How do I play Illidan?

General Discussion
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Illidan is one of my favorite heroes.

I like his play style, and really wan to get good with him, so can I have some tips?

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Last pick him like Butcher, when the enemy has no good stunlockers like Uther and no blinders. If you have an Abathur to hat you every time you go in, even better.

If you want to early pick him frequently in Draft modes you will be disappointed. He is a bit outdated/unviable for that.

In 2020 he is also rarely played as a split pusher: He goes from lane to lane with The Hunt constantly, as his trait will allow him to have low cooldown on it.

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Noted.

Any tips for non-draft then?

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So it’s either quick match or ARAM.
ARAMs are messy but you don’t know enemy’s pick, sometimes you just need to accept your fate.
QM are the hell of balance. So expect a lot of stuns or blinds when going there as illidan.

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So the general notion is that Illidan sux.

I thought it was only for basic abilities?

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Your mileage may vary, but I use this build:

  • Level 1: Battered Assault or if 3 lane map, Unending Hatred. Immolation doesn’t give enough of a damage boost.
  • Level 4: Friend or Foe or Unbound: There are many situations where you need to retreat but your dash alone wont be enough. Jumping to an ally will save your life countless times.
  • Level 7: Thirsting Blade: This will greatly increase your self heal while you are amidst 1 or 2 enemies and make you much harder to kill.
    Reflexive Block is not worth taking in comparison as your block stacks will burn very fast.
  • Lv10: Completely depends on whether you want to be partly PvE or full PvP, Metamorphosis is better for pure PvP, Hunt allows you to jump between lanes, camps and fights constantly.
  • Lv13: Depends on your tastes, but I take Sixth Sense vs multiple spellcasters, and Elusive Strike (Evasion reduced by 3 seconds every time Sweeping Strike hits a hero) vs generalist teams.
  • Level 16: All 3 are viable, I personally take Blades of Azzinoth as it massively increases your DPS without having to attack the same hero like Fiery Brand does.
  • Level 20: Nexus Blades or Demonic Form. I don’t think the unlimited range/bush reveal is worth an upgrade, and he doesn’t necessarily need Bolt of the Storm. But if you want an extra chase/escape tool and feel unsafe against the enemy team you can take bolt.

I don’t generally dive in as Illidan. I wait for our ranged assassins and tanks to soften a target to 30-40% HP before I go in. If I pick him and join teamfights, I play him as a finisher first and foremost. I don’t go in the face of 100% health enemies.

You will greatly help your team by being the general camp taker. Take camps for your team before objectives. Or just because you can. All game. If you take The Hunt, soak lanes right before an objective all the way to the last second before going in.

I thought it was only for basic abilities?

Betrayers Thirst also reduces his heroic cooldown. After all, it does say ability. Not basic or heroic. Some people misinterpret that.

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Thank you for the build.

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Reflexive Block is actually a really strong pick if the enemy can’t burn through your stacks with Tracer/Genji/Zara etc.

It’s Jhow’s default pick for his Unending Hatred build. Really strong if you have a reliable healer on your Illidan.

You get armor every time you dive. That’s insane.
Should have very high uptime.

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Idk, I’m kind of torn on Reflexive block. A lot more than those 3 can burn them really fast, way faster than I can dive again, like Tychus, Dva, Kharazim, Tassadar, Fenix, Lucio… List goes on.

But if you do get that rare team with only slow aa’ers and mages on it, yeah I might take Reflexive Block. A good example of a slow aa’er is Hanzo.

I also don’t like that it says ‘reduce 3 next basic attacks’. A lot of heroes will do 3 aa’s in 0.5 seconds or even less.
I wish it gave him 75% physical armor for a set period of time like 2 seconds. That would make it very strong.

Thanks for the vid I always liked Jhows hgc casting and commentary.

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The thing is he can maintain the uptime in battles and without really blowing a cooldown or anything. If it were a flat duration, he could maintain it with minimal downtime and there’d really be no reason to not take it.

God help you if Brightwing starts following that Illidan with Pixie Dusts in fights.

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In an ideal world sure, but after playing Illidan to lv 87 I find the enemy almost always has some kind of counter against you. You can’t just expect to AA people all game.

That’s why I don’t even like playing Illidan in QM anymore. I only play in draft and I prefer to pick on last rounds, if it looks like the enemy didn’t draft a bunch of blinds and stuns.

If the enemy has too many counters I just give up on the idea of picking him at all.

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Illidan is pubstomper dude. Like statistically his late game builds win games. He’s got a really high winrate when the game goes late and it almost always does it QM. He doesn’t do well against QM deathballs if his team doesn’t properly support him.

But Immolation build is quite good in QM if you’re not confident in your team’s ability to support you. Illidan can win QM by owning the map. A lot of the times people go to fight mid and by the time they realize what’s going on, I’ve already destroyed their moonwell in my lane.

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On that I 100% agree with you. I play him like a macro hero usually. I focus on camps, lanes and structures.

I just don’t like fighting with him when enemy has stuff like Cassia and Lili.

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I play Illidan on QM a bit and he can be quite good but you need to read the comp and map and play accordingly.

If you are facing a lot of blinds, stuns, and other CC, then your job is to macro HARD. Use Hunt as a global, take camps, split push. Don’t initiate fights, come in later and pressure the back line or clean up the wounded. Immolation can be viable here, since it drastically helps with PvE and combos with the lvl 7 that gives heal off of ability damage, but is by no means required.

Lvl 1 quest is my default since I’ll usually be spending a lot of time on PvE early-mid game and it makes a huge difference for team fights late game. Battered assault gets better if you are fighting other heroes early and often, like on a 2 lane map.

I see Friend or Foe as a must-pick. The boost to engage range is useful but being able to GTFO to a teammate is invaluable.

95/100 times I go Hunt, but I think that is due to QM comps rarely being set up to properly support Illidan while the opposition lacks enough tools to counter. Hunt let’s you split push and take camps while still being a global threat. Hunt is terrible as an initial engagement tool, however, since it lets the whole enemy team know to warm up their CC and punish you. It is better to try to pick off an injured hero or use it on the back line once your team has started to engage. When looking for a Hunt target while using it as a global, mount up and start riding over. It is entirely possible you won’t get a good window to use it before you get close enough to engage with Dive. If looking to engage with Hunt globally, ping its status so your team knows you are ready and actively looking to use it.

Meta can be insane when the QM stars align.

Unless you talented into reflexive block or marked for death, don’t dive too much in combat. If you dive a stationary target, you lose AA damage and CDR while that long cast animation plays out. It is better to auto and sweep while holding dive to stick/chase/evade.

Lvl 20, take meta upgrade if you can. I usually go hunt, so I usually take bolt. Illidan lives on a knife edge and I have found having a reliable escape @ 20 to be huge. You can then self heal rapidly off a minion wave or camp then get back to the fight with Hunt. The Hunt upgrade is viable on very large maps like Cursed Hollow or Warhead Junction where Hunt’s normal range is actually kind of small.

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I remember playing with an illidan against a “counter team” to him effectively (they had I think Li Li and another blind or two).

I just talked after game because he did super well, and he said something like “problem with our team is that I needed space early to get level high enough to be able to do well”

We ended up winning, but our team was giving him a lot of !@$$ early game, even though he asked us to all stick while he doubled soaked (map was ToD).

I wish I had screen captured his words, as he said more, and it felt like I got a really good insight how to play a character I never play.

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You must control Illidan like you would an agile predator.

Like, for example, a jumpy lion.

3 Likes
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In QM, you don’t. He’s really bad unless he’s supported, and he doesn’t do anything better then some other melee characters.

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ALWAYS split-push.
So, for starters, Immolation just does better damage the majority of the game unless you spend ALL match farming for Unending Hatred stacks (or are up against 3+ melees, in which case Battered Assault is ok), and significantly speeds up merc caps (at level 4 you can steal Giants and if you know what you are doing you can steal Bruisers too)

The Hunt… it’s just really good. Now I’ll say that Metamorphisis is probably better on maps where teamfighting is the major focus (such as ToD), but the Hunt can be used…

  • To instantly join a teamfight.
  • To escape a losing fight (by using it on an enemy minion in another lane)
  • To help Gank or even odds in an otherwise losing fight

Try to avoid blinds, and always… ALWAYS go the lifesteal on abilities on 7. This has significant synergy with Marked for Death on 16 (which you’ll always go in order to dive healers, unless there are no squishies where then I’d go Firey Brand or Blades of Azzinoth)

On 20, Nexus Blades is a meme since your kit always allows you to keep up with enemies. Go Bolt of the Storm for a quick escape (yes, sometimes you’ll be far out of position) or Demon Form (if you picked Meta, attk speed + less vulnerability to CC is what Illi WANTS.)

Other than that, Illi requires both fundamental knowledge of game mechanics (such as keeping track of merc spawns, etc), player patterns (noticing 3 enemies are missing and checking boss), and a good deal of micro (which you’ll learn over time tbh). Best of luck playing, us Aba mains always love good Illis.

EDIT: Holy sh*t I kinda just said what wunderplayer said haha

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All these dudes trying to tell you how to “play” Illidan. Or suggesting a build.

PSHH!

You don’t play Illidan, you have to become ILLIDAN. Only I can teach you how to become an Illidan.

Step One - Stop Asking for things like HELP or ADVICE. Illidan’s don’t need help, everyone else does. You’re never wrong, everyone else is. Repeat that last phrase every morning when you wake up and every night before you go to sleep.

Step Two - Figure out a way to get massive arms, shoulders, and chest. Don’t worry about legs, abs, or back, they aren’t important when flexing on people. If you need to physically remove people from the bench press at the gym because they are wasting your time, do it.

Step Three - Let everyone know your in charge at all times. See people on the street? Let them know your an Illidan main and the only reason your not actively fist fighting them as you speak is because your showing mercy. Start cutting people in lines at the grocery store, corner store, coffee shop, dentist’s office, etc. If you’ve followed step two no one is gonna be dumb enough to say anything about it. But if they do just flex your biceps and tell them you main Illidan.

Step Four - Change your name to something Aggressive, the more aggressive the better. Que up as MELEE ASSASSIN ONLY. You don’t flex, you don’t heal, you don’t tank, you don’t play ranged. Show Illidan right away, and confront anyone who types a message like “are you sure Illidan is good on this map?” First Pick / Instalock Illidan. This shows everyone in the game that you aren’t scared of them, and they are bad and wrong. This is also a good time to flex your muscles both in real life and in game.

Step Five - Once the game starts, immediately start right clicking the middle lane, as soon as the gate goes down be the first one out front and start attacking the first enemy hero you see. From this point on, literally attack any enemy hero and fight them until they die or you die. If you die, ask your team if they are safe and put a popcorn emote so they understand it was their fault for watching and not having your back. If you kill the enemy hero make sure you whisper them after the game and let them know about it.

Pro Tip - When your team full of Donkey’s inevitably asks “WHY FIGHT? or THERE IS NOTHING TO GAIN FROM THAT FIGHT” just tell them you are trying to hurt the other team’s feelings. Do not let anyone in the game have fun but yourself. Remember you are right they are wrong.

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bahahaha this is the best post of 2020