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Illaoi's W can force you to miss 1-2 waves each time it hits.

Elastoid·11/29/2015, 10:55:10 PM·2 votes·717 views

K so posit that you're playing a champion who CAN'T go toe to toe with Illaoi. This is most champions (that's the idea behind Juggernaut).

Say she lands a pull on you near a tentacle. You now have two options -- run or fight. If you fight, you die, because you can't go toe to toe with her, so you elect to run.

Now, at level 1 you take a full 25% of your health from this. That's forfeit. That's "whatever, she can take 25% with a single hit." If you can't sustain back 25% of your health, you're in a lot of trouble. But it gets worse.

We've already established that you can't go toe to toe, so you have to handle your "vessel" status before you go back to try farming, so you retreat to (or behind) turret to kill the tentacles and remove the vessel status. That takes you out of lane for a minimum of 30 seconds (to kill 3 tentacles). You can't go near HER tentacles, because they're also near HER, so you have to go find a spot, spawn your own, and take them down. So if we don't count the time it takes you to find a safe spot or the time it takes to return to lane, we have a flat 30 seconds minimum. In practice, of course, you lose closer to a minute.

One to two minion waves will spawn in that time. One pull from the ability... even if you have the sustain to NOT worry about the 25% health, the time it takes for you to be able to return to lane safely is enough to lose lane early.

Her W costs 35 mana. That's all it takes to deny you all that health and farm. I mean, sure, it takes more to actually engage, but pulling your spirit is really all she needs to do. It's not an expensive skill she needs to make decisions with, and if you back off, she can keep doing it over and over.

5 Comments

Sightless6611/29/2015, 11:13:22 PM4 votes

First, it's her E, not her W. Second, it's a minimum of about 20 seconds to break vessel status. The first tentacle spawns immediately and then you only need two more, which will spawn at 10 and 20 seconds. And how the heck are you getting "you lose closer to a minute"? That's about as silly of an exaggeration as I've heard. Third, why the hell are you retreating all the way to your turret? You just have to dodge a skillshot every 10 seconds or so. You don't have to fall that far back. That's just a huge overreaction.

And finally, you don't only have two options when she pulls your spirit with the E. All you have to do is hit her a couple times and then back off, particularly if she burns any skills at all damaging your spirit. You'll knock the duration down enough to prevent yourself from becoming a vessel without. Seriously, give it a try. It works much better than you think it will.

7ha7guy77711/29/2015, 10:56:30 PM1 votes

E

Yrzen11/30/2015, 12:41:28 AM1 votes

{quoted}

K so posit that you're playing a champion who CAN'T go toe to toe with Illaoi. This is most champions (that's the idea behind Juggernaut).

Say she lands a pull on you near a tentacle. You now have two options -- run or fight. If you fight, you die, because you can't go toe to toe with her, so you elect to run.

Now, at level 1 you take a full 25% of your health from this. That's forfeit. That's "whatever, she can take 25% with a single hit." If you can't sustain back 25% of your health, you're in a lot of trouble. But it gets worse.

We've already established that you can't go toe to toe, so you have to handle your "vessel" status before you go back to try farming, so you retreat to (or behind) turret to kill the tentacles and remove the vessel status. That takes you out of lane for a minimum of 30 seconds (to kill 3 tentacles). You can't go near HER tentacles, because they're also near HER, so you have to go find a spot, spawn your own, and take them down. So if we don't count the time it takes you to find a safe spot or the time it takes to return to lane, we have a flat 30 seconds minimum. In practice, of course, you lose closer to a minute.

One to two minion waves will spawn in that time. One pull from the ability... even if you have the sustain to NOT worry about the 25% health, the time it takes for you to be able to return to lane safely is enough to lose lane early.

Her W costs 35 mana. That's all it takes to deny you all that health and farm. I mean, sure, it takes more to actually engage, but pulling your spirit is really all she needs to do. It's not an expensive skill she needs to make decisions with, and if you back off, she can keep doing it over and over.

What Illaoi takes E at level 1?
What champ can't fight her at level 1 when they have a skill up on her? It'd have to be melee since ranged auto-attacks alone can cut down the timer she has to beat up your soul to the point where she can't take it out in time, and then all the damage she did is a moot point because your damage goes straight on her while hers is funneled through the soul. (At the same time, you have enough distance between you to stop her from engaging you)
If you are cursed, it doesn't always take a full 30 seconds to kill three tentacles, since Illaoi spawns them herself and you spawn one at the start of it. You don't need to wait all the way behind the tower, and all you need to do is rotate around a spawning tentacle to avoid it, then kill it. It's not even that big a deal for ranged characters, since her W only has a measly 350 range, but you said it's someone who can't go toe to toe with Illaoi, so we'll ignore that.
If you took a full 25% of your health from Illaoi's tentacle grab, that means she killed the spirit, since it transfers only 1/4th of the damage she does to it to you at rank 1. In that case, you haven't done a very good job at either getting away or eradicating tentacles she's set up beforehand.
Illaoi's tentacle grab can be blocked by minions. If you're ever close enough to be battered by tentacles you can't get rid of safely and you don't have minions between her and you at the same time, something's wrong.
Okay, I'm doing this just to show how ridiculous the notion is that you can't fight an Illaoi at level one if she takes your spirit: A level 1 Janna with a standard, generic AP rune page has 52 AD, 15 AP, 30 armor and .625 attack speed. Her eye of the storm would grant a 91 damage shield and 16 AD while the shield holds and is on a 10 second cooldown. She has 487 health. A level 1 Illaoi with a standard, generic AD rune page has 67 AD, 33 armor, 12 armor pen and .571 attack speed. She can't attack both the spirit and Janna, so we'll just assume she goes for Janna for maximum damage. She has 586 health.

We'll ignore items and masteries for the sake of simplicity.

Illaoi will deal 57 damage per hit. Janna will deal 51 damage per hit while her shield is active and 39 while it's not.

Janna vs Illaoi 487+91 vs 586 Janna's higher attack speed assures she has the first strike of each "round". 487+34 vs 535 464 vs 484 407 vs 445 350 vs 406 293 vs 367 In between Janna's 6th and 7th attack and in between Illaoi's 5th and 6th attack, (After Janna's 6th but before Illaoi's 6th) 10 seconds will have passed. 293 vs 328 (Shield) 293+34 vs 328 270 vs 277 213 vs 248 156 vs 209 99 vs 170 At around 18-19 seconds Janna will have completed her 12th auto before Illaoi completes her 11th without forfeiting the "first strike of each round", (Which is why it's being applied here instead of earlier, to simplify things) 99 vs 131 42 vs 92 At this point in time 20 seconds will have passed and Janna can shield again. 42+34 vs 41 Illaoi will never get to finish off the last bit of health on her shield, nor attack again after that to kill her, because Janna still gets the first strike.

Janna wins the 1v1 at point blank with no kiting at all. GG

I can't even take anything else seriously, because if it's so hard to fight her in circumstances you yourself outlined, why is the weakest champion in the game in terms of damage to champions able to 1v1 her with a completely normal skill order?

crazydanddgnat11/30/2015, 1:43:53 AM1 votes

It's a blitz or thresh hook, or a morg q.

You would have the exact same trouble with any of those (possibly more).