7/16/11 - I changed my build order to reflect my new play style. I find when starting with a regrowth pendant i can stay in lane as long as i wish. Sometimes farming up directly into my Trinity Force.
- Changed my masteries in the Utility section, grabbing a point in Spatial Accuracy instead of Perseverance. And moving 3 points from Expanded Mind into Meditation.
- In my summoner spells I take Teleport over Exhaust because I often enjoy going solo top, and Teleport is almost necessary.
- Removed mana hungry from the Con list due to the recent patch lowering Bladesurge's mana cost early on, and because of taking the different masteries.
- Changed Summoner Spell section describing my interest in Teleport
- Still need to change Item section begging items but i am too lazy.
7/17/11 - Added the other item build. Not sure how it works out yet because I haven't been able to try it in a game.
10/11/11 - Been a long time since I've visited my old guide and I'm changing a lot of things to reflect my new play style. I've removed my second build because I never use it. Slightly changed my masteries, runes, and summoner spells. Have edited and add more content up to the Runes section, more coming later.
10/12/11 - Updated the runes section a bit more and went over the Mastery section, will do more later.

Hello Mobafire this is my guide on Irelia! Ive found Irelia just so much fun to play and thats why Ive decided to make a guide. Remember, this is only a guide and only meant to help you play Irelia, not tell you how to play her.

Pros:

Great farmer
Great burst
Ungankable (due to her passive)
Lots of sustain
Awesome solo laning
Good at ganking
Brings a lot to team fights
Nice stun
Amazing DPS

Cons:

Item dependent
Trinity Force is a must and costs a lot
Transcendent Blades can be easily dodged/hard to aim
People always run away from you D:

Greater Mark of Desolation x9
I use these marks with almost any physical damage character. They are just superior to many other marks. These marks will also make your early game damage skyrocket. Besides, are there any other useful marks besides for these?

= 14.94 Armor penetration

Greater Seal of Resilience x 9
I absolutely love these seals. They offer you such an early game advantage to where you hardly take any physical damage at all early on. It also makes you take very little damage from minions when you harass. These will often make you tankier than your tank at first, making you real hard to take down. I prefer these over the dodge seals because those are based on a chance, and you don't want to take many chances.

= 12.69 Armor

Greater Glyph of Warding x9
I like using these glyphs to give me a good early game advantage. Irelia needs a strong early game to farm. I believe that these glyphs provide you with a decent amount of magic resist early on to decrease magical harass I don't think you need the magic resist per level glyphs because of the items you build providing a lot of magic resist anyways.

= 13.41 Magic resist

Greater Quints of Strength x3
I use the Strength Quints to mostly make last hitting a breeze. Irelia can use a lot of different Quints depending on your play style.

= 6.75 Attack damage

Total: 15 Armor pen.
13 Armor
13 Magic resist
7 Attack Damage

These are very good stats to maximize your early lane dominance.

For my masteries I run a 0/9/21 build. There are many other builds you can use such as 21/0/9, 0/21/9, or 21/9/0. But I feel like utility just offers so much to Irelia.

Defense

3/3 Resistance - Gives me good magic resist for early game and lets me put pints in Strength of Spirit
3/3 Hardiness - Gives me good armor which makes incoming damage a lot less
3/3 Strength of Spirit - Gives me a little bit of hp regen to stay in lane longer

Utility

1/3 Good Hands - I put a point into this just to get to the next tier. However if you take Teleport or Ghost be sure to take the improved version over this
3/3 Perseverance - Normally, id put these points into Good Hands instead but with Irelia you are getting lots of regen abilities so this helps out a little more than usual
4/4 Awareness - Since your taking solo top you will get even more experience from this and out level most of your opponents by 3 levels
1/1 Greed - This gives you a little bit of gold and stacks with your two g5/10. Its also about 3 free wards in an average game
3/3 Meditation - This is so you can spam your Bladesurge to farm easier in lane
1/2 Utility Master - I only put 1 point in here to move up in tiers but it is a great mastery, so if you feel like you need to change points around to get 2/2, go right on ahead
3/3 Quickness - I like movespeed :)
1/1 Blink of an Eye - I take flash, so I improve it with this
3/3 Intelligence - I need this to get to the final tier but the cooldown reduction is nice
1/1 Presence of the Master - This mastery is so great because it allows you to be really aggressive with your summoners and not have to worry about them being on cooldown


Another thing id like to say. I don't understand why people always flame on certain masteries for being almost useless. All of the masteries give you very little benefits! Really! They are doing what they were meant to do, giving you a little boost. Not a big boost, not even a medium boost, a SMALL boost.

Recently I've found myself takingand. These two work especially well when your solo top. You can still take Exhaust over Teleport if you are stuck in a duo lane. Id also recommend trying Ghost or Ignite. They work well too, just use whatever fits your play style.

So for my skill sequence I max Bladesurge first. I know many people max Equilibrium Strike first for the increased damage and slow/stun. But I prefer maxing Bladesurge first because it allows you to farm so much better. This is something Irelia needs early on to get the gold for your Trinity Force. And so, making the statement of how Equilibrium strike is so great, I like to max it second. And i take 1 point in Hiten Style early on for the life steal to stay in lane. But it is the least effective skill she has and therefore I max it last. However don't underestimate this skill, it does provide an incredible amount of true damage. And obviously take your ult whenever you have the chance.

Ahhhh, and here we have the items. The cool thing about Irelia is that after you get your, you can really get any item you feel you need.

For starters I like to take:
, and 3xOR, and 2xI would either pick one of these starting sets because It allows you to either not forgt about your boots,( I often do when caught up in building my), Or rush yourwhich is just a beast on Irelia. Withyour Bladesurge also uses the proc fromto do massive damage

After your Sheen you should finish the boots and make them Mercury Treads. Then continue to your Tri Force. After that, just build whatever you feel like you need. I often find myself building something like:

This build is very balanced and will work against many teams. I don't build many offensive items because they just don't benefit Irelia as much as some sturdiness does. I only take Phantom Dancer for the increased Attack Speed to help Hiten Styles passive and for the movement speed. ( I like to be fast)

There are many other item I might suggest using like: Thronmail, Force of Nature, Infinity Edge, Spirit Visage, Wriggles Lantern, Starks Fervor, or Wits Ends.

FARM FARM FARM!!! Farming for Irelia is so important until you get your Trinity Force! After your Tri Force you can ease up on the farming but until then you better not miss a single creep. I like to max Bladesurge first on Irelia to make farming that much easier early on. I also like to take lots of life steal and HP regeneration to stay in lane as long as possible to farm up.

I know that it is possible to Jungle with Irelia, but i'm very inexperienced at it. I might try it out more and make a little thing on it, but don't expect much. I am pretty experience with jungling as Shaco/WW so If I do jungle Irelia it wouldn't be too bad, don't worry hahaha.

When a team fight occurs you might be asking yourself " What do I do?" Its not so simple with Irelia. You really need to focus down their carries first. So you might need to run around a little bit before you charge in until you know you can get that squishy. Other time you might need to initiate for your team then back off some into the rest of your team. After that you can then Bladesurge back in and start opening a can whoop-*** on them. Irelia is really unique in so she can be bursty and dps'ish. So know what you need to do before you run into any fight. Lastly, Irelia is great at chasing down the enemies with all the movement speed boosts your giving her, with her Bladesurge, with the Trinity Forces slow, and with your ultimates nice range. Just try and evaluate every situation different and make the best choice.

All in all Irelia is absolutely my favorite champion. I just have a blast when I play her. She has a unique style that will let you play her differently almost every game depending on the others team make up. Once I save up more ip i'm thinking about buying other melee assassins like her and maybe creating a guide on them. Would you like that? I'm pretty new to guide writing and any help I can get would be great.

Thank you for reading through my guide of Irelia, please leave some constructive criticism! :)

P.S. I'm really annoyed because this thing pops up saying that this might not be a complete guide. And the only thing there that possibly couldn't be included is 5,000 words! But i'm almost positive it is. Anyways you don't really need to be reading this. I'm just writing a whole bunch of jibberish to see if the 5000 word thing goes away. Would you guys tell me if thats always up? I'm kind of worried thanks!