I need tips on how to play Illaoi in ARAM. I can't even use my ult, because I die in 2 seconds. (Not an exaggeration, this literally happens every time. I would get a good snowball, jump to the middle of the enemy team, ult and die instantly)
[sg-lux-2]
What should I do differently?
I mean I know that ARAM reduces ranged damage.. and Illaoi is like a ranged bruiser ..
PB4UAME6 votesSo much of the advice here is honestly pretty terrible. The comment going over what abilities do wasn't even correct FFS.
With Illaoi, you need to understand that your combos and abilities all take a ton of time to go off, more so than literally any other champion in the entire game. Your E will self CC you for over a second, your Q, and any tentacle slams all take an entire second before the slam does damage. As a result, simply E->Q will take a little over 2 full seconds to finish. The ideal combo however is E->W, move to cancel the wind-down of the auto->Q which takes 2.25-2.5 seconds to complete. IF you have your ult up, and there are multiple other foes in range, its instead E->R->W->Q, which will take almost 3 full seconds to complete, but will cause all of your tentacles to slam the spirit 2 full times, plus your Q, at which point your W will be almost off coolldown again for another full slam, at which point your spirit will direct another slam for a fourth slam in about 4 seconds of time, of which all 4 slams happened in the latter 2 seconds of said 4 second interval.
Now, understanding this combo, how much time it takes, and when the damage goes off is very important. Since there is a slam going off roughly every half second in the latter phase, your healing based on %missing HP will be MASSIVE. Unless ignited or inflicted with grievous wounds, if you can survive the first 2-3 seconds, your healing will keep you going for the next 2 seconds, at which point whomever was standing in your ult is likely dead, and other people will have backed off.
So, what you need to focus on then, is surviving for the initial portion of that, such that you can get off your fantastic AoE teamfight damage, and can keep yourself alive with your % missing HP sustain. Illaoi's kit doesn't have the tools to deal with the hyper burst META so unfortunately, you need items to bail you out. The AD, HP, CDR, and passive of 
or 
make them your go to first item; the former if even or behind, and the latter if ahead. However, they won't provide enough defenses by themselves, so you'll need another more defensive second item, (along with finishing your base boots into either 
if they are CC heavy, or 
if they are AD/AA heavy). What I have found to be singularly useful for a variety of reasons is 
as a second item. Firstly, you have utterly massive base AD which scales into your tentacle, Q, and W damage, as well as increasing the % of damage dealt to spirits that their owner will take, so Sterak's provides a sizable damage buff to every ability but your ult, which is never used for its burst damage anyway. Secondly, it increases your max HP by a good amount, increasing how much you'll heal for at the same HP %, and making you harder to burst; however, most importantly, it provides a massive fuck-off shield which you should be able to time for your massive 4 second combo. This shield alone can be the difference between dying just as you ult, vs surviving the whole combo, and doubling the slam damage. Additionally, its a shield, so your HP will stay at a very low state while its blocking damage, thus ensuring you heal massively from your % missing HP heal for each slam you can get off. Furthermore, it provides a good chunk of tenacity which, when in conjunction with runes and or merc treads, will enable you to shrug off interrupts to your combo.
For a third item, the damage, CDR, passive delay of damage taken, and the extra healing from all physical damage makes 
an absurdly powerful Illaoi item. It doesn't provide near as much defense and especially burst defense as Sterak's though, so be sure to pick up before you go DD.
One other thing is that because you self CC yourself for so long to initiate the teamfight combo, its very useful to first kill a spirit so they have to deal with tentacle disruption in their back line, or better yet, wait for a tank champion to initiate and CC your opponents, then follow up with your E->R->W->Q combo. This will help keep you from being CCed and focused down yourself while you get your lengthy combos and set up off for maximum damage.
Finally, one last note is that you are immune to displacement CCs/effects during the cast time of your ult. This can be especially useful vs some champions to ensure your combo is not interrupted before you can get your tentacles slamming to regen your HP while otherwise CCed.
Anaspida2 votesMore than anything, even though it's an pretty good post, she's really comp dependant. If you fight against 5 mages/ad ranged, you're most likely feel useless for most of the game, except perhaps at being a meat shield for your people, in the other hand, the more frontliners there is, the better she becomes, often just 1 big tank is enough to enable you.
I remember a game where all I would do was to run to sion, e and ult him, and everytime they engaged they would be without their initiator after 10 seconds. Ended up with 15k damage done solely with conqueror
I also think conqueror is absolutly bonkers when you're able to pull off your ult without too much displacement and running away, but when you can't, you're basically playing without a key rune.
She's really a miss or hit champion, either it works amazingly, either it's a monstrous failure.
(That reminds me Aatrox btw, but I think he's in a much weirder spot when it comes to random drafts.)
PB4UAME1 votesShe's both played best when you have a tanky initiator and hard CC dispenser on your team, and when the enemy has multiple melee frontliners, as she is very much designed with front to back teamfights in mind, and performs best in those sorts of engagements. She, while bulky, also lacks the defensive steroids and CC (especially hard CC) necessary to perform the role of a tank, or to be your only frontliner. That said, a support Alistar or Naut is all you really need, let alone a jungle tank.
Pyrosan3 votesNot much you can do really, Illaoi usually relies on the game stalling out quite a bit before she can have teamfight presence
Cleaver into randurins if they're AA AD based Cleaver into spirit visage if they're ranged based
You just want to tank out rather than bruiser build as that's the only way to survive
7thHeaven1 votesI build bruiser Illaoi
or
Pyrosan2 votesI build bruiser Illaoi
frozen gauntlet/titanic you wanna swap out for sure they aren't good with illaoi (they'd be niche situations where they are good)
DD is a great buy for ill tho
Anaspida2 votesI build bruiser Illaoi
given builds are the absolute worst. especially since she has so many options, outside of death's dance that you often ends up building, because it's just almost always great. (Same with black cleaver, since you'll get instantly 5 stacks with 1 w after ult, meaning it's probably the biggest damage item you could give her at any point of the game.)
Gauntlet for example is pretty niche, it's amazing against AD, it's amazing against people who tries to run away from your ult, but it's not worth running it if you don't need the armor, you wouldn't really give a fuck about the mana and there's cdr pretty much anywhere in her path.
basically for example i'd almost everytime get a sterak over it, better stats, free damage, and a built in momentum that will ensure you don't get bursted when it matters (pretty hard to pull off in aram, but it still work pretty well)
when I play illaoi, I enjoy building damage item that make me tankier and sustainable, meaning I won't build titanic hydra, it's too expansive doesn't give any defensive (put aside the health of course) stats + she's not too much reliant on auto attacks, the passive works great with w though. Same goes with warmog, it's pretty great, but only if you survives fights and you don't want to survive afterward, but during the heat of a teamfight, and for that it doesn't give you anything but raw health, while a death's dance literally do the job of a tank item and still giving you life steal and a big amount of damage.
But after all, it really depends on the context, don't build something unoptimal because it's cool or you're used to, think about your builds, and try not to waste any ressource. btw, max E, it's literally your biggest damage output during the early game, and your mana pool won't last very long if you spam Q on every opportunity, while you'll have to actually be careful when you land your E, hence more meaningful damage, more annoyance, potentially more damage with the tentacles, but less yoink farming.
BLACK REALM GOD3 votes
Your Q - ranged %max hp Your W - short ranged leap auto %max hp Your E - weird status effect tether thing Your R - AOE damage zone
Use Q and don't buy boots.
Jerry SeinfeId2 votesillaoi is imo not great on her own, but if you get a rundown type comp, she's so fucking scary.
snowball isn't that great of a spell i feel like. I haven't played illaoi with it but if you feel like something's off i recommend switching. I used to run it on singed for example but it seems impossible to snowball>fling so i switched to flash.
7thHeaven1 votesStop build as 1st item
Max Q instead of E
Build 10% CDR in Sorcery
PurpleKingCrazy1 votesYou should actually think of Illaoi as a very slow champion, and in time will deal a ton of damage with her ultimate. You should be as patient with the combo abilities whilst building bruiser and bruiser-like items on her. You should try going for for damage clear and then for more sustain. In time you could be gaining more and more heal over time going Grasp of the Undying, which will give you a lot of health.
If you're winning, try something like 
for more dps and sustain and base it on CDR to make the extra heals more worth it in time. Against magic damage comps you should be going 
to ensure your sustain a bit along with Spirit. You could always mix up your runes so you can really sustain your damage at all times. You will eventually get off your ultimate better the more you play her for late game.
If you're losing or in a losing position, try to stay a little back a be patient with the hooks you make on the champions. DO NOT engage on the champion you reeled in entirely, and the enemy team will know you're trying to get all the damage out on the certain character and will engage against that. If you land the hook on the champion, you could use your ult for the extra damage output and sustain. But yeah, most of the time, you'd be patient enough to practice landing hooks and make certain players cry every time you get it off.
can also help you engage better but I don't like that play most of the time but if it is needed it can really help with the distraction and you're the target so the rest of your team depending on you can pull of the dps and you can be more of a victor than anything else. I would say the also helps with the idea of engagement more than enough for the extra bruiser-like sustain that you have. It is also a very good item for her.
My favorite item to go on her though is . It can really slow down the enemy every time you cast a spell and auto with your w. As your sustain will show you out it can definitely help to engage more easily during fights and really bring the players down to their knees when you cooperate with your team.
I think the best route to max is the E - W - Q route with E and Q 2 points at level 5. The tentacles really help you pull out more damage the more you come to late game. For early-mid game transition you can Q - E - W with Q and E 2 points at level 5. You will dish out more damage, capture the lead, and you don't have to worry about things as you go on.
But yeah, good luck to you in the ARAM games! :}
BitterFeetFungus1 votesget then go full tank
Tranney Hunter1 votesAre you actually bad? She's one of the easiest champs ever. If she ults with 2+ people in her ult shes unkillable git gud
