This guide will show you the way I play Irelia. I've been playing this champion for a while, and have learned the ins and out of this champion. There are many ways of playing her, but this gives you a cool new way to play her without playing trinity force every game.

I get flat armor seals, armor pen red, MR blues, and quints doesn't really matter much. get more armor pen, move speed, attack speed, whatever. all are beneficial.

I hate the utility tree. its really useless on irelia. the movement speed and experienced gain is the only thing useful. she is an off tank, so therefore should benefit from the 4% reduced damage in the defensive tree. The offensive tree is useful because again, she is an OFF TANK. therefore, needs offensive masteries. This is not rocket science. the logic is easy to follow here.

In this build, we are going to try to avoid tri-force. because that item is boring. I used to get it every game with Irelia, then i got sick of it.

First step is to be super sustainable in lane, start off with boots and health potions. alternatively you can start out with cloth armor and 5 potions, then keep this armor to turn into a guardian angel, or ninja tabi. depending on the enemy team, if they are all AD, get ninja tabi. If they have lots of CC or are mages/ap, get merc treads.

Your core items are going to be Frozen Mallet, Atmas, and guardian Angel. These very tanky items make irelia very hard to stop, and still put out good amounts of damage. Later game items include more damage, such as black cleaver, or you can go for last whisper. at this poin in the game, the enemy team will most likeyl have a lot of armor, so you will need more armor pen. alternatively, you can go for Youmuu's ghost blade. but i feel the armor penetration is too low. Black cleaver is superior to Youmuu i believe.

After you get your black cleaver, youre going to be putting out tons of damage. your ult will claer minion waves with 3 or less blades. and you will definitely have the attack speed so your W ability will cause tons of damage. Another alternative to black cleaver is getting phantom dancer. This will cause your W to be even more of a threat. Phantom dancer also works well with Atmas, so you crit even more often.

After your damage item, the game shoudl be ending soon. you should be surviving team fights with guardian angel, slowing enemies, and hitting them with E and W. to be more survivable and add more damage, I would recommend randuins if the team is heavy AD, or banshee's veil if the team is mostly AP. I wouldn't recommend items that don't give health, beacues since we're building atmas, we should just keep increasing our health bonuses.

Once you get banshees or randuins, you'll have 6 items, and the game should be over.


Note, do not sell your merc treads, choose banshees or randuins, not both.

start with 1 point in bladesurge, then hiten style, then equilibrium strike. Having all 3 early game gives you tons of utility in early team ganks. If your jungler comes up early, you can hit them with an E to slow, W to do good true damage, and Q if they are running away, or this is a good way to initate.

Maxing W not only does TONS of damage early game, but it allows you to ignore harasses and sustain your lane forever. Once you get lots of points in W, and get your ultimate, you can just heal up all day and not recall if you dont have to.

Your basic harass abilities will be, W->Q->E-> auto attack. this will do tons of damage to them. usually dropping them to half health if you get the full combo. if they dont recall, or are out of health potions, do it again once they get greedy and finish up with your ignite and ultimate for the kill. Real easy,

late game team fights will be the same pattern. Since W gets added to your Q ability when you use it. It will show up as Q damage + 75 (at max level) on the target. sheen is great for your Q ability, but its too bad we're not building a tri force this game.

Flash + ignite is the only way to go on irelia. it makes her early game kills great. Another good combo would be Flash + exhaust. so you get extra hits on your W activated.

Overall, This build is meant for an alternative way to play irelia without getting tri force. This build is very viable and is not just for trolling.

VS

You should be having one of the highest, if not hte highest, farm on your team. Q makes it insanely easy to last hit, and your ultimate clears waves easily and has a short cool down. So down worry about wasting your ult, use it whenever you feel like the game isnt exciting, or there isnt a team fight coming up. its good for harass and to heal up. use it every chance you get.