Irelia Build Guide : Season 5 - A Guide to Irelia Top Lane

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@NorthernRedStar

I guess I won't be able to spend time on working on the guide today anymore .. maybe tomorrow, maybe I will take a look at it.

Thanks for the review and man, please - I'm writing "Hit Points" because I'm German and capitalizing is the only thing I like in the German grammar :D

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Spoiler: Click to view

NRS's Review – A Guide to Irelia Top Lane

Outlook
Cheat Sheet	Start #1: swap the word 'because' to 'due' and Early Core's 'aren't' to 'isn't'. Other than that, it looks good. You have notes on every part of cheat sheet, that's dedicated :) Overall, the cheat sheet is a almost your ”quick guide” replacement here. Works for me.
Coding	You have used a lot of stuff that is discussed in jhoijhoi's making a guide -guide. While the coding is flawless, I wish you'd use a bit more customized approach. Expand upon the templates that are shown to give the guide's looks an unique feel.
Style	You have a fitting banner and nice-looking headers. Also a self-made(?) divider. Good job.

Structure
Organization	You should cut the introductionary chapter in half, starting the new one with the sentence ”So in the following guide---” → 'In the following guide---'. It sounds and looks more formally natural that way.
Information	There were a few pieces I'd like to see you expand on. Some information is out of place for me. Masteries: You talk about Warlord in the masteries, but you don't use it in the picture. Havoc is actually a pretty damn good mastery when combined with Executioner and Double-Edged Sword. There's a 10HP-difference between Doran's Shield and Sword. Juggernaut is, simply put, a free page of health per level seals for a champion that builds extra health. Runes: The combination of MR glyphs is 3/6, not 4/5. You don't give a clear mention what your other 2 quintessences should be. Spells: I wouldn't take Heal for Irelia, since her mobility is already insane with BotRK and/or Trinity Force. She doesn't need the healing part either due to Hiten Style and tenacity. Items: - The reason BotRK is strong on Irelia is the same that makes it so good on Vayne. Irelia deals somewhat mixed damage on top of true damage. How does one counter true damage? By building more health. BotRK punishes this counter-building with the %-HP -based damage. Hence, your point about Warmog is a bit moot. - Banshee's Veil combined with Irelia's tenacity makes sure she gets on top of someone, for the stun, without getting peeled. - Thornmail doesn't work against K6, Zed and other AD assassins, because they're casters and utilize barely any basic attacks. If you're against a fed Draven, then I'd highly recommend it. - Don't go Frozen Mallet, better go Randuin's instead, every time. It's more cost and slot efficient, plus has basically a similar slow effect. - I don't think I've ever seen an Irelia with Youmuu's Ghostblade. It doesn't fit the build and the statistics it gives fall off towards the late game. It's more geared for AD casters. Gameplay: ”Generally avoid trading before reaching level 6-9”. This tip is very situational and matchup -based. Irelia doesn't have that bad time laning against every champion IMO :p - Matchups: You should discuss summoner spells more when you're talking about the enemy; for example with Nasus. You should outduel him early, add pressure, deny him CS (Irelia doesn't push very hard pre-6, so you can freeze the lane) and try to kill him with Ignite due to the added kill pressure. Generally you want to be a nuisance to both him and his jungler, try to seek out invasion opportunities to steal the jungler's buffs to gain even greater advantage. Your team should've won by the time he's become a threat. The key is snowballing Nasus' weakness without his ultimate early. Pretty much the same deal with Ryze. As soon as you see him burn his W or E for farming or whatnot, jump in, add pressure or try to kill. With Ignite you'll be able to snowball really hard and abuse split-pushing. You don't have to start Crystalline Flask versus Singed, imo. His damage threat is really low before your and his first recall, so grab some potions later instead. Singed is really, really, really tame at level 1. Consider Ignite for the aforementiond reason(s). Pre-6 it might be beneficial to save your E when having close trades with Tryndamere. This way, if he crits you hard, you can quickly turn the tide. You need to add Gnar to matchups, he's getting more popular day after day. And he's really strong, against Irelia as well (escape, kite, burst, tankiness, sustain). General: Regarding Irelia's passive; it makes her an absolute pain to peel off of your carries, hence her title as ”the bane of carries” and ”anti-carry”. Without much chance for interruptions, she can quickly burst down an ADCs (and squishy mages) after stunning them. You don't discuss teleport usages in the Gameplay → Laning section. You should generally discuss roaming more. If, for instance, you're losing your lane and the enemy laner freezes it, you'd be better off ganking bot lane for example (without TP). Afterwards, grab dragon if possible and teleport back to lane before the enemy top has a chance to push too far. You can also roam mid to try destroy the tower for added map pressure. Or you can simply clear a jungle camp while waiting for the lane to push or help to arrive. You can initiate with Bladesurge because the enemy has really hard time escaping you if/when you have Randuin's and Trinity Force. Late game you dish so much damage on top of it that they won't have time to do much. Or you can engage with Flash instead, and use Bladesurge when your target flashes/blinks to counter. Decide if you're the person capable of carrying, or if someone else on your team has a better chance doing it. Then choose if you want to try assassinating in fights, or peeling for your teammate.
Grammar	Hooo-boy, we got some work here. NITPICK ALERT:”Enough talk, let's get started” feels a bit out of place, since you used quite a few rows for the introduction (that'd sound more convincing if you had a shorter chapter. Going with the flow, 'Without further ado, let's get started' or simply 'Let's get started'. The order of the words was wrong in some sentences, and there were some that were unnecessarily long. Use more commas and points to make your text more comfortable to read (they simulate the small pauses in human speech). ”---what Summoner Spells, Runes and Masteries are recommendable when ~~going to play~~ (playing) Irelia”, ”what items you ~~generally should~~ (→ should generally) be building.” Pros and Cons ”---make her to an prefect Anti Carry in the course of the game” would be 'make her a perfect anti-carry in/over the course of the game'. ”---before reaching level 9 ~~what~~ (, which) entails maxing (out) Hiten Style” ”---what makes her weak” → which makes her weak. USE COMMAS TO SEPARATE THE MAIN SENTENCE FROM SIDE SENTENCES. Masteries you'll → your auto-attacking Defensive tree: combo/combination Skills - Make sure you don't add the 'S' letter to a verb, ever, when you use an auxiliary verb (will, can, etc.) before it. Check and remove, you had a few of those in your skill-related chapters. - Don't use big letters when it's unnecessary, i.e. ”Hit points”. It's simply just 'hit points', written small. ”Avoid overextending this” → overusing, extend is more akin to discussing durations, not number of usages. ”---attacks you but when he got stunned he---” → 'attack you, but when he gets stunned' ”initation” = initiation. ”after you have purchased it” = after you purchase it ”A really versitale ability with a relative short cooldown” → versatile, relatively Items Banshee's Veil: ”has rised” → has risen; BotRK: ”rises” → rose* (rise, rose, risen). Team fight is written as one word (=teamfight). scaling, against, you have misspelt some words and other words are missing letters in-between. I suggest you run a spelling check. Gameplay 'Be wary' is the sentence you're looking for, not 'be aware', I'd presume. You do mean ”be careful with...”, yes?

Build
Runes and Masteries	Runes look fine to me, no complaints. Masteries – see the 'Information' -chapter for details. Generally, the masteries are ok, but you could speak about 9/21/0 -setup.
Items	For the most part, very good explanations. A few errors/missgivings on your part, see the 'Information' -chapter for details.

Summary

You've a strong basis ready to start perfecting the guide. Your explanations over the setup are very detailed and correct for the most part, but I wish you discussed the actual gameplay a bit more. What to do if you lose the lane? Irelia is also really good at invading the enemy jungle. The only thing really bothering me was the amount of small and moderate grammar mistakes and misspellings. You should run a spellcheck on the guide before publishing it, if only to get rid of the most obvious errors. If you have extra time, you can play with the tables and coding in general to create your guide a very cool look. Check out Foxy Riven's Tables guide for help. The current look is solid, but nothing special.

Now, overall, your guide is NOT bad. It's decently good. But it's has notable room for improvement. When you do the aforementioned, you benefit yourself and the readers by making it exceedingly good.

Good luck!

I hope that doesn't sound overly negative. The biggest negative for me was the grammar, and that can be fixed quite easily. Hope I was able to help with something. This was written before reading any other comments.

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wrote:

I love this guide!, thank you

Thanks ^_^

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I love this guide!, thank you

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wrote:

Pretty easy because he is mainly strong against squishies in mid lane. Be patient before level 4 and be aware of third cast . You can use on him or next him to avoid your ultimate being blocked. Items pretty standard double Doran's into Triforce, situational Tabi.

Yasuo is actually quite dangerous, don't underestimate him. Overall you should win but he's A LOT stronger level 2 and he can easily kill you at 2 if you aren't careful. If he gets ahead you're 100% ****ed

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wrote:

can you give me some tips to play vs yasuo?

Pretty easy because he is mainly strong against squishies in mid lane. Be patient before level 4 and be aware of third cast . You can use on him or next him to avoid your ultimate being blocked. Items pretty standard double Doran's into Triforce, situational Tabi.

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can you give me some tips to play vs yasuo?

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Thanks for the in depth review! I just want to comment on a few things you've said and I will add other things to the guide.

Masteries: Here I clarify may Mastery choices! I will add a note about a 9/21 Mastery Tree.

Runes: First of all I mentioned that against AP you generally go Scaling Health and that you can combine Flat and Scaling Health Runes. I will clarify that you can always combine Runes 5/4 and I will include Health Runes to the standard setup. About Life Steal Runes - they can work but against most sustainable and poke matchups you can sustain way more efficient through regeneration when just relying on little farm and minion attacks. Of course you can go Health Seals + Armor Quintessences against Renekton but I don't want to be that specific about Runes.

Summoner Spells: That's wrong. I chose it because it's that common that you need to adapt. Even many lane bully laners take Teleport nowadays and you need to be able to be a splitpush threat. I still prefer Ignite over Teleport and that's why it's mentioned first but not in the cheat sheet. Ghsot? No, top lane is too short and Flash way too good and Vladimir just uses it due to his W.

Items: You don't always need lifesteal, more of regeneration. About build order: Banshee's Veil first is fine after Trinity Force. Important is that you get Trinity Force followed by an item relating to the situation: Offense if ahead and snowballing, defense if even or behind. You can choose the defense items out of four excellent ones and the offense items out of two excellent ones. However I added a sidenote to the Gameply section. I lol'd about true damage team, added Warmog's tho.

Gameplay: It's already in the guide (ability and gameplay section) ...

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Keep in mind that I wrote this without reading other comments first, so I am by no means influenced by them!

First of all, let me start off with saying that you have done an incredibly good job at this guide. The coding is great, and on first glance your items, runes, masteries and summoner spell choices seem fine as well. Let me now go on to looking at the guide more in-depth!

Cheat sheet:

Your cheat sheet looks very neat overall, nothing else to say here

Masteries:

I would personally go 9/21/0 with Irelia, talking from the time that I played her (which is roughly three months ago). There are a lot of strong masteries deep down in the defense tree such as Perseverance, Legendary Guardian, and of course Tenacious which has insane synergy with Irelia's kit. You can at least make a note of a 9/21/0 setup, with an explanation when you could use it or why you just prefer 21/9/0 in general;
I'm not completely sure if taking both Blade and Spell Weaving is worth it on a melee champion with little to no ranged harass. The only time you could really use it is during your ultimate, I suppose. This is said assuming Hiten Style does not proc both when activated. If that is the case, your mastery page seems perfectly fine;
Rest seems fine

Runes:

Doing maths proves that, unless the enemy toplaner is completely reliant on physical damage, health seals grant you more effective health than armor seals would. Don't understand me wrong, armor is completely fine, but in most cases health seals are more effective. I think that is at least worth mentioning;
Not sure if what you said was already meant so, but you can mix scaling and flat magic resist glyphs. I read what you said as "take either flat or scaling" ^-^;
Thoughts on attack speed glyphs? Seems like quite some junglers benefit from it, and I wonder if it is a good choice for Irelia as well if the enemy team has little to no magic damage;
Against melee and sustainable matchups, I think lifesteal quintessences are a better option than health regeneration quintessences. I'm not completely sure on this though, as I have never used any of these quintessences before

Summoner Spells:

It's not completely clear to me whether you use Teleport or Ignite more often as your second spell. You say you recommend Ignite, but put in Teleport because it is what most high elo players do. Pros of course have a good sense of the game and they will sure have a good reason for Teleport, but just "because the pros do so" is in my opinion not a good enough explanation. Just put what you think is the best option in the summoner spells and add a small note that pros often use Teleport;
No mentioning of Ghost? I used to run it on Irelia, considering ignoring unit collision synergizes very well with Irelia's high tenacity. I understand you find Flash a better option, but you could at least mention Ghost. Maybe you might even consider running Ghost + Flash, such as what people sometimes do on Twisted Fate or Vladimir?

Items:

Your item choices seem perfectly fine in the first build, and however the second build looks good as well I have one note: isn't it important to always have at least one lifesteal item in your build?
You might want to add a small section on build order. You did this in the cheat sheet, but in your item section you merely showed the full build. Explaining which item to get when in the game can be very useful for newer players. I mean, we don't want them to start building Banshee's Veil as first item, do we?
I agree with all your further listed items, good job! :D You might want to add Warmog's Armor though, against true damage teams.

Gameplay:

You might want to add a little explanation on how to trade as Irelia. For example, do you start or end with Equilibrium Strike? And should you use Bladesurge, considering you then have no escape for a few seconds, or not?

That was it. I have tried to be very nitpicky and review your guide based on pure theorycrafting, and you've done very well. Most of your choices in runes / summoner spells / items / etc. are good in my opinion, however I do have a few questions and notes. Your coding is very good, and I really liked reading the guide. This guide is in my opinion worth a rating of 8.5, and you really deserve your spot in the top builds of all mobafire!

Will test Irelia later. I have her available on a level 25ish account, but as I don't think that counts as a fair way of testing the build, I will wait with that a little while longer until I have bought Irelia on my main account. ^-^

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wrote:

Thanks :p I've got tow matchups so far seemingly missing because they were mentioned in comments, I'll add them later on when I've got at least three.
You can start Flask or Cloth for a passive start. She has little sustain even though her passive grants her sustain. Start with at level one and simply go for E + AA. is a bit annoying, try to bait it otherwise it hurts in the beginning. Early and double + after level four it's often fairly easy for you. You can walk into your turret when she actiates aswell, often helps.

Okay, thank you very much! ^^

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wrote:

It is an option indeed but the defense tree got nerfed in the past and the offense tree got buffed. Overall I feel like the offense Masteries provide a huge power spike in the early game which supports the way you generally build items on her (one or a maximum of two offense plus full defense) or alternatively an early damage and AS build. A buffed and are just crucial and superior to a nerfed .
You can test both setups, indeed, but I feel like the offense tree synergizes more with 's strong mid game based on finishing .

I understand, thanks for the response!

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wrote:

As a new Irelia player this guide was really helpful, but I wonder one thing. Is 9/21/0 Masteries a option? If not, why?

It is an option indeed but the defense tree got nerfed in the past and the offense tree got buffed. Overall I feel like the offense Masteries provide a huge power spike in the early game which supports the way you generally build items on her (one or a maximum of two offense plus full defense) or alternatively an early damage and AS build. A buffed and are just crucial and superior to a nerfed .
You can test both setups, indeed, but I feel like the offense tree synergizes more with 's strong mid game based on finishing .

Season 5 - A Guide to Irelia Top Lane

Season 5 - A Guide to Irelia Top Lane

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