Everything Wrong With: Illaoi | League Of Legends

[@jureambroz9557]

Her E has to be one of the most frustrating abilities in the game FOR EVERYBODY. If she misses, that's it, she becomes half a champion. She hits, you cannot trade back no matter what.

[@lillyie]

before there was actually counterplay to her spirit. if your spirit gets grabbed, attacking illaoi reduces it's duration. if you become a vessel, kill 3 tentacles to get rid of the debuff, but riot found that to be too much counterplay so they removed them

[@atsukana1704]

Just to make her that much more annoying I will on occaision take her bot and just say “ok but I hit you from a safe place and now you lost a quarter of your health”

[@parafuegosarchive]

​@@atsukana1704with a darius "ok, you lost"

[@shanegale6143]

I used to find illaoi super annoying. Once i realised that my mindshare while playing the lane can literally just tunnel vision on dodging E it becomes alot more fun. Compared to say, aatrox or riven who can infinitely spam high-pressure, mix-upable esoteric micro checks at you. With illaoi all i need to do is laser focus on not getting hit by E whenever i am not behind a minion (or her Q if i am). Then i am free to do whatever i want for 16 seconds where i know she has 0 outplay agency. Also try dodging perfectly perpendicular. it's rlly unintuitive since we normally dodge diagonally to also create distance but she is immobile, and if she autoattack gap closes after whiffing E that just makes ur punish easier. Hit the minion wave to deny her the E under tower angle. If shes trying to E you under tower just concede farming the wave if you cant be bothered trying to dodge. When the tower has to shoot an extra time to kill minions (since u are not doing the last hit), the next wave will start on your side. Which is easier and safer for you and potentially starts a slow push

[@skyler1469]

@@shanegale6143 yea but if she hits you dont get to play for few mins, its not normal DELETE HER

[@Yarharsuperpirate]

The biggest mistake was removing the ability to contest her E ability If she spirit grabbed you, you fight back so she would cause less damage by having that spirit disappear faster. It was both good counter play, and fit her character perfectly. Illaoi is the type of character who would be thrilled to see someone fight back

[@PowerEd8]

EXACTLY - i loved her soo much, beating her felt like soloing a raid boss, yet it felt fair now her E is toxic af

[@atsukana1704]

I think the reason they removed that is because in high elo she was bad since they always fought back. Meaning she would have her most crucial ability gone pretty much. Thing is though it does allow you to move the power budget away from her e and more into possibly even reworking her other abilities. I have had the thought for a while now that it would be neat if her w did something different and instead her q would tell her tentacles to attack a target location so you can try and use it to predict enemy movements.

[@aaronscott7467]

I think that was a mistake, but the bigger mistake was buffing her passive range instead of trying to find a different solution. Any adc player can tell you just how much of a difference a range gap can make, and that's effectively what they gave her. Not to mention that because of how she specifically works, it went from a maximum of 3 naturally spawned tentacles hitting a given point to 4 being able to hit that same point because they didn't increase the minimum distance between them when they did so.

[@VarsVerum]

The issue is that fighting back against illaoi with E made it disappear within literal seconds, not only causing her to lose a big chunk of her dps but also losing the ability for her tentacles to auto slap. That's the problem with illaoi in general: she either has TOO much counterplay or NO counterplay.

[@Xephyranth]

@@VarsVerum I think the workaround for it would have been making her damage more frontloaded on hitting her slam skillshot, her E no longer damages but slows and gradually increases the longer and further you are from the spirit so fighting back IS your option unless you have dashes to just zoom out her kit is great, just needs reworking and passing around values

[@kaisercheese4011]

4:06 fastest Senna ult reaction time

[@bmac4]

Mighta just come off cooldown and she was trying to finish the kill. But still LOL

[@vokuhila6913]

because shes the only champ where you still have to play by her rules even when shes 0 and 14, just pray the illaoi player is trash and your team doesn't just stand in her tentacles. the amount of jglers ive had that just run in 2 lvls down and get one shotted by her ult is insane

[@PiotrK]

So you just admitted losing to illaoi is skill issue, just like lowelo wr on her is.

[@UndeadAlv]

​@@PiotrK you can't just have an overpowered champ and say "well there's still some way to beat her" She should be rewarding when played well. Not rewarded by doing one thing right and 15 wrong

[@PiotrK]

@@UndeadAlv "overpowered" champ is actually delusional from lowelo

[@Morningstar787]

True. As an illaoi player i love these junglers XD always give me a double kill XD

[@pharmphish]

@@PiotrKshe is overpowered her counterplay is to dodge skillshots which won’t happen all the time unless the illaoi is fighting without hands

[@oldpoetmen]

Credit where it’s due, I really like her visual and lore design. For variety’s sake, it’s always nice to see female characters in games that aren’t just supermodels in skin-tight or skimpy outfits (which, to be fair, is not *at all* a Riot specific issue); plus, given that the Hawaiian god Kanaloa is often depicted as an octopus, her worshipping a kraken god feels like a neat nod to Polynesian mythology. That said, gameplay-wise, I see no lies here; even as a newer player, I got very quickly annoyed playing against her just a couple of times. Great video as always!

[@Peyton-f8m]

She is Zed, but replacing mobility with more clones throwing shuriken. It gets insane to balance. She has Zed ult on a basic skill shot. It's toxic on Zed. Why would it not be toxic in another champion..... Yone....

[@bmac4]

Illaoi has one of the better visual designs and is among the champs who serve as proof you dont need just sex appeal and thin shapes on female characters to make a striking and memorable design. I hate the champion for her kit, which is a shame because she's really damn cool.

[@klaize_]

As a semi Illaoi main with over 500k mastery on her, I almost never play her in ranked becuase of the exact reasons u mentioned. She's honestly just a knowledge check champion, if they know not to fight after u E them, you just end up feeling useless😭

[@PiotrK]

So enemy fails, gets punished for having a skill issue "knowledge check", if you are the better player with more knowledge in lowelo, then you are skill gapping the opponent, thus winning games and being the result of high wr in lowelo, better players annihilating hardstucks and you are supposed to be punished for that?

[@magentaurous4025]

⁠​⁠@@PiotrKThat’s good design then? You win by knowledge checking new players or you stand there and do nothing if they avoid you. See why no one likes your champ?

[@whyarewestillhere6381]

As an Illaoi hater I recommend you try manamune and lethality items. That makes the lane unbearable for the enemy. Just don't play that against me please

[@puddingsimon2626]

Hmm idk, I got 1mil points rn, I’m certainly no OTP but as a test I tried to get as high as possible in rank with illaoi only like a year ago and got from gold 1 to emerald 3. if you play her correctly it’s possible to get very high up, but that also requires a good team. One of her strengths is the ability to lock down areas or objectives. But you’ll have to be there with your team first so you can set up the tentacles and all. Then you force the enemy to either engage you and try to force there way trough you to contest the objective or flank around and risk getting split up and losing to much time.

[@nixastra1745]

As an Illaoi main (have over 750,000 points on her), I do really enjoy her gameplay, but I do understand why she is hated so much. I do know her weaknesses/counterpicks. I don’t mind her inconsistency, as I normally pick her depending on who the enemy team has (so wouldn’t pick her if they have 3 or more ranged champs etc. so have a pretty high win rate with her as I only pick her if I know that she is good/will win

[@AugustEriksson-qp1ub]

i used to main her im at 2.5 mil, rn shes just horrendous, like shes a statcheck champ that is to weak to statcheck voli, gwen, fiora, aatrox or even sett. Meanwhile she remains demon status in pisslow and is therefore regarded as in a good spot, meanwhile before I could easily take master w her every season, but now I cant even play her to get out of diamond. Shes just a ruined champ

[@WSKHim]

Tbh she is boring as fk to play with or against

[@shaan2639]

@@AugustEriksson-qp1ubshe beats voli & aatrox what are you smoking…

[@AugustEriksson-qp1ub]

@@shaan2639 thing is she doesnt, voli r, plus e and w is actually enough at two items to tank illaois full combo with r and setup, and voli is also mobile and can just walk out of her r which he should unless he is dumb, and aatrox is just aatrox look at the math its absurd tbh

[@toobig7150]

Im not a toxic player, really, but, with all my heart and soul. I can't stand your champ, I'm sure you are a decent person irl, but, at least in the game, I do hope you never win with that champ ever again and that riot kills her the way they killed Azir.

[@keromora]

Illaoi is a prime example of the dangers of having too much counterplay. Because everything in her kit is so counterable, the reward on her successful hits has to be massive. This is why she’s always been notoriously powerful in the lower divisions. They need to ironically take some interactivity out of her kit in exchange for lower raw power.

[@PiotrK]

Because lower divisons are skill issue, the better players on illaoi in lowelo win because they are simply better and not a champ issue. Any altering to that by riot is "wanting people to be hardstuck, even if they are much better than current division"

[@HippoMan5542]

Ok smart guy, tf is malphite gonna do in that lane? He can’t dodge anything and once she lands E, it’s over. He literally can stack armor and she will still kill him just through raw sustain.

[@Divine-General-Mahoraga]

@@HippoMan5542 youre speaking as if laning phase is the only phase, or rather the entirerty of the game as a whole. even if malphite has a rougher than usual start that doesnt mean he cant be impactful litterally 10 minutes later or god forbid he roams and gets a couple picks from some random ass teamfight happening mid or jungle and makes his rougher lane phase actually pretty comfy.

[@PiotrK]

@@HippoMan5542 Bruh that is literally only temporary because don't forget her passive dmg was nerfed, she needs at least 2-3 tentacles to kill the vessel or deal any decent dmg. Not to mention being forced to max Q instead of E which screws the vessel dmg even more. Malphite can tank a good few E's when lvl 10 with armor and still win, not to mention the times she misses E's, then malphite dmg on her becomes ridiculously high.

[@keromora]

@@HippoMan5542 Malphite is a notorious statchecker lmao what a dumb example. Tell me what any of the many champions malphite counters are supposed to do.

[@tomsimpkins1211]

The worst thing they did was remove the, you know, test of Illaoi. Whether you stood and fought, you could make a mistake, you could misread the damage levels or you mistep and land in the wrong spot. Fighting her for her E made the engagements exciting, because you *could* win, but you could also lose. Now unless you dodge E, you lose. At least as a normal top lane champion.

[@projectproteus6687]

Yup, shes an annoying champ that requires an annoying opponent. When I see iloiaoioia I pick anivia with grasp. pre 6 is all about farming and stacking as much grasp as I can while playing like a little baby. Rush RoA (heartsteel if you're a man's man) and once I reach 6, her E is useless because I just save my ult for when she manages to land her E. Drop ult down on the spirit and now she is fighting passive damage and risking my E damage. If she fights my spirit after eating an E, shes gunna get stunned eat another E and walled in my ult, thats massive damage, even with heartsteel and little to no AP. If she ults, I just stun her, wall up, and walk away, fuck that mess. Another plus to anivia into illiioiao is that anivia auto range gives her the ability to clear pesky tentacles relatively safely. Ilioiaoi is slow so when she comes to fight I can q her, or just back off. Team usually thinks I'm trolling with this pick, but it's worked very well many times against her.

[@onthedre]

Not true. As Fiora even if she E's me I can still beat her, she has to choose between targeting you or the clone. Dodge the tentacles (by playing a manly fighter champ, Riven, Fiora, Camille, Jax, Darius) and stop playing tanks like a girl, or hold your peace. Tanks are rancidly designed anyway.

[@danielbarnes1241]

​@@onthedreyou just lost you rights to an opinion lol. Tanks aren't the only class that doesn't dash around the screen like Crackheads. Most juggernauts don't. Alot of divers have one or just a steroid. Hell even some of the champs you named don't actually beat her because she doesn't interact with their strength lmfao. Nice try lil bro

[@Hellothere-ss4jq]

An issue I have with her is her inconsistent teamfight presence: sometimes she'll solo wipe her opponents, most of the time she does nothing literal nothing. I'd take inspiration from LOR where Nagakabouros is an "oh shit" moment, conditional yes but if met its overwhelming pressure. Imagine if R lowered the passive cooldown based on the number of opponents hit (the passive remains at the reduced value for the ult duration), so that it feels like you're truly fighting both the muscle mommy and the tentacle kaiju simultaneously and even if Illaoi is forced to move from her spot she's still getting tentacles to work with.

[@just_a_folk95]

This is kinda nice as a suggestion ngl. Btw as for her teamfight presence, as always it's all a matter of E landed or not. If she does and the opponents fight, you just destroy them more often than not. If she doesn't, she just dies miserably.

[@puddingsimon2626]

I think the ult should apply one or two stacks to everyone hit, everyone should got a stack gets attacked by nearby tentacles, if hit the stack goes away. The ult should also reduce the internal tentacles slam cd by 50% (idk if it already does)

[@bombboy200]

Yeah the biggest problem for me in lane isn't her tentacles but how her trading pattern works out. If she misses E, she backs off, if she lands it, she bum rushes in and will almost ALWAYS win. I can usually go even in lane with an Illaoi, but I rarely win and I almost always end up losing late game due to her ult. However, no other bruiser in the game has the coverage that she has. The fact she can get up to 6 tentacles from ult and they all attack really fast and can deal immense amount of damage is frustrating because no matter how many items she has, if she can survive getting her ult + W off, she will almost ALWAYS kill someone.

[@PiotrK]

There are literally many ways to resolve ur issues, like she literally can't farm without e and tentacles nearby, ur jungler can rescue u (and illaoi being even slightly behind in currnet state is non-existant if u don't make many mistakes). Especially in late game she's non-existant unless ur 120cs behind and 2 lvls behind in late. You can always swap with ur midlaner if u dont feel comfy and ranged top is gonna be can*er for her. She has mana problems, try ur best to keep her in lane with low mana (or cause her to lose a wave or whatever). These were some. Anything else - skill issue.

[@alejandrojimenez1685]

​@@PiotrKwhy are are responding all the coments that are arguing about Illaoi, mate? Seriously, no hate. Just wondering, do you wanna help people learn how to deal with her, or are you an Illaoi main defending her, just tired of people not being good enough to deal with her? 😅

[@PiotrK]

@alejandrojimenez1685 just bored so I talk facts

[@thememedad202]

Personally one of the more frustrating aspects to this for me lies in the fact that even when you walk away or disengage after her R, one W is all it takes to chunk 60-70% of your HP.. which is insane.

[@1lik3Fir33mbl3m]

@@PiotrK Nothing against you, but Illaoi is a garbage design of a champion. She should not be balanced around a hitting one specific ability, cause dodging it means she has no value, but if she manages to hit it one time she wins hard. That shouldnt be like that. And no I will complain, because playing against her is NOT fun and never was. And Riot should really stop just caring about the person piloting the champion having fun and consider the person that is on the recieving end of the bullshit they cook together.

[@colebarber8485]

I think her e should work more like it does in lore. I think her test of spirit should force you fight and cut the duration and damage or run and deal with the tentacles for longer. I think her hitting the spirit while you're close should also reduce the damage you take. This way you're fighting for your soul as a mini game rather than having to run

[@Lionbladier]

The first half of your comment is how it used to work post-launch - you fought back, and it'd reduce the spirit's duration. They then removed that feature, since Illaoi struggled to be relevant in the top lane. Now it is one of the most frustrating abilities in top, because the only counterplay is "lmao, just dodge or lose over half your health bro".

[@colebarber8485]

@Lionbladier Yeah I think bringing back the fight back but weaker and tuning around that would be good. Something like half a second per tick of damage dealt to Illaoi. But if you run the duration is like say 8 seconds but you can destroy say 3 tentacles to end the effect

[@Wildcat12]

Illaoi is a juggernaut. Juggernauts struggle against characters with mobility, but dominate immobile characters. To fix this, Riot made Illaoi even worse against mobile champions she already loses to anyway, while being even stronger against immobile characters she already beats anyway. Truly a masterful design.

[@torri776]

Illaoi is a massive Riven counter. I can't tell you how many times I set an Illaoi behind only for her to outscale me miserably with Iceborn working in tandem with Sundered Sky. Despite both champions being SS users, Illaoi is the single BEST user of Sundered. This is because her W has basically no cooldown lategame, is point and click, and is unstoppable so the heal always goes off (without counting healing from Tentacles). I do agree that Illaoi is poorly designed, though.

[@Wildcat12]

​@@torri776 I should've specified in lane I suppose. There's some characters she goes neutral against like Riven but she shouldn't ever be winning unless you overstep into her trying to force a fight, which is almost never the play against any juggernaut.

[@carbonol]

@@torri776 since when illaoi have no cooldown on w in late (and how and decrises SS cooldown) and since when illaoi have unstoppable on w?

[@giovannicampostrini6309]

@@carbonol well she has half the cooldown only while her r is active lol and about the unstoppable it is a lie by the previous commenter, she dont has the "Unstooppable windup" that is what make an basic attack hit despite the character being under cc, like udyr e for a example

[@puddingsimon2626]

@@torri776illaoi counters riven because riven will always engage here in a straight line, making it easy to hit her E. Riven is also a lane bully, she’s a high dmg fighter that wants to desperately snowball. By that she’ll be super aggressive, but that plays perfect into illaoi who herself can’t be due to her immobility. Same with renekton.

[@queenbowsette9541]

Illaoi the champion that baits your jungle into a 1v2 in top lane(no matter how many times you ping them away) only to end up feeding her 2 kills. Now she's EVERYONES problem

[@dvwut]

This is why I play Illoai as my top fill, with top lane having so much emphasis on the jungle deciding the outcome of the lane, playing a champion that actually wants to be ganked is broken in itself.

[@brojiro8600]

"Just dodge E every 10 or so seconds and kill the passive tentacles while not getting into W range and you must freeze the lane eternally under your tower it's not that hard you will just be 50 cs behind at all times, ohh and specifically tell your team to never gank you"

[@carbonol]

1) With Illaoi E thats not "Just dodge E every 10", but "Just dont walk into her dodge E every 10", and if she tryed to use her E and u didnt go into it, just kill her(if u not 0/10) 2) " kill the passive tentacles" thats literally 2 auto in 15sec 3) "while not getting into W range" her W range same as Lillia's auto(formally meele) 4) "freeze the lane eternally under your tower it's not that hard you will just be 50 cs behind at all times" if u freeze and behind in cs there are something wrong with your freezing. Freezing is not same as not farming. Vs Illaoi thats literally just dont int and if your team not hard losing take your lp

[@thememedad202]

@@carbonol Are we really just going to pretend that Illaoi will give up her tenacles for free? She will obviously defend them and saying that "it's easy, just don't go into her melee range!" on a lane that's majorly played by melee champions is just silly. 10 seconds is also not enough to kill Illaoi. Plus the issue is that you have to dodge EVERY E, because if you don't you lose.

[@kioken101]

@@thememedad202 If she tries to defend them then you bait her into using E, once she misses E then you take a fight with her. Even if you didn't kill the tentacle, you can dodge the passive slams if she doesn't have iceborn gauntlet. Many champs will beat an Illaoi with no E in 10 seconds, or it will get her below half and force her to play back.

[@lillyie]

it's frustrating that you are punished for running away or fighting illaoi. fight back? exactly what she wants so that she gets more tentacles to smash you with run away? you become a vessel, have a massive slow inflicted and now tentacles are summoning in your location to smash you so that you can't just stand still and recall after successfully getting away

[@PiotrK]

Punished for having skill issue.

[@gotnthinonmeh644]

Just dodge e

[@Lin_Nascimento]

@@gotnthinonmeh644 And how do you do it at point blank range when you're fighting her?

[@shulamitwhatsittoya6550]

​@@Lin_Nascimento If you let her get close enough to point-blank E and she's still in range of tentacles that's your fault. She needs at least 2 otherwise you can just tank the damage and kill her. She has very clear weaknesses.

[@Lin_Nascimento]

@@shulamitwhatsittoya6550 You need to farm, so you have to walk up to her, then she just W and E. And if you let her push the lane, she just punishes you under turret when you go for a last hit

[@TherealNiqqa]

"Just dodge E" - 🐄

[@lillyie]

that applies to all champions though just dodge ashe's giant arrow just dodge nidalee's spear just dodge morgana's bind

[@Step43099]

⁠​⁠@@lillyieyea but the difference is that those champs you just named don’t solely rely on those abilities to do what they do best. Illaoi does. Not that I don’t think “just dodge it” is bad advice but the example just wasn’t great

[@sirreginaldfishingtonxvii6149]

@@Step43099 To be fair I've seen Illaoi completely fucking destroy people even if she completely misses her E. Then I ask the Illaoi about it in chat and she just laughs and says "idk Illaoi moment" lol Not particularly mega fed either or anything mind you. Yes E is insane but like... She can be kinda scary even without it.

[@Step43099]

@@sirreginaldfishingtonxvii6149 As an Illaoi player trust me I know. I just meant her E and R are her biggest threat buttons compared to her Q and W

[@alejandrojimenez1685]

I know it does not add anything to the conversation, but nidalee does have to hit her Q or else she is pretty useless 😅 ​@@Step43099

[@ethanosgood8159]

I would love if Illaoi's E was just a hook that spawns a tentacle or two. It'd still be annoying, but it'd feel more fair.

[@carbonol]

Yeah, and give her normal cast time and hitboxes, like Naut's q)

[@scooberz2015]

I think Illaoi is simultaneously one of the most unique and well designed champions in the entire game while also being a huge design error. *COMPLETELY NAILED* the feel of an area denial juggernaut + mage. I mean absolutely nailed it. Tell me you dont FEEL like a beefy monster who owns her turf when you play her. You cant. Problem with that is...*Neutral focused + juggernaut mage* shouldnt really exist.

[@nimrodfilms5104]

My biggest annoyance with Illaoi used to be all of the bugs (on top of everything mentioned in this video....) and thigns that just are not/weren't said ANYWHERE. I think it may say it now (not sure), but for a while after she was released, there was ZERO mention that her tentacles were invincible, INSTANTLY SLAMMED, and DID NOT SHOW THE HIT BOX during her ult. Very often it would happen where a tentacle would spawn soon after Illaoi used W in her Ult, and the damage of the tentacle would both happen before the tentacle would be visually seen AND it would not have a visible hit box, giving you damn near only an auditory queue that you were gonna get hit. The fact that non of that was even stated anywhere is criminal.

[@skywalkerjohn8965]

I feel like one of the mistake Riot always do with these type of champion is they give scaling to something that should not scale. Probably just me but i dont think Illaoi E should have scaling. I havent touch League for a while so people can call bs on my take as much as you like.

[@elinogales]

This could basically be used for the same reasons for Yorick as well actually

[@whyarewestillhere6381]

With yorick you just kill the ghouls and the maiden first. Illaoi ult makes tentacles intargetable so it's not the same although I do understand your point.

[@Rodriguez-2718]

@@whyarewestillhere6381 "just kill the ghouls and the maiden" unless you are playing irelia, yasuo or mordekaiser, you aint getting rid of the ghouls fast enough. Much less the maiden.

[@carbonol]

@@whyarewestillhere6381 illaoi's ult works for 8sec and she cant 1-shot towers like yorick, thats not even close

[@everythinggamer2388]

T1 gonna be mad when he sees this

[@diamond_doofus]

In my experience, Illaoi is one of the only champs that are equally threatening while behind. I've had way too many experiences where I'm losing as Illaoi, or I'm ahead of an enemy Illaoi, only for some hapless jungler to even the lane by mistakenly believing they can 1v1 her in her ult.

[@MiximumDennis]

I wanted to say that Illaoi is not slow, she has one of the highest base movement speed in the game alongside Master Yi

[@Koko-Katori]

I love Illaoi, she was one of the champions I saw that made me want to play league. Now I play ADC because I hate myself, how times change

[@wiktorma1679]

I once had a game, in which our bot fed the enemy and went AFK, but rest of us got fed and we won 3v5, we were playing Yi, Illaoi and I played Viktor. Gotta say, having borderline unkillable tank was very much appreciated.

[@WoodheadM]

She used to be forced to take corrupting potion as she would run into mana issues. Hopefully the manna for level nerf will give her a weakness again.

[@Omegeddon]

She's always had mana problems and glaring weakness

[@TheMrFancyKiwi]

I'm surprised you didn't mention how insane her healing can be. 5% missing health per tentacle per champ hit.

[@jeffmadariaga616]

Her ult should have a cast range .... it's call leap of faith 😅

[@miguelsanchez825]

I really hate how people just call everything one shot. Caitlyn hitting you in a trap and killing you? One shot on squishies, or instagbing you along her Q and E. Anivia hitting all her combo and ulti for 2 rotations? Just called big dmg and killled you. Yone? Sustained one shoting, and burst per second

[@shadowlibra5758]

Dude i didn’t knew you also do League Content 🤯🤯I always watched your second acc but never considered your main but damn this is gonna be a nice week with your acc right by hand😊

[@shanecoffing]

The problem is illaoi does two things. Damage and healing. That's it. No crowd control. NO MOBILITY AT ALL. No outplay potential. And her damage is HARD to setup late game. Yes anyone can click Flash + R but laning and navigating games with her is difficult. Anyone with 5 braincells can walk out of your ult. Or CC you. But she is EXTREMELY reliant on teammates. If you have no good engage or supports to help you get in, you either split push or team fight once every 300 seconds when flash is up. And to compensate, they made her damage and healing insane. I disagree on one shorting, if anything I believe she is one of the only true non-assasin champions that can one shot in the game. An ult into W with 3+ items will kill 80% of the cast in under 2 seconds. But she has to do that, because she does nothing but damage. Illaoi without ult late game is a cannon minion. Quite a few easy fixes honestly, but all would change her gameplay alot. Rework her E to be a skill shot karma E that marks enemies to aggro illaoi tentacles than can buff rest of kit is personal favorite. I would buff her passive to spawn tentacles much more frequently (killing minions can lower passive cooldown or landing Q) or ult to stun for 1 second to all enemies hit.

[@Peyton-f8m]

Illaoi is Zed. But immobile so she needs to be far more op than Zed to be balanced. There. Her passive tentacles can be 0 or 10 unreliable slams. You can juke them all or get both yourself and the clone hit by all 10. Just like Zeds wq. If he pushes we auto R w, w, q he can throw up to 4 shuriken while also having you marked. Illaoi E is zeds R in a basic ability. Illaoi passive is zeds w, but an insane number of them. That's insane.

[@food7479]

Unironically: Swarm Illaoi, where she regularly attacked and placed her tentacles was the first time I enjoyed playing her

[@shulamitwhatsittoya6550]

@@food7479 Yeah she gets bursted easily in teamfights. Especially against fed mages.

[@Blu_Moon_Owl]

She just sooooooo annoying to lane against on top of being able to heal and sustain in fights as long as her tentacles hit something. Not to mention she is just gonna walk straight to the Nexus since she’ll have Gauntlet and Demolish to destroy turret and slow win lane

[@MiximumDennis]

The biggest thing is removing the hitbox woth ult. Illaoi literally breaks the game

[@Insanityltself]

Playing Renekton into Illaoi can be absolutely miserable

[@SangoProductions213]

I wonder what an artillery mage and juggernaut combo would be like. I mean, I guess it would look a bit like Jayce.

[@tenkatsudon461]

Everything's wrong with Illaoi

[@metrux321]

Illaoi is frustrating. The balance or strength is not even the worst issue, it's the frustration, that you can be up on her the whole game, canceling her and dodging e's... If she get's you on a e and ults, you still loose. I'm playing a tactical team x team game, not touhou!

[@carbonol]

If u not hard int and not losing in first 20min and dont have super late game comp u expect to autowin? U sure that your problam is Illaoi and not that what u just want vs bots that not gonna farm and buy items?

[@metrux321]

@@carbonol I guess your reading comprehension is bad? But don't worry, I won't judge you. When I say "be up on her" I mean having a hard advantage, something like 7/2 on her 1/5, more than 50 CS in front, the deal. And I tend to use champions that scale rather well. Yet, if she gets her e, I still can't win the trade, after I've spent the whoel game dodging and getting advantages on her. Does this makes it clearer?

[@magnet5504]

It's actually funny cause the same thing happens to the illaoi player nore often that none, you can be up 7/2 as illaoi, but if you miss one e in a teamfight and the enemy team aren't literal monkeys and run away when you ult you're just a walking meat sack worth a ton of gold, there are fights where you just can't do anything, playing as and against Illaoi is just frustrating, she truly needs a rework man :( ​@@metrux321

[@kioken101]

@@metrux321 I mean having a gold advantage on her will definitely make beating her easier, but if you get hit by E and still try to take a trade while she has R, you're kind of giving away the advantage you've accumulated. If you don't try to trade and walk away immediately worst case you lose some health but you're still fine to try another trade when she misses the next E. If she hits E and immediately Rs as you're walking away then she wastes a huge amount of her power and you can probably kill her after it ends.

[@metrux321]

@@kioken101 I mean, you're not wrong, but the simple fact that a single skill hit can turn around a big advantage is... As I said before, frustrating. Always need to be on eggshells until she misses the e.

[@Icagel0]

Illaoi is one of the most fun champions in the game, plus her lore is great. Riot needs to release more champions like that, control juggernaut is just the ultimate power fantasy. Also every ability in her kit has some sort of counterplay, as noted by her winrate sharp decline as you move up in ranks

[@whyarewestillhere6381]

Sometimes the only counterplay against Illaoi is to dodge the game.

[@carbonol]

@@whyarewestillhere6381 yeah, but also u can buy mouse with working right click and it will help u not only vs illaoi

[@kuyper161]

Hey Vars, loved the video! I myself have really enjoyed playing Illaoi over the past 2 or so years mainly because of her agency as a control juggernaut. This was mainly because of the pressure you can exert with her on the side lanes forcing the team to react and send anywhere from 1 to 5 people after you based on how strong you are relative to the game. My main question is about control mages as a whole. What defines them differently from battle mages? In my mind a control mage exerts pressure from the threat of a locational area on the map whereas a battle mage tends to exert pressure through teamfights and consistent damage over time such as a champion like Swain. Whenever I’ve tried to find the differences between battle mages and control mages the lines really seem to be blurry. I was hoping that maybe you could clarify on this idea.

[@PowerEd8]

Dirty Mobs shoutout!

[@noodlesandeggs1512]

I have a few ideas on how to fix Illaoi to make her more consistent and less frustrating to deal with. Just note I’m not a top lane main and I’m roughly talking about ideas here. -Reduce the damage her Passive tentacles can deal to the pulled spirit with her E and reduce the current healing the Tentacles gives to Illaoi when they just attack the spirit -Have her manually place down her Passive Tentacles instead of them randomly spawning. I imagine like Fiddlesticks, you would be able to have a different trinket slot where you are able to place tentacles instead of Wards and they can only be placed next to walls. To account for this, the Tentacles would give some vision -Move the slow from her E (after breaking the spirit) to her W. Meaning you have to be in her threat range to get slowed instead of her just spamming E and breaking your spirit with a chance to miss it. -Bring back the mechanic to fight for your spirit back. Attacking her would cause your spirit to come back faster without getting cursed. -Her Q gives her more healing and damage when she hits an enemy champion compared to the passive tentacles These are my ideas to move her away from zoning enemies out in lane and over reliance on her E to discourage the interactions to her wanting to engage against enemy champions like a regular Juggernaut would while keeping her theme. Her E should function as an assist with counter play not a determining factor in a fight.

[@froxan4010]

When you asked what is the central issue with the log. I saw the subtitles but the lack of influence on the Eee through me off.

[@seyana7358]

Video covers a lot of the points. Unfortunately it misses the fact that the moment mages/adc players start using their brain you are never realistically landing an e on someone. It’s horribly slow and has a tiny hit box and most players should be able to dodge it. They can also take out your tentacles from range to remove any threat from you actually hitting an e on someone. Iceborn won’t help you if you never get in range which any adc player properly spacing you will not

[@crazysans3311]

If they change her passive so that a portion of her 5% missing hp healing is replaced with a flat amount of healing (maybe like 2% missing hp + 20-100) so the fights would be less binary (have to consider possible item advantage instead of the fight being decided if illaoi hits her e). Because she heals off 5% missing hp right now, it doesn't matter if you dodged the first few tentacles (when she is near full hp she heals for barely anything, maybe 50hp or so) but if she hits 2 tentacles when she is about 10% hp (which is not hard) then she gains almost a quarter of her hp bar if she hits both you and the spirit. I think the above change would make it so that she is less frustrating to play against when she is dying a lot (right now if illaoi is 0-3-0, down 2 levels she can still win the 1v1 if she hits e, but with this change, the level deficit will matter) but still remaining at the same strength to right now if even/ahead.

[@Ddboyz465]

Yeah! Video topic I've been waiting on

[@Vinicius-Bigode]

1:16 Yo, boy deserves more recogniton. Cleanest Illaoi.

[@VLevi2611]

Ohh yes let me grab a snack, I waited for this episode for so long!

[@Cheddarcheesemonkey]

I think your idea of the E grab makes a lot of sense. I think it still fits the cintril juggernaut style while not being entirely ridiculous to play against. You could even have the tentacles still smack down on them. Maybe the grab does no damage, its just a grab, but the tentacles all get a slam.

[@PotatoPcEmu]

Always a good day when vars posting

[@jojotv9383]

Last time I played against Illaoi, I really felt how not getting hit by E makes the matchup totally free, way playing Gwen and pressed W everytime I wanted to engage, and everytime the E went right through me and I could just run her down like that. It was so incredible how this one ability makes or breaks this champ!

[@blaggs2137]

Wow, i remember watching your rotmg streams a couple of years ago. Those were great times. Hope you're doing great❤

[@VarsVerum]

Can't believe it's been 4 years already

[@kendokarl9621]

As much as I hate illaoi, I love her for the same reasons. She really fulfills the power fantasy of being able to 1v5 and split. I will admit it's frustrating and unfun to play vs, hell it's even unsatisfying to play often, but I just love her anyways

[@PiotrK]

Knowledge check like someone said, if you are better than your opponent, she is perfect to climb. She punishes skill issue hard (no need to rely on ur brainlet silver team).

[@dogshake]

@@PiotrK Not really. She’s just punishing, for everyone. Bad champion design.

[@GarnetDust24]

I’d like to see a video like this for seraphine. A champ designed for midlane, who players mostly played support yet she has the highest winrate as APC.

[@Bl4ckDr4co]

Illaoi is completely fine as a champion right now. Her entire gameplay comes down to landing E. Ppl just are impatient and don't want to play the game. I find Fiora's minigame far more annoying than Illaoi.

[@wlnlax14]

I'm a significantly invested Illaoi main. I like to think of the game as my Illoai mini game where the rules of the rift are a bit different for me. I can disregard many things that are certain death for most any other champ and I just apply pressure until they lose through me or from my team having a numbers advantage anywhere else because you need more than 1 to stop my push

[@fireballfb5528]

For me the only change for Illaoi would be that her E Pulls Enemy Champions towards her, slow them on arrival for 2sec for x amount and apply Test of Spirit on them -> her tentacles will aggro the champion for 5sec and her Ult will spawn an extra tentacle

[@Crona_Gowther_Kanato]

As someone who has mainer her throughout her entire League lifetime, oh I WILL be the judge of this. Let's see what you compiled. Edit 1: 1:16 Ok ok shoutout to DirtyMobs instantly solidifies this as someone who's done their hw, I would argue in favor that DM has literally been the only leaguetuber consistently pumping out Illaoi content for the last couple years so it's fair to say he deserves a lot of credit in this regard for bringing to light her strengths/weaknesses/& game states.

[@ridori7376]

I'd personally make her E into something similar to a Naut hook so that she has some sort of gap closer/CC and speed up all of her cast times. Also I don't know how others feel about this but I've always felt like her Q should make her tentacles slam too. Right now you can't aim the tentacles in any way, you just press W and pray that they hit. It can be extremely finnicky, specially if the enemy is close to any given tentacle and it just ends up aiming in a random direction. If you could aim them with Q, similar to Zed for example, then it would add a lot more agency to hitting her tentacles imo. You could then make her W summon a tentacle when hitting a champion instead, kinda like how it works in 2XKO. That way you're a lot more self suficient without needing to already have tentacles set up and you could pretty reliably do E > W > Q and get some nice damage out of it.

[@farzalou2154]

being a 5/0 Darius vs a 0/5 illaoi always feels like you are fighting for your life despite statchecking her i can somehow still loose the 1 vs 1 if i don't dodge her abilities. being a 0/5 Darius vs 5/0 illaoi feels like their is nothing you can do except accept the fact that you have indeed lost your test of spirit.

[@carbonol]

Wow, sounds just like lvl1 champ vs late game champ...

[@farzalou2154]

@@carbonol nah Darius is decent late game. Not ground breaking but definitely not weak.

[@Omegeddon]

Because you're still Darius. You trying to get in her face is exactly what she wants you to do. You pull her? Great she gets a free ER and you're dead gg. Her E has to be down if you want to fight her. Simple as that

[@carbonol]

​@@farzalou2154 ok, then can u name 5 top lane champs that weak in late game?

[@farzalou2154]

@@carbonol your point ? What is the idea behind making me saying the name of 5 hypothetical 'weak' late game toplaner ?

[@Relhio]

She is pretty much in the same spot as Azir, if she is played well her output is huge. She literally yells how to counter her when she uses her Q.

[@COFFEE_WEEB]

I kind of agree but i cant imagine playing illaoi and NOT thinking "oh here we go" when someone gets hit by E in a teamfight. Its so toxic but so good

[@ICEC00L3D]

As someone who has mained Illaoi for several seasons with moderate success (Got me to Plat), her inconsistent power has always been a pain point for me. Some games I can literally 1v5 and other games I die 1v3 before my E + Ult even finish casting, even when I'm strong. I would love to see Riot drop some of her power in exchange for some consistency, exchanging her E for a mini blitz hook or just making her tentacles more reliable without having to build a slowing item first every game would at least give her some build variety. Side note: Grievous wounds seems to effect Illaoi disproportionally more when compared to other healing champs, I'm sure it's just a bias or something but whenever I build Grievous wounds against Aatrox, Vladamir and especially Sorraka, it seems to do nothing. Meanwhile , Illaoi's healing just disappears completely. Honestly at this point I think Grievous wounds should just be removed and healing rebalanced, no-one likes building it, the only people who can build is easily are Tanks(which requires the enemy to attack you) and ADC's(Who mostly never build it anyways, lost so many games bc of this). I would rather see the system removed.

[@Luckyener]

Yuumi always catching strays from vars.

[@G_Kchrst]

Vars has said that Riot should make her E into a CC tool again in the past but the thing is that if you remove Test of Spirit Illaoi is not the same character, even her lore revolves around it.

[@etizel99]

I remember fighting illaoi as lee sin having two levels and an item over her, dodging two rotations of her abilities, even spacing her w which is great for a pleb like me and then she hit ONE E and I lost 70% of my health in like a couple of seconds. I've held a grudge against her ever since

[@jeper3460]

Another very weird thing about her is that, in such a matchup dependant role as top lane, she doesn’t really have any even lane matchups; she either hard wins or hard loses with no in between. If your champ is at least 2 of the following: - Slow - Melee - Bad at clearing waves then she just wins automatically, with few exceptions, and if it doesn’t then she just loses. This is also why her arguably two worst matchups in lane are fast ranged champs with good waveclear, in Karma and Aurora.

[@ginger_queen8108]

i think test of spirit, while cool, isnt something that belongs in league. if they replaced it with a tentacle grab that flings you into the air towards illaoi, it would give her a way to guaruntee a tentacle smash without being unfair to play against. if she misses, she cant hit you with a tentacle smash and/or harsh lesson. if she hits, she can do one big instance of damage but youre still able to run away and survive after that. again im all for quirky abilities, but they also need to be pragmatic for everyone involved

[@forrestkennedy5458]

I am a garen otp in top, and I love fighting illaoi. It feels like a very micro intensive matchup. I have to focus really hard on dodging the e, but if I dodge it, I get a good trade, and if I do that enough times, I can kill her with my ult. Garen has enough movement speed to dodge her stuff very effectively.

[@AshBlossomWorshiper]

I feel like this is a direct result of the Vel/Xer controvercy in the tier list😂

[@pyxissiderum]

For so long I've waited for this moment

[@davidtanase1691]

YOU MADE A VIDEO ON MY MAIN! GOD BLESD YOU VARS

[@user-hy4eo8zr5f]

This just makes me want to play Ruined King for like the 3rd or 4th time now

[@mimoviuzice9839]

4:10 "she does not oneshot" Proceeds to show a video of illaoi destroying 2 champions in a second

[@noahzhellos8344]

Potential idea for rebalancing Illaoi E: Bring back the mechanic where the victim striking Illaoi would shorten its duration, but either extend the maximum duration or also add the notion that Illaoi hitting either the spirit or the would-be vessel extends the duration.

[@midorayo1149]

4:38 i hope marksman class still be able to beat tanks :C (looking at you tahm kench)

[@Simaris12]

The problem with her E is, that it is ranged, which not only means that she can hit you from very far away, but also, when she misses, she has enough distance usually to play safe until its up again, so you arent even able to punish her mistake and window of vulnerability very good as a melee. It would be much more healthy if it had a short range, so if she misses it, you can punish her right away. The caveat here is, that most melee toplaners are not fast enough to gapclose to her when she knew she fucked up to punish her accordingly, and playing against a champion you know you cant punish even when he misplayed some key abilities while she can either run or even still excrt pressure on you from range is imo the main problem.

[@Juria1987]

Test of spirit being a grabby CC move would be nice, though it'd need to be changed a bit so it not just...well another blitzcrank hook or something. Dunno how to do that though, lot of hooking moves in the game hrmmm.

[@PyroTech03]

I wonder how often he references league on his Smash Brothers channel... :3

[@herbertuswasnixus7322]

If ilaoi gets a rework it should be one akin to Diana or Tahm Kench: swap E and ULT and adress power budget of each ability accordingly. New E (Now Ult) should do a little damage on a small AOE around impact and spawn one tentacle. New Ult (Now E) should still hook the soul just as is now plus various secondary effects like going through minions, applying a slow or whatnot

[@nanashialfarr]

For me a good illaoi player is like a good heimerdinger or teemo, the problem is not she walking towards you, is when you need to go to her that she unleash the full control of area she obtained. Those champions have what I call a "DOMAIN", the more they remain in an area, the more dangreous is to get near them, illaoi can set up tentacles boosting her damage alongside her ultimate, heimer and his turrents and teemo his mushrooms, you need to clear the hazards they set up in the area or be far ahead if you dont want them go get the upperhand on you, otherwise you are forced to back off from their full power.

[@SleepyMG]

I can’t believe it’s been 9 years since she dropped

[@nidsonteixeira]

you win the game if your team have more ranged champs than melee and the reverse is also true I notice that a lot

[@Lilac_Lotus]

Fire Emblem Fates music? Good taste!

[@isaiaslopez8567]

Im a relativr new lol player, ive been playing like 10 months now, and the first character i liked playing is illaoi, i liked her concept, her design, and how she didnt seem cheasy to me like shaco, teemo, or set. And i found she is hard to play for the make or break of e. She can be broken, but mostly if people keep their cool and run away from tje ulti (like most ulties) she doesnt seem more annoying then most champions.

[@shaylelarue787]

Plz no touchy my illaoi

[@yesyouareright9800]

Nerf her more

[@darmandez]

Dirtymobs isn't even around anymore:(

[@definitelynotryanhardt]

You know its kinda like Zacian on release, Gamefreak took the single most overpowered type combination possible and gave it to a box legendary with one of the most busted instant cast abilities in the game. So while Zacian is technically supposed to be the glass cannon, the type combination being the literal best defensive combination in the game makes it deceptively tanky.

[@BMO20]

If Illaoi e was an actual hook like blitz hook that would be sick

[@Ghytiees]

I dont think that Illaoi's problem is that she is a control mage/juggernaut combo. Its the nature of which she does it, E is a very unique ability and what is actually frustrating.

[@Zyandrah]

I agree with your reasoning of why illaoi is such an annoying, fun-fun champ to have in your game. Its ride or die by her E. That being said, i see the only way yo fix her is to do what they did with diana, who had the same type of issue kit imbalance. Her kit is inherently flawed, so its concept needs to be changed as a whole. I suggest swapping illaoi's E into her ult and making it multi target like new skarner, ult maybe. I would reduce the spirit duration and have it extend, sorta like olaf ult is now, rewarding her for hitting the spirit but also rewarding you if you fight back. Then make her ult into her W so when she hits a champion, it spawns a tentacle regardless of passive cooldown that slams right away. Then come up with a new E ability a cc tool as you suggested, a root would fit thematically, maybe bring back something like old nevermove from OG swain. This moves her current ride or die big impact ability into her ult where it should be. Her W feels more fun to use and cohesive with her kit, and she will have a cc to help hit confirm her ult or a q. She will have actual ability combos/rotations deeper than "hit e, yes? You win. No? Then enjoy being a minion for the next while and try again"

[@chillingbird8212]

this champion is the embodiment of "if shes week shes non-existence and does nothing if shes strong (as in 0/3) she will clap the ass out of everybody"

[@raxusquin]

Lmao had us in the first half ngl

[@kunibertrandolf1886]

As a illaoi player I think there are two main things that would greatly make her more consistent and fun to play against. 1. Give her tentacles charges instead of the current auto spawn. Illaoi is all about set up and area control, yet cannot decide WICH area to control. It is pretty common to walk to objectives and not being able to spawn a single tentacle on baron or dragon because the auto spawn denies you a new spawn in the location even if the timer is up. Either that or your timer ISN'T up, reducing your help to zoning the enemy around wherever your dumbfuck tentacle spawned, like it or not. With the tentacles being more controllable, their overall damage can be adjusted downwards as the ideal use case and set up becomes easier, justifying a lower damage output over all while mainting the average damage output from tentacles over the course of an entire game. 2. Make the E more of a neutral healing/zoning ability, rather than her quasi-main damage output in lane and make the damage backloaded, rather than just %cHP based. Illaoi rips out your spirit as usual. Damaging the spirit only transfers 10%-30% of the damage dealt without scaling. The target is also briefly slowed for every damage instance coming from Illaoi increasing with distance between target and spirit, while the slow on Spirit kill or walking out of range gets shortened. If the spirit is KILLED by Illaoi, the same amount of damage she did over that duration is dealt to the target again (20%-60% overall scaling). Healing of the tentacle smashes on spirit and E linger affected people are also 150% effective, trading her damage for sustain. With that her E becomes way less of a poke tool, especially on full life characters, while it still gives a clear payoff for being able to kill the spirit completely and works as great zoning, as you can apply the slow more consitently on fleeing targets. Targets will also be able to fight back again, since contesting the spirit becomes more of a wager again. If you are high HP, the spirit will not be killed, leaving you with only miniscule damage transferred and lower poke power from illaoi. If you are LOW, the kill threat of her increases exponentially, crushing your spirit in game and in real life, just like a darius, garen or Tryndamere does.

[@alihorda]

"she does not oneshot", he lied as he breath :D

[@snolls105]

Stray thought, but I wonder how Illaoi would be different if her E was a point-and-click ability and her kit was balanced around that?

[@snolls105]

so 1. her E would need lower range to account for it being point-and-click. this would conveniently also help with the issue of control mages being able to threaten from a distance. now Illaoi can deal damage from far away, but she has to land a low-range ability first. 2. You could perhaps combine Test of Spirit with her W, then replace her E with an ability that lets her manually place tentacles? This would address the other issue with her kit where the player has very little control over how Illaoi uses her sentries. or at least, you need to know more about how the tentacles are coded than is reasonable. the W in her existing kit gives her some way to use her tentacles if she flops E, but since her E is now point-and-click, there's no real need to designate an ability to that role.

[@SpiritBreakerSett]

Illaois E must be point click. I dream for that dayy

[@richardchester2675]

So I'm actually not convinced there is an "illaoi problem" per se. Like I actually quite like it when they have a hybrid champion and don't mind when those two classes cover each other's weaknesses BUT you need to then add an actual weakness to provide counter play. I like this because it gets out of the rock, paper, scissors approach to classes a bit. The reason I think Illaoi is okay is because she has weaknesses to counter her classes covering each other. First she has a really weak advantage state like she can't push an advantage all that well, it's pretty easy to just walk away from her. Secondly like was said she has really slow animations, like with vision it's hard to be surprised by her and finally she isn't as consistent with her damage as others in her class. I think from a design perspective her e sucks and although it serves a purpose I think it could be a lot better. Also if you want an example of a hybrid where no weakness was added kasante would be that and I think Illaoi is a good example of how to combine classes without making the end champion OP. All that said she is still awkward to fight if the match up goes against you, but that's true of a lot of top lane