I only had 3 items. Black cleaver. Deaths Dance. Sunderer. we were getting wrecked bad. Even while lower leveled and other top fed (by others), Illaoi can pull some magic.
Majority of games I would build SS with Black Cleaver into Steraks but with the nerf im thinking of switching to starting with either Spear of Shojin or Black Cleaver as first item. RIP Sundered sky honestly i loved the item but im probably not gonna be building it anymore
Inspired by u/fastestchair, as far as I know, shojin plus LDR is the highest damage combo, outside of overlords stuff.
Wanted to mention that this is a fresh, hand leveled account in plat elo. I played 900 games last season on main, and it was miserable due to the "fast climber" bullshit. happy to elaborate if people are curious, I have no intention of "smurfing" or ruining games, I just wanted to know what an MMR reset for my own sanity.
Illaoi dmg:es enemy even if they flash a way from W, meaning the skill doesn't get canceled, she still does the animation, lands and does dmg even when enemy is clearly out of range and area. Even from middle of the map to base.
I fought illaoi as Jax yesterday and it was genuinely the worst lane I had in a while, she poked me down with grasp + W lvl 1-3 and it was hell. Now Ik that illaoi E is where most of her power budget is so I tried waiting for her to throw it so I can side step and punish her but this illaoi was smart and she would hold her E incase I ever jumped on her. Now I didn’t DIE to her in laning but I fell behind a lot of cs and a tower just trying to not feed her which got me flamed by my team regardless lol. Any help for future games would be appreciated
Hello, Riftmakers biggest defender here, with the results of hours in the practice tool.
I'm a diamond/master Illaoi Main with 1.4m mastery and wanted to share some of my research on itembuilds. I spent a few hours in practice tool and then a few analyzing and curating the data, but i wanna preface, this is not professional work. Just a dedicated main.
I keep reading build discussions and some of it honestly felt like misinformation, likely accidental. Illaoi is a weird champ and not everything is intuitive, especially the way the E damage works.
My main finding was stacked Spear of Shojin outperforming Black Cleaver until very high armor values (180, in trades without ultimate, or somewhere between 100-180 with ult)
I do want to respond to possible comments so there's no confusion:
- About the setup, i just picked situations that feel common enough in most illaoi games and are easy to replicate by my own.
- The more elaborate the combat situation, the harder to replicate. Especially on Illaoi with things like where you spawn ult tentacles, are you able to hit both soul and champion, which tentacles proc the damage reduction because of hits in a short timeframe, etc. Thats why the second setup is both a lot less accurate and thorough, i was mainly curious and wanted to get an approximation.
- I am aware that damage is not everything. Something like Iceborn gives pitiful damage but has utility, same for items like Steraks, Death's Dance or Sundered Sky. They might give AD but thats not why we buy them. BC and Shojin are primarily for damage purposes and give nice stats. Yes Shojin gives no ultimate haste unlike BC, thats a tradeoff you have to make yourself. Same for if you want Steraks Shield against burst or Riftmakers Omnivamp for sustained fights. I'm just here to tell you, you won't lose much damage
- It's a bit of an unfortunate timing with the patch coming up, but i don't think it matters. Steraks is great and will be even better, i doubt 5 ad will push BC damage above Shojin.
- About the whole pre-stacked thing: it's really hard to depict accurate game situations, so i decided on worst and best case. It is true that one of the upsides of BC is, being able to stack it very fast with Illaoi E. But on the flipside, you should be able to keep up your Shojin stacks in lane before fighting and since Riftmaker works even if you get attacked, it will be often be fully stacked before your whole animation rotation is done.
Everything else is in the images, feel free to critique or ask questions.
Does Nasus get 4 stacks from tentacles now?If he does he is a bigger counter than morde imo.
in seriousness though what a joke top lane has become. a fed illaoi is more useless than a broken shitter at a mini mart, especially if the enemy team has one of those stupid mages bot ie viktor, syndra or veigar, but if you skip boots and build full damage people underestimate you and you get a huge lead and win. im not a fan of bausens law and think int to win is a stupid cringe strat and makes your profile look bad, but all those games I lost I was playing serious and trying to minimize deaths and actually think, but nope doesnt matter meanwhile all those games I won I was rage queuing out of frustration but won because top lane has no agency
silver. feels like everytime i land an E on him he just walks up and deletes my entire healthbar with R and playing safe under tower. i know that there's a point where i outscale him but it feels like by the time i reach that point the game is over already
I discovered today that when you have edge of night's shield up ( i discovered it with banshee but i tested both and i feel EoN is a more relevant item ), making a melee Z/W doesn't proc a tentacle.
As soon as the shield is down, she function as expected.
I dunno if it's old bug or new, feels like the opposite of tentacle slam on turret ( who only happen's when melee Z/W ).
Kinda dope GA synergy cus you're getting max overlords damage while you're chilling in stasis
This season was the first time I decided to climb somewhat seriously even tho I kept jumping between champs cuz I got quickly bored but I must have really forgotten what got me into this game aka illaoi, she’s so fun
How do you genuinely win games on this character? I can stomp lane or feed my ass it makes no difference i will still lose.