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Spells:
Ignite
Ghost
Ability Order
Ionian Fervor (PASSIVE)
Irelia Passive Ability
Introduction
Welcome to my Irelia guide. I started playing her when leveling my account, and kept loving her play style afterwards. She's a very unique champion with a huge potential in the right hands. In this guide i'll give you my view on her, and hopefully make you want to try her out.
Please note that English isn't my native language, feel free to report any typo / grammar mistake. Feedback is always appreciated, so please rate and comment !
Credits to jhoijhoi for the template, which you can find here.
Offense : I only take 9 points here because like some other solo top champions, Irelia isn't meant to go straight AD. These points give us some more damage and Armor penetration but there's no need to go deep in this tree ; hiten style already give a nice boost to our damage output.
Defense :
- Hardiness / Resistance : extra armor / magic resistance never fails.
- Durability + Veteran scars : awesome for any offtank.
- Enlightenment : Debatable choice, I personally like to get this over Initiator.
- Honor guard / Juggernaut : Because we don't want to explode or get CC'ed to death as soon as we enter the fight.
- greater quintessence of vigor : adds 8.1 hp / 5 sec from level 1, for even more sustain.
- greater mark of desolation: Armor penetration marks, standard choice.
Greater Glyph of Magic Resist: Flat MR great to resist early burst skills.
Greater Seal of Armor: Flat armor seals help a lot vs auto attackers.
Other viable options :



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Ability Explanation
-
Ionian fervor: Very strong passive. The more they are trying to catch you, the easier you escape.
-
Bladesurge (Q): Basically a damage-dealing dash, applying on-hit effects. Very useful to last-hit under tower, quickly close a gap, or flee if you over-extended behind enemy minions. Try to use it only if you couldn't get the last-hit with an auto-attack, since it will drain your mana even with the refund.
-
Hiten style (W): The passive form of this kill makes you impossible to out-lane. Every single hit heals your for a decent amount of health. The active form will increase your damage out-put by a lot. Try to place yourself in the escape path of your lane opponent before activating and get a few auto-attacks on him.
-
Equilibrium strike (E): Short cool-down stun/slow, making it very dangerous to tower-dive you at lower levels.
-
Transcendent blades (R): Your ult, on a ridiculous cool-down. Activate it first then press R again to throw a blade to your cursor's location. It allows you to quickly clear large creep waves and deal some nice damage to fleeing targets. Note that this skill heals you for a portion of the damage it deals, don't hesitate to use it aiming backwards if you're being chased
Ability Sequence Order
The main idea behind this is to maximize your sustain in the early stages of the game. Maxing E would only increase the stun duration by 1 sec, it is a viable option in some cases, but most of the time you'll prefer the high damage you get from Q.
-
: Some nice MR and Tenacity, for shorter disables.
-
: Great AS, MR, and some on-hit magic damage, increasing your damage output. Very nice item.
-
: Any tanky champion's best friend.
-
: Even more HP to help you duel their carries. Adds even more damage with Atma's.
-
: The health synergies well with Atma's, and the perma-slow effect will prevent your foes from running away while you're bashing them down.
-
: Since you're most likely going to draw attention on yourself, this will boost up your tankyness and eventually give you a second chance to fight back if you get killed.
This was for the "main" and final build, now let's have a look at the actual sequence.
Starting :
I usually start off with





First items :
If everything is going well, grab a quick



If you're facing a tough opponent (i.e,



Furthermore, it also helps taking down dragon / neutral camps / pushing in general.
Maths :
- You can place one ward every 3 min, that makes 75 gold per 3 min.
- Philosopher's stone gives 5 gold per 10 seconds
- 3 min = 180 sec which makes 18 * 5 = 90 gold per 3 min.
Mid/late game :
Try and get your hands on



Then comes the [giant's belt], boosting up your hp pool. Turn it into



From now, use your spare gold on elixirs.
Situational :












Early game :
Focus on last-hitting as much as possible. Do not push your lane too much, don't be afraid of getting pushed under your tower either, since
Bladesurge will allow you to get most of the last-hist.
If your opponent leaves the lane, call mia, and gauge how much time you have before he comes back.
This is more of a guideline than an absolute rule, other factors such as your ability to duel their jungler have to be taken into account. Also note that taking down the tower in 10 min is not always the best thing to do.
Mid game :
Keep farming. Avoid wasting time in minor skirmishes ; you need those items to perform later one. However, if a fight breaks out and chances are you'll be there on time to actually turn its tide, then assist your team asap.
Late game :
By now, you should have your
Frozen Mallet and hopefully your
Warmog's Armor almost up. It's time for you to stick to your team ; even lead it if necessary. You are one of the toughest champions of your team, you NEED to stay first in line.
Focus on last-hitting as much as possible. Do not push your lane too much, don't be afraid of getting pushed under your tower either, since

If your opponent leaves the lane, call mia, and gauge how much time you have before he comes back.

This is more of a guideline than an absolute rule, other factors such as your ability to duel their jungler have to be taken into account. Also note that taking down the tower in 10 min is not always the best thing to do.
Mid game :
Keep farming. Avoid wasting time in minor skirmishes ; you need those items to perform later one. However, if a fight breaks out and chances are you'll be there on time to actually turn its tide, then assist your team asap.
Late game :
By now, you should have your


Always try to pick out low-health targets first. Your damage output is scary to any AD / AP carry, and your tankyness makes dueling you impossible. Though, if there's a better initiator on your team (amumu, malphite, ...) you should let them dive in first, cause hey, you're not invincible, and if you get caught out of position / draw the focus too early, chances you'll die for nothing.
That's all for now, I'll try to upload a few replays later on. I hope you enjoyed this guide, which is the first I ever published. PM me if you have any content you would like to see in this guide (replays, scoreboards using this guide / build, any kind of relevant material).
Once again, feel free to point out any flaw / mistake, feedback is greatly appreciated !
Once again, feel free to point out any flaw / mistake, feedback is greatly appreciated !
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