Talk:Irelia/@comment-25189450-20150117031325/@comment-9048637-20150126161603

Irelia could theoretically work as a melee carry (and indeed, I think she was originally intended as some kind of glass role), but most of the time, it would just be inferior to bruiser Irelia. Because Hiten Style scales so ludicrously well with one stat (AS), she gets all the damage she needs to do her job (i.e. murder squishies) with just one or two items' worth of that stat (usually Triforce and/or BotRK, though Zephyr and Wit's End can also be good). Therefore, once she has those items, she may as well just tank up so that she can survive longer to keep doing her job. There may be situations where a full glass build somehow works better, but I'd say they're few and far between.

Of course, if you want to play glass cannon Irelia just for fun, go ahead. I'd just caution against expecting it to achieve better results that bruiser Irelia.