Hello! I'm Electrolights and welcome to my Irelia guide! She's easily my favorite, and best, champion so I figured I would write a guide for her!

This guide will hopefully teach you how to build, play, and lane (with success) as Irelia. As always, comments and suggestions on how to improve the guide are always welcome!

In the words of Chaox, "Irelia is a solid counter-carry. Her primary role is to shut down and threaten squishies in the back with her insane mobility and burst".

Pros
Great burst
Good mix of Magic, Physical and True damage makes you hard to counter.
Independent (Doesn't rely on the team nearly as much as some champs)
Great farmer, even under tower thanks to Bladesurge
Not that vulnerable to CC due to passive

Cons
Farm Dependant
Unreliable CC (As whether it will be a stun OR a slow)

I chose these masteries because with my rune setup, I try to capitilize on tankiness to keep myself in lane as much as possible.

With the new masteries, I find myself going 0/21/9 more often then not when I play Irelia - There's just too many good things in the defense try to make her into more of an unstoppable killing machine then the previous masteries.

Greater Mark of Desolation - In my opinion, these are the only viable marks for Irelia. Armor Penetration will help her damage scale from early game into late game without a hitch.



Greater seal of Resilience - These runes, coupled with the masteries, help provide Irelia with as many dodge procs to nimbleness as possible allowing her to chase/escape, as well as helping mitigate damage from autoattack champions. The only other alternative to be considered are Greater Seal of Resilience .


Greater Glyph of Shielding - These are Irelia's only viable choice for glyphs. She has ample CDR from masteries, and these will also allow her to mitigate damage while laning, as well as scaling into late game.



Greater Quintessence of Fortitude - My preferred glyphs to provide a bit of extra tankiness early to help establish lane presence. Alternatives would be either Greater Quintessence of Vigor or Greater Quintessence of Desolation.

Start:
+This is argubly the best start for Irelia as the Regrowth Pendant + Hiten Style give her CRAZY sustain, with the HP potion as a back up.

First Back
++You want to get your Gold/5 items ASAP, and generally I like to stay in lane and farm enough to back and pick up both plus a ward.
(1450 gold)

Second Back
+You should be around level 8 or 9 by now when you back to pick up your phage, and the enemy tower (assuming its a 1v1 lane) should be around 50-70% left. Note you can also choose to get a Sheen instead of Phage here. I prefer Phage for the extra slow + extra HP.
(1390 gold)

Midgame Goals
+At this point, the enemy tower should be down and you should have netted a few kills, allowing you to have your core (Trinity + Merc) done at this point.

Late Midgame Goals:
+At around 35 minutes in, you want to have both of these items. Movement and MR from FoN and Beefiness from Warmogs will allow you to survive longer.

Lategame:
OR+With these last two items, you will be untouchable. You should no longer die, unless you are caught extremely out of position and ganked by 3-5 people, or your team lost a teamfight.

Of course, if they have a more AD Oriented team, switch the earlierforOR

Ideal Build (AD Heavy):

Ideal Build (AP Heavy):

I prefer to max Hiten style first because it allows the amazing sustain and sustain = lane presence = Farm, farm, farm. Many times, it looks like leveling her E first would be a good idea because of the length of Slow/Stun, but it is negligible compared to sustain and her extremely bursty Q which is why Q is priortized second.

Do Take:

I like taking Teleport because of ease of access to any lane that may need it, whether that be offensively (to push a tower) or defensively (to defend a tower).

Flash is a must. It allows you to flash over walls to escape, flash in to get within range for your slow/jump to secure kills, and allows you a little more freedom against bad positioning.

Alternatives:

If your unsure about early killing power, or the enemy team has champions such as Vladimir, Udyr, Mundo (etc, etc) then feel free to take Ignite if nobody else on your team has it already.

An alternative to Flash, Ghost can be used similarly to Flash, as it allows you to run away to try to escape or to get in range for your jump/slow. I prefer Flash over Ghost personally, simply because Flash is, essentially, a "Oops, I ****ed up. Lemme fix that" card and get out of almost any situation.

Exhaust is another viable choice for Irelia as it strengthens her dueling fights in lane extremely well. It all comes down to personal preference, but I hardly ever run Exhaust unless my team absolutely needs it.

DO NOT TAKE:

While Irelia can jungle, she's not best suited to do so and Jungling should be left to stronger junglers.

No. Just no.

I honestly don't see a use for this summoner spell on Irelia. She has good base damage, and her abilities are extremely bursty.

This is an okay pick I guess. It's not viable though, as it can be used to bait First Blood and it may help out in the early game but late game it becomes a waste of a slot.

Irelia is extremely mana efficient following my masteries, as long as you are properly using your Q to last hit (which refunds partial mana), therefore making this a useless pick on her.

She has a free cleanse from Passive + Merc Treads. Do you REALLY need this as well?

Best left to the supports, or a support tank such as Alistar.

Leave it to the tanks.

Whenever I find myself into fights, there is usually 2 combos I will use;
1v1 Dueling/Skirmish/Fight -
->->->

The reasoning behind this particular combo is by activating Hiten Style first, it ensures my first few hits I get in will deal the extra true damage. It is important to note that it is EXREMELY IMPORTANT to hit your E (Equilbirum Strike) the second you land Q (Bladesurge) - This will slow or stun your enemy allowing you to either chase with ease for the kill, or allow you to kill them without too much trouble.

Teamfight -
->->->

The reasoning behind this order for teamfights is to allow your ult to do as much damage as possible to as many targets as possible before the fight starts (poke, essentially) then to hiten-bladesurge to carries, CCing priority targets when able.

In a teamfight, It is Irelia's job to make the most of her burst and mobility by directly jumping onto the enemy team carry with one of the combos explained above. Once the carry/carries are dead, Irelia assumes the role of an offtank by trying to peel any damage off of your teams carry/carries.
It is important to try to take Red (Lizard) buff if you can, but if your carry wants it (and isn't dying every teamfight) you should let your carry take it.

If you are able to successfully eliminate the enemy carry and then peel damage from your carry, you are playing Irelia successfully. Congratulations!

(Irelia following this Build/Mastery; Final Score 23-3)
(Irelia (carry with Manatikik) following this Build/Mastery; Final Score 12-3)