Most tier list ranks her pretty low and her winrate is always around 45%. How come? I really wanna start learning Irelia in hopes if I can get really good at her but it seems like it isn't really worth it.
So what's with Irelia at the moment??
broken kits but people tend to get too cocky and feed with them early before scaling.
Irelia sadly gonna sit in gutted mode forever, because they didn't address issues correctly.
riot removed way too many mechanics from her rework. her w is basically useless now and she was balanced around conquerors true damage now that conqueror is basically old fervor of battle/bloodlust combined she could probably be afforded to have some of those previous nerfs undone.(mostly the damage nerfs) overall irelias just not worth the time and effort to master when there are other champs who exceed her and are far more harder to counterplay. but again her kit is broken in some ways so if riot does return any power she may become an unstoppable monster again. so its hard to tell. honestly i think riot should scrap irelia's w as that skill has proved far too problematic and change her e back to being a point and click situational stun let her still be able to multidash with her ult marks but in exchange let her dash go back to how it originally was and reintroduce something else in place of her missing w and e.(i'm not sure what really;i think her passive is fine but abit overtuned) but riot wouldn't do any of that as that'd be admitting they failed in irelias rework so most likely expect some either random buffs to her toxic kit til she becomes a monster again and riot has to nerf her to the ground.
its sad really. i know many people complain about irelia's dash and truth be told she always was dash the melee top laner;though it was extremely situational to pull off those multi dashes in the past compared to now;i think the bigger problem was introducing irelia's w as irelia was always never TOO tanky.
she had to build items to become tanky before rework;her w when it was a good skill(blocking both magic and physical) basically nullified one of her previous weaknesses now that her w's been over-nerfed its more or a less a death sentence against mages yet still as toxic as before vs ad tops. i think if riot really wants to get serious balancing irelia they first have to remove her w and maybe remove her e so she can have some power returned back to her kit. she may stop being a pro play favorite if that happens though depending on what they replace those two skills with. (i have some idea's i'm thinking on in my head;i feel like the main difference between old irelia and current is consistency)
i'm sure other irelia players have their own idea's and theirs probably been many good suggestions already placed in the forum but riot again will most likely ignore any feedback and suggestions as they have done to karma since riot has a track of never admitting they made any mistake. only champs such as lee sin,leblanc,etc who are basically extremely popular and mained by several of the top rioters in the design team ever receive apologies and kit reverts. zac got one but it was like after several years of being neglected;and r change that nobody asked for just so he could be a pro play wombo combo favorite for 1 or 2 patches before riot had to gut him and leave him overnerfed for several years in solo queue;in contrast it wasn't even a year since lb got her revert and lee sin got his cancelled almost immediately just before it hit live;alongside some heartfelt apology. anyways if i were you i'd just move on and forget about irelia for now.
She isn't worth learning... Her kit is the problem, like Akali.
They made her entire kit based on reflex. Or you are someone with very high reflex who can press 3 times Q in less than 1s while dashing at low hp minions or you can't play her.
Don't watch pro plays of Irelia, it's not realistic at all, nobody is able to play Irelia like that. These guys are pressing E and dashing so fast that you don't know what they are doing.
The champ turned into a "press the button the faster" because of pros so Riot balanced Irelia around that. Unless you are Terminator or someone with very very very very good reflexes and with a superbrain, she isn't playable.
Or you have a 2nd option : Play vs someone who is very bad and you may win. Also the guy have to be a ranged champ because Irelia can't win vs melee champs.
I love Irelia but i don't like to play her because she has turned into a pure "reflex" champ. And if you miss something, you are dead.
When you see people dashing 5 times in less than 1,25s because they pressed Q 5 times on low minions, how can you do that ? I can't even do that. I need time to place skillshoots, to aim properly... With Irelia you don't have time, you must do things in "rapidly mode".
People don't even use the E range (for example using E then dash on a minion then place the other part of the E). They try to use the E the smallest size because it's faster. Everthing is about rapidity.
The W is a physical dmg reduction that can last 3s. But nobody is using this spell to 3s to deal the max dmg. Everyone is like "pressing W for 0,25s to block a big AA or a spell" then dash or attack.
I don't like it, it's too mcuh stressful and annoying. This kind of gameplay feel like you don't even have the right to make mistakes. When people can play Nasus, only farm and get stacks and later 3 shooting and you are playing Irelia, i feel bad.
But you can't buff her because it's only about reflexes. If you buff her, it's won't change a big thing in Bronze or Silver. But people who are maining her are going to be extremely oppresive because when she is good played, she don't have counters.
The only counter to Irelia is to make her weak so she can only fight vs ranged champ and be played correctly by 0,1% of LOL community. That prove how bad her kit is.
She's quite azir-like right now, in that pro-level players can play her well and achieve 50+% winrates but almost everyone else cannot. I see pro-level players do well on her, and if you've ever watched Faker play her, hes quite good and carries entire fights. That being said - most people aren't faker and cannot play her that efficiently, that even includes the mains with tons and tons of games on her.
The other factor is her kit almost requires extremely, EXTREMELY low ping, great set up, and high APM (like Cass) - all out of game factors. If you don't have this and think your 40-50ping is enough it's just not. And in-game she's similar, you need to be hitting her stuns and ult or you're a minion. Plus, most other champions do what she does for a lot less - like literally any assassin (Kat, Kass, Akali) and are much more easily played by the commonfolks.
Does this justify this? Not really, its just what is. They can easily make her broken and accessible by all players (current, absolutely bonkers, Ryze ahem) but until then I don't see anything changing.
Irelia at the present has been hit really hard by the nerfbats, but admittedly so for a good reason.
She is this diver specialized in reaching the backlines and countering ranged picks but previously she was also strong enough to contest with melee matchups on equal or even superior ground which overall served to make her a pick that was always better......i mean why pick a normal melee if that ends with a ranged crapping on you once or twice outa three times, that just seems stupid.
This coupled with conqueror doing true damage and tanks not being played anywhere (less peel) served to make her overpowered.
Now though, she got her base stats nerfed to keep her from spanking melee matchups which established her as a niche pick against ranged, conqueror was revamped to give tanks breathing room and as a result peeling supports have made a comeback.
So she cant beat normal melee unless she manages to cheese them early with her passive or if they screw up badly, she cant beat tanks post some point because she lacks max HP damage and true damage and she is really kinda squishy if she gets hit by anything to compensate for her mobility. Morever it is worth noting that the conqueror change also hurt her ability to duel other melee since they generally have better resistance and health scalings compared to her.
And here we are........i´d say she´s still good if you master her and can avoid getting stomped or staved in lane since your teamfighting and diving isnt bad but she is definitely feeling all these nerfs weighting down on her.
I am still playing her though, with a fair bit of Mordekaiser on the side for when i spot a matchup i know she cant handle........am also considering learning Aatrox.
The first problem with irelia is riot reworked her for the D1+ crowd and then they nerfed her multiple times because the only people who are able to play her are too good with her and everyone else isn't able to make use of her kit. Like akali I consider her one of riot's "failed" reworks. Literally all they had to do on old Irelia was rework her E because the stun was unpredictable and I think most people would have shut up about her.
I think her second problem is that she's neither a top laner nor a mid laner right now in terms of how she's balanced as both lanes have different requirements. Mid has ranged AP champs and assassins while top has bruisers, the odd tank, and ranged AP champs that can't survive mid. THis means riot can't tune her for one lane and thus she has to face a ton of different things. Her third problem is split pushers destroy her as she has terrible winrates against all of the main ones.
she has a very strong early game combined with multiple dashes and very high damage, she also has the highest melee AA range at 200 (instead of 175 or 125).
this allows her to spam all-ins to win the laning phase and to continue to bulldoze your enemies. her kit also contains utility in the form of her W and her Ult.
playing her feels bad tough: she feels clunky to use and she requires a very good reflex time for Q'ing in and good approximation for kill-resets. this can make her difficult to play, but once played correctly, quickly becomes oppressive in lane and in teamfights.
she also used to have a damage increase against shields and also reduced magic damage trough her W and her R used to disarm (prevent AA), despite all these mechanics being ripped out she remains problematic, and is still quite good in pro-play.
my advice: stay far away, playing her feels terrible as does playing against her. her winrate is garbage because new people try her out and fail miserably or get counterpicked.
If you wanna pick up for playing irelia, go for it. I picked her up recently aswell. Especially in lower elo people don't respect how insanely strong she is when you all in lvl2 with her passive fully stacked. Even in plat I can frequently get first blood at lvl2 (and I don't really play toplane otherwise).
It takes some games to get used to keeping your passive stacked and using it to trade in lane, and not run out of mana too fast. But once you're used to it you can be quite successfull on this champion.
Irelia has soooo many atrocious matchups that are nearly unplayable, but she can stomp out the matchups where she's not hard-countered. Imo, the biggest hurdle with Irelia isn't her kit specifically BUT how it forces you to play. You have to have decent wave management and snowball if you want any success. You allowed the enemy freeze on you? You're out of the game. Failed to generate a lead? Enjoy as pretty much every other top laner facerolls you 20 minutes into the game.
Play her for the playstyle, not the kit. If your primary interest is in stomping out enemies and you're OK with going 0/10 on the path to reach it, then go for it. I personally don't think Irelia is worth learning though.
People int on her. She's an amazing champion, it's just that your average player lacks anywhere near the macro and mechanics to pilot her.
She's fun as as heck but like any other reworked champion she has to be sitting around a <45% win rate because if she's any better the pro 's will abuse her. If you wanna have fun play her but if you are trying to win there other champs that does what does but better and are much more forgiving/simpler.
