isn't exactly a physical process. Like, at all. And if you wanted a champion that mixed the physical and the magical almost as if a hybrid...... Why not make her hybrid?

The second was they didn't want to add autoattack modifiers to make her autoattacks feel useful. But then.... Considering that , without CDR, her Q is on a six second cooldown and her W is on a four second cooldown, why does she need to be using autoattacks? Is there any reason for her to be autoattacking outside of the fact that her W is technically an autoattack? I can't see a single reason with her kit why she would ever need to boost her autoattack damage. Especially considering that passive.

And the third was that, as she was being developed in tandem with the juggernaut update, they wanted to align her with that. Which strikes me as particularly eggregious. Considering that juggernauts are champions who are defined A) By their melee nature. B) By their lack of mobility.

Illaoi happens to have both an eight hundred range harassment tool and a four second cooldown gapcloser. Bruiser? Sure. Something akin to Garen/Skarner/Morde/Darius? Huh?

Plus that isn't even a reason. So you wanted to make her a tanky damage dealer? Morde seems to pull that off perfectly well with hybrid scaling. Why couldn't Illaoi?

Did you fear that, if given the option to build AP, she wouldn't look first and foremost to the new bruiser items you were pushing or something? 'Cause if so, that's an absolute crap reason. You should make champions with the stats that they'd work best with. If they're ability focused and have absolutely no reason to be autoattacking at length, m'thinks you shouldn't be making them AD.

........

But you have a history of doing that. The question first and foremost is why is Illaoi AD. But beyond that, why are so many champions who have absolutely no business being AD entirely AD? From what I can tell it has caused nothing but problems to make them that way.

51 Comments

Ralanr12/1/2015, 4:58:07 PM4 votes

Do you want Illaoi to be viable with item 3116? DO YOU?!

Variks the Loyal12/1/2015, 4:13:57 PM4 votes

There's little magic 'feel' involved in being smacked by Illaoi's tentacles.

When Annie fire hits you, it burns. When Anivia ice hits you, it's freezing. When Ryze magic hits you, it's shocking.

When Illaoi tentacles hit you, it's like you're being hit by the concussive force of a giant monster tentacle. Not an ethereal spell that sucks your vitality Karthus. Not an explosive charge that sears at your skin Ziggs. Not a flash of light that burns your skin away Lux.

It's literally a giant tentacle punching you in the face. Nothing special feeling about it.

MisterHealYoGirl12/1/2015, 4:50:00 PM4 votes

I mean, Pantheon doesn't autoattack much, and he scales with AD. GP is a hybrid, but nobody builds AP GP seriously.

Illaoi's magic IS inherently physical; she's using magic to get Nagakabouros to lay a very physical beatdown on her opponents. The goal is that Illaoi is right in the thick of things, smashing crap, and if she had AP scaling, she'd have no reason to get in there with her autos.

The second reason was sort of explained above; they want her to be in the middle of a fight, handing out autos like candy. That's why they considered making her AP and giving her a bunch of incentives to autoattack in her kit. However, they ultimately decided that just making her scale with AD would be better.

Her harass is better than most juggernauts, sure, but it's also very easy to dodge, especially once you have boots. Her W isn't really a gap closer; it jumps you, sure, but it only lets you do that if you're already very close to someone and running faster than they are.

There really aren't AP juggernaut items, honestly. item 3111 item 3071 item 3742 item 3022 item 3053 item 3065 gives Illaoi 2550 HP, 95 MR, 50 armor, 130 AD, and 30% CDR.

The closest AP build, item 3111 item 3027 item 3001 item 3116 item 3110 item 3151 gives 1200 HP, 95 MR, 90 armor, 370 AP, and 20% CDR.

You get more armor, sure, but less than half the HP. If you swap the Frozen Heart out for a Randuins or something, you bump up to 1650 HP, but drops 30 armor and all the CDR. AP usually goes at about a 2:1 ratio to AD in the lategame (ADCs end the game with about 500 AD, APCs end with about 1000 AP), so you are getting a bargain, on that end, but since you're so much squishier, you're probably going to die fairly rapidly.

Beldair12/1/2015, 4:07:55 PM2 votes

I've heard a lot of ppl say she needs a bit of a nerf, either with her damage or her mobility (since she can even keep up with a lot of the squishy champs)

Meep Man12/1/2015, 11:29:25 PM1 votes

Well, I mean, its not like Ziggs being AP makes sense by that logic either. Bombs dont exactly hurt the soul.

Asayake 5150glow12/1/2015, 11:31:43 PM1 votes

[{quoted}](name=Holy Malevolence,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=QVbYAG7h,comment-id=,timestamp=2015-12-01T16:04:37.768+0000) The second was they didn't want to add autoattack modifiers to make her autoattacks feel useful. But then.... Considering that , without CDR, her Q is on a six second cooldown and her W is on a four second cooldown, why does she need to be using autoattacks? Is there any reason for her to be autoattacking outside of the fact that her W is technically an autoattack? I can't see a single reason with her kit why she would ever need to boost her autoattack damage. Especially considering that passive.

BWAHAHAHHAHAHAHAAHHAHAA. W is an auto attack enhancer + reset. Wth are they talking about? And if her autos aren't meant to be strong, why does she have some of the highest base AD in the game?

{quoted}

I mean, Pantheon doesn't autoattack much, and he scales with AD. GP is a hybrid, but nobody builds AP GP seriously.

Illaoi's magic IS inherently physical; she's using magic to get Nagakabouros to lay a very physical beatdown on her opponents. The goal is that Illaoi is right in the thick of things, smashing crap, and if she had AP scaling, she'd have no reason to get in there with her autos.

The second reason was sort of explained above; they want her to be in the middle of a fight, handing out autos like candy. That's why they considered making her AP and giving her a bunch of incentives to autoattack in her kit. However, they ultimately decided that just making her scale with AD would be better.

Her harass is better than most juggernauts, sure, but it's also very easy to dodge, especially once you have boots. Her W isn't really a gap closer; it jumps you, sure, but it only lets you do that if you're already very close to someone and running faster than they are.

There really aren't AP juggernaut items, honestly. item 3111 item 3071 item 3742 item 3022 item 3053 item 3065 gives Illaoi 2550 HP, 95 MR, 50 armor, 130 AD, and 30% CDR.

The closest AP build, item 3111 item 3027 item 3001 item 3116 item 3110 item 3151 gives 1200 HP, 95 MR, 90 armor, 370 AP, and 20% CDR.

You get more armor, sure, but less than half the HP. If you swap the Frozen Heart out for a Randuins or something, you bump up to 1650 HP, but drops 30 armor and all the CDR. AP usually goes at about a 2:1 ratio to AD in the lategame (ADCs end the game with about 500 AD, APCs end with about 1000 AP), so you are getting a bargain, on that end, but since you're so much squishier, you're probably going to die fairly rapidly.

Fun fact: That AD build? It's enough to get her to 300 AD if Sterak's procs. Her base AD is super high, so Steraks gives ~70 AD at lvl 18. Oh? And btw... does 300 AD, >4000 life, ~100 Armor, and >100 MR with huge base AD scalings sound fair? (as well as massive AOE)

EcchiOtakuTM12/2/2015, 2:42:57 AM1 votes

http://boards.na.leagueoflegends.com/en/c/gameplay-balance/16saqRzt-riot-illaoi

That's how I feel about it.

goodiesohhi5/11/2017, 1:30:46 AM1 votes

I hate to necro but as Illaoi being one of my mains :P.. This thread triggered me.

[{quoted}](name=Holy Malevolence,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=QVbYAG7h,comment-id=000800000000000000000000,timestamp=2015-12-02T15:41:31.276+0000) The second was they didn't want to add autoattack modifiers to make her autoattacks feel useful. But then.... Considering that , >without CDR, her Q > is on a six second cooldown and her W is on a four second cooldown, why does she need to be using autoattacks? Is there any reason for her to be autoattacking outside of the fact that her W is technically an autoattack? I can't see a single reason with her kit why she would ever need to boost her autoattack damage. Especially considering that passive.

Considering her w's extremely low cooldown and the fact that it's the only way to consistently command tentacles, her w is basically a replacement for her normal autos. If you don't auto as Illaoi, you're doing something wrong. She's super mana hungry early game. To the point that you basically only q early game if you can last hit hit at least 5 minions and your enemy laner with it. I find that I probably w more than I q. Everytime I w.... That's an auto.. Wow, mechanics? Saying that since she has an empowered auto with low cooldown means she doesn't auto is a pretty stupid conclusion. Do you even play her?

Puynsi12/1/2015, 4:43:15 PM1 votes

Because if she was AP her tentacles would scale with her AP and instead of chunking you for 1/4 of your health bar they would just outright kill you.

Lovely Pants12/1/2015, 5:19:49 PM1 votes

Forgetting all the thematic arguments, and strictly looking at balance in theory...

Making a champion AD based is making the decision that you want at least some of their power budget more invested in autoattacks, though, even if it's just the occasional pop intermingled with low-cooldown spells like any AD caster experiences. I'm pretty sure Riot has stated that they do want Illaoi to have business pummeling you in the face. They want her to have a sustained, carry-like power curve. Sticking a mess of magical scaling on to achieve that effect doesn't strike me as inherently a better kit for balancing. It often means they are forever an outlier in need of being specifically tuned when they can more easily access a broad spectrum of items to optimize their needs.

A champion being AD ideally is with the forethought that you would rather the champion have access to the kinds of damage application options available to AD champions, rather than the variety of different utility options which are allowed to synergize more with champions that benefit from a little AP.

Kazaashi12/1/2015, 6:35:03 PM1 votes

I pretty much look at it like this:

Illaoi only summons the tentacles of her God, she doesn't augment them by increasing her own magical power, she actually doesn't have any, she gets it by channeling her God.

Because it is not her personal magic that summons them, but her devotion to her God, her devotion to the faith is what determines thier strength. Since her faith is at least partly based on strength of spirit and hardiness, it would make sense that items that make her stronger and brawnier would create a stronger connection with her God, therefore making the Tentacle attacks and Soul Steal more effective. These items are, conveniently enough, AD and Juggernaut items.