Early Game (Levels 1-5):
Farming and Positioning:

Focus on farming with your Q (Tentacle Smash) while simultaneously harassing your opponent if they come close to minions. Use the range of Q to poke enemies and farm safely.
Position yourself near walls or in the brush to create opportunities for tentacle slams on enemies who try to engage or trade.

Trading:

Use E (Test of Spirit) to harass enemies when they go for last hits. Landing E pulls a spirit from them, making them vulnerable to damage and allowing you to harass them.
Follow up with W (Harsh Lesson) on the spirit for additional damage. This combo can chunk down opponents' health and force them to play defensively.
Avoid extended trades early against champions with strong early game damage like Darius or Renekton.

Sustain:

Illaoi's passive tentacle spawns from nearby walls or structures. Position yourself to manipulate tentacle spawns and use them to sustain through farming and trades.
Start with Doran's Shield and Health Potions for additional sustain in lane, allowing you to stay longer and accumulate gold for your first back.

Mid Game (Levels 6-11):
Ultimate Usage:

Level 6 is a significant power spike with R (Leap of Faith). Use it in conjunction with Flash to surprise enemies and secure kills.
Engage when enemies are grouped together or in tight spaces where tentacles can slam repeatedly.
Coordinate with your jungler for ganks, using your ultimate to turn skirmishes in your favor.

Split Pushing:
Illaoi is effective at split pushing due to her ability to clear waves quickly with Q and passive tentacle slams.
Push lanes and draw pressure from the enemy team, forcing them to respond to your split push or risk losing towers.

Objective Control:
Use Teleport to join team fights or secure objectives like Dragon or Rift Herald.
Place wards in the enemy jungle to track movements and set up tentacles for surprise engages around objectives.

Late Game (Levels 12+):
Team Fighting:
Position yourself in frontline or flanking positions during team fights. Use Q and E to harass and zone enemy carries.
Focus on hitting multiple enemies with tentacle slams during team fights to maximize damage output and apply pressure.
Be mindful of enemy crowd control and engage opportunities, using Flash to reposition or escape when necessary.
Itemization:

Adjust your build based on the enemy team composition. Consider items like Black Cleaver for cooldown reduction and armor shred, Sterak’s Gage for survivability, and Spirit Visage for increased healing.
Adapt to counter-build against threats like magic damage or high burst from assassins.

General Tips:

Wave Management:
Control minion waves to deny farm and force enemies to overextend.

Map Awareness:
Keep track of enemy jungler and mid laner movements to avoid ganks.

Tentacle Placement:
Position yourself near walls and structures to maximize tentacle spawn locations and control areas of engagement.
By focusing on these strategies, you can maximize Illaoi's strengths in the top lane, dominate matchups, and contribute effectively to team fights throughout the game. Adjust your playstyle and build based on matchups and team compositions to optimize your impact on the game as Illaoi.

Prophet of an Elder God P
INNATE: Periodically, Illaoi spawns a Tentacle on the nearest terrain perpendicular to her location, if no other Tentacles are already nearby it. Tentacles fully spawn after a 2 second delay and are untargetable in the meantime.

Tentacles are commanded to attack by Illaoi's abilities, dealing 9 − 162 (based on level) (+ 100% AD) (+ 40% AP) physical damage to all enemies struck, increased by 0% − 30% (based on Tentacle Smash's rank). Enemies struck by multiple slams within 0.5 seconds of another, take 50% damage for the second and 25% damage for all other additional slams.Each Tentacle also heals Illaoi for 5% of her missing health if it hits at least one enemy champion.



Tentacle Smash Q
PASSIVE: Tentacle damage is increased.

ACTIVE:
Illaoi slams down a Tentacle in the target direction.
DAMAGE INCREASE:
10 / 15 / 20 / 25 / 30%



Harsh Lesson W
ACTIVE: Illaoi's next basic attack within 6 seconds gains Range icon 225 bonus range and causes her to leap to the target's location if they're beyond her normal basic attack range.

The attack deals bonus physical damage, with a minimum threshold, and capped at 300 against non-champions, and commands all Tentacles in range to attack the target. The minimum bonus damage can also be applied against turrets.
Harsh Lesson resets Illaoi's basic attack timer.
arsh Lesson can be activated during Illaoi's other abilities, other than while pulling a Spirit.

BONUS PHYSICAL DAMAGE:
3 / 3.5 / 4 / 4.5 / 5% (+ 4% per 100 AD) of target's maximum health

ACTIVE: Illaoi launches a tendril in the target direction that stops at the first enemy hit, pulling their Spirit out in front of Illaoi over 0.75 seconds if they're a Champion icon champion. The target is Focused Resolve tethered to the Spirit for 7 seconds, True Sight icon revealing them in addition to granting Sight icon sight of the area around them while the tether remains.



Test of Spirit E
ACTIVE: Illaoi launches a tendril in the target direction that stops at the first enemy hit, pulling their Spirit out in front of Illaoi over 0.75 seconds if they're a champion. The target is tethered to the Spirit for 7 seconds, revealing them in addition to granting sight of the area around them while the tether remains.

The Spirit spawns with the target's current health,armor and magic resist,and redirects a portion of the pre-mitigation damage received to the tethered champion.

DAMAGE TRANSMISSION:
25 / 30 / 35 / 40 / 45% (+ 8% per 100 AD)

When the Spirit is killed or the target leaves tether range, the tether is severed, marking the target as a Vessel for 10 seconds and slowing them by 80% for 1.5 seconds once the tether returns back to them. Each Tentacle autonomously attacks the closest Vessel or Spirit, prioritizing the latter, once every 5.5 / 4.5 / 3.5 (based on level) seconds.

Enemies made a Vessel also spawn a Tentacle near themselves every 5 / 4 / 3 (based on level) seconds. Tentacles can spawn 250 units closer to each other than when spawned by Illaoi.

Illaoi is unable to act while firing the projectile and while the target's Spirit is being pulled.
Illaoi cannot cast Test of Spirit again until the Spirit dies.
Vessels can dispel the debuff by scoring a takedown against Illaoi.



Leap of Faith R
ACTIVE: Illaoi gains displacement immunity and leaps into the air for the cast time. She then slams her idol into the ground, dealing physical damage to nearby enemies. For each enemy champion hit, a Tentacle is summoned for 8 seconds (up to a maximum of 6 summons).

PHYSICAL DAMAGE:
150 / 250 / 350 (+ 50% bonus AD)

For the duration,Harsh Lesson's cooldown is halved, all Tentacles awakened by Illaoi are untargetable, will not show their hitboxes, nor go dormant, and will take half the amount of time to make an attack. This however does not affect the Tentacle attack from Tentacle Smash.