Talk:Irelia/@comment-94.113.151.190-20120511175626/@comment-4957501-20120512012445

The full Trinity tank build you just listed above is overall the most well balanced build. If you don't have the habit of building according to the situation and always keep your build stale, it'll serve your needs best..... usually. Youmuu's is definitely viable and very understimated on her. Other than the Doran's Shield, all the reccomended items for Irelia are actually pretty good and not utter trash like is usually the case.

You can go for Youmuu's if you feel your team doesn't really need you to tank and you can get away with building more damage than you usually would. It's also decent if you've dominated early game, gotten quite a few kills and to want to finish the game fast, but if it gets to late the item won't be as good as building defense would've been. Be warned, you HAVE to time the active right in teamfights, otherwise the item is little more than useless. Wriggle's is viable, but it's better to opt for your Trinity if you farmed well early game. If your early game was crappy and you can't afford much, it'll give you useful stats to get back into the game at a relatively cheap price but it'll also delay your core by a fair amount. It's also ok to get it if Dragon is very contested early game/you have a good counter jungler like Shyvana who loves stealing buffs.

There is no best build. Every situation has a different build based on what your team needs you to do and what would be best to counter the enemy champions.