So as you can see I am going to show you what I think are very effective builds for Irelia. I will talk to you about how she can be a very hard hitter or very survivable. Irelia will take some time to learn she is an advanced character and items will be key for her.

Now I know most people will think of DPS as relying on base attack hitting hard and fast, well with this build she will hit fast but not as hard as most DPS characters at least not with her basic attack. To use her effectively you go off a combo of your skills. One thing to remember is when you kill anything with her Bladesurge its cooldown is automatically reset, this is useful for farming minions or chasing characters going from almost dead minion to almost dead minion to almost dead champion to finish off the kill. The key for most of your damage is going to be your items as for most of them you will focus on ability power but you will see a lot of attack speed as well as a little attack damage. The combo to do most damage is activating Hiten Style, then immediately going to your Bladesurge, finishing with Equilibrium Strike, as they are slowed this is where your attack speed and Hiten Style will finish them. If the enemy you are trying to kill flashes out or a teammate cuts you off your ultimate will take care of them for you thanks to its long range.

Now Irelia already has tank abilities thanks to Hiten Style and her Transcendent Blades giving her health back. To focus on this is completely items, you will not hit hard with this tank build but if you are up against a DPS champion you will still win. Combined with all your healing that your character already has the armor, health, health regen, magic resist, and dodge makes it hard to kill you. Remember if you health is getting low you can dash at them and then use your equilibrium strike to stun them instead of slow. If you are fighting a Master Yi or a Tyrandamere or any other DPS champion they will be very frustrated with the thornmail of yours it will pretty much kill them on its own and you will be helping it to. If they are hitting to hard at the beginning you might want to get the thornmail earlier.

Well that is all I have to tell you. Try these two builds out if Irelia is a character you are interested in give it a couple of tries too, not everything works out the first time around. If any of you have any other questions about Irelia hit me up on LoL my Username is Jarrod Wolfe and I will be happy to extend any advice to you.