This guide is currently unfinished as of 12/13/2011. I'll be finishing it within the week.

If you ever wanted one bad ***, tough champ that can get in the fray, pick off a target, get out, or just simply kill everyone, and laugh while doing it, Irelia is the way to go. Irelia has suffered a lot of nerfs, but is still a amazing carry, especially as a offtank, being able to kill pretty much every champion with relative ease assuming the playing fields are even.

Irelia is also a extremely powerful solo lane player, you'll have to be extremely careful early game to gain most out of her, don't feel shy to spend extra time farming to get trin force / guardian angel before getting into team fights, as I personally won't really try fighting unless the enemy is noticeabely weaker without Trin Force.

I'm going to be outlining various builds for whatever type of play the reader will prefer, but my preferred one is tank Irelia.

Tank Irelia
AD Irelia
Hybrid Irelia
AP Irelia

Movement Speed quints, with defensive masteries on the tankrelia but still a accentuation on movement in masteries, you'll take a lot less damage, regen a lot more and be extremely mobile.

Tank Irelia

Start off with a Regrowth Pendant and pot, this should easily last you to Philo stone even against some of the roughest of lanes, then grab boots and heart of gold, with pots as necessary, you can get HOG before boots, it's just a matter of preference really, if you can get away with cutting boots for it then by all means because you want your GP5s asap.

After you have Merc Treads, Philo Stone and HOG, you're now prepared to sit in the lane and farm until you have enough to buy Trinity force outright. Once Trinity Force has been acquired your first goal is to get a Guardian's Angel, you can feel more comfortable about ganking now as your stats have started to scale, the HP from your HOG and Trin have made you noticeabley scary, and now your E Q W combo hits like a truck.

Now that you have your core items, you can start going tanky, depending on what the other team mainly has, you can go for Randuins Omen, or Banshee's Veil, the reason I don't recommend FON first is because Banshee's Veil has a passive effect that is more useful the earlier you get it because it will have had absorbed more abilities and payed itself off sooner, after you have your BV and Randuins, you can get a FON to bring your MR up to par with your armor, or you can get more armor if you're up against a AD heavy team, if you do get more armor, I'd highly recommend a Frozen Heart.

Ionian Fervor - Reduces the durations of stuns, slows, taunts, fears, snares, immobilizes, blinds, and silences for each enemy nearby champion.
1 Champion = 10%
2 Champions = 25%
3 Champions = 40%

This passive seriously owns, there isn't any better in the game except possibly Olafs or Garens, but with Merc Treads, you can escape 5 man ganks endgame with relative ease, in most cases without even having to use summoner spells assuming you can survive the burst and create a gap between you and your hunters.


Bladesurge - Irelia dashes forward to strike her target for 20/50/80/110/140(+1.0 AD) physical damage. This applies on-hit effects. If it kills the target, Bladesurge's cooldown refreshes and refunds 35 mana.
Cooldown: 14/12/10/8/6
Mana Cost: 60/65/70/75/80
Range: 650

One of the best abilities in the game by far, amazing gap closer and finisher, with a refreshing cooldown allowing for some interesting jukes and finesse. The way you'll want to use Q is to farm minions you normally wouldn't be able to because of being denied or because two are dying at the same time, but you can also use it to close really large gaps, by dashing to a minion and killing it then dashing to a fleeing champion, or you can dash to a minion near the enemy champ that's about to die and stun said champion, then retreat safely.

Very useful for escapes too, sometimes the best way to escape your enemy is to run right past them; if you're being chased and will more then likely die anyway, running into the brush and waiting until the opponent/group is about to enter dash to a nearby minion or opposing member of the group whos furthest and pray that you can out run them.

Ontop of all that, it applies onhite effects, such as red buff, Trin Force and anything else you might.


Hiten Style - Irelia is skilled in the art of Hiten, passively giving her physical attacks 10/14/18/22/26 health restoration. Activating Hiten Style adds 15/30/45/60/75 true damage to her physical attacks for 6 seconds.
Cooldown: 15
Cost: 40

Another one of the best abilities in the game, by very far. This is one of your bread and butter abilities that will give you noticeable auto attacks after you combo, and late game it will allow you to keep your DPS up along with your burst, which makes your tankiness a huge hassle for the enemy team. Getting one level of this really early also helps to stay in lane for a long time by just auto attacking. With attack speed builds (hitting 2.5k ASPD) Hiten has been calculated to do 1.2k DMG alone in that period of 6 seconds assuming you get every single auto attack off that you possibly can, not including your abilities or physical damage.


Equilibrium Strike - Irelia's attack balances the scales, dealing 80/130/180/230/280(+0.5AP) damage and slowing the target by 60% for 1/1.25/1.5/1.75/2second(s). However, if the target has a higher Health % than Irelia, then the blow stuns the target for 1/1.25/1.5/1.75/2 second(s) instead.
Cooldown: 8 Seconds
Mana Cost: 50/55/60/65/70
Range: 425

ANOTHER one of the best abilities in the game.... you see how this is starting to work? ;) This ability is your bread and butter, and will save your life and net you very many kills when used correctly, and using it correctly is how you win your solo lanes, even 1v2. When you're facing someone with the same % of HP (i.e. full) then your ES will stun, so it's important to realize when to stun first and when to use your Bladesurge to close the gap.

Try and have this ability up at all times in the solo lane during the early game, especially if you're up against two tryhards who are willing to dive you because ES and exhaust will get both of them killed hands down. Has a decent AP ratio, but not really worth going AP for.


Transcendent Blades - Irelia summons 4 spirit blades which she can fling at her enemies. These blades deal 80/120/160(+0.5AP)(+0.6AD) physical damage to enemies that they pass through, and she heals for 25% of that damage vs champions and 10% vs minions.
Cooldown: 60/50/40
Mana Cost: 100
Range: 1200

Another one of the best abilities in the game, in my honest opinion, the cooldown is short enough that endgame you can cast it twice in one fight if it plays out long enough because you'll sure as hell be alive still because you're Irelia. Amazing for farming, amazing for healing, just generally extremely useful and good range with quite decent damage, nothing to skoff at all. If you're getting dived use it immediately after equilibrium strike for some trouble free healing.

There are various ways to use your spells and I'm going to list some basic ones that are most commonly going to be used, the rest are more judgement calls so I can't really tell you what to do in every specific situation in this guide. Keep in mind also, this is made for solo lane, so anything that you do in a duo lane you'll have to coordinate with your partner.

1v1 Melee

Melee 1v1 is a lot easier to explain because they have to get in range of you to damage you (obviously) but the point being that you generally won't have as much trouble with farming because they'll be in range of you hurting them.

If you're being harassed but not zoned and have a noticeabley lower % of HP...
> > *if your hp drops, you want to heal, or you can manage to secure a kill, then pop x5 (To activate, then fling each one)

If you're being harassed and zoned with lower HP....
into any nearby low HP minions, and your target, then if possible away (if theres a low HP minion that you can retreat to), otherwise just run.