Illaoi E thoughts?

iLBGAMing·Oct 24, 2017·2 votes·1,106 views

What are your thoughts on illaoi E? Do you think it's a balanced ability?

18 Comments

SeaChangeOct 24, 20173 votes

I don't know, I think think she's balanced. It has a really short range, and it's easy to dodge. And even once she hits you with it, you can still dodge the tentacles easily. The only thing about it is that it's really annoying and kinda scary, which is why she's banned so much in low elo (my elo XD).

Shuyin178Oct 24, 20172 votes

As a Rank 5 Illaoi, I can say as a fact that it's balanced. It's a slow moving, non-piercing, thin skill-shot making it easy to dodge. All you have to do is follow Blitzcrank rules of "Stay behind your minions" and it's fine.

If you do get tagged by it, this ability by itself won't be able to kill you as the tentacles you spawn nearby only attack once. Dodge a tentacle strike and it can't attack you again unless Illaoi triggers it with W.

InfernapeOct 24, 20172 votes

Yes. Because every part of her kit has counterplay. Simply walk away, kite and dodge.

woodvsmurphOct 24, 20171 votes

Illaoi needs a major overhaul. Her q's are fatter than morg q before it got it's width reduces for being "too generous". It's range is comparable to jayce e,q combo - something unacceptable for such a durable "MELEE" champ. Her entire damage is dependent on hitting an e and/or ult. Without that, she has no damage. But if either of those land, her damage is much too high even if she's built full tank.

0racle0912Oct 24, 20171 votes

She's so incredibly easy to dodge though, the Q animation is so slow and for her E, if you are able to pick someone to bully back when she lands it, then she is a lot more useless in lane. Basically, I think she's quite easy to counter and if you can land her slow abilities it should be rewarded with high damage. Not to mention she's pretty mana hungry as well, which can also be used against her in lane if you dodge her abilities

Top Lane LeeOct 24, 20173 votes

"It's range is comparable to jayce e,q combo"

Wut lol...

woodvsmurphOct 25, 20171 votes

Not in actual number obviously - but clearly a RANGED ability - not a melee. As opposed to something like darius q or renekton dash q; her q range is much higher. It beats kayle's e-empowered attack range - which is considered to change kayle into a RANGED champ and not a melee champ. Thus, comparable as in - gives her harass at a long range much further than a melee ability.

SpaghettiVaseOct 24, 20171 votes

Major overhaul? She's like two years old. She's a juggernaut with great teamfight abilities (most of which are slow or easily dodge-able skillshots) but also the ability to 1v1 when she forces you to play around her passive. Also her Q's range is in no way on par with a Jayce E,Q combo that's just a flat out lie.

woodvsmurphOct 25, 20171 votes

see above comment. i'm not referring to a specific number as far as her q vs jayce e,q - just that they are both RANGED abilities moreso than melee and absurdly long even for melee champs. Darius q for example comes nowhere near that range. Kayle "becomes ranged" with her e active, yet doesn't approach the range of illaoi q. And the hit box on illaoi q is absurdly huge. While dodging one tentacle is pretty easy, dodging 3+ when they are able to hit twice in short succession (q plus w; or many times during her ult when w is spammable) becomes more difficult than it should be. This is because the hit box is larger than the tentacle model would indicate - another problem which needs fixing. I'm personally all in favor of making her tentacles hit faster but reducing their hit box.

And her damage is unreliable - something Riot has largely said it wants to fix about champs. They want more reliability in champs' kits. Illaoi is much like what they said was wrong with old assassins (before rework): too feast or famine. If illaoi lands e and/or ult, she can kill someone who's killed her 1v1 several times in lane or at least bully them around even if they play properly and have level and item advantage - that's making her too strong. Conversely, if she misses either or both of those, she loses even if she plays everything better and is ahead. She has zero threat outside of those 2 abilities and they are both on a long cd. This is making her too weak situationally. Improving her q and w while making her e and ult less completely suffocating would do much for the champ.

SzGamer227Oct 24, 20172 votes

Firstly:

Illaoi Q: 850 range. 234 + 156% AD.

Jayce E+Q: 1470 range. 448 + 168% bonus AD.

Secondly:

Everything you just said about Illaoi perfectly describes the juggernaut class. She's a durable, situational damage threat that is supposed to deal absurd damage when enemies are nearby and she is able to set up properly. See also: Darius, Yorick, Urgot

woodvsmurphOct 25, 20171 votes

see above comment. not talking a specific number.

And as far as ad base and ratio goes - illao q is much more spammable AND lower mana cost - completely nullifying any base and ad scaling ratio advantage jayce e,q combo gives.

SzGamer227Oct 25, 20171 votes

Jayce has similar DPS and AoE, but deals it from 70% further away. Jayce also builds full damage and lethality, whereas Illaoi primarily builds hybrid defense items, so the higher scalings mean a lot more.

Anyways, where Illaoi has relatively longer ranged abilities for a melee champion, the only form of cc in her entire kit is a situational single-target slow that's on a 20 second cooldown until level 8.

woodvsmurphOct 25, 20171 votes

What you say is true. And we have veered off topic - we weren't discussion jayce vs illaoi in terms of a matchup. We were discussing the range of illaoi q and how it is not suited to her as a melee champ. Discussing the matchup would be interesting, but is not part of the original discussion about the two of them. I don't want people confused - thinking I'm suggesting illaoi q = jayce e,q as far as 1v1 top is concerned; that's not what I'm suggesting at all.

SzGamer227Oct 25, 20171 votes

The point is that Illaoi lacks strengths that other melee champions have to compensate for her ability to punish opponents from longer range. If you walk into Illaoi's range, you take damage from her Q and maybe an W + AA if you really get too close (assuming you are keeping minions between you and her to block her E). If you walk into Darius' shorter range, you get displaced by his E, you take a full AA + W + Q combo, he is able to stick to you long enough to get at least one auto in due to the W slow, and you take damage from his passive bleed afterwards.

Illaoi is a strong bully, but you have to make serious mistakes in order to get killed by her. If you make a wrong step against other fighters, the threat of being completely destroyed is much higher because they have better tools for forcing trades that will be in their favor.

woodvsmurphOct 26, 20171 votes

Again, not the topic that was being discussed. I'm 100% with you that illaoi's damage is less reliable and basically negligible outside of ult and a good e. And I think that needs to be fixed.

AgeOfTheMageOct 24, 20171 votes

Annoying, but balanced.

Tristanl0lOct 25, 20171 votes

I think Illaoi has 2 ultimates.

Alex h8721Oct 25, 20171 votes

I think it has the same problem as the rest of her kit, its far to punishing to melee opponents and far too ineffective against ranged. From what I have seen even other juggernauts struggle vs illaoi, she e's them when they go for CS (fairly easy spirit pulls) then combos them sometimes hitting both the champ and the spirit, and b/c of this she can easily zone a melee lane opponent off the wave. However this is completely reversed against a ranged opponent, even ones w/ relatively low range like Gnar (not really Urgot though), ranged opponents can fairly safetly last hit from range, bait and dodge her E/Q and bully her. This is even more apparent after the lane phase w/ champs like Twitch Tristana Caitlyn KogMaw Ashe who outrange her significantly, anyone with high range has to misplay significantly (walking up to illaoi) for her to have any threat on them.

I get that the juggernaut design is supposed to be low mobility but high damage if they get on you, but IMO Illaoi is too much of an extreme of this philosophy, I don't know how the adjustments could be made, but I'd like to see melee opponents have more counterplay against her than "hope illaoi is trash and wastes/misses her abilities" and illaoi have more counterplay vs ranged than hoping that gnar is bad and walks up to the wave and gets hit by E>Q.