Irelia/Strategy

Skill usage

 * is her staple ability, making it very difficult to lock her down in teamfights and skirmishes with crowd control due to her extended tenacity.
 * For this reason, is a feared assassin and very capable at targeting and killing carries due to the difficulty involved in keeping her off them with crowd control.
 * Bear in mind that this tenacity does not reduce the crowd control applied by knock-ups or suppression.
 * Invisible units, such as enemy champions in brush or with  active will not proc 's bonus tenacity.
 * is a powerful farming tool as it refreshes and refunds mana if it kills the targeted enemy, including minions, and also serves as a gap closer.
 * If you miss when last hitting a minion, quickly use your  on it, so you still kill it successfully without losing cooldown or too much mana.
 * applies on-hit effects, including the true damage dealt by, the magic damage from , and it will proc and immediately apply the additional damage from , albeit only every two seconds per its cooldown limitations.
 * Use to cover great distances by targeting low health minions on your way to champion targets.
 * Inversely, targeting enemy minions can help escape from ganks.
 * By using  on a full health ranged minion while having , you will usually kill a full health ranged minion instantly, so you can use it one more time.
 * Use at range to soften up a minion to open up opportunities for a successful  reset.
 * gives exceptional laning strength. Each level will provide increased sustain and bonus true damage per attack.
 * Combined with, this combo makes Irelia among the best champions at last-hitting under allied turrets.
 * synergizes strongly with attack speed. The more hits can land within the duration of its active means increased sustain and increased damage output.
 * also heals while attacking structures such as turrets, as it heals on-hit. She may activate this while pushing for extra sustain in lane.
 * True damage cannot be negated, so keep in mind that the active cannot be negated by  or any attack damage debuff.
 * However, an attack speed slow such as will reduce your sustain and damage output.
 * will either stun or slow depending on the total % of health has compared to her target. If higher, it will slow. If lower, it will stun.
 * This gives a lot of flexibility in its use - it will slow in a chasing situation, and stun to either turn the tides of a fight or give  a means of escape.
 * For this reason, it is often best to save until later in a fight to secure a sudden advantage and turn around.
 * To help your jungler gank your lane, purposefully letting your health drop below your target's can provide a much-needed stun to ensure a kill.
 * Consider investing your first skill point into in order to avoid and survive a potential early gank during laning.
 * allows for strong, multi-target damage and sustain, giving increased survivability in fights, especially when focusing down important targets.
 * Remember that will heal  for more when striking champions than striking minions.
 * In a teamfight, it's generally best to aim to hit as many champions as possible to keep you alive, rather than directly at a single target for extra damage, as this will give you the best sustain. With proper positioning, both these effects can be achieved without having to compromise. For example, shift around to fire the blades forward into the bulk of the enemy team while also hitting the main target.
 * You can also use to position yourself to hit the most amount of enemies with.
 * During laning, fire into as large of a minion group as possible to regain large amounts of health either to continue laning or to survive a skirmish.
 * combined with makes a rather strong combo to kill fleeing enemies.
 * If coordinated well, it also makes an effective tool for escaping ganks or failed team fights at low health. By clicking the edge of your screen and firing off a few blades, you can heal from the enemy champions chasing you to buy time to escape.
 * can give you a "stepping stone". By using it to lower health of ranged minions, you can dash continuously when using  on them.
 * Wait for the spellblade proc from or  to refresh before casting  to maximize damage output.
 * Even though has a lot of sustain, she also has a lot of burst damage when her opponent has more health than her at level 6. Opening with, activating  and  immediately, and  as the opponent flees and gains some distance (so you can land another autoattack or even more with . This combo is capable of dealing a lot of damage. Combined with  and , it can even kill somebody from full health in a few seconds.
 * Irelia also can burst at level 2 (though you can only do that with a level advantage, or if your enemy has wasted an ability). Use your  onto a low health minion near your enemy, then follow with a, attack him and then  after landing an auto attack or if he runs away. By using this trick, you can burn 2 of the enemy champion's .

Build usage

 * is recommended for a good reason, as shown by its components and subsequent easy build-up:
 * grants a small boost in mobility, and attack speed to use more effectively.
 * applies itself automatically on, boosting its damage. Each individual blade of activates (but does not apply) the / proc. The mana increase also allows  to use  to farm and last-hit minions more often, especially in a lane she cannot control and is forced against the turret.
 * adds onto chasing potential with CC, and additional AD/health is always essential on a melee champion. You should buy it first (after a  if you have mana problem).
 * can be a good alternative to .  Especially if the enemy deals a lot of physical damage.
 * Attack Speed should be a priority to DPS-focused players, because of the damage potential and healing of.
 * is a great item on because of the AS, magic resistance and the bonus on-hit damage.
 * is also great, giving more AS, as well as sustain and a strong active.
 * When considering defense, remember that  has 2 ways of healing, and thus armor and magic resist are valued somewhat higher.  You still want health to protect against burst damage.
 * along with  and  allows  to gain a great amount of health back when in trouble, as well as giving her some nice CDR to use her abilities even more often.
 * Even though it stacks multiplicatively with her, tenacity items  ( or ) are still a good choice, as they help you stick to your target. That combined with Elixir of Iron and the Tenacity mastery allow her to have enough tenacity in teamfight to be almost CC Immune.
 * not only gives you armor and magic resist, but the passive allows you to be much more aggressive in teamfights.
 * NOTE: Being revived with a while having one  left will revive you with four blades ready.

Countering

 * is a champion that relies on attack speed. A is a good counter to her AS.  also works, arguably better, due to providing HP, which reduces her true damage and burst. However, it only helps to protect yourself, while  helps to protect your entire team against Irelia's damage.
 * In fact, champions with attack speed slows, such as and, have a much easier time against Irelia. They are also too tanky for her to beat easily.
 * Most crowd control effects are not very effective against Irelia due to granting her enormous amounts of tenacity. However, tenacity cannot reduce the effects of knock-up and suppression crowd control.
 * For suppression, champions like and  are good options against Irelia. They can suppress her during teamfights, giving your teammates enough time to kill her. But keep in mind that Irelia can buy a  to counter those suppression effects.
 * For knock-ups, champions like, and the aforementioned  can give her headaches during teamfights.
 * Try to disengage when you see her  is activating. It only has a 6s duration and the true damage and on hit heal allows her to trade. Try to harass her back when it is on cooldown.
 * Buying a in the first trip back is a great way to counter  if you are having trouble vs her, since most of her damage come from basic autoattacks but note that  's true damage can not be reduced by.
 * After that, by using the same logic, you can buy or stack health ( is good since it has many upgraded paths).
 * 's makes her trading deceptively strong. Keep your current % of health higher than hers or you will lose lane.
 * As a top lane champion that relies on reaching an enemy and sticking to them to apply her on hit true damage, picking a champion that can outdo her constant damage once she enters melee range like  or or disengage like  is always a good idea.
 * Ask for early ganks, shut her down early. Snowball champions like  are nightmares for  to deal with when they are ahead. Though 's power will allow her to turn the lane around if she gets enough levels., for example, cannot burst after enough levels have passed, causing  to win lane.
 * It is recommended not to fight in minion waves. Her  allows her to heal a lot of damage if it deals damage to both you and minions.
 * Try to counter her healing with healing reduction from . It can be quite powerful in early game.

Champion spotlight


Irelia/Strategy