Hello, and welcome to the most hectic Irelia guide out. First of all, let me just say, I have been playing Irelia for a very long time and I enjoy her play style. I play her as a Assassin/Tank which excels in initiating and taking out their carries in a blink of an eye. Many do believe that she should be played as a DPS assassin with those madreds and wits end, but at the end of the day, you will be guaranteed an epic score with this build. No doubt. So lets hop in to it.

Although Irelia is quite a hard champion to kill Mid/Late game, she still possess some weak points.

PROS:

Insane Damage output(Even with just )
Great durability
High Mobility
Easy Solo lanes
Farms well (With Bladesurge & Ultimate )
Amazing Stun and Slow
Built in healing from skill-passive and ultimate.
Very good gap closer.
CC tickles her :D
Rapes most solo champions
True damage is ZOMG!
Fast cooldowns
Fun to play

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CONS:

Hard to play properly
Needs quite a fair amount of farm to do well and build core items.
Her stun may be hard to land if not used properly.
Ultimate may be dodged by the enemies.
Squishy without farm.

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Armor Penetration MARKS - I get armor penetration marks to maximize Irelia's auto attacks in conjunction with her true damage. This will also help her laning stage to farm. Even though Irelia's Skills are mostly magic damage, these will benefit her the most.
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Armor Seals/M.Resist Glyphs - These two defensive sets of runes will help Irelia dominate early game and survive damage from both melee and caster champions.
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Health Quintessence - Irelia has quite a low base Health stat. These will benefit her survival and durability early to late game.
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Speed Quintessence - These are fun to use on Irelia because they will help her chase and harass enemy champions efficiently. Also a great escape tool. ;)

Ghost : Great escape, chase and initiating tool. Perfect for Irelia.

Ignite : Those bugging luckers won't have much luck against you when you have this. This will also counter them healing and regenerating enemies like

Flash : This skill has many uses. Can be used to flash over walls when diving towers, chasing an escaping enemy, even juking the enemies whilst getting chased.

Exhaust : A great both defensive and offensive spell.

Teleport : Great for joining a team fight across the map and getting to your lane quicker.

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Ionian Fervor
Reduces the duration of slows, stuns, fears, taunts, snares, and immobilizes for each nearby champion. and
This is probably one of the most useful passives ingame at the moment. It is great for team fights which allows you to escape and huntdown their carries without getting CC'ed for a long time.

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Bladesurge
Irelia dashes towards a target
This is a great farming ability. It is also for clearing up low health minion waves in an instant. It deals physical damage and applies on-hit effects which is wonderful.

• ~ Activate Hiten Style and hit 2or3 times then Bladesurge minions for fast farming
• ~ When escaping, locate low-health nearby minions and Bladesurge away instantaneouosly.

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Hiten Style
Passively giving her attacks health restoration and actively giving true damage to her physical attacks.
This skill is great for farming minion waves in conjunction with bladeurge. The true damage this skill does is insanely powerful. Make use of this skill as much as you can whilst 1v1'ing enemy champions for maximum damage output with your skills and combo.

• ~ The healing passive for this skill works on towers but the active doesn't.
  

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Equilibrium strike
// If the enemy's current Health % is higher, your skill stuns the enemy. If the health % is lower you slow enemy.
This skill separates a good Irelia from a bad Irelia. Knowing when to use this skill will change fights.

• ~ Bladesurge+ Equilibrium Strike enemy champions then retreating is the basic combo for Irelia.
• ~ Using Equilibrium Strike whilst an enemy is approaching your bush is a smart way of escaping or proceeding your combos.

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Transcendent Blades
Irelia summons 4 which she can fling consecutively at her enemies in a short period of time.
This skill is fun and effective for clearing minion waves. It is a great way to restore your health during team fights. It is fairly difficult to use therefore require quite a fair amount of practice before you can master this skill effectively.

• ~ Do NOT shoot all the blades at once. Wait for perfect line up for minions or champion to position your blades for maximum health restoration.

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I max Irelia's skills in this order because since I'm going a off-tank build, you want to balance out your damage output with survivability and durability. Therefore, I max out Transcendent Blades(obviously) first. I choose Equilibrium Strike over Bladesurge because this skill has the strongest base damage and has a very nice stun and slow to it, helping your harrassing and damage output early on. I then max Hiten Style because it works well with your 1v1 laning stage in conjunction with Equilibrium Strike's stun and slow. TRUE DAMAGE IS OP!.

Doran's Shield - A great starting item for Irelia. Good set amount of Health, armor, and HP regeneration to stay in lane a longer period amount of time.


Boots / Sheen - After the first trip back to base, If you have farmed well, you should be able to buy Boots of Swiftness. You should also buy a Sheen if you can afford it and some HP pots. it is crucial to buy sight ward.


Mercury's Treads - These boots works incredibly well with your passive Ionian Fervor. These boots will maximize your survivability and durability during fights.


Trinity Force - Completing your Sheen will finish your core build. After obtaining this item, your damage will be sufficient enough to take on anyone! Great movement speed, great attack speed, and a great passive is what you all want in 1 item. This is probably a MUST have for Irelia.

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Chain Vest/ Negatron Cloak - You should analyse your opposing team and buy what is necessary. Counter building against the enemy team will benefit you greatly as Irelia. You may also consider who you are laning against.


Thornamil - I get thornmail to reduce as much phsycial damage possible from DPS'ers. 100 armor and the passive is very useful. You could replace this item with Randuin's Omen.

Shurelya's Battlesong - A great passive and active. The cooldown reduction works great with your Transcendent Blades and your Bladesurge, giving you a significantly short cooldown for all your skills. The active is also nice for chasing or fleeing from enemy champions.


Guardian Angel - Oh god... After you get this item, I'm pretty sure the other team will break their heads with their keyboard. This item is like giving a unkillable machine 2 times to beat the **** out of the other team. LOVE THIS ITEM ON IRELIA!!!


Warmog's Armor - You could build this in conjunction with Atma's Impaler for maximum effect if you feel quite low on HP(which I don't think you will). This will also increase your physical damage output due to the passive therefore helping your fights greatly.


Atma's Impaler - Well, I recommend using this item only if you get Warmog's Armor because it will give you the most HP and attack damage overall. It would be a waste if you buy this item and not have a lot of HP.


Wriggle's Lantern - This item is great for early game farm and gives you decent amount of armor, damage and lifesteal. It also allows you to place a sight ward which is quite crucial in laning stage so this is a pretty helpful item to have. You could sell this item late game for stronger items.


Banshee's Veil - A great item to have against a CC team. Eventhough your passive Ionian Fervor and your Mercury's Treads, You will be harder to kill. ;)


Force of Nature - I love this item. Against a balanced team, your magic resistance to them will be high enough to survive any team fight if you position yourself properly. This item gives you speed and a high amount of magic resist which is great. The health regeneration on this item is quite slick, therefore great for healing with minion waves extremely fast.


Shurelya's Battlesong - This item gives you a SIGNIFICANT amount of speed for not only yourself, but for your team also. Although its duration is only a couple of seconds, you will probably flee or catch up to your opponent successfully. It's basically giving the whole team Zilean's Rewind or a few seconds.


Randiun's omen - A perfect tanking item which has a good active to it. It gives high armor and health and health regeneration.