Introduction
Irelia is one of the most popular LoL champions. She has a unique combination of tankyness and damage, making her a highly effective and versatile character. Irelia is often compared to a swiss army knife, as she can fill many roles in the game.
Let’s learn more about this champion and what she can do.
Overview of Irelia
Irelia is one of the most beloved champions in the popular multiplayer online battle arena, League of Legends. Irelia is a fencing champion who executes her enemies with a bladed weapon. Although she’s considered a top-tier champion, she requires skill and knowledge to master.
Irelia is agile and has superior mobility, including the ability to quickly close gaps or escape dangerous situations using her Hiten Style passive hit point regeneration and Bladesurge dash maneuver. She has a variety of powerful abilities that increase in power with each level-up, ensuring as Irelia gains experience she only becomes stronger. With this power comes volatility, as Irelia must be constantly playing her cards right to succeed – one misplay can turn an enemy’s tide in their favor.
Combining her passive Hiten Style with her exquisite Bladesurge dash maneuver can make Irelia quite the intimidating foe on Summoner’s Rift – players should be cautious when engaging this deadly warrior! Through precision and strategy, opponents should never underestimate what Irelia brings to the table.
Pros and Cons of Irelia
Irelia is an incredibly multifunctional champion in League of Legends, and has both strong offensive and defensive capabilities that prove hard to master. She can be played as either a top lane or mid lane hero, but most players opt for the former as it gives her better access to some important resources. To gain maximum effectiveness with Irelia, you need to understand her advantages and disadvantages. Below are some of the pros and cons of playing Irelia in League of Legends.
Pros:
- Irelia has great all-around stats, with a good balance between damage output and durability.
- Many of her abilities have low cooldowns and short activation times, which make them excellent for poking foes in team fights or getting away from danger quickly.
- Her kit offers high crowd control effects that can be used to turn the tide of battle.
- Her Transcendent Blades (ultimate) can deal significant amounts of damage to multiple enemies at once.
Cons:
- Irelia is quite dependent on mana early game, making it difficult for her to stay in lane without good mana regen items.
- She is quite vulnerable against champions with strong burst damage due to a lack of reliable escape abilities other than Flash.
- Because most of her skills require melee range, she is often easily shut down by ranged heroes or heroes with gap closers.
Abilities
Irelia is a powerful champion in the popular MOBA game, League Of Legends. She is a melee fighter with a focus on dealing large amounts of single target damage while also having a bit of mobility. Her kit provides a large amount of versatility, allowing her to be built tanky, damage heavy, or a mix of both. She is a great carry for picks or team fights.
Let’s look at her abilities and see how she can be played:
Ionian Fervor
Ionian Fervor is one of Irelia’s unique abilities, and it allows her to deal consistently high damage, regardless of the situation. This passive grants her + 5 physical and magical resistances per nearby enemy champion, stacking up to a maximum of 8 resistances. As a result, she can survive significantly longer during team fights in comparison to other champions.
This passive synergizes particularly well with her other abilities. As Irelia gains more resistances through Ionian Fervor and the crowd control effects of her other abilities, she trains in additional movement speed due to Equilibrium Strike, giving her the opportunity to escape from even tougher fights if things get too overwhelming for her. Furthermore, Hiten Style’s passive lifesteal stems off this survival advantage as it heals a percentage of the damage dealt due to reduced incoming damage from Ionian Fervor.
Bladesurge
Bladesurge is Irelia’s primary source of damage, a dash ability that fires a skillshot in a straight line, dealing physical damage and briefly stunning her target. After the initial strike, Irelia will then dash to that champion if they remain close enough. If an enemy is killed by Bladesurge, the cooldown is refreshed and Irelia regains some mana— giving players plenty of incentive to use it aggressively. It’s worth noting that Bladesurge can also be used on minions or neutral monsters—another tool in her kit for rapid map rotations.
Not only does it deal heavy burst damage on its own against single targets, but Irelia can instrumentalize her passive Hiten Style to quickly clear minion waves while sustaining in fights with lifesteal-like properties. Similarly, the stun from Bladesurge provides much needed crowd control for teamfights too. To round up its already serious offense power, Bladesurge also features an onboard missile speed reduction thanks to the critical strike chance amplification it offers—great for catching out cross-map mobile enemies or reducing the impact of split pushers before they leave your lane entirely.
Hiten Style
Irelia’s passive is Hiten Style. This ability grants her enhanced health regeneration and physical vampirism. Health regeneration allows Irelia to passively receive a slight amount of Health every time she hits a champion with an auto attack or ability. Physical vampirism amplifies the percentage of damage Irelia deals to champions that are below her maximum Health, rising up to 15% at 50% of their maximum Health.
Hiten Style increases Irelia’s basic attacks with true damage – damage that cannot be resisted by armor or magic resistance. Additionally, the passive ability also grants Irelia a shield whenever she activates it, which protects her from incoming damage at the cost of some mana.
Upon acquiring level 6, Hiten Style can be casted twice consecutively – using it two times increases its cooldown considerably while also increasing its duration and shield size accordingly. Moreover, upon acquiring level 11 and 16 each point spent in this ability increases its duration as well as shield size each time it is activated and giving an additional 20 true damage on hit per rank obtained forever; these become crucial bonuses to reach if you want to make full use of the improved survivability mechanic granted by the enhanced shield provided whenever Hiten Style is casted.
Equilibrium Strike
Equilibrium Strike is an active ability and the only auto-targeted crowd-control directing ability on Irelia’s kit. This damaging ability deals physical damage to an enemy and if they have a lower health percentage than Irelia, they are stunned for a short duration.
The calculation used to identify the stun chance is based on Irelia’s total attack damage and the max health of both sides. In this matchup, it can be critical to track both sides of the equation to know when and how much Equilibrium Strike will stun the opposing champion.
Equilibrium Strike does more than just stun; it also reduces incoming healing for a short period of time, allowing for improved all in potential or space creating capabilities when used properly. Additionally, Equilibrium Strike deals bonus true damage based on how much health Irelia’s current opponent has missing. All three factors combined make this one of Irelia’s go-to abilities when engaging in fights or trading with opponents.
Transcendent Blades
Transcendent Blades is Irelia’s iconic ultimate ability, which she can activate to command her blades, releasing them in a direction of her choice after a short delay. The blades move in the direction of the cursor, dealing magic damage to all enemies they pass through. Upon reaching maximum range (which happens when the full cast animation is completed or when an enemy champion is reached) Irelia can choose to recast her ultimate and send another wave of blades out in a different direction.
This ability is incredibly versatile, allowing Irelia to quickly traverse large distances while damaging and repositioning waves of enemies that may be chasing after her. Transcendent Blades will also heal Irelia for a portion of the damage dealt based on how many enemies it hits, allowing her to stay alive longer and sustain more on the battlefield.
Builds
Irelia is one of the most popular champions in League of Legends, and she has a wide variety of builds that can be used in different situations and game types. These builds can greatly increase your chances of winning and give you a huge edge against your opponents.
In this article, we will be discussing the most popular Irelia builds and what they can do for your game:
Top Lane
Irelia is a late-game fighter who fits in well in the top lane, providing consistent pressure over extended skirmishes. She is well-suited to farmer-style top laners, as her true potential lies in getting as many kills on minions as possible early on so that she can transition into powerful mid game initiator and duelist.
Irelia excels at sustained trades and outplay potential due to her unique passive, Ionian Fervor. This allows her to deal more damage the longer she fights, while also reducing incoming damage during those extended trades. With this passive, she can keep herself alive even against powerful champions like Jax or Renekton.
In lane, Irelia needs to prioritize farming with Bladesurge before trying for an all-in engage or teamfight opportunities. Her preference for long lanes allows her to stand far away from enemies while still poking with autoattacks or Bladesurge without too much risk of retaliation. When ganking possibilities arise or when Irelia has enough items for all-ins, she can safely go for kill setups with Equilibrium Strike’s stun and feel confident that she’ll survive prolonged engagements better than most other champions thanks to Hiten Style and Fervor’s damage reduction passives. Additionally, the enormous range on Transcendent Blades enables Irelia to snipe fleeing enemies from around a corner – leading dodges into certain death in many cases!
Jungle
Jungling is an important role for Irelia and she can be very successful if played correctly. Her ability to quickly clear early game camps, gank easily, and split push allows her to provide immense pressure all over the map. Her spells have low cooldowns which allows her to draw a lot of aggressive plays.
To make the most of your jungling time as Irelia, you will want to start by clearing out one half of the jungle before buying items that cater to your playstyle – try tanky top lane items like Ninja Tabi for objective control and Dead Man’s Plate for damage mitigation; or opt for an offense-oriented build with Edge of Night and Duskblade of Draktharr.
A strong early game is important for junglers, so make sure you understand the basic principles behind jungling with Irelia such as:
- Pathing choices between camps (you should be cycling between Krugs and Red Esports Pro at level two)
- Ganking timing (try ganking top lane once you reach level three or four)
- Understanding when counter jungling enemy champions is possible (due to your high mobility in the jungle) while keeping up on farming/experience gain in order to get that all important item power spike.
Finally, you’ll want to maximize your presence on objectives like Herald and Rift Herald as these highly rewarding objectives are especially beneficial on champions such as Irelia who can stay alive while dealing huge amounts of damage. Keep in mind that while playing in the jungle can sometimes be a demanding role, it can also provide huge rewards if accepted gladly.
Mid Lane
Playing Irelia in the Mid Lane can be very rewarding, especially against AP champions. You will want to specialize in scaling built items like Sorcerers Shoes, Liandry’s Torment and Rabadon’s Deathcap. Juggernaut based builds such as randuin’s Omen or Spirit Visage are also viable choices as they provide increased damage and survivability when engaging in fights or skirmishes.
It is also important to note that Irelia excels at dueling so getting a strong early game item like Blade of the Ruined King can help you easily out trade your enemies early on.
When in lane, it is important to focus on farming with your auto attacks and maintaining good positioning; you do not want to put yourself in dangerous situations with unnecessary movement. Often times you will be trading with your opponent so try to maximize your trades by using Bladesurge (Q) or Equate (E) while keeping track of the amount of passive stacks that you can apply since it increases your attack damage each stack up to four stacks at which point its timer will reset.
Finally, make sure you always look for ganking opportunities when playing Irelia mid-lane; her ultimate (R) provides very powerful engage potential if used correctly so it is important not to forget about it during team fights / skirmishes as well.
Gameplay
When it comes to playing Irelia in League of Legends, there are many intricacies that can help you become better at her. Her kit is incredibly versatile, with the ability to use her spells to sustain and dish out a lot of damage. Irelia is an incredibly unique champion with a lot of utility and mobility, so let’s take a look at how to play this champion effectively.
Early Game
Irelia is one of the strongest champions in the game at an early stage. Her kit allows her to easily farm and dominate her lane opponent. Start by building a Doran’s Blade, it offers great stats to get you through your early laning phase. Then finish off with a Sheen/Trinity Force and build into defensive items such as Sterak’s Gage and Guardian Angel to ensure she can survive team fights later on in the game.
For gameplay in the early phase, always remember that Irelia’s Bladesurge can be used for both waveclear and poking. It’s simple – hit your basic abilities first, then activate Bladesurge (the dash) when both skills are on cooldown to gain movement speed with Defiant Dance (E). Use this movement speed boost of 40% to gain positional advantage over your enemy laner and so you can look for opportunities to all-in. Make sure you assess whether or not it’s safe the enemy jungler could show up before going all-in, however. To play safer, try farming from a safe distance with Transcendent Blades (R), your ultimate ability which will give you some sustain as well as waveclear potential.
Mid Game
Once you reach mid game, it is important to start zoning for objectives and team fights. Irelia excels during this period of the game when she has her ultimate Blade Surge, allowing her to engage from a distance or to make a quick escape.
When team fighting, you want to establish control of the area by using your crowd control abilities such as Equilibrium Strike, which can stun enemies in front of and behind her while also dealing damage. Afterward, you can follow up with an empowered Bladesurge and Flawless Duet combo to root your targets and increase your damage output greatly. You should also pay attention to items that provide better Cooldown Reduction as this increases your overall power during team fights.
If the game progresses further into late game, Irelia still can be very effective due to her scaling nature but you may want to play more cautiously because most champions will have more items than you at this stage of the game.
Late Game
Irelia is strong during the late game and can be unstoppable if played the right way. In this stage of the game, Irelia has great damage output and lots of survivability. She is able to safely engage in team fights, as she can build up her defensive items such as Guardian Angel, Sterak’s Gage and Warmog’s Armor to help keep her alive. Additionally, Irelia also has a few powerful ultimate abilities which can be used to deal massive damage and help her team secure kills or objectives- such as pushing an enemy turret or destroying the enemy’s Nexus.
Her Blade Surge addresses a lot of Irelia’s mobility issues; it gives her a lot more opportunities for risky engages and successful playmaking. Follow this up with Transcendent Blades for huge burst damage potential; especially when you pick up Sheen after it completes its transformation into Trinity Force. If you want even more survivability on your late-game builds, a Locket of the Iron Solari shield will provide plenty of protection against incoming magical spells or auto-attack poke. To top everything off, Youmuu’s Ghostblade gives you amazing offensive cooldown reduction which helps your ultimate become available more often during teamfights so that you can continue dealing tons of damage while not being taken down easily by your enemies.
Tips and Tricks
Irelia is one of the strongest, most versatile champions in League Of Legends. This champion can provide great utility to any team composition, and provide strong damage as well as reliable survivability.
In this section, we’ll be discussing some tips and tricks for playing Irelia and how to maximize your effectiveness with this champion. From item builds to combos and team fighting strategies, we’ll cover everything you need to know about Irelia to win more games.
Positioning
Positioning plays a critical role in achieving the optimal cup of coffee. Depending on the style of brewing, grind size and dose can either enhance or detract from your results, so it is important to adjust these variables based on your preferences. Factors such as water temperature, contact time and saturation all contribute to the extraction of flavor components from the beans.
Here are some tips and tricks for getting started:
- Use freshly ground coffee for the best flavor.
- Invest in a burr grinder that produces evenly ground particles for balanced flavor extraction.
- Depending on brew method, use 1-2 tablespoons of grounds per 6 ounces of water to begin with and adjust according to taste.
- The ideal starting water temperature is between 195°F and 205°F (90°C – 96°C). Lower temperatures lead to under-extraction while higher temperatures can result in over-extraction or bitter off flavors.
- When using a pour over device such as a Chemex or Hario V60, experiment with different pouring patterns for improved saturation and extraction yield.
Timing
Timing is an essential part of successfully playing as Irelia. For most champions, there is a window of opportunity that can be used to execute a successful play. With Irelia in particular, this window is even smaller, so it’s important to analyze the situation and make decisions based on the current state of the game.
Focus on predicting your opponents’ movements and anticipating when you should initiate a fight or wait for an opportunity to strike. Knowing when to take action will give you an edge over your opponent and ensure that you maintain the initiative during team fights.
Follow up your skills with quick bursts of attack speed during lane phase, or build up your passive stacks against tougher targets in order to hold them back if they try to dodge or run away from any damage you might deal. Learn how to determine when it’s best to use Hiten Style before simply auto attacking someone – understanding the subtle nuances of Irelia’s kit can be a huge advantage, making the difference between victory and defeat.
Wards and Vision
Ward placement is key to playing Irelia, or any champion for that matter, competitively. Careful positioning of wards can give you decisive advantages in the laning phase, team fights and your overall rotations around the map. On Irelia, wards often enhance or improve her greatest asset: mobility.
Proper vision helps you keep track of enemy champions that may be roaming to gank a lane, monitor when objectives like dragons or Baron Nashor spawn, and be aware of flank opportunities for your team. With this extra knowledge, Irelia can take advantage of gaps that other champions may not be able to exploit.
When buying vision items like Sweeping Lens (for trinkets), make sure to place these in areas you are likely to roam through – such as teleport entrances – so they’ll provide information on enemy locations while buffering cooldowns and cooldown-related sources of damage throughout laning phase and team fights alike. When these items become necessary during late game scenarios it also grants you an opportunity to take secure objectives like Dragons/Baron more safely since having more vision increases the probability of spotting an ill-timed gank attempt from enemies trying to ruin your day.
Frequently Asked Questions
Q1: What is Irelia’s role in League of Legends?
Answer: Irelia is a fighter champion in League of Legends, who specializes in dealing physical damage and dashing around the battlefield. She is an excellent duelist, capable of taking down opponents with her unique combination of mobility and burst damage.
Q2: What abilities does Irelia have?
Answer: Irelia has five abilities: Bladesurge, Hiten Style, Equilibrium Strike, Transcendent Blades, and Vanguard’s Edge. Bladesurge is her main damage ability, while Hiten Style gives her a health regeneration boost. Equilibrium Strike is a crowd control ability that stuns enemies, while Transcendent Blades is a powerful ultimate that shoots out a barrage of blades. Lastly, Vanguard’s Edge is a zone control ability that slows enemies in an area.
Q3: How does Irelia play in lane?
Answer: Irelia is a strong laner, capable of taking down most opponents in a 1v1 matchup. She excels at trading and can easily outplay opponents with her mobility and burst damage. However, she can be vulnerable to poke and crowd control, so it’s important to play around those weaknesses.