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Illaoi’s ult is horrid (and ways to fix that)

Barcid·2/25/2019, 12:49:31 PM·31 votes·12,442 views

As you get familiar with champs in this game, you get to learn what to do against them and how to handle them. Yi you pack CC for or die, Urgot you rush a bramble against and lol, and Yasuo you fucking ban into oblivion so hard you never see him.

Illaoi, in the other hand, is dealt with by disengaging her - yes, that means literally just walk the opposite direction. You bait out her ult, leave the premises, and wait for it to time out before turning the pressure on her instead.

This is because Illaoi’s ult is utter garbage-y garbage, and keep in mind I’m someone who has spent over two goddamn years on a champ with an ult that could really only be described as “””moody”””. (Honey, I know you want to devour minions and push until you die, but why not pay attention to these nice krugs over here instead? No, no, stop, I need you to stop pushing for just a moment. Sweetheart, why the fuck can’t you just listen for once to me for fuck’s sa- Oh, now you’re just gonna sit there and pout in the middle of the lane doing nothing? Fucking fine then, sit there and see if I fucking care yoU GODDAMN BI-)

So when I say that Illaoi’s ult is quite honestly one of the fucking worst ones in the game, I am by no means saying this lightly. The reason it’s been this bad for so long is because it can wipe an entire team it’s so strong.

Seems like I contradicted myself there, huh? Well, let me just highlight the keyword:

#Can

Illaoi’s ult can decimate an entire team, but that’s like saying you can win a million dollars on scratch offs - you can but by all odds you probably fuckin’ won’t. See, Illaoi’s ult relies on two things: her to be pretty decisively ahead and the enemy to either be all immobile melees or fucking stupid. Her ult is so unreliable my father has better odds of coming home with the smokes he left for a decade ago. In fact Illaoi’s ult is so bad at its job that I have seen several times more team wipes due to Vayne’s ult than I have seen due to Illaoi’s, and keep in mind that Vayne has to do this one at a fuckin’ time - and yes, I did take into account that Vayne is played more often, I mean relative to the amount I see each ult used.

So Illaoi needs some quality of life upgrades to fix her Leap of Impotence. So for your convenience, I’m going to go through her ult’s most glaring - and frustrating - flaws and the simple improvements that can be made to make Illaoi as a whole far more consistent.

#1. Illaoi’s ult locks her into an area.

No, no, she’s not literally locked in - but she may as fuckin’ well be. Illaoi’s power outside of her ult is pretty meh as far as dueling goes and utterly abysmal as far as team fighting goes - so bad that Tryndamere has better presence in team fights without his ult than Illaoi does. This fact is so fucking bad that, again, a legitimate strategy for dealing with Illaoi is literally just walking away after she ults and regening as you have basically removed her as a champion so long as she didn’t get a kill, and often times she won’t considering she’s largely an immobile bruiser.

To fix this: Allow Illaoi’s tentacles that are spawned by her ult “follow” her. Basically once Illaoi’s target moves out of range of the original tentacles, despawn them and spawn them nearby her W’s next target instead with a slight delay - this keeps her able to continue sticking to enemies who may be fleeing while preventing the massive issue of literally walking away from her primary sources of damage, but still allows enemies a chance to “outrun” the tentacle spawns if they can. This also emphasizes potential synergy with slowing items for Illaoi as well as CC from her teammates. I don’t actually expect this change to be implemented due to the potential difficulty of doing so as well as a removal of some of the primary dueling counterplay against Illaoi, but it may still be a change to consider.

#2. Illaoi’s ult can be stopped completely dead with alarming reliability.

For an ultimate that is supposed to make you salivate at the opportunity to hit 5 people with it, it’s pretty fucking punishing to try and do that - trying to be in the middle of 5 enemy champs without getting dropped in the blink of an eye nowadays is a sight to behold even for the most resilient of champs, and Illaoi doesn’t get any of her major survivability until after she lands her ult. Oh, and not even immediately after - you have to wait for the tentacles to slap down as well, so a good .5 seconds or so after the about .75 second or so wind-up on her ultimate. At this point you’re usually fucking dead in any situation that’s supposed to be ideal.

So a simple solution to this that still maintains the opportunity to stop her biggest power spike in a team fight is this: give her a decaying shield scaling with her bonus health upon landing her ultimate. This shield does not have to be long, and keeping the base value low (even just at 100 or so) while having it scale with bonus HP makes it so it doesn’t end up buffing her laning phase so much as this is more aimed at helping her reliability in team fighting.

#3. Illaoi’s ult doesn’t reset her W cooldown.

This is not in reference to the reduced cooldown she gets after activation - this is that if your W is on cooldown before you activate your ultimate, you will have to wait for the cooldown to finish before being able to use it. While this seems logical, in terms of her kit and interaction, it is the fucking worst. Often times in order to readjust quickly for your ultimate with Illaoi, you’re going to end up using your W in order to quickly jump onto an enemy instead of waddling your fat fucking ass up to your target while getting shot in the damn face the entire time. So if you do try to use your W to engage like this, you’d better hope the enemy team is nice enough to just let you sit there weakly slapping them during those next 2 seconds as you wait for your W to come back up because you aren’t getting any damage from your ult otherwise. You will get fucking bursted by any team with coordination.

... So obviously just have Illaoi’s ult reset her W. If any change should absolutely make it in, it should be that one at the very least as this is one of the most frustrating tidbits of her kit to deal with at the moment in terms of fluidity.

#And those are the big issues.

They may not seem like many, but if you’ve ever tried playing Illaoi - hell, if you main her - you will know quite well that these things make her feel so fucking clunky and at the mercy of her enemy’s own intelligence. It’s this complete unreliability that makes Illaoi either completely absurd or a total fucking dumpster fire with no inbetween, and it’s this frustrating gameplay that makes her wallow in relative obscurity despite being as a concept pretty dang fun.

I like playing as Illaoi and I hate playing against her top lane, but even I can admit despite hating going against her that something’s wrong when every time I face her I literally walk away from her ult and am completely okay to just kind of hang around in lane after.

70 Comments

Fízz v22/25/2019, 2:54:29 PM16 votes

and keep in mind I’m someone who has spent over two goddamn years on a champ with an ult that could really only be described as “””moody””"

Didnt yorick ult recently become extremely broken tho?

Also I think Illaoi should get a rework before she gets any buffs. Laning against E max Illaoi is probably the worst experience in the game especially if you arent playing a hard counter.

Id literally rather play a 1v2 lane against a bot lane duo than 1v1 against a good Illaoi.

Moody P2/25/2019, 6:25:56 PM5 votes

""moody""

You called?

Illaoi only needs (IMO) her ultimate to be very consistent and spawn the same amount of tentacles on cast. She's too heavily reliant on a hard to achieve best case scenario while simultaneously being easily denied her best case scenario even in the middle of her outplaying you.

If it changed to like... 2/3/4 every time she remains a huge threat without needing such a pain in the ass condition to fulfill, she would be excellent.

HopeStartsWithU2/25/2019, 3:54:54 PM4 votes

I actually have no right to talk down on Illaois ult because I am a filthy Riven main... buuut I do think if she misses her E the ult is wasted. Her E plays such a big role that it's disgusting to even think about missing it.

When hit by her E people can decide 1)"Do I stay inside the ring and try to stop Illaoi from killing my soul? or 2)Do I run out and get to play the tentacle mini game?" With the phage passive she can also chase the enemy that ran out of the ring and catch up if it's not Riven or anything else with dashes.

Her E has too much power. They would have to nerf that slow to make any buffs to her ult because flashing into the enemy and decimating them while being tanky thanks to the heals and her build path(just like Riven minus tank lol) isn't an option. What I agree with though is the W CD reset. It should be a thing because it's confusing as hell when you waste it and ult afterwards. By the time you got the W up again your ult is almost over at lvl 6.

It's fine that her ult needs so much preparation time because of how strong it is when it works.

Patrick face2/25/2019, 5:59:31 PM3 votes

While all these changes would definitely be nice and give her a little bit more versatility/viability, I think you've kind of missed the point of Illaoi. She's pretty much the hardest counter-engager in the game. That's really her whole thing. Enemy tank/diver/bruiser jumps in? They are 100% dead, and their team is too if they try to follow-up. Additionally, all your arguments exist in a vacuum where ult + flash isn't a thing. If you're using W to try to engage, you don't know what you're doing. You can use it to cheese out a Test of Spirit, but good god don't use it to immediately follow up with your ult. So yeah, it's kind of bad design that she relies on flash to engage, but Annie's been like that since season 1. And again, she isn't designed to be an engager. Like the rest of the juggernauts, she's a massive counter-engager and controls space like no one else can. You can absolutely win 1v1s without your ult, hell I can't even tell you how many 2v1s I've won at level 3. The skill expression in Illaoi is forcing you to engage, or baiting you to engage, or calling out your bluff and holding her ult. It's hard these days when aggression and the first punch is so heavily rewarded (damage overload meta), but that's what her kit is designed to do.

Also, apparently Death's Dance is considered a cheese item on her, but I consider it core. It lets her be useful outside of her ultimate because 1. It lets her shrug off poke and 2. It makes her base tentacle smashes hit like a truck. She maintains threat without ult and can heal back up after a fight incredibly easily. Not to mention the fact that it gives her just enough time for the tentacles to come down when she does actually ult.

She has a lot of strengths, and honestly I really hope Riot stays away from her. They have a hard-on for making every champion viable in every game, but that isn't how champions used to be designed, and it's not how it's supposed to be. I want to feel rewarded for picking my champion smartly, and punished if I ignore what the enemy's team comp is. I legitimately have a rule where, if the enemy team has at least 2 melee champions, I'm allowed to play Illaoi. 1 is shaky, and 0 is an obvious no-go. Her power scales directly with the number of melees in the game. That's contentious, yeah. But if every champion was equally viable in every situation, what would be the point of picking one over the other? Just pick the one with the biggest numbers.

But like. Also tentacles following the fight would be obscene and I want it lmao

feintfiend2/25/2019, 6:02:46 PM3 votes

Her W should slow onhit so the tentacles can actually hit If you have a working brain you won't get hit by most non-ult tentacles Her design is pretty bad and needs a minirework

Bob the Toastr2/25/2019, 5:38:17 PM3 votes

Totally agree with you. One of my problems is the long cast times on her abilities.

For example, if you want to W in, E, then R, you're looking at almost 2 seconds where you're right in the middle of the enemy team. If you try that in a teamfight with more than 3 people there, there's a good chance you'll die before you finish just those abilities.

I think one interesting solution to the limited area problem would be instead of having her ult instantly spawn a bunch of tentacles, have it increase the rate at which her passive and vessels spawn tentacles. That way she also wouldn't have to be right in the middle of them to spawn the tentacles.

So something like this: Leap of Faith: Spawns one tentacle per enemy hit Spawns one tentacle Duration: 8 seconds 12 seconds New effect: For the duration, Prophet of an Elder God spawn cooldown reduced to 4/3/2 seconds and Vessels spawn tentacles every 2.5/2/1.5 seconds (at levels 1/7/13)

If that is too strong you could remove the untargetability of the tentacles.

El Hefeweizen2/26/2019, 2:43:58 AM2 votes

Illaoi just needs faster tentacle slams. The time it takes to set up an E, followed up with R-W is long enough. The slam needs too come down immediately. Her regular Q and W would benefit from faster animations. Speed up her abilities and she's viable at higher levels.

Quepha2/25/2019, 5:18:35 PM2 votes

I don't think you understand the point of juggernauts... They're very deadly in a short range around their current position, and fairly non-threatening but still durable outside of it. They have ways to try and solve this issue, but in general they aren't that powerful and the enemy can avoid them if they pay attention. If the game were a typical brawler then this would be a death sentence for the character, juggernauts get counterpicked hard in terms of combat and even when they don't get counterpicked it turns into a stalemate as one champion runs forever while the juggernaut chases forever.

But this is not a typical brawler, it is an objective focused team-fighting game. This means that forcing enemies off of objectives is valuable, this means other team members can solve the issue where enemies try to run away from you, this means that the act of forcing enemies away from you is already valuable.

PopcornBunni2/26/2019, 3:51:45 AM1 votes

Illaoi needs more than her ult addressed if she's going to find balance. She's utterly garbage in organized play but backbreaking especially in iron-gold with disorganized solo queues.

There's also the issue of Ranged champions shitting all over her in lane since she can't keep any tentacles up, while other melees get to watch as one gets spawned the literal second they finally get close enough to destroy one. As well as ranged opponents getting a huge advantage when hit by her E in that they can fight back against it much more easily.

I have no idea what can be done with her, but being a sluggish split pusher abusing bad engage champions and melee pushovers while eating ass to anything with a ranged auto or ability does not make for compelling games in either case.

James May2/26/2019, 4:40:39 PM1 votes

Im sorry, you spelled bullshit wrong in the title.

DingDongDanger2/27/2019, 12:57:12 AM1 votes

I stopped playing Illaoi after her nerf. She is very easy to kite and get out of range of, dodging her e is easy. At least for me, just hold still until they use it and move slightly out of the way. Originally she was great for team fights because she had so much lifesteal she could ult into an enemy team on baron and wipe them all out spamming her Q, she was my first pentakill character. Now I feel like I can't heal enough to justify her mana use and less oppressive damage compared to other champs like Kled and Darius. Especially since you can literally just walk away from her, that's something I always hated was people literally being able to just walk away from me and I actually used to run exhaust on her to get that extra slow and damage reduction. Since her nerfs I honestly haven't had a hard time fighting a single Illaoi. I also just get CC'd to hell now whenever I do try to fight in a group.

These are just my personal views on her so take it with a grain of salt but in all honesty I really miss playing her.

LordGeovanni2/25/2019, 9:29:59 PM1 votes

I am fine with Illaoi's ult being Area Locked because thats what she is. Only problem i have with Illaoi's ult is that its inconsistent when you ult whether all the tentacles slam I think it needs to slam all the time. Im fine with her losing base damage from her slam for this. Her biggest problem is that She ults and gets a static 2 second cooldown for W which is more than her cooldown for W is after 30% cdr.

Tomoe Gozen2/25/2019, 10:26:05 PM1 votes

I like Illaoi, despite not even liking top lane. She's literally my only Juggernaut champion i can play and i even i can figure out why she's in a terrible spot.

Her ult is just easy to get out of or you can even Pull or Knock Back her out of it (or just stand outside her range). Her ult is so goddamn strong that it she happens to get to slap 5 people with it, and this happens in a narrow passage of the map, she can one-woman slap the living shit out of people once all 3+ tentacles overlap on the enemies for massive damage. And IT STILL might not get you kills, you might just do massive damage before you drop dead from being instantly focused by 5 people because this only happens if that particular team is focusing someone else and you get a jump on them or they're just legally blind.

High damage potential comes at a great cost for her - if she is supposed to lane solo or never gets proper support to ult in the right place at the right time, it's barely mediocre and easily avoided in an area outside of her influence. You can't move out of it because you don't want to lose damage and you can be forcefully "moved out" of it by enemies.

Outside of her Test of Spirit (on kill or moving out of its range), she has no soft CC in her kit so it's even a pain in the ass to deal with enemies that are highly mobile and can also disengage her. Points if you're also ranged (hello Jayce). If this is the case, this skill literally becomes the only skill that can "reliably" deal damage to enemies since they don't even have to be in your range.

Her ult reminds me of old Maokai, where his magic damage absorbing/damage reducing AoE was placed on the ground and that was changed due to Maokai being easily the worst champion for teamfights if the enemy team simply baits it and waits it. So that ult was attached to his stupid visage and he became an instant sensation. Then his rework happened.

##Her ult improvements:

  • AoE zone follows her for the duration

As you've said, one improvement for her ult would be that her spawned tentacles are an AoE zone attached to her model and it moves with her. It would work the same as it does now. Number of tentacles spawned by it would correspond by how many enemies were hit (including her spirits) and it can't spawn more than 5 at a time (not counting her nearby passive spawns).

It only lasts 8 seconds anyway and it's not an instant damage threat. If Lee decides to combo my ass into a kill and i don't get an attack off in the meantime, i can still die with my ult active around me, without doing any damage to him. I think that's fair, as long as i too can use my ult and still do things if he screws up and doesn't correctly gauge my HP, not killing me. Then it's hentai time.

  • AoE still stationary, she becomes Unstoppable while it lasts.

Not my preference but if Illaoi ults, let's at least make it more reliable than it already is. Ialloi can't be CC'd while it's active, meaning that she can easily use it as a utility spell if she's running away, much like Olaf can fuck off into oblivion and run through the enemy team. This still means If Illaoi chooses to do this, she does leave its AoE and can't do damage while ensuring no-CC "ceasefire" but if she also chooses to fight, enemies can either burst her or just wait it out, but can't make her leave her ult zone (sorry-not sorry, shitty Tristana or Lee).

  • Ult spawns fixed number of tentacles

3, 4, 5 to be exact. One of the reasons Illaoi is a pain in the ass to play with is her condition to spawn tentacles on enemy hit. That's not something that any team will allow and without any dashes or gap closers, her ONLY way in is Flash. She's become the old Galio of the RF strat. It didn't work out for him and it certainly doesn't work for her.

Her lane ult relies more on the fact that you have to supplement from the passive tentacles, because it means you can only spawn 2 (1 for enemy, 1 for the spirit). And given how the algorithm for tentacle spawns works (never in groups or close to one another), Illaoi has to fight near walls or jungle passages since there are more areas where tentacles can attach themselves to and potentially, "group" up closer. But that still means that Illaoi is a predictable fighter and she's backing herself into a corner because she doesn't have the freedom of movement outside of the effective ranges of her passive and ult.

Her ult isn't worth casting if you're only hitting one target (either spirit or a lone enemy) and there certainly aren't a lot of opportunities to catch both the spirit and the enemy into spawning 2 tentacles. Given how long her E animation is, the enemy backs away the moment their spirit is pulled out in order to stop taking damage.

##Other problems:

  • WR interaction

You already mentioned that.

  • leveled E unavoidable damage

Playing against Illaoi can be frustrating. The ridiculousness of the skill is that she only has to hit you once and slap away for free damage. Playing against ranged champions might be somewhat justified (if it's Jayce, he can just poke you forever and this is the only skill that allows for any potential damage trade) while any other melee is severely punished if Illaoi hits them.

I don't have any ideas on how to try to tackle this issue and still not dumspter her only way of reliable damage against threats she can't get to at all. Against highly mobile champs, her tentacles won't ever hit reliably so your choices are AAs and Ws instead (and her E). You take this away and she's just a pin cushion.

AHeroNamedHawke2/25/2019, 10:42:52 PM1 votes

She can have a mobile ult once it has any actual counterplay

Dropping swing timers to .2 seconds means you have to instantly flash out or get killed in a W, and she beats Darius on in fight sustain with them going. She's a bad champ because all gameplay involved is running away/in circles around her, and she just needs a general rework before she's allowed to be good.

Void Kaiju2/25/2019, 11:11:55 PM1 votes

I think you are severely underestimating the sheer zoning power her ult offers. It can be avoided, but if you need to back off like that chances are you're gonna need to recall unless the illaoi mashed r by accident. People use it to kill or punish an all in. It can be used to secure an objective really nicely by pulling a soul and ulting if a couple enemy champions are trying to contest your team. Pit/Tower becomes a death zone for the enemy that they have to concede. If she ults in a situation where you can walk away and just be absolutely fine, you either hard mindgamed her or she wasted her ult. I don't think it means the spell is bad though.

ModBianca Colt2/25/2019, 11:22:40 PM1 votes

So a simple solution to this that still maintains the opportunity to stop her biggest power spike in a team fight is this: give her a decaying shield scaling with her bonus health upon landing her ultimate.

I would be fine with her gaining damage reduction based on the number of tentacles nearby. That would be really useful in giant teamfights and actually reward you for using your ultimate correctly, while removing the threat of being literally obliterated from the game before even using your W once post-ult. Maybe make it a steadfast passive, or just an ult thingy.

5050BS2/25/2019, 11:49:35 PM1 votes

Yep 100% true

I always thought even when she was on the PBE that her Ult needed a shield because of how long it takes to get it off.

I also HATE that Her Ult changes her W CD to 2s flat. You could have CDR that lowers the NORMAL CD to 1.8 and you Ult and it is now 2s.

It SHOULD lower the BASE CD to 2s and any CDR lowers it more but that is not how it works and its stupid because she runs 40-45% CDR

dontspinbutwin2/26/2019, 12:07:10 AM1 votes

Illaoi has her strengths and weaknesses, and while I understand your frustrations, I think illaoi is fine as she is. She's an immobile juggernaut who has immense sustain, with extremely little CC. While like you said, enemies can walk out her ult during a teamfight, that's also a really strong plus. Say your ADC gets caught out, but flashes towards you. If the enemy commits and keeps going to kill your ADC, then you can most likely kill them. If they understand illaois ult, then they hesitate as on whether to engage or retreat. Furthermore, most illaois have 40% CDR by the 25 minute mark, putting her ult on quite the low cooldown, so even if the enemy backs off, your team can simply back off and wait a few seconds for her ult to come back on.

I get the w frustration, really, I do. But having it reset would be infuriating for the enemy. Illaoi's burst and zone is immense as it is, and giving her more burst on top is iffy. Rather, illaoi's power lies in tenticles and zone, with mobility being her main, and if not, only weakness.

If this game were centralized around 1v1s, then I can see why this might be frustrating for illaoi. But then, the enemy is also pressured against an illaoi, be it lane or teamfight. They know her potential, as does illaoi. If illaoi has a weakness, then teammates might compensate. Enemy walking out of ult? Ping your J4 to ult. Does the enemy CC you while ulted until you die? Be a meatshield for your backline. Illaoi aint, and shouldn't be, a 1v5 queen. She should be scary and oppressive, but giving her mobility in the form of her ultimate zone would be infuriating, and a break in what illaoi's character is.