Detailed Guide is in the works. I will update chapter after chapter.
Thank you so much for checking in. Please don't hesitate to send me constructive criticism and advices or adjustments. Thank you so much~

Why do I play her?

I started playing League back in 2017 sometime between the releases ofXayah & Rakan and Zoe. As it is still the case today, you get the chance to choose one out of three champions at different milestones during the early levels. When choosing a fighter champion I picked Illaoi because I really liked her splash art in the selection screen. Having not a single clue about the game, my focus lied in the superficial traits at first. But the more playtime I gathered with her, the more she grew on me. She’s really fun to play and you have so many great opportunities to abuse and annoy your enemy in lane. Illaoi has a huge teamfight potential, dealing a ton of damage in a small amount of time when played right, but you can also splitpush and put great pressure on the enemy.

In-game facts aside… When thinking of Illaoi, you see a buff woman with tentacles. But when listening to her and reading into her lore, you realize the different facets of her character. She is a tall and strong woman, yes. She seems brutal and relentless, merciless even. But that’s not all she is. She is convinced of her role as a priestess of Nagakabouros and she firmly believes in her faith. Being in motion and staying in motion at all times at all cost is what is most important to her. As she believes, without motion you cannot change and you cannot develop and work on yourself.

To all Katarina and/or Garen players out there, you might already know that they are a Romeo and Juliette story set in Runeterra. Lovers from different parties, a forbidden and complicated love. But as said by Illaoi: "No love is impossible, my god demands you follow your desires."

Lore aside, I see her as a beautiful woman and, especially in the world of League of Legends and Runeterra, an important female character. Ignoring Yordles and animals, there are only a few women in the game that would not be considered conventionally pretty and she is one of them. Representing a different beauty standard and a courageous as well as resolute personality, she stands for women who feel like they can’t fit in any of the usual categories. Instead of giving us a pétit and quiet priestess, they gave us the complete opposite and for that I’m very thankful. Now if only they would invest more of their time into creating additional characters who don’t fit into the standard ideal of beauy. This issue, of course, applies to the male champions as well.

P - Prophet of an Elder God

Illaoi’s passive spawns tentacles in a radius of 1000 units and on a static cooldown of 20 - 7.25 based on Level. The tentacle spawn next to the nearest terrain, be it walls or turrets. They can also spawn on destroyed structures. Tentacles will not attack on their own unless commanded so by Illaoi herself using her abilities.

Now why are the tentacles so important when playing? Of course they’re a damage output but also whenever hitting an enemy champion, Illaoi will heal 4.5% of her missing health. This effect stacks when more tentacles hit the same targets not with the enemies hit per Slam. Knowing where to place them is a first step in setting up a fight.

If you want to read more aboutProphet of an Elder God, follow this link

Tentacle Placement - Laning
While Illaoi is not a very mechanical champ, there are a few things you can keep an eye on. Tentacle Placement and Management are one of these things and vital while playing the Priestess. Now of course you can’t point-and-click to place tentacles, however you can affect where they spawn by simply walking closer towards the spots.



This is my starting setup. Tentacle (A) at the turret, (B) and (C) at the corner to the lane. Generally you wantTentacles to be placed near or directly on a corner. Tentacles will be able to effectively smash into several directions from which you might get attacked. In this example (B) and (C) are not too far back so we can push ahead and fight in the middle of Toplane. Right here between these tentacles is also my go to spot to freeze lane. It’s very hard for the enemy to engage in a fight here since our Tentacles put up too much pressure and he risks losing a trade. In case we get run down the lane, we can retreat to these tentacles and use their damage and healing power to stall. The circled locations would work as a spawn point for all Tentacles too, but I like to have (B) and (C) further down the lane so their range reaches the enemy even when I’m leaving the safety of blue side toplane.

(A) is our “backup”. In case the enemy swiftly kills (B) and (C) we still have this one under the tower to counterstrike and maybe even get some health back.

Now what if you would place one of those Tentacles a little bit more in the back? The idea of course still works. The radius might overlap and they attack the same target simultaneously. However you need to consider a few things, explained in the next screenshot.



As mentioned before; In this screen you can see that (C) is placed a little more in the back compared to the screenshot before. It’s fine for when the enemy is pushing hard but what if he were to freeze or you get into a fight a little further down the lane? As our dear Graves illustrates here, only (B) is able to reach him. Although it might not be the end of time you will lose damage if placingTentacles this way.



Aside from that, (C) is also placed awkwardly so the distance between it and (D) is a bit too far. Using this screenshot you can imagine how theTentacles could slap and what contrast the placement would make. You need to consider the distance between the spawn points as just one tentacle could make the difference in a fight.

This is easier to do during laning phase but keep in mind that there is always an enemy laner who will try to clear Tentacles as fast as he can. By playing around the cooldown and distancing yourself from Tentacles (or even walking towards still present ones) you can have them respawn effectively in the same or maybe even better location.




Now in this example, (A) is placed poorly. It’s too far from the lane and oppositeTentacles so not only does the enemy have more space to move around, he also has less Tentacles to dodge at once.



This is also a great example on howTentacles can block their own spawn points. In this comparison you can see how the poorly placed (A) takes up “too much space” and how far the distance to the others is. Note that I am standing next to the ideal spawn point but nothing emerges since (A) is in the way.



And here you can see just what difference it can make when (A) is placed ideally.Tentacles active like this put up a lot more pressure onto the enemy and they cover a larger area.

If you want to get rid of a Tentacle that’s placed in an awkward position you will have to leave the range of 2000 units for 30s. They will become dormant and then despawn. Alternatively if you want to stay in lane, just distance yourself from it so the enemy laner will instinctively kill the tentacle and make space for a new one.

Tentacle Placement - Objectives
The same principle of placing them in corners applies to objectives too. In the following video I have placed a tentacle at the dragon pit. Using the dummies you can see how big of an area this single tentacle can cover. Ideally you had time to place another one directly opposite to the Tentacle so there would be even more damage output and healing.

Please keep in mind that hitboxes are a little wonky and some of the actions won't always be accurate to the pixel. I'm solely mentioning this here for you to understand how the ability works.

Q - Tentacle Smash

Illaoi’sQ is pretty straight forward. You cast it in a direction and it slams on the ground hitting all enemy units in its hitbox. By leveling this ability, the damage of all Tentacles is increased by (10 / 15 / 20 / 25 / 30%).

How to use it in lane? There’s not much to it. Use it to poke the enemy or lasthit minions farther away from you of course you should always keep your mana ressources in mind when doing this. When attacking an enemy whose spirit has been pulled, it’s best to try and hit both, spirit and champion at once. You will not receive more healing by hitting both but deal more damage to the enemy as it adds up the damage from hitting the spirit as well as the enemy himself.

If you want to read more aboutTentacle Smash, follow this link

W - Harsh Lesson

Coming soon

E - Test of Spirit

With this ability you pull the spirit of an enemy, creating a clone. It can be attacked ordinarily and has the exactly the same amount of HP, MR and AR as the opponent at the time. The clone takes a part of the damage (25 / 30 / 35 / 40 / 45% (+ 8% per 100 AD)) and transfers it to the tethered opponent. When the enemy leaves the visually indicated range or the spirit is killed, he will be marked as a vessel, slowed by 80% for 1.5s and spawns tentacles around him that will immediately attack, repeating this after 5.5 / 4.5 / 3.5 (based on level).

Now if given the option… Who do you attack? The spirit or the opponent? It highly depends on how you want to play the trade. If you attack the opponent, he takes the full damage but I feel like most of the time you could’ve just done so without using mana for your E. If you attack the spirit he will take only a portion of the damage however by destroying the clone you will be able to chase down your enemy since he will be slowed and has to dodgeTentacles as well as you. So the best thing to do, especially in meelee matchups, is to attack both. Try to hit both with your Q and command Tentacles around you to do so as well. This way you will get the full amount of damage and give your enemy a funny little minigame to play.

I also like to use it to “force” the enemy to disengage. If the opponent is engaging you, use your E+W to strike back and force them to back off. This is very easy to do against champions like Ornn, Tryndamere or Camille but more to that in her matchup guide further below.

If you want to read more about Test of Spirit, follow this link

R - Leap of Faith

Leap of faith is an incredibly strong ultimate. When hitting the groundIllaoi deals (150 / 250 / 350 (+ 50% bonus AD) physical damage to enemies nearby. R also summons oneTentacle for each enemy hit up to a maximum of 6Tentacles (one for each enemy champ +1 for a clone).

In this video you can see how manyTentacles are summoned per champion around them (unfortunately Practice Tool doesn’t allow 5 dummies so I was only able to illustrate the ult when 4 enemies + spirit are present)

For the duration of Leap of Faith, which is 8 seconds, the cooldown of Harsh Lesson is halved. As mentioned before, this is why you usually don’t level this ability until later in the game.

What most people don’t know or like to forget: for a small duration during the cast time of R, Illaoi gains a displacement immunity. This includes ults fromSett, Tahm Kench and even Mordekaiser. Since it’s not visually indicated and I have not found any information on when and for how long this immunity applies, it’s really hard to time it perfectly. It is somewhere in the short timespan that Illaoi leaps into the air. I’ve had more success dodging Sett’s ult this way than for example Mordekaiser’s.

If you want to read more about Displacement Immunities, follow this link

When going for anR, always try to pull an enemy spirit first. And here’s why. When using E and then R, the Tentacles spawned will immediately attack the enemy on their own without being commanded to do so. Enemies who have been made a vessel already, will also be immediately attacked by tentacles around them. Additionally if you use E > R > W they will attack twice as their commands stack. If the damage taken is enough to kill the spirit, the tentacles continue to attack for the rest of the ult timer as well as the leftover timer of Test of Spirit.

Now what happens when you don’t pull a spirit first? When casting R without having a spirit or vessel present,Tentacles will spawn but wait for you to use W on an enemy unit. They won’t be attacking on their own throughout the duration of Leap of Faith.

Video coming soon.

If you want to read more about Leap of Faith, follow this link

To follow

To follow

I’m by no means a pro player I just wanted to share my experience with you and maybe create an easy introduction to the game and Illaoi. I’m open for construcitve criticism as there’s so much for me to learn too and feel free to leave your own tips and advice so we can all get better at the game!

At this point I’d like to thank my fellow Illaoi mains on r/illaoi who have helped me many times in the last years and given me some valuable input. I always enjoy exchanging experiences and helping each other.

And after all, don’t forget to have fun!