League of Legends: Swarm Illaoi Guide

Swarm is live on League of Legends' servers, and we're here to help you pilot Illaoi to her potential as a horde-slaying super tank.

Illaoi is the fourth champion you'll unlock in Arena, and she's very different from most other champions. Illaoi's key difference in her kit from other members of Anima Squad is that most of her damage comes from static tentacles, encouraging her to establish a safe zone and stay still for long periods of time.

So we've got a quick-and-easy guide for you on how to play her. If you don't know much about Swarm, check out our guide.

Illaoi's abilities are as follows:

Passive: Illaoi passively spawns tentacles around her through her base weapon. Illaoi and allies gain 5 Health Regen for each nearby tentacle. This allows Illaoi to function both as support for her team and as a tank.

E: Illaoi smashes the ground in a line in front of her, damaging and knocking up enemies. She automatically spawns a tentacle at the far end of her E's hitbox. This is Illaoi's basic peel ability, and one of the few pieces of hard CC on a basic ability.

Ultimate: Illaoi slams the ground, summoning 6 + Projectile Count tentacles. She gains 200 Ability Haste, making all of her tentacles slam rapidly. This is how Illaoi becomes insanely tanky, stacking an absurd number of tentacles and regenerating more than enough to facetank whole waves of enemies.

Here's are the best weapons you should be looking to pick up on Illaoi most games.

S Tier: Cyclonic Slicers, Iceblast Armor, Vortex Glove, T.I.B.B.E.R.S

A Tier: Statikk Sword, Radiant Field, Gatling Bunny-Guns

All the other weapons are significantly worse on Illaoi since she doesn't care about the offensive stats as much as other characters. Instead, she should prioritize weapons that upgrade with Duration or defensive stats.

Here's the loose order of Passives in terms of usefulness for Illaoi. As mentioned, she really wants to become a resilient threat that is near-impossible for the enemy to remove.

S Tier: Armor, Duration, Health Regen

A Tier: Armor, Max Health

B Tier: Projectile Count, Damage, Movement Speed

C Tier: Critical Chance, XP, Pickup Radius

When it comes to Yuumi Quest Upgrades, Illaoi should prioritize Ability Haste, durability, and Duration. You want as many tentacles as possible, and you want them to stick around for a long time so that you're able to regenerate most of the damage you take while they peel space.

Illaoi is the single best character and making a heroic stand in one specific location when the waves get heavy. Her tentacles stacking up in a small area allow her a ridiculous level of health regeneration, which is Illaoi's key mechanic.

As she gets Armor and Max Health, Illaoi becomes incredibly hard to shift. Your job is to buy your squishier members as much space as you can and thin the biggest hordes that Swarm offers.

Her E is a very basic peeling ability, but you should also be using the tentacle spawn at the end of the hitbox to set up an area with many tentacles in order for you to heal up. Use this to disrupt columns of enemies trying to break into your teams' ranks or set up a castle of tentacles.

Her R is an incredibly powerful tool to allow your team to stand still and fight rather than continue the near-constant kiting of Arena.

Since your health regeneration becomes very high once her ult summons all the nearby tentacles, you're often best just firing off your ult and staying in the same area. Coordinate with your team and this can save them valuable cooldowns that they need for another time.

That's everything you need to know about playing Illaoi in Swarm, hopefully you'll be onto Hard and Extreme mode in no time!