Tier 7-A The Mountain King Tournament: Illidan Stormrage vs Meruem

[WeeklyBattles]

Anyways any undodgeable Meruem amps his defense for

That wont really help seeing as Illidan has a lot of dura negating stuff

The speed slow can be somewhat mitigated with his Percep though I'm not gonna say he's dodging everything

Also I believe I'm correct in saying all these undodgeables have a decently long cooldown?

On the contrary, they have almost no cooldown lol

Some of the spells in question can only be recast once the effect has worn off but other than that theyre all basically no cooldown or absolutely minimal cooldown (talking 1 second cooldowns)

The other stuff hits Meruem 1 Time (If that) and he adapts to be able to dodge it the next time

I mean, getting turned into a normal sheep and then being eviscerated by Illidan's blades in that state isnt really something Meruem can viably come back from lol

Illidan's most valid wincons is magic based shit which from what I hear is not something he likes doing in this key, and running but I'm pretty sure it doesn't take a supergenious to be able to predict where he's gonna run next and meet him there

He does use them in this key yes

 

[DaReaperMan]

That wont really help seeing as Illidan has a lot of dura negating stuff

On the contrary, they have almost no cooldown lol

Some of the spells in question can only be recast once the effect has worn off but other than that theyre all basically no cooldown or absolutely minimal cooldown (talking 1 second cooldowns)

I mean, getting turned into a normal sheep and then being eviscerated by Illidan's blades in that state isnt really something Meruem can viably come back from lol

He does use them in this key yes

Technically Polymorph maintains the durability of the opponent

But yes Illidan does use Magic, he just has to be pushed into it

 

[Shmeatywerbenmanjenson]

That wont really help seeing as Illidan has a lot of dura negating stuff

Like?

On the contrary, they have almost no cooldown lol

But they have a small AOE?

I really need the specifics of these spells

List em so I can read up on them pls

I mean, getting turned into a normal sheep and then being eviscerated by Illidan's blades in that state isnt really something Meruem can viably come back from lol

Your durability stays the same from what I understand and the second he gets attacks he gets turned back so its not that big of a help besides letting Illidan run away

Plus if he gets in close then Meruem dominates due to his busted Percep (+ eventually precog) so I don't see him using that for anything other than running away

He does use them in this key yes

I know

 

[noisyPitta]

So what I'm hearing here is that they would start out fighting in melee, in which they are pretty even. Once that isn't working, Illidan would turn to magic and Meruem would go on the defensive to dodge and adapt to all his moves, then eventually move in for the kill once his precog/adaptation kicks in.

 

[noisyPitta]

I really need the specifics of these spells

List em so I can read up on them pls

His mage spells are listed here.

He has AoE magic that cant really be dodged and that freezes the opponent solid for 10+ seconds

Arcane Explosion, Blast Wave and Frost Nova hit everything in 15 yards. (Frost Nova also freezes targets in place for a bit. They can still do fight, they just cant move from the place they were frozen). Other notable AOE spells are Ring of Frost, Blizzard, Dragons Breath, but they are all targeted and can be dodged

has summons that can do the same

Water Elemental

can cut his speed in half with an undodgable Slow spell, can paralyze him with Fire Blast, can transmute Meruem into a defenseless animal, can clone himself, etc.

Spells listed here are Slow, Polymorph, and Mirror Image. I don't know how Fire Blast does paralysis though.

 

[WeeklyBattles]

Spells listed here are Slow, Polymorph, and Mirror Image. I don't know how Fire Blast does paralysis though.

*'''Fire Blast:''' Blasts the enemy at a range of 56 yards for Fire damage. Castable while casting other spells. Always deals a critical strike. Has 4 charges. Using Fire Blast on a target not afflicted by Ignite will refund a charge. Other damaging spells have a 10% chance to reset the cooldown on Fire Blast and to causes the next Fire Blast to stun the target for 2 sec and spread any Fire damage over time effects to nearby enemy targets within 12 yards.

 

[WeeklyBattles]

But they have a small AOE?

I really need the specifics of these spells

List em so I can read up on them pls

Depends on what you consider small, most of Illidan's AoE spells are a few dozen meters in size

Your durability stays the same from what I understand and the second he gets attacks he gets turned back so its not that big of a help besides letting Illidan run away

Durability negation lol

Plus if he gets in close then Meruem dominates due to his busted Percep (+ eventually precog) so I don't see him using that for anything other than running away

Illidan has that as well though, its not something that only Meruem has

 

[Shmeatywerbenmanjenson]

Depends on what you consider small, most of Illidan's AoE spells are a few dozen meters in size

That is pretty big

No doubt he'd be hit by a few but he is very good a darting in and out of combat

Durability negation lol

Does it oneshot in universe?

or does it just do his base damage regardless of armor or other shielding?

I'm assuming it's the later in which case Meruem eats it for breakfast

Illidan has that as well though, its not something that only Meruem has

No he doesn't at least not on his page and you have yet to prove that he does

A 30% evasion chance isn't instinctive action or precog

His mage spells are listed here.

It doesnt give full context tho

Otherwise I would have never found out the stuff I'm about to say below

Arcane Explosion

"Causes an explosion of magic around the caster, dealing (56.26% of Spell power) Arcane damage to all enemies within 10 yards."

If i'm reading this correctly this only does half of Illidan's normal damage

"10% of base mana"

Meaning he can't use it over and over again

Blast Wave

"Unleashes a wave of flame, inflicting Fire damage to nearby enemies and reducing their movement speed for 6 sec"
This is viable but I also assume he can't spam it without running out of mana

and Frost Nova hit everything in 15 yards. (Frost Nova also freezes targets in place for a bit. They can still do fight, they just cant move from the place they were frozen).

"Blasts enemies near the caster for [19 * ((([(1)])) * 1)] to [21 * ((([(1)])) * 1)] Frost damage and freezes them in place for up to 8 sec. Damage caused may interrupt the effect."

Only Viable if Illidan wants to run away or get a cheeky shot off
It also has a 25 second cooldown and takes 7% Mana

So not something he can use often in the quite literally minutes he has to kill Meruem

Other notable AOE spells are Ring of Frost, Blizzard, Dragons Breath, but they are all targeted and can be dodged

Don't really matter since even if he doesnt dodge them the first time (Which is extremely unlikely given Meruem's insane perceptions), he most certainly will dodge them the second time (Photographic memory of every move Illidan uses)

Water Elemental

"Summon a Water Elemental to fight for the caster for 45 sec"
"16% of base mana"
"Cooldown: 3 Minutes"

I really don't see how an unskilled water elemental is doing anything other than MAYBE distracting Meruem

And he's a genies so he'd probably figure something is up

He could just easily overpower and kill it or wait it out since Illidan would only get the chance to use this spell like MAYBE 2 times before Analytical kicks in

All-in-all a nonfactor

Spells listed here are Slow,

Valid but wouldn't completely negate Meruem's ability to fight since once again he has insane percep

Polymorph

See reasons above

Mirror Image

"Creates 3 copies of the caster nearby, which cast spells and attack the mage's enemies. Lasts 30 sec."

Nice, this might actually make Meruem run

And then he realizes it's timed and just waits it out

"3 Minute Cooldown"

Oof, yep it's a 2 use ability then

*'''Fire Blast:''' Blasts the enemy at a range of 56 yards for Fire damage. Castable while casting other spells. Always deals a critical strike. Has 4 charges. Using Fire Blast on a target not afflicted by Ignite will refund a charge. Other damaging spells have a 10% chance to reset the cooldown on Fire Blast and to causes the next Fire Blast to stun the target for 2 sec and spread any Fire damage over time effects to nearby enemy targets within 12 yards.

The place I was linked to says it has a 20 yard range

Also that's only a 10% chance to stun

So what I'm hearing here is that they would start out fighting in melee, in which they are pretty even. Once that isn't working, Illidan would turn to magic and Meruem would go on the defensive to dodge and adapt to all his moves, then eventually move in for the kill once his precog/adaptation kicks in.

Yes

And I'm not saying it'd be easy

But Meruem has the genius intelligence to figure out when and where Illidan would use his moves that can hit him

A Photographic memory that catalogues every single one of Illidan's attacks to where he either can't use the same attack twice or can't use the same attack with the same effectiveness (How he beat Netero + Precog)

A 10x durability Amp which he can maintain for literally the entire fight if he wants to (He's far superior to Netero who could maintain the shit for 18 hours)

A Perception diff so high he can quite literally see things that statue his own speed (So he's dodging or blocking whatever Illidan throws at him even if he's more skilled)

And Precognition that can allow him to adapt and dodge attacks that blitz him and accurately predict the next place he will be, which being SUPER generous and saying that Illidan has the skill and blitzing ability of Netero would take place in less than 5 Minutes

Illidan has wincons and annoying abilities to stall him out

But Meruem is a master at predicting his opponents next move even without the precog

Which is why I once again say Meruem takes this High-diff (Because Illidan would just spam his slows and AOE's since nothing else in his arsenal would work)

 

[DaReaperMan]

Yeah I was gonna day, mages don't exactly fly, they use flying carpets and shit

 

[noisyPitta]

Which is why I once again say Meruem takes this High-diff (Because Illidan would just spam his slows and AOE's since nothing else in his arsenal would work)

Only other thing he has is Arcane Siphon, listed as High 6-A life absorbtion that heals him and repleneshes his mana. The exact specifics of targeting and effectiveness are unclear since we've only seen him use it on allies, but I see no reason why he couldn't use it on his opponents too.

I agree that Meruem probably wins this, I'm just exhausting Illidan's whole arsenal before confirming my decision.

 

[Shmeatywerbenmanjenson]

Only other thing he has is Arcane Siphon, listed as High 6-A life absorbtion that heals him and repleneshes his mana. The exact specifics of targeting and effectiveness are unclear since we've only seen him use it on allies, but I see no reason why he couldn't use it on his opponents too.

I agree that Meruem probably wins this, I'm just exhausting Illidan's whole arsenal before confirming my decision.

Doesnt that need to be channeled?

Also Dareaperman told me it takes minutes to actually kill

 

[Shmeatywerbenmanjenson]

Also there is another valid wincon for Meruem as well


If at any point Meruem feels he is being overwhelmed by slows or polymorph or anything else

Nothing is preventing him from getting out of the 50 yard range limit for most if not all Illidan's spells


From then he just play the waiting game until again Precog = GG

 

[DaReaperMan]

Also there is another valid wincon for Meruem as well


If at any point Meruem feels he is being overwhelmed by slows or polymorph or anything else

Nothing is preventing him from getting out of the 50 yard range limit for most if not all Illidan's spells


From then he just play the waiting game until again Precog = GG

most if not all

I think you're forgetting Illidan can spam teleports and shit lol

 

[Shmeatywerbenmanjenson]

I think you're forgetting Illidan can spam teleports and shit lol

Shimmer
"2 Charges"
"Teleports you 20 yards forward, unless something is in the way. Unaffected by the global cooldown and castable while casting."
Cooldown: 25 seconds

Teleport
"Teleports you to a major city."

One of these isn't even combat applicable and requires the user to stand still

Moving a maximum of 40 yards every half minute is not "Spamming teleports" and is nowhere near enough to overwhelm Meruem


Also once again he gets at most 10 uses before Precog takes over

 

[DaReaperMan]

Shimmer
"2 Charges"
"Teleports you 20 yards forward, unless something is in the way. Unaffected by the global cooldown and castable while casting."
Cooldown: 25 seconds

Teleport
"Teleports you to a major city."

One of these isn't even combat applicable and requires the user to stand still

Moving a maximum of 40 yards every half minute is not "Spamming teleports" and is nowhere near enough to overwhelm Meruem


Also once again he gets at most 10 uses before Precog takes over

Hey, played WoD opening recently?

Yeah, Shimmer/blink is on a CD and charges in gameplay, not in lore.

 

[Shmeatywerbenmanjenson]

Hey, played WoD opening recently?

Yeah, Shimmer/blink is on a CD and charges in gameplay, not in lore.

This opening?


I see no use of it

 

[Shmeatywerbenmanjenson]

My bad gameplay Opening

 

[DaReaperMan]

This opening?


I see no use of it

No

Like, the quests lol

 

[DaReaperMan]

My bad gameplay Opening

Yeah lol

Khadgar spammed teleports for his "plan" in the Blackrock section

 

[Shmeatywerbenmanjenson]

Is there a video or guide somewhere that shows this

I believe you but I'd rather see it with my own eyes

If so then I guess Meruem has to weather it out, which would be hard but like I explained above I'm confident he can overcome Illidan's magic

 

[DaReaperMan]

Is there a video or guide somewhere that shows this

I believe you but I'd rather see it with my own eyes

If so then I guess Meruem has to weather it out, which would be hard but like I explained above I'm confident he can overcome Illidan's magic

Just... look up WoD opening quests lol

 

[noisyPitta]

Khadgar spammed teleports for his "plan" in the Blackrock section

That was Khadgar, who is displaying skills far above your average mage. Since we never see Illidan use most of his mage spells and we are scaling him based on a default mage character, there is no reason for Illidan to be able to do this, especially considering he has never made use of any kind of teleportation/shimmer/blink spell in canon.

 

[DaReaperMan]

That was Khadgar, who is displaying skills far above your average mage. Since we never see Illidan use most of his mage spells and we are scaling him based on a default mage character, there is no reason for Illidan to be able to do this, especially considering he has never made use of any kind of teleportation/shimmer/blink spell in canon.

Illidan literally scales above Rhonin in magic. I don't think I need to tell you why that means he scales to basic usage from Khadgar

 

[noisyPitta]

Doesnt that need to be channeled?

Yeah for a few seconds, though it does bring him back to full. Considering the speed at which this fight takes place, I don't know that Illidan will ever be given those seconds.

 

[Shmeatywerbenmanjenson]

That was Khadgar, who is displaying skills far above your average mage. Since we never see Illidan use most of his mage spells and we are scaling him based on a default mage character, there is no reason for Illidan to be able to do this, especially considering he has never made use of any kind of teleportation/shimmer/blink spell in canon.

I really appreciate you adding context

Your like the VSBW equivalent of independent fact checkers on twitter

 

[Shmeatywerbenmanjenson]

Illidan literally scales above Rhonin in magic. I don't think I need to tell you why that means he scales to basic usage from Khadgar

Has he really never displayed these abilities in lore?

 

[noisyPitta]

Illidan literally scales above Rhonin in magic. I don't think I need to tell you why that means he scales to basic usage from Khadgar

I understand what you are getting at here but it feels like a silly scaling chain at this point. Yes, Illidan has incredibly potent spells but we never see the kind of mastery over utility stuff like tp that.

 

[noisyPitta]

Has he really never displayed these abilities in lore?

No, most of Illidan's mage feats are high damage destructive spells that scale above Rhonin/Khadgar. Pretty much all his mage-based utility spells like teleport are based off the baseline mage class, and scaling in this way would be like saying that just because Illidan's damage spells are better than Rhonins, he can do everything that Khadgar and Rhonin can do and then some, which is both untrue and and a really bad way of scaling.

 

[DaReaperMan]

Has he really never displayed these abilities in lore?

Illidan personally hasn't really done much with magic that aren't super offense

No, most of Illidan's mage feats are high damage destructive spells that scale above Rhonin/Khadgar. Pretty much all his mage-based utility spells like teleport are based off the baseline mage class, and scaling in this way would be like saying that just because Illidan's damage spells are better than Rhonins, he can do everything that Khadgar and Rhonin can do and then some, which is both untrue and and a really bad way of scaling.

Khadgar is in his own realm. In offensive spells.

Rhonin is the reason Illidan has all the modern Mage shit

 

[noisyPitta]

Rhonin is the reason Illidan has all the modern Mage shit

My bad. Could you explain to me how this works then? Considering that Illidan was trained in magic thousands of years before Rhonin existed.

 

[DaReaperMan]

My bad. Could you explain to me how this works then? Considering that Illidan was trained in magic thousands of years before Rhonin existed.

Rhonin went back in time and trained Illidan in everything he knew. New trilogy. It's good. Read it.

 

[noisyPitta]

Rhonin went back in time and trained Illidan in everything he knew.

Ah **** I forgot about those books. sigh time travel...

Ok, that is fair. Now why do we assume that Illidan can perform Khadgar's teleportation feat because of this.

 

[DaReaperMan]

Ah **** I forgot about those books. sigh time travel...

Ok, that is fair. Now why do we assume that Illidan can perform Khadgar's teleportation feat because of this.

Khadgar doesn't specialize in the utility, Rhonin kind of did, could be wrong though

 

[Greatsage13th]

Neutral seems really close

 

[noisyPitta]

Khadgar doesn't specialize in the utility, Rhonin kind of did, could be wrong though

I don't know if its that they specialise in utility, more that they never have a reason to show off their offensive powers since they are always helping the player. Jaina and Kael'thas get good showings of their specs, but Khadgar (and to a lesser extent Rhonin) sticks with the player a lot more and therefore doesn't need to show off raid boss level feats.

I don't remember the exact details surrounding Rhonin's portal in Theramore but its posible that could be used to scale him, though it did take place after he trained Illidan.

 

[Shmeatywerbenmanjenson]

I could get King or Damage's opinion on this if need be

I'm like 90% sure you can't assume characters can perform specialized abilities only shown by other characters without direct proof

 

[noisyPitta]

I'm like 90% sure you can't assume characters can perform specialized abilities only shown by other characters without direct proof

Agreed.

Even if we say that Illidan can teleport like Khadgar does, I don't know how that impacts his fight with Meruem. I still think Meruem takes it at very high diff.

 

[DaReaperMan]

I could get King or Damage's opinion on this if need be

I'm like 90% sure you can't assume characters can perform specialized abilities only shown by other characters without direct proof

specialized

Ah yes, because spamming an ability that has no real limits to cast time and CD and shit outside of literal gameplay is specialized

Show me one lore statement of cooldown time or charges for Blink/Shimmer lol

 

[Shmeatywerbenmanjenson]

Ah yes, because spamming an ability that has no real limits to cast time and CD and shit outside of literal gameplay is specialized

Show me one lore statement of cooldown time or charges for Blink/Shimmer lol

Show me one instance of him using it in lore


You made the claim so the burden of proof is on you

 

[noisyPitta]

Ah yes, because spamming an ability that has no real limits to cast time and CD and shit outside of literal gameplay is specialized

Show me one lore statement of cooldown time or charges for Blink/Shimmer lol

Now I'm not 100% on how scaling from video game mechanics work, but we also have never seen, outside of this single instance with Khadgar, that this ability has been spammed in the way you are talking about in lore.