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Runes:
Domination
Inspiration
Spells:
Flash
Smite
Items
Ability Order
Ionian Fervor (PASSIVE)
Irelia Passive Ability
Introduction
The recommended rune set is intended to supplement Irelia's strong burst damage and sustain during ganks.
Domination
The
Domination runes are intended to supplement Irelia's burst damage in order to take down enemy champions before they are able to retreat.
Dark Harvest
Sudden Impact
Sudden Impact complement's Irelia's takedown potential during ganks.
Eyeball Collection
Ravenous Hunter
Ravenous Hunter serves to aid Irelia's sustain. Especially useful during tower dives.
Inspiration
The
Inspiration runes are intended to aid with closing the distance between enemy champions.
Approach Velocity
Approach Velocity is a key rune in that it will both help you save your laner and/or finish off an enemy champion. The movement speed to an impaired champion is critical during ganks.
Magical Footwear
Magical Footwear rewards players who go for early and successful ganks. Early boots will help you to roam freely and farm faster.
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The
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This rune will aid to deal more damage and shorten the time it takes to successfully take down an enemy champion.
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This rune helps Irelia snowball if she get's a good start. As a jungler, this rune is more valuable than most due to frequently encountering enemy wards and champions.
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The
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These spells should be used the same way as with any other jungler.
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Ionian Fervor: Ionian Fervor is Irelia's passive which grants her Tenacity based on how outnumbered she is. Tenacity is a stat that affects the duration of crowd control effects. This passive is especially useful during counter ganks where your laner will most likely be retreating.
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Bladesurge (Q): Bladesurge is your main form of a gap closer. If using the skill kills its target, then the cooldown resets and mana is refunded. This is very strong because it opens up a wide range of possibilities where
Irelia can dash through a wave of low health minions in order to takedown a fleeing opponent or use those minions to escape after a gank. Additionally,
Transcendent Blades can be used to lower the health of an enemy lane to supplement her dashes.
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Hiten Style (W): Hiten Style is Irelia's main form of sustain during fights. It has both a passive and an active. Hiten Style's passive cause
Irelia's basic attacks to heal her. Its active deals true damage and double's the healing gained from Hiten Style's passive.
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Equilibrium Strike (E): Equilibrium Strike is one of
Irelia's key abilities. It deals magic damage and also slows the enemy champion. However, if the enemy champion's percentile health is greater than
Irelia's, then they are stunned instead of slowed.
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Transcendent Blades (R):
Irelia throws out spirit blades that fire in a straight line towards the cursor. The blades heal her for 25% of the damage they do to enemy champions and 10% of the damage they do to enemy minions and monsters. The ability can be cast up to 4 times. This ability can be used with
Bladesurge in order to create a path of low minions to dash through.
Starting Items
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Hunter's Talisman helps you in the early game to farm and gain bonus experience from the jungle. The 150% mana regen also helps you to spam skills and clear the jungle faster. |
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Refillable potion is better than buying 3 health pots because it allows you to utilize ![]() ![]() |
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Should not have to be explained much. Use wards to grant vision and gain map control. |
Early Items
Key Item
End Game Build
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See above. |
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Titanic Hydra provides ![]() ![]() ![]() |
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Sterak's Gage is useful to start building health while not skimping on damage. This item has a strong passive in that upon taking a large amount of damage within 5 seconds, it will provide 30% Tenacity and a shield which helps ![]() |
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![]() ![]() making it very handy when taking damage from AP champions. Spirit Visage also gives ![]() |
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Blade of the Ruined King is a strong item to provide ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() |
Pros
+ Strong engage + Strong sustain + Crowd control + Gap closer + Stronger when outnumbered + Flexible build Irelia is a strong an flexible champ. She is able to be built according to what her team needs, whether she needs to tank more damage or deal more damage. She is somewhat of a jack of all trades. She has a strong engage, stun/slow, and sustain during a fight - making her an excellent choice to start a fight with. |
Cons
- Weak to early invades - Susceptible to crowd control - Requires lower health to stun - Only gains tenacity in unfavorable fights - Weak early game - Expensive itemization As strong as Irelia appears to be, a lot of her advantages require her to be at a disadvantage. Her passive only scales tenacity based on how outnumbered she is. In ganks where she has an advantage, she is very susceptible to crowd control. She also requires her health percentage to be less than then enemy's in order to stun them. In addition to that, her item build is very expensive, so without lots of farm or kills, she scales very slowly. |
How to start?
At level 1, you want to pick Irelia's
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Starting Blue
Full Clear:
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It is generally optimal to get a leash from your outside laner in order to progress to level 2 quickly. After killing the Blue Sentinel, you should clear Gromp and then move on to Wolves. Move on to clear the Red Brambleback, the Raptors, and then the Krugs in that specific order. Once you finish clearing your jungle, you should then recall and start building your main jungle item.
Invade (Vision Control)
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This route is useful if you want to gain early vision into your opponent's jungle. The route is the same as the full clear route up until the Red Brambleback. Once you get the red buff, instead of progressing to the wolves, you should head up and kill the Rift Scuttler. After doing this, use the Scryer's Bloom to gain vision and place wards safely.
Starting Red
Full Clear:
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Starting red, you want to get a hard leash from your outside laners. This means that they will attack the Red Brambleback until you can finish it. Once you get the red buff, move on to the Krugs. You will definitely need to use smite here. After clearing Krugs, you should move on and clear the raptor camp. Move on to clear the Wolves, Blue Sentinel, and finally Gromp.
Invade (Vision Control)
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After killing the Red Brambleback, you should skip the Krugs and Raptors and move to the wolves on the blue side. After killing them, clear Gromp and then the Blue Sentinel]]. Move up to the river and kill the Rift Scuttler. After doing this, use the Scryer's Bloom to gain vision and place wards safely.
Early Ganks
One of the most important things to be aware of as a jungler is the map. You have to be consistently paying attention to how the lanes are performing and where enemy and friendly champions are. In exchange for not having to worry about last hitting minions, the jungler has to worry about positioning, vision control, objectives, and champion stats.
For positioning, the jungler has to worry about how the lanes are pushed. Is bot tower getting pushed? Is our mid laner pushed up super far? Recognizing small details like these will help your team massively. For example, if the enemy bot lane is pushing your bot lane all the way back, you can show presence near them to force them to back off - allowing your adc to farm more freely. Conversely, you can gank them with the help of your bot lane and potentially kill them or force them to recall. Remember during early ganks that tower diving carries a high risk. Towers take out large chunks of your health and a greedy play could set the enemy lane up far ahead than before you came to help.
Another thing that junglers have to worry about is vision control. Knowing when enemies are missing and what they are most likely doing. Warding key objectives and chokes. All these are things that the jungler has to worry about. How long has the mid laner been missing? Were they low health before disappearing? They must have recalled to buy items and heal. Were they pushing your mid laner back? They might have left to gank another lane. Where is the enemy jungler? Do I have to counter gank a lane? All of these questions have to consistently be asked while farming and placing wards. Has bot lane been getting ganked a lot? Maybe I need to put down deep wards so that they can see a gank coming from further away. Knowing where the enemy has vision is also as important, if not more important than your team's vision. Sweeping lens and control wards are your best friends to clearing out enemy wards and vision. Communicate with your team to figure out where the enemy team has their vision. This will also help you when you gank so that you can avoid their wards for a better gank or as another way of showing your presence near their lane.
Objectives are another thing you have to pay attention to. Having vision near the Dragon and Baron pits will allow you and your team to recognize if the enemy team is trying to capture an objective. Killing the Rift Scuttler also grants vision of the river and will help control that area. Objectives are very important and contribute a lot to a team's strengths. Maintaining control over these areas of the map is crucial to a team's success.
Finally, champion stats are something you have to pay attention to. Keep checking what items people are buying and how well they are doing in lane. Is your ADC 50 CS behind the enemy ADC? You might have to build Randuin's Omen earlier and gank bot more often to get your ADC back in the game.
Your role during teamfights will vary a lot depending on your team's composition. However, Irelia inherently has a strong kit that is well suited to starting teamfights, with a strong engage and disengage tools. Irelia's passive also grants her tenacity which helps counter strong crowd control teams. In a winning fight, it grants no bonus, but since your team is already winning the fight it doesn't matter. In an even fight, it grants 10% tenacity which greatly helps her sustainability. In losing team fights, her passive is key to helping her teammates escape safely. With up to 40% increased tenacity, this allows Irelia to peel for her retreating teammates while still being in a position to stay alive.
With Irelia's strong sustain and crowd control, another way to use her during teamfights is to go straight for the AD carry to CC them and quickly take them out of the fight. Since you are playing Irelia as a jungler, you are most likely not the team's main tank, and are filling in a bruiser-type role. Using Irelia's strong gap closer and accounting for her strong sustain, you can quickly stun the enemy carry and allow your team to significantly lower the enemy team's potential damage output. Doing this will wreak havoc on the enemy's back line because of how mobile Irelia is and how difficult it will be for the tanks to help while still maintaining a strong front line. (*Make sure your team is ready to engage with you! Otherwise you're just dead. )
With Irelia's strong sustain and crowd control, another way to use her during teamfights is to go straight for the AD carry to CC them and quickly take them out of the fight. Since you are playing Irelia as a jungler, you are most likely not the team's main tank, and are filling in a bruiser-type role. Using Irelia's strong gap closer and accounting for her strong sustain, you can quickly stun the enemy carry and allow your team to significantly lower the enemy team's potential damage output. Doing this will wreak havoc on the enemy's back line because of how mobile Irelia is and how difficult it will be for the tanks to help while still maintaining a strong front line. (*Make sure your team is ready to engage with you! Otherwise you're just dead. )
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