Such as malphite, chogath, shen? True damage ISN'T enough to kill them and they "outscale" her in a teamfight sense too. What do??? Should I use riven and just bull rush them levels 1-2 in hopes to snowball the lane? Should I just adapt and choose a totally different champ?
Sasogwa3 votesYou have a huge midgame spike with Irelia, especially with triforce. Tanks don't completely ignore your damage. That doesn't mean you can straight up dive them, but still, you are a stronger duellist usually than CC tanks. Also midgame you can roam, you can kill people extremely fast and are very dangerous. Another strategy would be to splitpush, since you can take one or two people at once. You can also get botrk to deal with tankiness much more easily. But you'd be very squishy.
Also, 
level 1 and 2? Extremely overrated. She becomes stronger at lvl 3+ when she can go for those small free no-counterplay trades with shield, knowckup and stun, meaning she gets 0 damage in return. She isn't that great of an all-in champion pre 6. And she does scale extremely well into mid-lategame, and with last whisper destroys tanks, so she can easily splitpush.
Destínum1 votesYou kill them before they get tanky. That's pretty much it.
Too Ton1 votesPretend that's not an option for me so what do I do? Play a tanky champion myself and farm to late every game? Or riven or what?
Forlynn1 votesI don't think u can play Riven. Tanks. But I don't see any reason why u can't go agro with Irelia pre 6( and lvl 6), lvl 9. They don't have superior amount of armor/hp to not kill them. Ofc if it's not Malph with 80 armor lvl 1.
Destínum1 votesIf that's not an option, then you're not playing Irelia correctly, and I don't think switching over to Riven will really help since it's the same scenario.
Ra1d1 votesyou could idk chunk em down poke harass beat them till they cant fight you no more
Only Play Darius1 votes
O Fallen Scholar1 votes[{quoted}](name=Jelly Mac,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=AMBjxndQ,comment-id=0002,timestamp=2015-07-17T07:54:12.197+0000)
This and pop W. It depends how you trade though. If you make bad trades, you could lose.
FalconPawwwwnch1 votesYou should main Riven and pick her vs. every single matchup that isn't Heimerdinger tbh
That's the best way to win top lane currently
Mecar1 votesWith irelia you have amazing midgame powerspike, and you can outsustain any tanky character in a fight if you have 
and
IcyPepper1 votesBuild bork and tri.
Don't expect to kill tanks easily. You're Irelia, a sustain monster with some true damage. Accept that tanks are going to give you a rough time.
Their job late-game is to protect their squishies. Your job as a bruiser is to kill them. This does not have to start at the end of the laning phase (especially since Shen has dat ult). You have teleport? If you're taking ignite, you're doing it wrong. Take teleport. Use teleport for ganking, not getting into lane faster against tanks who can't even push lane as hard as you could unless they rush sunfire's and maybe zzrot. If you're really worried about your tower, consider getting homeguards early. But if you want to snowball, you should consider using TP offensively.
Wiggle Dat Butt1 votesIrelia fking rapes Cho'Gath LOL. U bad son, U bad.