Irelia Build Guide by Lord Drek

Introduction

Hello all, my name in game is Lord Drek and this is my first guide here, on MobaFire. I am also NOT one of those 2300 Elo players that tell you they have 2300 Elo like 9001 times in a champter and im not the absoulte best player of Irelia in the universe, but I am quite seasoned and I will share my knowlege with you, cuz its sad to see so many Irelia's fail that sadly.

I will present you my beloved champion Irelia . (you didn't think it was her eh ?)

Irelia is an amaizing solo top champion, that, if get fed early game, can snowball immensly trought the game. HEr expetionall phase(s) is(are) : MID-LATE game(best) and LATE (worse, yet very good) game. Countary to popular belief, Irelia's best time isnt very late in game, because she falls off in dmg then. When she comes out of top lane, fed to the shkies, amongst 4 lvl's lwoer opponents, shes ultra carry, nuking down 2 champs, then DPSing the remains. I'll teach you to do that in all of your games. Enjoy!



I'll tell you what these means, but if some arent inclouded, check out this :Legend



AA=Autoattack
ArPen= Armor Penetration
Mpen= Magic penetration
Ar = Armor
Mr= Magic resist
Ms= [u]M[/u]ove speed
HP= Hit points
K= 1000gp (4k=4000)
Gp= Gold/Gold pices
AD= Attack damage
AP= Ability power
Cs= Minion Kills/ Creep Score
CCr = Crowd Controll reduction

This is In-depth Irelia guide, please do not read it while youre waiting for game to load as you'll get to know just few things.

Well, lets get started, shall we?

The Nerfs

Well, you most likley seen the nerfs for Irelia but I'll write 'em here again for you.

Hiten Style nerf :
Passive heal reduced to 5/7/9/11/13 from 10/14/18/22/26. When acitve is on, healing is returned to normal.

Well, this nerf really hits your laning phase badly, and you must adapt to it. How? Well, you must play a bit more defensivley and must sometimes push when activating your W for healing. That mean's you shouldn't trade if you know you will not be able to heal it back with just passive, as you DON'T want to push your lane too much. It allows enemies jungler to gank you easier.

Transcendent Blades nerf :
Cooldown increased to 70/60/50 from 60/50/40.
This nerf isn't as bad as the other one is, but it still hurts your laning phase. Before the nerf you could use ultimate 10 times in 10 minutse, while now you can only use it 8 times. (the time between lvl 6-11)
Thsi also hurts your sustain, and thredfore you should do the things I wrote at the Hiten Style nerf.

So, this nerf hurts your laning phase, but it doesnt hurt you lategame really bad, so try to have good laning phase, and when game advances, you won't have problems with this anymore :)

Pros / Cons

spaaaaaaace

Pros + Insane damage from just few offensive items + Very tanky + That sustain... + Amaizing solotop + Can win 1v5 + Look epic...

space

space

Cons - Item dependant - Squishy early game - Needs solo top - Needs an averge jungler - Erm... lemme think - Nothing, really

Runes

Runes can differ from player to player, as one can take ArPen quints and AD marks or diffrent way around.

For marks you can pick Greater Mark of Desolation for ArPen, as most of your abilities need ArPen. Can also be Greater Mark of Attack Speed(I use them at the monent.). I prefer AS marks because it really improves your capatibility to last hit and increases your damage output by normal AD and by Hiten Style alot, while ArPen only improves damage from your AD and doesn't boost your laning phase enought.

For seal you SHOULD take Greater Seal of Armor seals, because Irelia has got very low base armour. It help your lane pressence very nice. Of course it makes dmg you get from lane opponent much lower. At seals, there really sin't much choice, as flat armour is the best choice.

For glyphs you can take Greater Glyph of Magic Resist or Greater Glyph of Scaling Magic Resist.
Flat will improve your early game drasticlly(only when laning vs. an AP champion!!), while mr/lvl will help you lategame. But as you're laning vs. AD solotop bruiser, you won't make much use of flat mr, so MR/lvl is better in my opinion.

For Quints you can take Greater Quintessence of Attack Damage, Greater Quintessence of Desolation or Greater Quintessence of Movement Speed.
Take MS quints if you like roaming and like to be fast ( at endgame your speed will be totaling about 480).

This is example of runes I sudgest and bellow there are more combinations. This rune build gives you some nice damage, and increased sustain with AS, as you heal with you Hiten Style.

Take ArPen quints if you didn't take ArPen marks already. You can also take ArPen Marks and Quints, as they will increase your damege alot.

And take AD quints if you think you'll have problems with lasthitting as that bonus 7 Ad really boosts your early game and last hit capatiblities. This rune build offers better early game, and some nice utility from 4.5 % increased MoveSpeed.

Well, if you wanna hear my reccomendation,I recommend : AS Marks, Flat Armor Seals, Mr/Lvl Glyphs and ArPen or AD Quints.

Masteries

With masteries you should usually go the9/21/0 (above). As an offtank, you get the most benefit from Defensive masteries, and that 8% ArPen from Offense will help you alot.
If you want Utility I recommend you to use 0/21/9, you can, however, use 0/9/21 too, because having faster summoner spells and that cash + all other stuff from Utility is really usefull. But I still reccoment you the Defensive way more :)
Of course you can go 21/9/0, but you're gonna be more valnourable, but you will, however, have better early game.
These are masteries for those who want mixedOffense and Defense. 13/17/0
Of course it seems that 21 /9/0 or 9/21/0 way is better but seriosuly, try it out. You will be suprised by how balanced you are. Use above for when you know you'll need to spamm your skills, as you get 4 CDR in Offsnse and 0.45 scaling CDR in Defense.

Summoner spells

The best options: and

Why these two?
Well, Ghost is going to boost your Ms to hit the skies. No opponent will ever run from you, not to mention you will run from anyone you want.
Ignite will offer you to kill those nasty luckers who get away with like 24 HP and then trololol at you. You will ignite them and trololol at them instead of them trololing at you.
(i hope you like the trolololing xD ).

Good spells :
Heal can let you turret dive at very low lvls, and turn 1v1 duals around.
Flash.. well you all know why its useful.
Exhaust can be nice when you're chasing/fleeing/dualing/teamfighting. It disables 1 target for 3 seconds. Never hurts (you)(well if you get exhausted it does.. but lets say you don't.)
Very nice for any solotop, and it lets you make devastating ganks. Also marks you with "This guy is everywhere" which is nice. (Makes your enemies mad and fustrated. Always good for your team.)

Bad spells :

You plan on dying? not cool ...
This spell is junk.
Nothing too good.. 35 AS on 200 cd.. nty..
You are Irelia. no way cc will hurt you so much.
Supports spell..
You don't have mana problems. If you do, learn to AA.
You aren't jungling, are you?

Skill sequence

Skill explenation

I won't copy/paste the description, as you just hoover your mouse above names of skills and see it.

This is pobably one of the best passives in game. When 3 enemy champions are in sight range CC on you is reduced for 40% ! And it adds with tenacity and maybe Juggernaut . Imagine the CCr. It is about 67% from dimising returns. 3.5 sec stun ( Ashe's arrow) stun lasts 1.1sec. And thats epic ;)

Use:

• Use it to know when you are getting ganked. If your passive suddenly jumps to 2stacks and you haven't seen any enemey but your lan matchup near, then get nearer the turret, as you are probably getting ganked.
  
• Of couse, use it to lower the CC on yoruself. Simple and amaizing.

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Bladesurge is your farming/chasing/gapclosing/escaping skill. As bladesurge coodlown is refereshed after killing a unit with it, you can farm really well with it by targeting low life mininion. But take care, if you Q evrey single minion you are gonna be mana starving so last hit with AA if possible. Yet farming with Bladesurge its like jumping all around them.. its fun =P

Use:

• Use this to juke like a boss. (target enemies or creeps)
• Use this to get lasthits you couldnt otherwise.
• Use this to chase.
• use this to charge to AD carries in the teamfight.

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Hiten Style is your skill to enchante your AA to deal true damege ( 15/30/45/60/75). It also restores you some health evrey time you hit (5,7,9,11,13).
This skill is most important of both builds, as it allows you to deal segnificant amounts of damage while having tank items, and on off-tank build is pretty much the same, but there the AS is boosted so you're making much more out of it. This is very nice when used on tanks who relly on thier armor to counter you.
Use:

• Use it to sustain yourself like a boss.
• 75 true damage per hit? Deal is a deal Grimch!
• You can sucesfull zonw with its active, because it will make enemies scared; and with a good reason :D

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This is your only CC and a single target low range nuke(early game). If you max this by level 9 its gonna HURT enemies. 2 second stun/slow and 280 magic damege is about 1/5 of their life. Yet, its better maxed at level 18, as Hiten Style at level 9 has sick sustain and dmg =P
Use this to flee also as it usually stuns your chaser, use it to stun those stupid tower divers who are left beneath a tower for 2 seconds, stuned. Usually tower dives on you fail. Badly.

Use:

• Use it to stun/slow when your jungler comes.
• Use it for damage when cc doesnt help (280 burst isnt bad at all)
• Use ti to maketower divers say 'Oh, bloddy hell...'

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This is your ultimate. It has very low cooldown so you can clear a wave of enemy minions to heal up and use it on every teamfight/solo fight there is.

It summons 4 blades which you can fire to fly in direction straight to your crusor.
You'll need some practive on firing this ulti, but when you learn it it is very suefull, because you can :
1.Chase and shoot blades for bonus dmg.
2.Getting chased and shooting blades behind you in your chaser can save your life countless times.
3. Snipe low hp targets (requires alot of skill with Irelia).

They heal you for 10% damege dealt to minions and 25% damege dealt to champions. So always try to hit as much as you can. This ultimate can turn any 1v1 fight and teamfight around very quickly. And please, don't hesitate to use it.. IF it happens you got blue buff, the cooldown is like 30 seconds or even less.

Skill tricks

The point of this trick is that you dont get hurt, while you effectivley harass your opponent. And this is how you make this trick work.

Your enemey is close to his caster minions, and if you Q to him, you'll get hurt way more than him. So, wait for some creep near to get low health, and Bladesurge to it. After that, use your E on your opponent, leaving him stunned or slowed badly, unable to trade with you. Killing minion will renew your cooldown, allowing you to bladerurge back to hit melee creeps and saving yourself from you opponent's hits.

Of course, Q's renew cooldown on kill is EXTREMLEY usefull.
Let me tell you an usefull trick, that saved my life sometimes and took my opponent's one.

After teamfight, me and enemey Gargas were in lane both on very low hp (he had 300 i had 50). He went in brush, i knew that he'll throw his barrel at me, and so i waited for him to throw and uncover himself. And he threw it, he said "cheers" to himself, but i bladesurged to nearably minioni soptted before, and killed minion, then i Q'd to gargas and killed him.
So he had 6x more hp, was in brush and had long range, yet i killed him with QEQ trick!

Also, you can move very fast if theer are minions nearaby and you having Trinity Force soon (1 Q kills caster creeps). Yet there is usually not enought creeps to allow you to bladesurge non-stop. It is usefull for getting out of tough ganks though.

Next trick : You probably seen it in skill explanation chapter already, but im going to describe it even more in here.

The trick is that you can run and shoot blades in any direction you want, whiout stopping for even an milisecond(or nanosecon( ;o). That means, you can chase, run and do evreything very nicley with doing damege + healing yourself. This tehnique saved my as s countless times.

Another thing you meight want to consider. This skill + Bladesurge has great Ksing potential ;D. You can snipe low life targets first with ulti then q to them, q refreshed, do the same to other and so on. That may net you some pentas or quadras (in 400+ games i never had luck to score quadra or penta.. i ahd double+triple in same fight tho).

*Also, you can check brushes with your ultimate if you ppped it and used only 1-3 blades. It will heal you if you hit some one. Usefull for after-teamfight detecting ganks from bushes.

Items- What to buy next - Trinity tank

This is the chaper you were all waiting for eh?
Well, then read it slowly and read it whole.

As you can see I cover 3 diffrent builds.

• Trinity Tank.
• tanky DPS with Frozen Mallet.
• Tanky DPS with Trinity Force.

So lets start with Trnity tank Irelia



At start you should buy Recovery pedant and one Health Potion.
You need sustan for the laning phase, as hinten style won't heal you enought first levels. On first recall buy Philosopher's Stone and Heart of Gold. If you are doing great then also grab Boots of Speed.
The next recall you should farmed quite some minions, so buy Sheen and if you got more gold buy some more items to Mercury's Treads.

You should be still laning and try to farm as much as possible. If you manege to make your jungler come gank your lane don't act like he is coming. Try not to push just focus on last hiting. And save mana and of course have all your spells ready.
So if you get some extra cash from kills, that much better for you, on next recalls focus on getting and then focus Trinity Force, as it boosts your damege to hit the skies. Belive me you will deal so much damage they won't realize what hit em.

I'll tell you what happened to me not so long ago. I was laning againt Volibear and we were even in lane.. he meight be a bit better. Then my jungler came and i destroyed his turret, but we were still laning.
So I was laning for like 5 minutes whitout recall and i had 3k gold on recall. I bought Trinity Force. As we went 1v1 lots of times and no 1 died or something we went again, this time with the maginficent Trinity Force. He was losing so much life and he didn't even see it! Well, it ended that I turret dived and killed him. With ease. He got owned. He raged. I think. Well, he did.

So yes Trinity Force IS our best friend, and no Irelia will match you (but those with Trinity Force.


Anyways after the amaizing item ( you can't guess which one i mean D:), we should focus on making you tanky as hell. Now you have to decide. You can pick Randuin's Omen or Force of Nature.
Decide on what is killin' you the most. If theres a fed Annie walking around and she owns you buy Force of Nature and if there's some Nocturne who is fed up by your team and can badly injure you buy Randuin's Omen.

After you buy first of these 2 items buy the other one. Of course I sudgest you you dont rush 1 item but buy Negatron Cloak and then get yourself the Randuin's Omen. This will get you mixed defenses all the time and you will be unstoppable.

After you buy your base Armor and Magic Resistance stuff, Guardian Angel is a very nice pick. If youre so far you should be ownign and thus getting focused on shight. Don't run from that but wish your enemies happy focus, because you will have so much reststances and after they kill you you come back. Not to mention the very nice bonuses it offers.

We came to the last item. Buy what you need, no one can predict what you'll need as last items.
If your team has no real tank you can become one and buy Warmog's Armor. It will give you 1k extra life scoring about 3.4k Hp and with all the damage reduction you will soak LOTS of damage.

If you got an initiator, you can very well buy Madred's Bloodrazor. It will boost your damage alot.

Of course if enemies team is AD/AP heavy you can buy Thornmail or Banshee's Veil.
If you need more As to use your Hiten Style better and move faster, buy Phantom Dancer. The speed boost allows you to be lighting like.

REMEMBER :

You don't need to follow path fo items like a drunk guy. Adapt it to current sitiation this is only the most used way! Always rememeber that!

We will come to explan of each item few chapters later!

Items- What to buy next- Tanky DPS-Trinity

The above item sequance also explains most of gameplay, so read it anyways.

You start with Boots of Speed and 3 HPpots. This setup offers you mobility, and sustain untill you get your next item ; Wriggle's Lantern as it gives you GREAT sustain, pushing power, armor and damage to allow you to tarde with ur opponent.. After boots RUSH Wriggle's Lantern and after it, buy Mercury's Treads. After boots its good to buy Recurve Bow as it allows you to sustain extra fast with your AS.

After recurve, buy Sheen, then Wit's End, and proceed to Trinity Force. Now you have : Mercury's Treads, Wriggle's Lantern, Wit's End and Trinity Force. This build and core gives you :

• Sick sustain.(Wriggles and AS)
• Mobility.[Trinity and boots)
• Great damage output.[Trinity and wits end)
• CC(slow from trinity)
• Resistances and hp(all)

Anyways, after the core, you should focus on getting hella tanky. Heres what you do :

• Buy Negatron Cloak and Varden's mail, as they offer you some more armor and mr.
• Upgrade above items in Banshee's Veil and Randuin's Omen. They'll give you 2 VERY nice passives, 700 hp, nice resistances and some hp regen,cdr,mana..
  
  
  The last item (you sell Wriggle's ) is Madred's Bloodrazor. They give you that extra 100(aproximatley) dmg on hit and 40 ad, 30 armor, 40% AS, you need to become as scary as a carry..
  With this build, which is expensive, but is one of the best builds you can have you will be UNSTOPPABLE.

Items- What to buy next- Tanky DPS-Mallet

This build is basiclly the same as above one, but it differs in some points.

• It uses Frozen Mallet instead of Trinity Force.
• It uses Thornmail isntead of Randuin's Omen.
• It doesnt buy Sheen after recurve but goes straight to Wit's End and after it to Frozen Mallet.
• It uses Wriggle's Lantern to the end (if you got extra cash feel free to buyy sumthing better.

I'll try to explain these choices to you.

• In some cases Mallet can be better than Trinity, as sometimes you need that extra health and the great perma-slow.
• Thornmail is cheaper and counter carries very nicley.. doesnt provide you with teamfight changing active, though.
• No Trinity, no Sheen.
• If you got alot of cash, you can buy anything you want (ofc it must suit you quite good)

Items- explanation

So, in this and following chapters, i'll explain you why i take this items over those. Hope you get the picture.

So lets start with the boots. I'll explain the good 'n'bad thing of evrey boots so you'll see the diffrence better.

These are the sudgested boots, they offer some nice MR, but the thing you take them for is Tenacity. Its an amaizing thing, that gives you 35% CCR and stacks with yoru passive. Epic.

These boots are usually used by carries and other champs that heavily relly on As. Irelia is having nice benefit from AS, but this boost can't be matched with tenacity whch stacks with passive to make her uncc-able.
You can choose this fi enemy team doesngt have any great cc's and if you are playin agressive.

The fast boots. These boots are very ncie for roamers and stealthers ( Shaco, Twitch, Evelynn). They offer great movement boost, btu you dont get any other utility, so not really reccomended, as Irelia isn't a roamer/stealther.

These are used on champions that greatly benefit from fighting move speed. Examples on where you should take tehse incloude Garen, Amumu, and some other tanks. Irelia doesnt really benefit greatly from these, as her movespeed is kinda high anyways.

As tough as Irelia is Ionian general and princess, she doesnt benefit from Ionian boots too much. CDR is always usefull, and always will be, but its more usefull on characters like Talon and some supports that need to spamm skills. You can take these, but i DON'T reccomend it, as tenacity is way too good to pass up.

Take these if you're facing 2 ad bruisers and 2 ad carries.. and of course, enemies must not have much cc.

Well...MPen on Irelia? Not thanks, only one ability does magic damage, and it has very poor AP scaling. Do not take these. Never. Ever. Seriously. Never.

So yeah, I hope I made it clear that Mercury's Treads are way the best boots to use on Irelia, as tenactity + passive makes a great combo and makes you're enemies rage.

So these boots are the best for all 3 builds, and all 3 builds run Mercury's Treads.

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Lets discuss the Frozen Mallet and Trinity Force. I think this thing needs some very detailed explanation. So leats break it down to pieces.
So, you seen the stats of both items. Mallet gives 450 hp bonus more, applies 5% better slow 4 times more possible and costs 800 gold less.
So you would say its 420% better slow, but no. When you charge some one with Irelia, you usually slow/stun him with your Equilibrium Strike. It will give you enought time to proc slow once, and when you proc it once you'll proc it 2nd time with ease, so you actually don't need so much "better" slow.

About health and cost, you can get that 450 health (even more) from other items like Randuin's Omen and Banshee's Veil.
And that 800 gp really isnt soemthing that big. Imagine it as an free Kindlegem.

The best thing at Trinity Force is the sick burst ability. at time you get TF if your rush it, some enemies have 1.2k health, and Bladesurge that deals 450 damage will take away almoast half of their hp, and gives you the ability to litterary nuke down thier carry, meaning you will likley win the teamfight. Frozen Mallet gives you little-to-no offense power, its an completley defense-utility item, and in time of 20 mins, where you get TF, teamfights start to happen, and you WILL need that offense to down thier Ad carry asap, or he'll tear you apart.

As you may have seen, I prefer Trinity Force over Frozen Mallet, but that is because I usually win my lane and I'm farmed alot, so I can afford it and its lack of defense, but unstoppable power in offense. If your lane is tied or you're losing and dying alot, buy that Frozen Mallet !!! It will boost your defense, and will increase your chances of playing normal in mid and late game.

So, basically, get Trinity Force, when you know you will be able to rule whitout that bonus health and when you can farm freely. When you can't, however, buy the Mallet, you will see it is better in bad situations. Trinity Force makes you heavily offensive and quite tanky, when Frozen Mallet makes you become very tanky, but not so offensive.

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Sooo, you meigth be asking "Why Thornmail .. you ******ed?"
But no, the Tanky DPS build, where Thornmail is inclouded, Thornmail fits very nice. Your main wish is to keep carries from killing you or not attacking you. What armor does that job better? Noone. At least not for 2k gold. So yeah, Thornmail is very nice in that build, but in others, we need that bonus hp and threadfore buy Randuin's Omen, increasing our hp and giving us some much needed utility.

So, try Thornmail out and see how nice it is to counter carries. If you feel rich, you can, of course buy other armor items, but u will rarley have enought gold to buy full build + elixers so that 1k less gold makes you get it faster.

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Why do i take these 2 items OVER gp/10 items in tanky dps build? Well, they are way mroe cost efficient, both are VERY good for the gold paid. Gp/10 are quite nice items, providing you with soem sustain, hp and mana regen and 1 gold per sec. But people, tehy give you NO offense power. With only Wriggle's Lantern you heal 50/sec at level 9, thats sick sustain no one can beat.
And when you get your Wit's End, your sustain go even mroe up because of that 40% AS... not to mention no one will be able to take your auto attacks, as you attack with aprox 1.2 attacks per sec, dealing 75 ture dmg + your ad+ 42.. which makes about 200 damage at level 11-12. Thats simply amaizing, and should not be switched for gp/10.

So lets do DA MATHS... nah just kidding, i'll just write down stats, so you'll make a picture about the diffrence :) And im kidding again, because the stats are so much different, you can't really compare the two. One buuld gives you some slim hp and regen other giving you ability to lifesteal like a boss, and have ward there at all times (its like 4gp/10 sec) the oter part allwoing you to 1v1 like a boss with your +40% as and + 42 dmg on hit.
Wit's End and Wriggle's Lantern make you a true BOSS.

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I think i explaind my build well enought, but if you want explanation of ANYTHING in the build, please, say it in comment and ill add it in here in no time :)

Champion matchups- Top

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Gameplay

So, you might be wondering how to actaully play Irelia even though you know what items/runes/masteries you need.

Lets break this up into 3 parts :

• Early game - Laning
• Mid game - Roaming
• Late game - Teamfighting

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Well, this phase isnt really hard to remember what to do, because it is basically just 1 word.
Fa..iling... lol, kidding. it is FARMING!!! FARMING FARMING FARMING (Damn that word takes 4 lines in editor <.<)

Guess you got what I meant :D

Well its really just all about farming. You go to top lane, solo and then farm.. and farm and when you farmed so much ur the best farmer in your house, farm some more :D (the corn looks epic when it grows <.<)
You may go for a kill if you think you can, but be sure you don't dive when you aren't sure you'll get kill and get out alive, as be sure not to push too much if you didnt ward your river bush. But people seriously. Always WARD. Always WARD. Always WARD !!! (Yes, I know I said it two times.)

Don't harass if you know you'll lose some cs, because kill is worth just about 16 cs and its not reaslly worth it to harass so long and lose loads of cs, then not getting the kill ;D
You MUST learn how to last hit with your AA. Go play custom game and try to lasthit 6/6 minions for 20 minutes. Do that some times and you'll get the feeling. If you farm about 100 till 20 min mark you are doing good, but if you're pro you'll have 150 cs.

Irelia really needs gold, and when she get's it she's a BOSS.
I'll tell you about all teh champs you can face in top lane few chapters bellow.

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When this phase starts, you'll know by seeing no lane is safe anymore, and teamfights and skrimishes are breaking out all over the map. But what you must do it so.. FARM. If there is a major teamfight nearaby, join it, but when there are 2 pople cricling aroun a guy in mid lane, dont bother and rether farm.

You, however, will start to shine a LOT in this phase. If you have your core items, you should be a boss in teamfights and people should be scared of you.
Countary to popular belief, Irelia isn't a very late game champion. Her peak is at Mid-Late game, when you come off your lane farmed like nobody else in the game. Thats the time when you will be unmatched, wheny ou will be able to go 1v3 and win, then take on 2 more!

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So, we came to the Irelia phase.
In this phase, you'll own whoever you want and in teamfights you'll scare the SHlT out of your opponents, so they'll focus you and your carry will eat them alive. You wont die, however.
This is true untill 55th minute of teh game or so, when you usually become more and more damageless, unless you build very damaging Tanky DPS setup.

IF you missunderstood me and think Irelia is a weakling late game, you got it wrong. Irelia still is one of the best late gamers, but it isn't her best phase, yet its very good:)

Next chapter should make you know what to do in teamfights, as they are exepctionally important and can change games.

Snowballing

Irelia is an AMAIZING snowballer as far as my experiance tells me. If you farm rpetty nicley (140-150 by 20 mins) and get lets say 2 kills and 3 assists, you entered snowball mode. Now just farm on an take all kills you get sereved on a sliver plate.
The minute when you come out of top lane to fight, will be horrible for your opponent. Why? Because you can easily steamroll trougth teamfights, killing each and evrey member of thier team with ease.

How come Irelia is so good snowballer whitout snowballing items?

Well, her late-early game-late-mid game scaling is SICK. And a Trinity Force in 25 mins is gonan bring you so far ahead of your opponents they wont ever catch you back. But when you come to that point, its easy. Hard part is to start snowballing. How to do that?

Well, Wriggle's Lantern is an item suiting your playstyle really well and will help you immensly. It gives you

• Sustain
• Damage
• Survivability
• Free cash

What more can you even want for a little pile of 1600g ?

The items leads you to lane dominance, which offers farm = cash that buys you TF = more money that offers you next items which make you unkillable and with your damage from TF and lantern you go nuts mode, and finish a game 21/2/10 (my score from 2 days ago)

Its really easy to snowball if you don't get VERY hard lane opponent ( Skilled Olaf can shut you down whtout a skilled jungler )

Teamfights

So, what is your role as Irelia in teamfights?
You can be 2 things :

• Carry assasin
• Initiator

Well, builds no. 3/4 are Carry Assasin style, while builds no. 1/2 are more of an Initiator style.

What must you do in both roles?
Well, if you're The Carry asasin, you have to wait for your tank to initiate then jump on thier AD carry, and dispatch them in few seconds. AD carry is the champion that will tear your team to pices if you let him stand and shoot.
AD carry is the biggest threat to your team, so use Bladesurge to get to him, activate Hiten Style and Equilibrium Strike. If he still is there, Ult on him, and he should die.
When you dispacth AD carry, go for AP carry, as he is the guy who'll deal 2nd most damage, in some cases, most damage ( Kennen style).

If your The Initiator, its your job to jump in thier team, take load of damage, CC thier carry, act like you are only one who is gonna kil carry. Even though your assasin should go for the AD carry, he might get CC'd or focused so HELP HIM. Try to survive, though
Well, time to initiate is when :

• Thier AD carry/AP carry is in front of the team for some reason,
• They waste some epic ultimate/spell ( Amumu comes to mind, Ashe,..)
• One of thier team is away, use your chance and go in 4v5 teamfight, as you increase your chances to win alot.

Credits

-JhoiJhoi for epic Guide about making a guide, it made evreything possible. Thank you so much JhoiJhoi!

-A Chubby Baby for some rewiev, and constant help to get this guide up and running :)

-Brodienz for guide rewiev, helped me with soem aprts of guide.

-BlackIceT for giving me champion matchups format and overall support.

-JamesKalchev, my great friend, and great Katarina player, with wich I plaid LOADS of games with Irelia.
Thank ya'll, I really appriciate it :)

Closing Statements

So I hope you learned something from this guide, I also hope its informative, and be sure to up vote the guide if you liked it. But if you don't like guide and want to down-vote it, please tell me whats wrong, i'll fix it and were both happy :)

Happy pwning with Irelia!