Patch 6.16

- Big change to passive - Gives 0%/10%/20%-40% tenacity based on how many enemies are in the immediate area, as compared to allies. This seems to be a pretty significant change. It doesn't change the amount of tenacity gained in a duel (as compared to her old passive), but it decreases tenacity when outnumbering your opponent, and alters significantly how tenacity works when outnumbered, and based on the state of the game, in terms of timing. The range on her passive was also strictly nerfed from 1400 units to 1000 units.
- No changes to relevant items

Patch 6.15

- No changes to Irelia
- No changes to relevant items

Patch 6.14

- No changes to Irelia
- No changes to relevant items

Patch 6.13

- Ultimate cooldown increased to 110/85/60 seconds (from 70/60/50). Not much of a difference at later levels, but very rough in the early game
- No changes to relevant items

Patch 6.12

- No changes to Irelia
- Bilgewater Cutlass price decreased, Youmuu's Ghostblade AD decreased.

07/28/2016 - Added additional final build against squishy targets, specified older final build to be against tanks.

7/15/2016 - Changed Lee Sin's description to better reflect optimal strategy. Minor gramatical changes.

6/24/16 - Changed Teemo's description to reflect more accurate match-up. Changed Lee Sin's description to better reflect game timing. Added addendum to skill order, detailing experimental changes.

Welcome, Summoners! I am immensely bored at work with no work to do, so I present to you a guide on jungle Irelia!

Irelia is a flexible, high sustain champion that does well with aggressive dives and single-target dueling. She utilizes life-gain, a gap closer, CC, true damage, and percent health damage to be a consistent threat to all opposing champions.

While I don't think jungle Irelia is particularly competitive, I think she has all the tools required to succeed, and has a significantly huge impact on the state of the game. She's an incredibly fun pick, and arguably one of the most flexible champions in the game. With jungle quickly becoming one of my favorite roles, I've been giving her some playtime, and I'm impressed with the results. I haven't seen much in the way of jungle Irelia guides, so this is my contribution. I hope you enjoy!

Irelia excels at single-target dueling, pushing, and diving in all forms. She can utilize her balanced stats to be a constant threat. However, when in a teamfight, she needs to be careful about her positioning and engagement timing, or she'll be left without an escape.


Pros:

+ Extreme Versatility (can play off-tank, bruiser, assassin, etc)
+ Excellent Duelist
+ Massive Sustain
+ Great Dive Potential
+ Impactful Splitpusher


Cons:

- No Escapes
- No AOE Impact
- Tricky CC
- Stick-Dependent
- Slow Clears

Smite is non-negotiable, for every jungler. The advantage gleamed from objective control, dueling, and buff attainment is unparalleled. This is a MUST.




This spell is commonly taken on almost every champion in any lane. This is a fantastic pick for Irelia, who has no real escapes. You can vault walls, attempt objective steals, engage from farther away, and escape risky situations with ease. When in doubt, take flash, it's massively flexible.




There's a strong argument to take Ghost instead of Flash. Ghost allows Irelia to move faster, not be blocked by minions, and stick more easily on champions in combat, which is massively important for her kit. Personally, I enjoy Ghost more than Flash, and Ghost is incredible in some situations, but I think Flash is more consistent. It's completely a matter of preference.

Our runes are meant to focus on resistances, and early attack speed. Six seals and glyphs of Armor and MR, followed by three seals and glpyhs of scaling MR gives us a strong early game, and a little scaling into the mid-game. With an improved attack speed, Irelia can proc Hiten Style more often, resulting in more life steal, and an easier first clear.

Our primary tree, our focus is primarily resistances - Irelia has plenty in natural sustain. Most of the choices here can be fit to your preference - however, I strongly stress Strength of the Ages. It provides a very serious health buff, which scales nicely as the game goes on.

In the cunning tree, I recommend masteries that emphasize dueling, and clear speed. Again, this is a very flexible build, edit it to your preference.

Ionian Fervor - Irelia gains 0%/10%/25%, 30%, 35%, 40% Tenacity based on the number of surrounding enemies as compared to the number of surrounding allies. This passive is an immensely powerful tool. It allows Irelia to shrug off CC while diving the back-line, making dueling a single-target easier and safer. It also protects her during tower dives, and contesting objectives. This ability also stacks quite nicely with Tenacity from the Resolve Tree, Mercury Treads, Elixir of Iron, and more.

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Bladesurge - Normally Irelia's bread and butter in lane, this ability takes a bit of a back-seat in the jungle. However, during ganks, it's a fantastic gap-closer, and you can greatly increase your clear speed by using it to execute small jungle monsters (small raptors, the small krug, etc) It is maxed second for the speedier cooldown.

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Hiten Style - Our main focus in building Jungle Irelia. It adds 15-75 true damage to attacks while activated, and returns health on each basic attack both actively and passively. Since we're building plenty of attack speed and percent health damage, this ability procs fairly often, and we can use basic attacks to do huge damage, despite not having a ton of AD.

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Equilibrium Strike - Irelia's only form of CC, this slow/stun can be tricky to master - timing has to be tight in order to proc the stun without losing too much health yourself. This stun, along with Irelia's kit, actually provides some interesting dueling opportunities. Once an opponent has used a few abilities on you, stunning them and ulting them can deal a lot of damage, and heal you plenty in the process, turning the tide of the battle in a way that your opponent doesn't always see coming. It also can help secure kills while tower diving, and stunning the enemy jungler while contesting a smite-able objective.

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Transcendent Blades - A great skirmishing tool, Transcendent Blades fires four projectiles, dealing damage and healing Irelia based on damage done. While most of her damage will still come from basic attacks, this gives Irelia a nice burst, and plenty of sustain in a fight. Level up this ability whenever possible.

Irelia, unlike most champions, can build just about anything and succeed. Does your team need a tank? Trinity Force into full tank should do it. Need a divey assassin? Maw of Malmortius and Youmuu's Ghostblade can provide huge damage and a shield. A reliable split-pusher? Ravenous Hydra and Zz'rot portal are available. Need to shred tanks? Bloodraizer and Blade of the Ruined King are up for grabs. That being said, there are a few core choices to be made:


Damage / Attack Speed

Generally speaking, we're going to focus on the true-damage from Hiten Style on this build. If running the build normally, add Blade of the Ruined King and Trinity Force for offense. This will provide some health, attack damage, attack speed, life steal, cooldown reduction, mana, movement speed, three excellent passives, and the active ability from Blade of the Ruined king. The upside to this build is the wide variety of stats it provides. The downside to this build is that effective combat has to be prolonged in order to be efficient, and provides little in the way of attack damage to empower your ultimate and your Bladesurge. Further, not counting percent health damage, your damage output is a little low, meaning you won't always have time to fight down high damage champions.

An alternative build is to utilize the Warrior Enchantment, and subsequently high-damage items that don't really touch on attack speed. I recommend this latter build against a squishier team, or a team with two or more assassins. Luckily, you can make this decision during the course of the game, thanks to Irelia's versatility.


Resistances

Defensively speaking, build to match the strong champions on the opponent's team. If they have a strong AP presence, Spirit's Visage should be your first choice, but if further MR is required, look to utilize Banshee's Veil for the shield, or Locket of the Iron Solari for team presence. If it's a heavy AD team, Dead Man's Plate is your first purchase, but Randuin's Omen can be purchased for the slow and crit reduction, while Frozen Heart can be bought for the attack speed reduction.


See the list of potential items listed above. It's a lot to consider. My final advice on itemization is to treat each game like a new case, and build your Irelia to fill the role your team needs - try to consider balance when building.

Irelia's clear speed is less than stellar at all levels, and while her sustain is good, the sheer amount of time it will take you to clear camps is her primary disadvantage. As a result, it makes the most sense to play safe in the jungle, until you get a chance to go back and purchase something that increases your clear speed.

If you see a good opportunity to gank before going back, make sure you have the amount of health you want, in terms of your Equilibrium Strike. If you gank, and force them to use a summoner spell, or even just to release pressure, it was a successful gank. It's not your job to win your team's lane - your job is to ward, secure jungle objectives, and punish aggression. Help your team if you see an opportunity, but understand that jungling is more than just ganking.

Do your best to maintain vision, especially in the early game. Utilize your trinket, Vision Wards, Tracker's Knife, Scuttle Crab, and the Wolf Spirit to keep jungle areas warded, and employ Vision Wards, Sweeping Lens, and Razor Sharp (from the raptor camp) to deny vision. Vision can make or break a team - abuse it to keep track of champions, and make safe plays and pushes as a result.

Once the laning phase begins to fall apart, the team-fighting phase changes your priorities. Vision control is still very important, but at this stage, teams will likely be roaming together, pushing down towers and jungle objectives as a team. As a result, less wards do more work. Further, you have access to the Oracle Alteration, as well as the Farsight Alteration to change how warding works.

When fighting around a tower or jungle objectives, you should wait for a hard engage before going in - a Thresh hook, a Nautilus ult, a Braum ult, ect. Once the teamfight has started, do your best to dive their backline, targeting mages, assassins, and marksmen. At maximum level, with no CDR, your Bladesurge has a 6 second cooldown, meaning sticking is potentially easier. As your health drops, use your ultimate, and dip out if your health gets too low. If you have the items to shred a tank, do so.

If, while maneuvering for a fight or siege, you see someone warding or securing a buff, ping for assistance, and go in. If you can secure a pick on one of those players, it could be the momentum you need to successfully take an objective you couldn't take before. Since Irelia is so powerful in duels, catching champions out usually ends in a kill. Keep an eye on champions, as well. If an enemy champion is caught split-pushing botlane, it could be all the room you need to take Baron. Travel with your team whenever possible, separating only to split push at appropriate intervals. Irelia's primary purpose in the late game is to find and seperate champions when possible, and focus on one target at a time.

This guide will be ongoing, and I intend to post game results, further tips, and changing chapters as League evolves and progresses. Leave comments if you have anything to say, all constructive feedback is welcome. If you have particular success or failure with Irelia jungle, let me know, and we can see if we can figure out what can be done to improve it.

Again, thank you for reading my guide, and I look forward to seeing it grow. Good luck!