Talk:Irelia/@comment-5077844-20141110221718/@comment-6334772-20141111152659

Most broken champ in the game? In recent times I've seen that title passed on to Yasuo, and I don't recall anyone calling Irelia particularly broken, nor do I think she really is. I'm not the best with runes, as I don't have many rune pages to work with. A majority of the time I'd recommend 9/21/0 on Irelia. She likes the defence tree a lot. Unless you know you can afford to aggressive, in which case use 21/9. The last time I had to do this was against Twitch top, so it's not exactly a common occurance. Your starting build is really up to matchup. If it's someone like Maokai, you probably want to start Flask for the extra sustain. Against someone like Nidalee, you can do either Flask for sustain or Shield to reduce AA damage. Against someone like Jax, you want Blade for a bit more early game power. It really depends on what you think is best for the matchup. I always prefer to rush Trinity Force on Irelia; it gives her a lot more mobility because her Q becomes more powerful (it can one-shot caster minions) and it gives more overall damage than BotRK. You're not losing out on sustain either, because it's built into her kit. After that, if you're fairly fed, move on to a BotRK and possibly even more if you're stomping. Otherwise, build tank items and consider BotRK later. I usually max Q second, to have it on a 6 second cooldown to stick to an enemy carry is quite the useful asset. While I have yet to test this out myself, I have heard that maxing E first against ranged matchups such as Lulu or Kayle is actually optimal. Presumably the longer stun time allows you to get more hits off on them. In lane, I find Irelia is a very reactive champion. Unless you really need to, like against a Jax or Nasus, you typically do not want to make the first move. Wait for your enemy to make a mistake. Irelia's typical lane trades usually have her waiting for the enemy to engage, then stunning when the enemy has higher health than her, allowing her to get Hiten Style autos off and then using Q to follow up for chase and more damage. It's pretty easy to get an advantage in lane this way. Once you do have the advantage, you want to look for opportunity. Look for low minions close to your enemy, and use them to close the distance. Irelia is a very snowbally champion; once she gets one advantage or kill, you can usually push it to several more. In teamfights, I think she's the best played as an assassin that almost can't be peeled. Thanks to her passive, it's very very hard to peel her off your adc. I tend to play teamfights as Irelia dashing straight on to the enemy marksman or mage (whichever's more fed) and doing whatever I can to kill them. You're also probably distracting a good amount of enemy resources as you do so, as they try to desperately peel you off their carry. She's very sticky, especially once her Q gets to max rank. Either you die trying to kill the enemy carry, or you accomplished your goal and you just want to help out in whatever's left of the teamfight. Some other things I'd like to note, when you get towerdived, remember your E stuns them when they have more health than you do. It can be a really clutch save or even kill for you if you stun them as they dive you. Irelia tends to fall off late game, she has some really high mid game damage and starts to falter in the late game. She's still an effective tank at that stage though, provided you built her as such. While I'm no top lane oficionado, Irelia is definitely my favorite champion up there, so I hope this helped!