Irelia is very underrated and misunderstood by a lot of folks. She's in contention with Nidalee as my favorite champ to play.

This guide was designed to focus heavily on Irelia's burst ability and emphasize the strengths of her E and R abilties as such. The capped CDR keeps your ult readily available for a steady flow of damage and lifesteal.

This is one of three ways that I build Irelia. I find this one a bit more satisfying than my AD/Defense and/or Jungle builds, in that when you 100-0 a squishy in just a few seconds, you get a sense of pride that makes your dangly parts not so dangly anymore.

Runes, Masteries, and Summoner Spells - as with any champ that you play - are going to be about YOUR personal preference and playstyle. Don't take anything I've posted below as being 100% necessary to the success of this build.

Marks - Magic Pen is relatively self explanatory, and I feel it synergizes well with the AP focus of this build.

Seals - Mp5/Level is good for basically making sure you have a consistent flow of mana for the amount of surprise buttsecks you're going to be dishing out.

Glyphs - MR is always nice to have, especially in this build where there isn't a lot of defense to go around.

Quintessences - Flat HP. Pretty self explanatory. In my AD/Def build, I usually have the extra HP from the def tree. Since I don't have that luxury here, this helps beef her up a bit.

Since we're dealing with a primarily AP focused build, I took the standard 9/0/21 caster mastery setup. It has worked well for me so far, but as I stated in the rune section, this is all about YOUR personal preference and playstyle. I merely offer this information as guidelines.

I take Bladesurge first, as Irelia is relatively easy to harass early on and this gives her a means to push back a little. It's also good if you're getting absolutely out-harassed, you can still get in and last hit relatively easily with the mana return component, combined with taking the sapphire crystal first, helping you stay in lane longer.

After that, my priority is Transcendent Blades > Equilibrium Strike > Hiten Style > Bladesurge

R and E both benefit HUGELY from AP, so I prioritize those. After that, it's really up to you. You could make valid arguments for both.

I use Ghost and Flash. Great for chasing, escaping, positioning, map control, turret defense, ...the list goes on.

Short reasons why I don't take others are listed below.

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Ignite - You're going to be doing plenty of damage without the need for this or its anti-healing component.

Exhaust - Your E will slow them just fine, and if you would need to Exhaust defensively, you're likely going to have a lower amount of health than your opponent anyway and can just stun them with E to make your escape.

Clarity - You shouldn't have too many mana problems early on, thanks to mostly last hitting. If you do use Bladesurge, it should only be to last hit, which is going to refund mana anyway, and the fact that we took the sapphire crystal first to rush Sheen, means we should be doing just fine in the mana department.

Cleanse - I find that Irelia's passive is a pretty solid deterrent to CC for the most part.

Heal - Hiten Style and Health Pots should provide more than enough healing for what we'll need.

The rest I feel are either completely worthless (Revive), or better suited to Junglers/Others (Rally, Fortitude, Clairvoyance).

As with anything else, in the end it's personal preference. While I'm sure you could make valid arguments for others, I really don't see a need.

Most of the items are pretty standard to any AP melee build.

Abyssal Scepter, Rylai's and the Hourglass give you a bit more beef to put behind your damage output and maybe help you survive a little more.

CDR boots help augment your ult's already short cooldown.

Lich Bane basically means you hit like a truck thanks to the 600+ AP you should have by the time all is said and done.

Rabadon's basically seals the deal. Boosting your AP to epic heights and propelling you to a sweet orifice expanding victory.

As for build order:

- I start w/ Sapphire Crystal and HP Pots.

- First trip back, grab boots and finish Sheen for some early offense.

- From there it's situational I suppose. I would maybe build Rylai's first depending on how much I needed the extra HP, or finish Lich Bane, then go for Abyssal Scepter

- From there I would either go Hourglass and then Rabadon's or vice versa, again based on whether or not I need the survivability.

This should provide enough info to build a really solid burst damage Irelia. This guide is comprehensive, and will likely be updated and edited frequently based on new information. I'll try to keep those updates/changes posted for convenience.

Step 1 - Read it.
Step 2 - Do it.
Step 3 - Vote/Comment/Criticize.
Step 4 - Profit.