Irelia Build Guide by nanoobit

RIOT OP pls nerf. Irelia was hit pretty big in this last patch nerfing her current builds with cost increases and stat nerfs on both Trinity Force and wits end. Frozen Mallet has received a slight buff but i think with the newer itemization that even Phage might be able to be eliminated off the core item list. Irelia without Phage might seem kind of weird but with the new Randuin's Omen I feel a combination of Irelia's massive tenacity, slow mitigation and movement speed items like the new Boots of Swiftness and items like static's shiv and Zephyr and with assassins more viable in the current game state (still awaiting final(ish) balance changes) that Irelia can be a burst assassin again.

Hello Trinity Force.

Argument keeps coming up and i'll keep squashing it. Mallet is superior to Trinity in 99% of Situations.

*THIS DOES NOT MAKE TRINITY FORCE NOT VIABLE, IT MAKES IT NOT IDEAL*

Pros / Cons

VS

Pros / Cons

Becoming a better player in the ultimate sense is learning how to end games quickly. Nothing is wrong with Trinity Force, in fact its better than Frozen Mallet but only in ideal circumstances. Frozen Mallet gives mini Trinity Force and Warmog's Armor for a half the cost of the combo. Gold does not simply appear, it requires a lot of farming, and unfortunately by the time your team needs you to get off your *** at top you probably wont have upwards of 8k Gold sitting around. Wards, potions, and time away from lane. There is a conscious decision process now with the plethora of itemization choices so think twice before building anything just because my guide or another guide said it was good. If anything the season three changes have forced players to know items and know the game to have a optimal build instead of Trinity Force+ Guardian Angel spam season two had going on just about every (insert any top lane bruiser here). I will be experimenting with itemization and update as follows, all my games will be played at 1500 ELO+ across my 3 accounts. GLHF.

Runes allow you to outplay your opponent in champion select during ranked or draft games. If you play normals blind than just the generic rune page will work as its the best all around. Tailoring pages to be heavy towards armor or magic resist sets you up better to win your lane. AFTER THE SEASON 3 CHANGES RUNES HAVE PRETTY MUCH STAYED THE SAME.

Runes

Choice of Quintessence

• Greater Quintessence of Attack Damage - Best for last hitting and lane presence, a single minion last hit with this makes it worth it completely. With recent AD buff not entirely worth it anymore.
  
• Greater Quintessence of Attack Speed - Make you ridiculously strong right after finishing Wit's End, also makes Irelia's awkward attack animation easier to judge.
  
• Greater Quintessence of Movement Speed - When you feel like being sonic. Movement speed is hard to itemize with my build, so if for some reason you wanna go faster these are still a prime pick. These are much more attractive now with the buff to Irelia's base attack damage.
  
• Greater Quintessence of Health Regeneration For difficult lanes with a balance of attack and magic damage like Kennen.

Choice of Marks

• Greater Mark of Attack Speed - Speed up the attack animation making last hitting easier as well as scaling better than both attack damage and armor pen into late game. Makes Wit's End more potent.
  
• Greater Mark of Attack Damage - If you are challenged with last hitting or want to bully the lane, these can give you a lot of early game damage that is relevant throughout.
  
• Greater Mark of Armor - For counterplay with armor.
  
• Greater Mark of Magic Resist - For counterplay with magic resist.

Choice of Seals

• Greater Seal of Armor - Really the best choice for top lane. Even against magic champions, like Kennen, a lot harass will come auto attacks and mitigating that damage can have a lot of effects on lane presence.
  
• Greater Seal of Scaling Health - Laning against magic and would rather build towards late. The build I use already has loads of armor so the 175 health scales well into game.

Choice of Glyphs

• Greater Glyph of Scaling Magic Resist - The extra magic resist of the flat glyphs often times lets you completely ignore purchasing a dedicated magic resist item beyond Mercury's Treads and Wit's End.
  
• Greater Glyph of Magic Resist - Preference of early over late, a fine choice if you don't own scaling glyphs or want early magic resist.
  
• Greater Glyph of Armor - For counterplay with armor.
  
• Greater Glyph of Attack Speed - For pushover lanes. Not the best but since attack speed scales so well its a decent choice.

Some Rune Combinations

Balanced

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Offensive

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Defensive

or

or


TROLL

Itemization

This is where people get their feathers ruffled, and the most arguments can be made and destroyed. With this guide I will try to give you the best possible experience I can with the games I've played.

The biggest problem with the nerfs to Hiten Style are now you have to push really hard in order to heal also consuming mana, and making a conscious choice between trading damage with [hiten style]] or using it on creeps to heal. The same can be said for Transcendent Blades which now come up much less than before and more choices between shoving a lane or using the damage to get a kill. This however effects pretty much only the early game.

* A QUICK NOTE *
Early game is all about anticipating what you need, you maybe anticipate wrong, but late game is about reacting to threat, and that's where you can make sure you're on the best footing to win!

Early Game

Starting Items

This is where we make the first big decision and also marks a change from the old Irelia. Ask yourself if you want to avoid damage, or trade damage. If the answer is the first start the first, and second the second.

+ This is my favorite start allowing easier access to creeps, mobility to kite damage, greater chasing power and gank follow up, and clear upgrade paths. 3 to 4 health potions can be bought depending on if the jungler requires help or not give an additional 450-600 health in lane.

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+ Safe, makes you vulnerable to ganks if the lane pushes early but also tanky and resistant to harras with an amazing 750 bonus health from potions.

First Port Back

We should look to have a fair amount of creeps in our bank. Around 1 to 1.5k Gold should be good unless you have a really good lane phase and have no need to port. It however is best to push and port whenever your lane opponent is forces out so we don't fall behind in items.

We look to solve the sustain problem which cripples the early game and allows you to be abused. Yet despite the nerfs, Irelia still has remarkable flexibility when building. Also remember these are just sample combos that make sense. There are other combos out there these are just the ones that come to mind with explanations.

Doing poorly or Ported for early advantage

+ May seem a bit odd at first but two of these wonderful blades will bolster the early game in every way, it will nudge the sustain level almost back to old levels while giving more health and damage making trades easier and more favorable. Remember to pick up Sight Wards and Health Potions if you need.

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+ If physical lanes are giving us big trouble these two items will ensure we can survive if we play smart and don't get caught and bursted. The vamp scepter provides a few upgrade paths depending on what we want to build towards which I will go over later.

+ Two, yes two mantles. This build will give us an amazing amount of magic resist, and will build directly into two really important core items being Mercury's Treads ands Wit's End. Also being very cheap remember to pick up Sight Wards and Health Potions to make up for the lack of sustain.

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+ OR Less sustain than 2 dblades but more durability. This is more geared to endgame and will works well since Randuin's Omen in one of the key items we are looking into building later. Rule of thumb Doran's Blade against AD and Null-Magic Mantle against magic damage.

Doing well

+ These two will give pushing power and econ early allowing us to push then counterjungle/roam or simply go MIA and apply lane pressure. Will explain this later

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+ A sizable amount of money yet if you are doing well an easy purchase, will build well into Wit's End and Randuin's Omen. This however limits our mobility with only boots level 1, in exchange for more lane power and making the choice of roaming more costly. This also sets up another interesting situation, if the enemy top lane goes down for a dragon and we can't make it, we can simply push a tower down and nullify the dragon gain.

An early Ghostblade can really snowball the lane hardcore if we can get it early. Can build on the advantage early, in addition to the item snyergising with her kit in general.

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+ The same as the other phage option but with magic resist for counter play along with more tenacity making us harder to pin down and a better chaser. The higher mobility makes roaming effect however this will consume a lot of mana or our Transcendent Blades cooldown making roaming a big risk if a gank or objective isn't taken.

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When doing well isn't enough. If we manage to get an early lead and snowball well with good farming and can purchase this on our first back we will want to engage as soon as we come back into lane because of the power of this item at early levels. Can stack enormous amounts of damage with well timed Bladesurges.

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These boots will make us win a lane and help us not get pushed into increasing our global presence. However, limited utility makes us less useful at global fights since with this build we want to survive to pump out our great sustained damage. Always sell later on for Ninja Tabi or Mercury's Treads unless they have absolutely no crowd control or attack damage.

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These are our go to boots now for mitigating damage in lane while maintained usefulness later on. For the most part a fully stacked Ionian Fervor should be enough against most teams, and these boots let us put off buying heavy armor items until later.

Everyone's favorite boots. At the end of almost every game we will have sold our Ninja Tabi or Berserker's Greaves or simply upgradeed our Boots of Speed into these monsters. Minimizing CC time means more time for us to say hello to important people, after all we're going places!

Moving on to Midgame

Dear Vampiric Scepter, what do we build you into. Since they also nerfed The Bloodthirster and Wriggle's Lantern it almost appears to be cost ineffective. The ward component and magic damage proc are nice for global play however the considerable nerfs to lifesteal make the item while laning a bit lackluster. Wriggles on Irelia was always built as a survive item and not a damage item we do not like Wriggle's Lantern. So what do we build or not?

While this used to be considered a bad item it now however is in quite a strong position with the overall nerfs to lifesteal. This item has great synergy with Youmuu's Ghostblade and gives you a free mini Ignite. The cost efficiency of this item is just astounding.

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Not really an ideal item, but it gives us valuable stats especially attack speed and lifesteal, great if we have a AD heavy team (AD based jungler and decent AD carry). Otherwise too expensive for it to be worth to. Can fill the slot left by Atmas's impaler

• It may be best sometimes just to leave it as it until much later. Othertimes lategame lifesteal isn't that big of deal. Health Regen is a much more important stat lategame, items like Force of Nature and Randuin's Omen more or less replace lifesteal.

The Big Mid

This is where we need to some big decisions on where we want to with the build, what we want to focus on, who are targets are, and who are the threats.

By this time in the game we should have at least obtained.

+ +

This is as close to a core as I will get. From here we can expand our power in any number of ways.

More Tank/Utility (preferred)

More health for protection against split damage, and a huge slow that will allow us to catch anyone out of place and force flashs and engages.

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A balance of good stats and a team wide aura. Very good if our team is looking for aggressive fights in the early mid game area.

• This is a very strong midgame item. It increases our tankiness against attack damage along with giving us some health. The best part is it forces AD champs to either run or fight from you. The passive attack/move speed debuff and forced active makes us a deadly diver.

More Damage

An ghostblade can give us a good deal of armor penetration, damage and critical chance, If for any reason the game has not coalesced into teamfights and more 2v2ish skirmishes this will give you an amazing ability to kill. Offers little durability in teamfights however. Can snowball a lane really hard if we are winning

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OR Both of these items do well in lane and hexdrinker now has a decent upgrade path. If we have a strong jungle tank already that's either fed or farmed and the team needs damage either choice is good.

• A great item if we're crushing farming, getting all dragons, and push towers over like nothing. Unfortunately it cost and requires even more items to reach potential. Very expensive. DON'T BUY UNLESS YOU KNOW YOU HAVE A TANK TO SOAK. When we purchase this item we change roles until we have other items into that of an assassin/cleanup crew, which isn't what my build is about.
  
  

  On To Late Game

  
  
  By this time we should be a treat at all times capable of forcing fights on anyone out of position and being tanky enough to resist the counter attack.
  
  On average we should have the following items by now...
  
  OR + +
  
  With these items already in out pocket we are tanky and deal tons of damage. We now need to react to what is going on and build accordingly.
  

  Recommended Finishers

  
  

  Damage

  Magic Resist and Damage both in a single item. You'll really start to deal amazing amounts of physical damage to carries, Great for surviving AOE, makes you deceptively tanky with a massive 400HP shield.

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  Since its recent buff bloodrazor is now better. Attack speed, Sizable Damage, and a % magic damage component to take on those Dr. Mundos and Garens. Can either stack or replace Wit's End. With both items we will be dealing massive amounts of magic, physical and true damage making us almost impossible to build against.

  Defense

  If we haven't built this item yet, Its a great item to have. It gives so many useful stats and and awesome active and passive. Raises our threat level.

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  If we're for some reason the primary target, cuz were so fabulous, Guardian Angel will make us still able to dive in and get aggressive and cause them to think twice about focusing us down.

  There are better items but if we are getting crushed by AD this global debuff is very nice and along with the massive amount of armor will make us tanky vs attack damage.

  
  

  Sample Builds

  
  
  

  Damage and Durability(Main Build)

  
  + + + + +
  
  

  Durability VS AP

  
  + + + + +
  
  

  Durability VS AD

  
  + + + + +
  
  

  Durability VS Balanced Damage

  
  + + + + +
  
  

  Damage VS AD

  
  + + + + +
  
  

  Damage VS AP

  
  + + + + +
  
  

  Damage VS Balanced

  
  + + + + +
  
  

  HYPERCARRY

  
  + + + + +

Being a good laner is key to becoming a good player. Most games are won by solid lane play, so if you're getting outplayed, time to go to bootcamp.

• Watch Stream
• Practice Lasthitting in Custom Games
• Be Familiar with Lane Matchups (ie. PLAY THE GAMES)
• Use LoLReplay if you can't see your mistakes right away.
• Acquire High(er) ELO friends who can teach you/make games you play with them harder.
• Be receptive to criticism.
• Make good habits (ie. Warding)

Laning with Irelia is pretty simple. She farms well under tower with either Hiten Style active or auto attack Bladesurge combo. If you are getting dived by someone Equilibrium Strike is an excellent defense.

While in lane try and spend as little time in vision as possible. This does many things for us as laners.

• Minimize ability to harass
• Add MIA pressure especially if we have just shoved our lane.
• Makes us a less attractive lane to gank by the jungler if he can't see us.
• Our lane opponent doesn't know if we've backed making his decisions limited. This is very important to understand and requires us to attempt to understand the mind of a laner. Being in the bush not only makes him think that we are garen, but if he backs we can easily take his tower, and if we back, we can come back stronger, and he will have fallen behind.
  *MAKE SURE TO WARD WHEN SHOVING LANES*
  
  *QUICK NOTE*
  A lot of people forget, but chugging a Health Potion before you want to fight someone can sometimes make a huge difference.
  
  

  Early Lane

  
  Hide in the top brush on our side of the map, and farm with Bladesurge or auto attacks. Look out for your jungler making his way up. Tell him if you have Equilibrium Strike lest he waste him time. If expecting a gank soon, take some harass damage so that Equilibrium Strike is a sure stun. Other than that, we need to play passive and stay safe until the later levels of Hiten Style allow us to trade.
  
  

  Post 6 Laning

  
  When we hit level six we have a large amount of opportunities to do different things. We can shove our lane with Transcendent Blades and go gank mid or call a dragon and be there with your team. We can also chose to engage straight up since we have a lot of extra damage from our ult.
  
  If we want to fight and can't burst them straight up with our damage, than its best to Bladesurge to them and not activate any skills and just auto attack them. When they retaliate wait till they have higher % hp then unload all our skills Ignite + Equilibrium Strike + Hiten Style + Transcendent Blades. If this does not kill it will force them to back. Irelia's level six damage with no items is VERY high. If we force them out of lane the best thing we can do is to push the way to the tower and back immediately. Making our lane lose EXP and gold is very important.
  
  
  

  2v1 Lanes

  
  We want to avoid these as much as possible because we need farm. We can get shut out early and shut out hard, if you can swap with a ranged mid do it. Melee champs are the worst to 2v1 lanes with.

Here is where i will try to best explain lane matchups as I have experienced them. I will continue to add to them as I continue to play, i'm not an expert, no one should consider themselves one, but this is the best I can offer to you. At lower elo's you can outplay or get outplayed by players frequently, even in favorable matchups.
*YOUR MILLAGE MAY VARRY*

I will divide the matchups based on difficulty. I will describe what can best be done to come out in a favorable position.

Items useful in every lane matchup.

Remember to chug a pot before you want to fight, it can mean life and death.

Hard

Start or

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First Back ( or ) and

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Rush and

Kill Potential Pre 6 : Yes
Kill Potential Post 6 : Yes

This monster is going to give us a lot of problems, his sustain is off the charts and damage with Tiger Stance is incredible, but we can outscale him in later level. DO NOT FACE CHECK BRUSH AT LVL 1 EVER. If it does happen incredible damage will be taken, and the lane will become even more difficult. What can be done is sit in brush and farm with Bladesurge if he does not camp low creeps on his side. We do not want to trade with him before at least level 5 and preferable not until we purchase a big item. He frontloads his damage with Tiger Stance which opens opportunities to stun and make plays. Still play with care as double tiger procs can wreck us.

SP

Start or

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First Back and

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Rush and/or

Kill Potential Pre 6 : Yes, with care.
Kill Potential Post 6 : Yes, with care.

Darius is quite the new terror but can still be beaten. His passive Hemorrhage does incredible damage if left unchecked. This is a lane that can go either way really hard, as both snowball out of control for the other. Early laning try and bait out the Decimates to push the lane towards our tower and attempt to freeze and hold at tower. We will have to give up CS in order not to lose out the early game. Darius' early levels 1-4 are a true terror that almost no champion can match up against. However at level 5 on we can trade if he wiffs the Decimate, and can kill easily if we can Bladesurge to a minion stun with equilibrium stike and follow up with a quick hiten attack reset with bladesurge, the engages have to be clear or his passive will make him come out on top. The one thing Irelia has up on Darius is natural sustain and we have to abuse every advantage to take Darius out. Fortunately most Darius' have the syndrome of being overconfident in their abilities to kill and we can play off their over aggressiveness and outplay them easily. Call for jungle ganks if you can around either level 3 or 5 and try to eek out a win. when pushed against Darius it is reccomended that you push harder to make the lane reset and spend as much time in the bushes as possible, any gank precipitated by his Apprehend is almost an assured blown Flash or Ghost and more often than not a kill. Don't fall behind or the lane will be hell. On a side not for people who love Trinity Force, health is the only counter to true damage, and Noxian Guillotine does a boat load of it, Frozen Mallet is the perfect item choice. Hemorrhage also does magic damage so building Wit's End is not completely useless.

SPACE

Start or

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First Back and ( or )

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Rush and/or

Kill Potential Pre 6 : Unlikely
Kill Potential Post 6 : Yes, with care.

This is a terror matchup because the of the nerfs to Irelia's early game. Probably best to start Cloth Armor and rush into Ninja Tabi, for the cheap armor. This is probably one of the only matchups that i would consider building Wriggle's Lantern in, only because the harrass from Spear Shot after the mana buffs is incredibly annoying. The reason for wriggle's as well is there is no armor equivalent to Wit's End. Another solution would be to pick up an early Chain Vest which wouldn't be a bad idea, might need to play the matchup some more to understand. Basically he can jump and you and do a lot of damage, and you can't trade while his Heartseeker Strike is on and always be aware of that skills passive as well as Spear Shot that will insta crit and kill you quit quickly. The burst damage when low from an auto crit + Spear Shot is lethal. Be careful in this lane and just farm till you have items, we outscale him hard and become more valuable later in the game and he is an easy kill after we get premaslow either from red buff or Phage Frozen Mallet.

*CARE TO NOT FARM PAST THE TOWER UNLESS YOU ARE SURE HE ISN'T GOING TO Grand Skyfall HIS *** RIGHT ON TOP OF YOU*

Start or

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First Back and ( or )

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Rush

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Kill Potential Pre 6 : Unlikely
Kill Potential Post 6 : Yes, with care.

Another terror matchup because of Riven's insane early game damage. Don't facecheck the brush as with udyr, the damage from Broken Wings if we can't kite or avoid it is immense and a lvl 1 trade that we will lose no matter what. Stay passive and farm at tower if possible. After six to help your team shove the lane at all times with either Transcendent Blades or Hiten Style + Bladesurge combos, as riven is dangerous roam champions and putting pressure top will assure shes loosing something if she chooses to go. We can kill her after Wit's End and some armor though Ninja Tabi combined with a Chain Vest or Wriggle's Lantern although ( Chain Vest + Doran's Blade X 2) I think is better. Grab a Heart of Gold if we're having a particularly rough time.

Try to stay in the brush and farm with Bladesurge into lane to minimize the sight she has on you because she will win almost every trade until we get Hiten Style to a high level. Stun her and run when she tries to combo in. Since riven is a very aggresive try to stay lower than her so if you get a jungle gank, Equilibrium Strike will be a sure thing.

Start or

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First Back and )

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Rush or

S

Kill Potential Pre 6 : Yes, with care.
Kill Potential Post 6 : Unlikely

This guy is about as annoying as laners get but he also suffers from the Darius syndrome (imopautowinhuehue) and Rengars tend to play very aggressive. Also rengar signals really hard when he wants to play passive or aggressive by how he treats the bushes. Be careful but don't be afraid to fight him, since he is quite bursty you can always rely on Equilibrium Strike to stun and either follow up or disengage. He becomes nearly impossible to kill because he can run away whenever he wants with Thrill of the Hunt. Smart play == easy win.



AD

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SP

Start

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First Back and +

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Rush +

Kill Potential Pre 6 : Unlikely
Kill Potential Post 6 : Yes, with care.

This match plays out similarly to AP Kennen however it hurts a hell of a lot more. His mage like damage on skills combined with his incessant auto attack harass make this lane hell to deal with. The problem comes in that Ninja Tabi would normally be a great book choice, however kennen's stuns make him more dangerous in AD because all the while he can lay down hell from range. We need to build both armor and MR to beat this guy in lane, and through Chain Vest and Wit's End we can survive and kill him, with out Mercury's Treads keeping up moving through his stuns.

In this matchup we need to pay special care to Electrical Surge's passive only because it is so much more dangerous on AD kennen. Take solace in that his auto attack harass will push the lane to your tower since allied creeps will aggro on him, however Kennen is on of the few champs that can push aggressively with relative safety. Try and get every CS you can under tower but don't sacrifice too much health. HE WILL WEAR US DOWN, MANY HP POTS ARE NEEDED.

Medium

AP

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SP

Start

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First Back and +

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Rush +

Kill Potential Pre 6 : Yes
Kill Potential Post 6 : Yes, with care.

This matchup is easy if played well in the early levels. If Kennen maxes Thundering Shuriken then we don't have much to worry about. If he maxes Electrical Surge we're going to have a bit more trouble. If he goes shirikens we can just sit in the brush and bait him to use his skills and dodge with ease farming with Bladesurge or hiding in/behind the creepwave. If maxing surge he will have considerable more pressure and a lot more damage in his harass. When he ques up with 4th attack and his shiriken lights up and wait it out a bit and let him waste it on a creep. Engage on him at level 5 after he uses a skill or has low energy, he cannot stand up to us in a 1v1 with Hiten Style on. Since he will be auto attacking us a lot we will have lower % health and him making out Equilibrium Strike a sure stun making his Lightning Rush less effective.

While he does exert a lot of lane pressure he is still squishy and can be taken down early. Double mantle works very well against his damage and will build into Mercury's Treads
and Wit's End. After both of those items are complete we can win every trade and his cc will do almost nothing to us. Unfortunately his Slicing Maelstrom is strong and will require more finesse to deal with, however with our superior magic resist we should still be able to just roll right through his damage.

Start or

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First Back and ( ) or ( )

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Rush

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Kill Potential Pre 6 : Unlikely
Kill Potential Post 6 : Yes, with care.

Yet another terror early game champ, this time with a lot of damage and armor shred from Dragon Strike. Try to stay in the brush at most times and farm when oppotune to avoid harass from his abilities. Care for his flag grab combo, as he can frontload a lot of damage making it real hard to trade with him. He becomes manageable after we get a few items but always be careful of his damage. Make sure not to be caught in Cataclysm without Bladesurge off CD as he can leave you trapped, forcing a Flash which is not what we want to do in a high CC lane like Jarman.

Start

SPACE

First Back or

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Rush

Kill Potential Pre 6 : Unlikely
Kill Potential Post 6 : Yes, with care.

This match is very simple to do but still can be a pain. Irelia and Rumble are similar in that they have a skill that makes them very dangerous to sit and trade with, Rumble's being Flamespitter and Irelia's being Hiten Style, unfortunately for us he has considerable mobility while using it while ours is somewhat less. Basically kite him when he has Flamespitter on and farm when it is not. We can fight him when we have a lot of magic resist through double Null-Magic Mantle or an early Wit's End. Be careful of The Equalizer as it does considerable damage and don't stand it and trade even if you are ahead as he can shield and do consider damage when he is heated and even overheated. His damage will be but so will ours. If there is any match up to take them in, if you have a rune pages available rune it with Greater Glyph of Magic Resist to shrug off his damage. Don't be too afraid as rumble has a fairly weak early game like us.

SPACESPA

Start

SPACE

First Back or

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Rush and

Kill Potential Pre 6 : Yes
Kill Potential Post 6 : Yes, with care.

Vlad can be a pain in the *** if you let him be, but his early game is weaker than ours so we can abuse that fact and stack a lot of damage on him early. If we farm well and gets Wit's End + executioner's calling than this matchup should be really easy. Basically Executioner's Calling and Hiten Style have the same cooldown so use the active and just engage every chance you can get if you feel safe, and without healing he will loose most trades. Be wary though after level six of the damage amp on Hemoplague as it can stack up very quickly and you will lose unless you know you can win. Also watch for the stacks on Tides of Blood, as the skill can do considerable amount of damage if you don't recognize it. You both scale very well, so make sure you can get an advantage because even if he doesn't have too many items, his ult brings utility to teamfights while we do not.

In teamfights our role can be divided into two categories both however will be soaks.

Initiator When we don't have strong initiating champs like Warwick Malphite or Rammus then our team needs someone to force hard engages lest we be kited to oblivion. As an initiator, which is also kind of misleading, we will be diving for the carries and taking them out of the fight if not outright killing them with our sick damage. This is the easiest role to play because we only focus on killing.

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Peeler No we will not be learning how to peel potatoes here, but this role is much debatable and really depends on teamcomp, but for the most part we protect the backline. What makes my build so potent for being a good peeler is that Frozen Mallet can slow if not stop any attempt to zerg your carry. Being able to switch targets even if you're about to kill one is a painful lesson, but we care about winning, not score.

Sometimes however the roles are not clear and you will need to play both roles and be a super tank, because no one really wants to be a team player. Bladesurge to a target to start the fight then stick back and peel the divers off your carry. Its a thankless job, but if you protect the AD carry, which should have more damage than everyone else on the team combined. The Frozen Mallet passive is such a blessing for the AD carry as he can just continue shooting and not have to worry about the target getting away.

*QUICK NOTE*
Always remember to use the Randuin's Omen active right after using Bladesurge if you know your team is going to get a solid engage. Randuin's is rarely cleansed and its a 35% damage reduction for 2.5-3 seconds on an AD carry.

TLDR
Be a team player, win > score.

3/25/2012 GUIDE RELEASED

UPDATE 4/9/2012
*MORE MATCHUPS COMING SOON, NEED TO PLAY MATCHUPS MORE TO GET A FEEL FOR NEW HITEN STYLE*
If you want to help and think you can play a common solo top well add me and lets play a custom so i can analyze these. Added Udyr, Pantheon, and Kennen.

UPDATE 4/12/2012
Thinking, after reading another guide to try out, Greater Quintessence of Movement Speed + 21/9/0 Masteries. Will test and make changes accordingly. Also more matchups still coming. Added Riven, J4 , and Rumble

4/14/2012
Added Vlad, probably more later in the day.

4/27/2012
Supposed IRELIA BUFFS INCOMING. the base stat buffs are huge

Damage increased: 56.3 (+3.3 per level), to 59.3 (+3.3 per level).
Health increased: 515 (+85 per level), to 546 (+90 per level).
Health per 5 sec increased: 6.5, to 7.5.

The Biggest thing is the regen, which will help the ****ty early laning phase sooo much. The extra health as base, see early game, and scaling, see all game, are also huge, the damage buff is also making me consider switching to ms/atkspd runes. I can die happy now. +36 HP at level 1 with the buff, and 121 at level 18 for free, gimmie pl0x, less reason to buy da warmogs, when mallet, does it better and cheaper, making our midgame #1.

Update 6/1/12
Just changed some things around that i've been meaning to change around.

I'd like to thank riot, and my friends for getting me to play this game, and criticizing me constantly so I would improve.

Thanks also goes out to jhoijhoi whose guide i totally ripped off and can be found here.



If you have suggestions or want another section post something in the comments. Don't be a closed mind hater, if you think you're better than everyone and your opinion on a matter makes you correct, well I think most rational people know what to think. Don't be an *** and downvote because you look at my build and down vote because its incomplete. The stats on paper and ingame are much different and I beg most of you even try and climb the ladder and pass me.