I think the Illuminate may be the best designed faction in the game

[Nozaj Darkcaster]

I originally bought this game on PlayStation, I stopped playing a little after the illuminate release and recently came back to the game after the Battle on super earth began.
I was exclusively playing illuminate until super earth was saved, I prefer to play Solo, so take that into consideration I suppose.
It's possible it was the S.E.A.F forces that made them feel much better to play against than the other factions, but these points feel like they are a considerable part of why I enjoy them more

Enemy reinforcements

The way enemy reinforcements work for the Illuminate, being called in exclusively by the observers, have a visual tell for when they around in the form of a purple\blue light forces you to prioritise a specific target if you wish to avoid being overrun. the observers have never summoned enemy reinforcements from locations I couldn't target in that moment, always allowing for counter-play against call ins.
Arrowhead could probably reduce the reinforcement timer on the illuminate as a result of this without it feeling frustrating to deal with
The other two factions simply have the light enemy troops summon reinforcements, which means you need to get rid of every last one of them before the cool-down ends for another call to come in, because they succeed almost instantly upon performing the animation. this is

Helldiver build variety

While I don't have much unlocked, due to this being a new account, it seemed everything I used had some form of purpose against the illuminate. Light armour penetrating weapons can take out overseers from any angle as their armour can be destroyed, they can take out harvester shields allowing for slower, heavy hitting weapons to take them down, Fleshmobs don't seem to have armour ETC. and so forth. most weapons I used against the illuminate felt pretty good up to difficulty 9.
I could wear heavy armour and tank quite decent bit of damage from the vote-less while holding my ground, I could wear light and out run the enemy, both worked well enough for me. with the bugs, heavy armour is useless as you get killed near instantly anyway. bots, you get rag-dolled constantly, in circumstances that you would die without heavy armour just lie down for longer before you die. why doesn't heavy amour reduce rag-doll? I'm sure they thought about it...

This ties into enemy reinforcements, often times in solo play with the other factions, once they show up, it's better to just leave rather than fight them if you don't have mass horde clear, if you can't kill them fast enough, more will be summoned by those summoned previously with little to no counter-play.
With the illuminate, you can simply survive until they are all dead if you prioritise observers, allowing for builds that focus more on survivability, damage or mobility.

Side objectives and outposts

Currently the illuminate only have one, cognitive disruptor, which scrambles stratagem call in codes, this doesn't prevent you from using your tools do while still providing some challenge to the affected area, it could probably switch codes a little more frequently though
With the bots, Signal Jammer completely prevents the use of your stratagems, which removes most of your kit. you usually can't take it out from a distances [maybe you can with some of the new stuff, haven't checked yet [/i] I personally don't think this one is fun to deal with, as I sometimes like the idea of going support weapon free, and as it can cover main objective areas.
They also have the anti air emplacement, which seems redundant now that I think about it, it's just a weaker Jammer...
Could have them block different types of stratagems? if you must have them block something?
it currently doesn't seem well thought out either way.
There's probably a lot more for me to say here, but it's 5:30 am, I should probably sleep

[Grumpy Old Guy]

I'd argue the bugs are.

Nothing too tanky, nothing that takes too many anti-tank rounds to kill.

Good mix of flying enemies, ground enemies, and ranged enemies.

Good mix of heavily armored enemies and lightly armored enemies.

Spawn from the ground giving lots of usages for area denying weapons.

Probably my favorite enemies to fight.

Also nothing beats diving past a charge as nuking him in the butt mid dive.

[GustavoM]

Devs said once that they wanted the squids to be the hardest faction in the game... so there's that.

[El_ Artifice]

I do think they’re much better not that the Flesh Mob, artillery overseers, and the Leviathan got added. After bots and bug got expanded units and modifiers, in the form of incinerator/jet corp and predator strains, squids were too simple in their unit variety to be as thrilling.

I’m looking forward to it being expanded even further. I do still fight bots and bugs because the modifiers I mentioned are so fun to fight against.

[Born A Beast]

Hell yeah love fighting them. The Illuminate attacking Super Earth has only made my hate for them stronger.

[shnappy]

Idk I think they are the worst designed lol. Still fun but everything they do feels gimmicky or cheaply thought out.

[Xarko]

They are the worst designed and way too easy as well. They need tons of changes.

[Somepony]

Originally posted by GustavoM:

Devs said once that they wanted the squids to be the hardest faction in the game... so there's that.

Damn, they kinda failed then. For now I feel like they're the easiest ones.

[StaunchStache]

I don't think they are the best-designed faction (that would be the bots imo), but I can't overstate how much I like the design decisions Arrowhead took to make the Illuminate feel unique, rather than just an awkward blend of the other melee and ranged-focused factions.

Especially the very low armor penetration requirements to kill any unit not named Leviathan.
It's such a breath of fresh air to have a faction not only allowing but favoring light armor penetrating automatic weapons, while the shields and ablative armors make anti-tank weaponry less of an obvious choice for once.

Even the newer units - again, minus the Leviathan, but it's in its own category, very distinct from any other enemy unit imo - lean into this, with none of them needing more than medium pen to defeat.

They still have some problems, like the aforementioned Leviathans being so resilient and anecdotical they rarely are ever worth taking down, or the Fleshmob being practically just a uniform hitbox as far as aiming is concerned - hardly any strategic areas to target for different effects, shooting the legs or heads does virtually nothing.

[Nighty]

I'd argue bots are the most balanced faction right now. I would still prefer squids over bugs though.