Because Illdian is damn badass hero, yes, he is not a god tier, but he is very strong and balanced hero if you are only creative enough.

Pros:
- Very high damage
- Good chase mechanism
- Very effective for soloing every possible camp (except boss), Shadow Shield + Betrayer's Thirst reduces cooldown for both - damage spells & defensive shield, not mentioning lifesteal itself
- In lategame it's a lord of pain with every 1v1 situation, even if you didn't pick metamorph ability
- Can towerdive without taking damage
- Not that squishy as you can think
- Your flip makes you untargetable

Cons:
- Very weak early
- Bad solo laner, if enemy wants to push you - it will just happen, no matter which lvl you are there are tons of better pushers than you
- Easy to harras or deny by mages, this can be avoided by picking sixth-sense, but many mages have skillshots which can be easly dodged. I do not recommend to pick this ability unless enemy team is heavy CC (crowd control, stuns, silences, etc.) based.
- Requires a quick and wise decisions, most often if you engage in wrong time or way, you will die

You don't have to follow these builds, I mean that you should be open minded, and decide on your own. On example when you see in enemy team that they have mostly high damage squishes, don't invest in your Shadow Shield.

Yes, I just said that you should not invest in your shield versus high damage squishes. When you face team like that you have to take an advantage of your mobility, your Shadow Shield gives a high-valueable dodges for few seconds - all you have to do is to burst enemy carry with your full dps and shield, then get out of focus asap. Invest in Fel Reach and Lunge, or Friend or Foe (but this is only good when you trust in your team, tell them that you can jump on them so maybe they will help you get out of trouble).

Jump in, get a kill, jump out, get your abilities back and find a moment to catch another squish.
This sequence is most hard when enemies are ahead with their level (in this case we should not fight at all, but *sigh* follow your team... )

I have found that investing in Shadow Shield is more effective against heavy protect or sustainable team. In this scenario you have to stay in fight longer and there you need this few extra defensive utilities.

The hardest part of playing as Illidian is to find a moment when to engage, or initiate a fight (I belive you should not, there are other champions for that and they won't die by enemy focus).

Don't be narrow-minded player, it hurts you, and your team. You can find a spot to enter with The Hunt or Metamorphosis, but the timing is most important thing here. Remember that your opponent is also human, and he will react in the same way you could do this. If enemy team started the fight try to instantly jump on backside Nova or Jaina, this will make them scare because she knows that her team is focused on somebody else and she will be dead soon. You can also jump on tank and make their team even more brave after breaking your bones.

You are assasin, not suicider.

This is very simple when you will get use to it, but I saw many bad Illdians who just literally ****ed up their free kills.

WRONG WAY:
Q -> W -> Q -> Q -> Q -> W -> Q -> Q ->Q ...

CORRECT WAY:
Q -> Q -> Q -> ... -> Q -> Q
Use Sweeping Strike only to fix positioning (avoid skillshots, enter bushes, etc.) for every next Dive, or to fall back (don't be greedy). DO NOT CAST Sweeping Strike RANDOMLY!!! This is your best gap-closer as you control the direction on your own.

ADDITIONAL TIP:
Sometimes it's more worthy to wait with your Dive to flip over enemy and perform a body block in tight places. It is hard to do, but sometimes it works perfect, as far as I know the champions like Diablo have biggest hitboxes and it works best against them. I am still learning this to find best spots for that

IF YOU ARE USING The Hunt BUILD
I am often using The Hunt ability to stun enemies (even if they are as near as my Dive range). This will do a significant amount of damage + allow you to do some damage for free. Especially effective when trading uncomfortable hits (like vs Zeratul or other Illidian)

Try to don't use it as fight initiation, it is bad (I already said it before). The Hunt ability is most useful to catch alone sheep on the map, to run away, or to splitpush lanes. Enemies should never underestimate this ability, because in fact your team is never 4v5. Using The Hunt is teamfight-reversing ability if you land on enemy carry in good moment.

PS. I hate to missclick with this ability :(

This is more chaotic, usually this skill works best in small places like Haunted Mines, but at first you need to hit as many targets as you can.



So if we have a late game (level 20) and we will hit 5 enemies (very hard) our stats will be like: Where the Diablo's health (I belive it's most tanky character ingame) at 20 is equal to 6250

These number can varies depend on patch, but this or other way we are very tanky DPS

You have to jump in to get as many benefits as you can, then use Q or W to get nearest enemy damage dealer and shut him down, after that go for next enemy. You should take down tanks at the end with Blood for Blood

Using metamorph to run away is also a viable solution, but cooldown on this ability is much bigger than respawn time - pay attention to this.

Regeneration Master - HOTS is very quick game where laning isn't equal in any way to other MOBA games. You will never stack this passive to be worth, also remember that you have very nice lifesteal with basic attacks

seasoned-marksman - I was trying to play with it against mob-spawning enemies like Azmodan or Abathur, but the rules are same as above - it won't scale that much. You have weak early game so this would make it even more bad.

Thirsting Blade - It will give you only 10% more lifesteal, there are better skills to pick

Rapid Chase - You already have enough of gap-closer abilities, but this can be only viable only if you don't have any enemy unit to flip over when you are running away on low health. Try to have Sweeping Strike in ready

Thrill of Battle - I very like this skill because it opens many possibilies to perform wombocombo plays. This won't work for numeric binded skills like Blood for Blood]

First Aid - Many people select this skill because it is... a good choice, decent versus heavy burst team (the healing is over-time), but in the end it helps you a lot. Most of time I select this skill if I am not playing with The Hunt ability

Giant Killer - Great versus tanky team, if gives you additional 100 damage versus heroes like Diablo in lategame. Worth to consider

bolt-of-storm - Anti-focus juke skill, I think this better work with The Hunt build as you don't need global range of The Hunt in the late game when you follow with the team.

Being brave when you are ahead with experience have some negative aspects on your psyche, never ever do idiotic dives as you will give more exp to enemy when you are leading.

This game is hardly supporting comeback situations.

- many escape skills:
Phase Shift
Blink Heal
Emerald Wind

- it's not because she have many CC, you can easly dodge it, but if you focus her in the middle of teamfight she will use her:
Improved Ice Block

- one of the best healers ingame, does not require a lot of skill
She have 2 healing skills + movement speed passive. Just don't

Other champions like Tassadar or Zeratul are much easier to kill

Usually when you see a red-level heroes on threat level bar

You are good hero to solo most of enemies, but you have to aware some of them



She is very tanky melee warior, she can stun you with spear (for a while - it's distance dependent), and spammable damage from her Seismic Slam. Overall she is terrible tanky, lifesteal, selfheal spells, and damage-reduction abilities make her very random when comes to trading damage. I suggest to retreat if you are not sure if she is alone. If you ever playied League of Legends its kind of Warwick


I guess the result will just depend on picked abilities, just keep your shield against his auto attacks and spam with everything you have