Irelia Top Lane Build Guides, Runes, Items, and Abilities

Irelia is a highly mechanical flexible champion that can be played in multiple roles. With Irelia's high skill ceiling, she can look to get resets with Bladesurge to dash around during the laning phase and team fights. Irelia is not the best in the early game; she needs to find the right opportunity to stack up her passive Ionian Fervor and then look to dash in with Bladesurge once she has full stacks so she has high attack speed and bonus damage.

Irelia is not a strong player in the early game, she needs time to accumulate and increase her strength later. To counter Irelia, you should use the strategy of overwhelming her from the beginning. Use strong attacking champions and gank often to destroy Irelia.

1. Pros

• Insanely good at farming
• Strong Early/Mid-game
• Good mobility on waves
• High mechanical skill-roof
• Rewarding when played correctly
• Double role flexibility Mid-Toplane

2. Cons

• Very hard to master mechanically
• Falls off Late-game
• Sensible to Crowd Controls
• Low Mobility without waves
• Hard to Itemize

Always before fighting with someone get your passive at 5 stacks to get bonus attack speed and bonus magic damage on-hit.

Irelia Q cooldown is refunded if the target was marked or if it dies to or shortly after Q and heals for small amount. Bladesurge deals increased damage to minions.

Basic trick on Irelia Vanguard's Edge + Flash. Classic Flash trick where you ult in the direction you want and then Flash right after the ability cast time.

• E + E + Q + AA Q + AA: Land your stun by pressing E twice on your target. Then Q in, AA, Q again and AA to finish.
• E + E + Q + AA + R + AA + Q + AA + Q + AA: Press your E twice to stun your enemy. Dive in with your Q, AA then use your R! Then AA, Q, AA Q and AA again to take them down.
• E + R + Q + AA + E + Q + Q + AA: Press your E behind you then R and Q onto your enemy. AA them then stun them with your E2 then Q, Q and AA to finish.
• R + Q + AA + E + E + AA + Q + AA + Q + AA: Use your R and then Q ont your enemy. AA, then E and E again to stun them, then AA, Q, AA, Q and AA again to finish.
• R + FLASH + Q + AA + E + E + AA + Q + AA + Q: Press your R and then flash instantly towards your enemy. Then Q, AA, E and E again to stun them before another AA. Then, Q and Q again before finishing off with your W.
• E + R + FLASH + Q + E + AA + Q + AA + Q + W: Press your E behind you then R and instantly Flash. Then Q onto your enemy, pop the second part of your E to stun them then AA, Q and AA again. Finish the combo with your W and then a final Q.

Having the control of the lane its important, pushing for no reason level 1 will eventually lead to the lack of kill-potential early levels since Irelia needs a good amount of "space" in the lane to pull-off solokills.

Its important to know your champion's limits and not always but most of the times look for solo-kills opportunities. Taking early lead is foundamental on this champion in order to snowball and take over the game.

As we already said Irelia has a high mechanical roof and its very rewarding getting as close as possible to the "roof". With good mechanics and damage-output knowledge we can easily pull-off good towerdives if we are ahead and able to do so of course.

What im trying to say is that I found worth it diving the enemy lander while making him lose a huge wave, keeping the level advantage I gained trough out the laning-phase and then later taking over completely the lane.

As we already said Irelia has a high mechanical roof and its very rewarding getting as close as possible to the "roof". With good mechanics and damage-output knowledge we can easily pull-off good towerdives if we are ahead and able to do so of course.

What im trying to say is that I found worth it diving the enemy lander while making him lose a huge wave, keeping the level advantage I gained trough out the laning-phase and then later taking over completely the lane.

1. Your job is to nuke squishies

• That's what champions like Irelia (classified as divers) are supposed to do.
• With Flash, you're almost always guaranteed to Blitz to the enemy backline and nuke them, but without it, you'll have to be extra mindful and skillful about it.

2. If you don't need to use X ability. Then don't

• Example: if you Bladesurge twice on a target that was only marked once in quick succession and then they Flash, how are you going to gap-close that distance since your Bladesurge is on cooldown?
• Anote to always remember is if you don't need to use it, then don't. hold on to your abilities unless you actually need to use them. so if someone flashes to escape you- your Q should be ready (If you held onto it instead of misusing it) meaning you can then use your Q to catch up to them and finish them off properly, securing a kill.
• This goes for everything else in league including using Flash, Teleport, even something like using Defiant Dance on a wave. how many times have you died knowing you'd live if you just had your W or E cooldown up.

3. Fight Awareness

• As we already said, Crowd Controls are Irelia's Kryptonite. This is why I want you guys to focus on the enemy composition and "think forward", analyzing what kind of Crowd Controls they have and keeping them in mind will allow you to react faster to them!

4. Bladesurge's Issues

• Resetting your Bladesurge is foundamental in order to use Irelia's full potential. Remember that if you get stunned while dashing with Bladesurge on a Marked enemy or executable minion your Bladesurge will not reset. This could easily shut you down while teamfighting.

5. Target shifting and Priority targets

• Target shifting is pretty important while teamfighting as Irelia since we have enough damage to completely annihilate enemy squishy targets.
• Target shifting comes in handy when having to play teamfights "Front to Back". The best way to do it in my opinion is to Mark the enemy frontline with Vanguard's Edge but before doing that placing the first Flawless Duet behind you, then proceed to approach the fight resetting your Bladesurge on the frontliners marked, at that point the high-dps/priority targets will start focusing you and that's the time to pull out your second Flawless Duet on them. The second Flawless Duet if done correctly will probably arrive from two screens away so the targets will not have enough time to react to it. Once we have stunned and market the priority target our work should be done!

Overall Irelia is one of the most highly skilled and mechanical champions in the game. Knowing how and when to use her abilities will be a big part and a huge learning curve when playing Irelia. However when done correctly Irelia can be a beast and carry a lot of games.

Thanks for Reading! If you want to gain more in-depth knowledge about LOL, check out many helpful articles here!

Good luck to you! – Cheng