Talk:Irelia/@comment-86.82.178.97-20120412230750/@comment-4957501-20120414042058

That's all really nice and all OP, but I don't fancy the chances of a melee range nuker in ranked. Tenacity or no, if you did the build you suggested and Bladesurged into the middle of the enemy team for the squishie, you'd be CC'd and blown up into meaty chunks faster than you can say "Defense".

Presuming you weren't CC'd for some incredibly odd reason, you're not guaranteed at all to get a kill. Bladesurges range isn't immense, so they'll definitely see you coming. Your health, even without building defensive items will be (barely) more than that of other squishies because you're a melee champion, so you're most likely not going to stun with your ES, just slow meaning that if the squishie has any form of escape ability or even Flash, your combo's screwed. Even if you do somehow manage to stun, your damage isn't going to be nowhere near instantaneous either, there is a short delay between casting each individual blade of Transcendent Blades, and you actually want to use it in such a way that each blade procs Lichbane, giving them far, far more than enough time to easily gib a pure-AP-no-defense champion. And I didn't even say anything about TB's cooldown without building heavy CDR.

Your W can't be used to shred tanks, because you have no AS to actually use it optimally, and that's just presuming the tank wants to fight you with Hiten Style active. Since you don't have Trinity Force for the slow proc or the bonus MS or AS, the worst you can do is ES him which'll slow or stun him for a couple of seconds and allow you to get 2-3 free hits before he simply walks out of AA range and turns back once Hiten is deactivated. Not that you'll be able to do much to a proper tank even with it active if you're going AP and it gets to that late in the game where you have all those late game items like you stated. The sheer amount of defense they'll get from their build by that point will make you a minor threat at best in their eyes.

Build her like a bruiser. That's how she was meant to be played. If you built her as a bruiser or a Trinity tank using the gold from the full, incredibly expensive AP build you stated, your burst would be lesser, but not by much at all, your sustained damage would be a LOT more, already more than making up for it and ofcourse, you'd actually survive after bladesurging into the middle of the enemy team and getting your combo off.

Don't compare yourself to LeBlanc, she's a champion that has a completely different playstyle. Her combo is nearly instantaneous and actually has decent range allowing you to actually use it, and even with a dash (or two) that can actually also be used to get away from the enemy instead of only towards them, any LeBlanc player will tell you that the biggest problem with her is actually surviving immidiately after landing your combo and not being instagibbed.

Comparing yourself to AP Sion and Poppy is silly too, they were actually meant for the role you're trying to do and have several advatages you don't have. AP Sion has his shield which will absorb an incredible amount of damage which he can detonate once it reaches low strength, his passive to reduce AA damage, a stun to make sure you're in range of his exploding shield, a passive that gives him health with every kill he makes allowing him to accumulate a lot of it and an ultimate that gives him 100% lifesteal and 50% AS. Similarily, Poppy, with her innate, her W that gives her bonus armor, AD and MS, a dash to catch up with your opponent and possibly stun them and ofcourse, Diplomatic Immunity, which makes you immune to..... well, everyone and everything except your target basically.

TL;DR - Don't build AP Irelia. Unless you know, you want to troll.