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Choose Champion Build:
-
The Kraken Calls
-
Hiding In The Depths
Recommended Items
Spells:
Flash
Teleport
Items
Ability Order
Prophet of an Elder God (PASSIVE)
Illaoi Passive Ability
Threats & Synergies
Extreme
Major
Even
Minor
Tiny
None
Low
Ok
Strong
Ideal
Kennen
Kennen with his ranged poke can shut down Illaoi early game. Uneless the jungler comes helps you, you better get used to hugging the tower
Ideal
Strong
Ok
Low
None
Intoduction



As this being my first guide I'm expecting a fair few down votes, but as a writer's plea. May you please read the guide fully and actually use the build in game before you so hastily downvote me. Any feedback would be greatly appreciated. Now with that said, thank you very much for your time and I hope you can learn a thing or two from reading this guide.
Pros
|
+ Strong Late Game + High Early Game Damage + Insane Sustain + Good Zoning + Juggernaut |
Illaoi is a juggernaut at heart, Very tanking but still dealing plenty of damage. The beauty of a juggernaut allows us to use one of my most favourite items in game, The Black cleaver. It offers everything we need from health to damage and even gives us mobility which is crucial on a juggernaut. within combination of her tankiness, her passive self sustain is extremely high. |
Cons
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- Little to no CC - Spell Animation is very long - Weak vs Mobile Champions - Very Slow and Immobile - Item Dependant |
Her immobility is a major problem for her, not to mention the cast times on her Q and E are very long. With this in mind a very mobile champion like Irelia can easily dodge almost all of Illaoi's abilities by jumping from minion to minion. Her lack of cc also makes a her an easy target early game, so you want to play careful until you got at least your phage for the extra movement speed to start picking fights |











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Flash Flash these days is a default summoner for any champion, yes you can use ![]() |
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Teleport Teleport is amazing on any top laner. It allows you to have a global presence on the map, and apply pressure in all lanes. But sadly this only works if your team mates ward up, so lets all pray to the league gods that you have good team mates. I talk more about ![]() ![]() |
Runes




Greater Quintessence of Attack Damage: We have flat AD quints because we have no need for AS speed on Illaoi and we get armor and magic resist from our items, her W is a AA reset meaning you can easily reset your AA during a team fight it's better to hit harder than to just keep slapping the enemy with a wet towel. Not to mention all of her abilities scale of AD, so having flat AD marks will help you in the long run.
Greater Mark of Attack Damage: Same as AD quints, we have no need of AS on Illaoi. Better to hit hard than do nothing at all. Yes you at of many can run armor pen marks, but in the long run its far better to have multiple runes of the same attribute than that of many different attributes
Greater Seal of Armor: Pretty standard these days, nice armor seals to help you survive the early game harass. I wouldn't recommend replacing them with scaling HP. Your an AD tank who needs heavy resistance against all incoming damage.
Greater Glyph of Scaling Magic Resist: Exactly the same as the armor seals, Illaois needs resistance against all incoming damage and scaling magic resist offers everything that we need.


Illaoi has no need for the cunning tree as were not building her as an AD bruiser or off tank, she doesn't scale very well with the cunning tree. So for now we will ignore this tree.
The Resolve is Illaoi's main mastery tree, it offers everything we need to keep healthy and alive during team fights. Undying increase our resistances which grants us more survivability, which is why we chose flat armor and scaling magic resist for our runes. Our first keystone mastery is Tough Skin, it allows to to take more harass early game so we don't get pushed out. Of course She's a juggernaut so Veteran's Scars is picked up to increase our total Health. Perseverance is a hidden gem in my opinion, the synergy between Illaoi's already high sustain with high health regen is extremely good at turning a losing fight. Swiftness is used for general Tenacity, we want to be able to keep moving to their back line and push there carries out of the fight. And our final keystone mastery is Grasp Of The Undying, this mastery is amazing on any juggernaut/tank. Its synergy with Illaoi is amazing due to her being a melee champion and having a ranged AA reset, this means you can proc this mastery every 3 AA instead of 4
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Black Cleaver Illaoi and the ![]() ![]() |
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Banshee's Veil *Under Editing* |
Her early game and laning phase can be very strong but very slow, you don't want to fall into the trap of hard pushing the lane up, Illaoi has no escape so she would be easy pickings for the enemy jungler. You want to play safe and last hit until you can buy a phage and boots. Now you have some mobility, you can start fighting with some sense of escape. Always keep the river and tri warded, this should be standard for any top laner. Your passive tentacles deal a lot of damage early game, so trying to harass with them would be a huge benefit to you in the long run. A neat trick that you can do is
the range minion creeps and your tentacle will clear the wave of course some melee creeps will survive but you can easily finish them off with an AA or
. But as I've said before you need to be careful doing this, you don;t want to push up to far as you lack an escape. But Illaoi with the help of our Resolve masteries can take a a lot of damage, and with her high sustain she can easily heal up from any harass. Just don't think you're immortal and you'll be fine, Pick your fights carefully and don't push too hard.


By now you should have your first core item, which is the Black Cleaver. This item is amazing for any juggernaut as it offers all the states that we need to get rolling. Mid game is where you want to start using your
to get around the map and start making plays. A nice
bot lane can easily get your team a kill or two and if not, there bound to blow a couple of summoners to escape. Now that your bot lane and the enemy has been killed or blown summoners you can rotate to the dragon pit and get your first drake of the game. The whole point of taking
isn't so you can
top lane over and over, you want to have a global presence and start making plays to help carry your team to victory.




Late game is were we can start using our main combo to great effect, The combo which we can use for team fighting goes as followed, Engage by using
quickly followed by
then
, by the time your E has casted the delayed attack from the tentacles caused by Harsh lesson will proc. Now with the target is slowed and hopefully the enemy team is beginning to engage. Now we can pop our ultimate, the beauty of this combo is by the time your ult animation is over
will come off CD, meaning you can now instantly reset your AA and deal extra damage from your AA but also deal damage across the whole team thanks to your new 4 extra tentacles. Not to mention that each tentacle will offer 5% healing of Illaoi's missing health from each hit, this gives Illaoi an insane amount of sustain during any team fight. With this new insane sustain Illaoi becomes an unbreakable frontline protecting all summoners behind her and forcing the enemies carries out of the fight, Illaoi thrives to be at the heart of the battle her kit is designed for her to go in and not to hang back.





Many people are building Illaoi as an AD bruiser, which is wrong. Yes she does have high early game damage, but this scaling drops of mid to late game. its far more effective to build Illaoi as an AD tank not an AD Bruiser. Her kit is far better suited for it as well, by using her flat 5% heal and spirit visage we have insane sustain during any team fight and thanks to our items we can still deal a massive amount of damage. Illaoi is a juggernaut, and we all know just how powerful they can be if played properly. I've tried and test so many different builds on her, and each time the more tanky builds had the most success at winning games. But she does have her flaws, her early game is weak and don't get me wrong she does have damage early but she has no escape. If you as Illaoi push up and the enemy team has a good jungler, your an easy first blood. Hold back and farm up, get your boots and phage then you can start fighting. You don't want to allow the enemy team start snowballing off you. Its how many in the pbe countered her, you allowed Illaoi to push up and then gank her. Either 2 things are going to happen, you kill her and get first blood or she'll blow flash, then all you got to do is repeat the gank a couple mins later and *poof* you got first blood. Illaoi is extremely fun to play and her champion design is unique to League of Legends, she can carry games or run them into the ground. I hope you have playing on the field of justice and thank you for your time.
* Yeah I know I did the summary before finishing other parts, and yes I will get around to doing them
Yo, This guide is under heavy editing and will only be update when I have the free time to do so. But I will keep a Log of all updates and progression here
Updates
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+ Added Runes & Summoner Spells + Added Items + Added Situational Items to Item Build + Added Skill Order + Added Masteries + Added Threats To Illaoi + Added Description to each champion mentioned in the threat section + Finished Introduction + Finished Pros/Cons + Finished Abilities + Finished Runes + Finished Summary / Started Masteries + Finished Masteries + Finished Early Game + Finished Mid Game + Finished Late Game ~ Going to rewrite Late Game - Falling asleep, will finish when I wake up + Woke up + Added New Chapters + Finished Summoners + Added Core Items + Added Situational Items + Finished Core Items ~ Writing Situational Items + Fixed/Updated Masteries + Masteries Chapter Updated |
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