Illaoi Balance Ideas

So to date Illaoi is the only champion in the game with a zero pick/ban in competitive play (please correct me if I'm wrong) and I believe there are a few key reasons why. Most of Illaoi's problems I would assume most people already know so I won't be using this thread as a bitch session, but I am going to create some context and present some ideas that I believe have the potential to put Illaoi into a good state and make her feel impactful. I genuinely enjoy playing Illaoi, even in her current state, and would love to see her as a viable pick for ranked games or seeing some pro's rocking 5 man ults on the big stage. One quick disclaimer, I will be focusing on areas for improvement during this thread. This doesn't mean that Illaoi doesn't have inherent strengths or a positive or fun playstyle. My aim is to help improve that playstyle and I don't need to present her strengths to do that unless it is relevant to the weakness.

So first off Illaoi has no CC built into her kit with the exception of a decaying 80% slow IF you manage to make another champion a vessel using test of spirit (E). This is a glaring issue for her because she is a big, barely mobile tank that requires opponents to be in her "network" of tentacles in pre planned positions for an extended period of time in order to do her damage, and this is assuming she hasn't died in the process. Without even just 1 cc ability she has no way of locking opponents down in this killzone, and it's not uncommon to see opponents just walk out and choose to fight her on their own terms.

Now this "choice" to stay and fight or leave could be made harder by Test of Spirit, however in it's current state Test of Spirit is a joke. The choice for opponents (unless they are way ahead) is just to walk out, take the debuff for 12 seconds (now), dodge lazily to the left or right and then laugh as they go about their day. The tentacles have almost a full 2 seconds to advertise their spawn, then advertise their swing, then wind up, then wait, then swing maddeningly slow. Not to mention hitting the damn Test of Spirit is hard enough due to the slow speed and creep block. Now the concept of a slow, zone control tank is a great concept (especially with no 3 hit passive in sight) however Illaoi either builds full tank and can't peel as well as a full tank could because of zero CC or builds damage/off tank and gets popped like a zit before she can E/Ult/W combo and get some health back and/or kill someone. Illaoi at the moment just doesn't do a good job of controlling a zone by only threatening a team with "I'll slap you around a little if you come in here". Add to this that a half decent set up without Ultimate can take over a minute.

Then onto the Ultimate. There are 2 major issues I see with this Ulti. 1. is that you need to be standing on your opponents heads to get off a good ultimate with a decent number of tentacles spawned and no good way to get into position for that outside of using a flash, and 2. is that on use the tentacles don't actually do anything until a Harsh Lesson is used (W), which is also your only form of gap closer. So this requires you to land a Test of Spirit if you want to have an immediate swing from your Ultimate spawned tentacles. Bear in mind that they will target the soul not nearby champions, meaning that at best you receive collateral damage not effective targeting. Now Illaoi is not a super tank, she's a bruiser. So it's often the case that by the time you've gotten a Test of Spirit to land you've been standing there for a full second like a moron and either have a team in full retreat or a full team diving on your head. This includes every bit of cc they have because they know what comes next. One of her great strengths is that IF a team stays in her ultimate range they will die in 2 or 3 slaps (sorry, slaps being tentacle smashes, i just prefer thinking of the south park high school musical episode) but Illaoi isn't built to live through walking casually into the middle of a team like that. Maokai has a small window of invulnerability attached to his gap closer, Malphite has a long range knockup, you get the picture.

So now that there is some context of her shortcomings these are my ideas for improving the Kraken Priestess. These are ideas that I don't believe should be implemented all at once but rather are a list of options that may have an impact on their own or together. The last thing I want is for her to become some broken champion that is perma banned or loses the fun of her play style because of over saturated abilities.

Base stats - Small buff to Armour and MR per level, small nerf to AD ratios to compensate ( and I mean very small, she's already in a bad state, don't make it worse)

Passive - Scale the spawn of tentacles with level (If it's not already the case, to my mind it's a fixed figure)

Q - I actually feel like it's in a good place and doesn't require a change.

W - Extend the range by a small amount and reset the CD on use of Ultimate. Illaoi will still feel like a zone control tank/off tank but will be able to maneuver within that zone well. Also will help with getting into a fight then proc'ing a slap once inside the enemy team.

E - Idea A - On landing the initial grab pull the champion to Illaoi and spawn a soul next to the champion hit. If the grab passes over a wall the champion is pulled into the wall, takes damage and is stunned for 0.5 secs. (This to me still fits with her lore and style because it's a giant freaking tentacle grabbing at you, I would assume it would have the strength to man-handle you, just like Illaoi does). Idea B - Upon landing the initial grab a soul is ripped out as normal, however upon killing the soul before they leave the range of the soul or the soul times out, the champion is teleported back to their soul and becomes the vessel as normal. Leaving the range sends the soul back to the champion as normal and creates the vessel debuff. (This to me is a less impactful change to idea A but could have some interesting pick opportunities if a team opts to blow up the soul instead of continuing a chase to guarantee the teleport, also makes the choice to fight or run a bit harder to make depending on whether Illaoi can kill the soul in time).

R - Idea A - Make the Ultimate cast ranged. This idea alone fixes so many of Illaoi's issues in my mind. The animation could even be updated to have one of her tentacles spawn under her and quickly fling her in a high arc at her impact zone, personally I think that would look cool. Idea B - On cast the ultimate spawns the tentacles and each tentacle within range of Illaoi slaps the nearest enemy champion once. This change in conjunction with Idea A would make her ultimates really stand out and feel as powerful as they should. Idea C - During the Ultimate duration, if Illaoi dies the tentacles become enraged and attack the champion/creep/monster that dealt the killing blow if they are in range. Idea D (By JonHeath291) - On cast add a shockwave effect that applies a slow or short stun. Adds to the effectiveness of the initial cast.

And that about wraps it up. Rito if you read this, please give these suggestions a good look. If anyone has any suggestions, tweaks or ideas please feel free to share.

Thanks