Are we gonna get an Irelia rework anytime soon.?

dominusx · 2016-12-16T12:43:58.367Z

This isnt really a rant or anything moreover a question/discussion. I truly feel that Irelia isnt the most balanced of champs but she isnt really like the cot abusers level bad atm.( actually no where near beeing strong or anythign tbh) In my eyes the main problem with Irelia is her E. By no means you should be punished because you outperform your enemy. What do i mean by outperforming? i mean winning trades. Her stun is disgusting always has been and i don't know why its not reworked into something else already SPECIALLY how she can walk up and stun you from full health. With Irelia always 2 things happen. You win trade aka she stuns you more aka you die. You lose trade aka you are forced to give up on lane or you get dove and killed i dont think that's the funniest of outcomes? ofc you can always rush a pure tank armor item 1st to deny her but you simply wont ever kill her unless you are Darius which means she gonna free farm and 100-0 someone in your team. Personally i dont really know what to give to Irelia if you remove her stun so maybe if you got some ideas lets discuss em below. I dont mind Irelia but from a balance standpoint she is toxic as a champ and i hate how her overall kit works.

WoonStruckDec 16, 20166 votes

Yo, since you're here, what's the Balance squad's opinion on Vlad atm?

He's feeling pretty bad. Is there a chance of getting his base HP and base MS nerfs reverted, since Rylai's nerfs effectively nerfed those further for him anyway? Maybe E CD changed to 9/8/7/6/5 like his Q CD, and W CD -2 at all ranks?

All of the nerfs he took were because E was overloaded, and Riot never looked at him again after gutting the HP build, even if it was justified. I don't want HP builds to be viable (never again, please). I just want him to not lose lane to every single champ in the game for a solid 20 minutes.

EMetaDec 16, 20163 votes

Vlad's main problem is like Ryze's: he's pretty dominating in the higher elos, which makes it very hard to help him in the lower ones where he's doing rather poorly.

WoonStruckDec 16, 20163 votes

He's not dominating at higher elos, though.

He dominated previously in high elo because he could build tank and build a massive lead just by being an immovable wall with a massive team-wide damage buff, essentially. He could zone people from turret during sieges with little risk due to being so tanky and having pool+sustain.

That Vlad (Tank) was gutted (as well as its itemization), and rightfully so. I hope it never comes back. However, AP Vlad, the real way he was intended to be played, is suffering. There's no two ways about that.

RiotReav3Dec 17, 20168 votes

The team is aware of his current state and are looking to do some buffs sometime early next year

Linna ExcelDec 16, 20166 votes

A lot of people who like irelia are worried you guys might do some funky stuff to her kit when the main complaint about her is her E. IMO the complaint is a bit bogus because unlike other champs, her stun doesn't work 100% of the time. If she was winning anyway, she can't stun you unlike other stuns in the game.

Is there anything you guys can do to allay those concerns?

RiotReav3Dec 16, 201627 votes

Hmm not sure what I can do to alleviate concerns because I'm not sure what "funky stuff" means. What I can say is that right now Irelia is a very "Stat checky" champion. She is also not really delivering on the "Blade Dancer" fantasy that she occupies. We would likely try to make her much less of a "State Check" and much more of a "Blade Dancer" but we haven't started on a kit or anything yet so I can't say what the details of that would be.

Linna ExcelDec 16, 20163 votes

Well, every time I hear "telepathic blades", which is what I hear the most, I'm thinking she's going to get a weird new feature like Shen's sword. A lot of people who play her like her for what she is now and I can't help but feel like she's going to get a new playstyle or role. To me Blade Dancer implies she's not going to be a tanky warrior anymore.

She is also not really delivering on the "Blade Dancer" fantasy that she occupies.

IMO this is the problem with reworks in general. Riot seems to look at the theme, but forget about the mechanical and gameplay parts of a champion people love. It feels like your reworks are more vorthos and less melvan.

Let's look at what she does in game:

Has tenacity (albeit in a nerfed form since past revisions)
Her Q is a dash that resets and helps with last hitting and procing TF
Her W is on hit sustain plus a few seconds of true damage
Her E is damage plus some form of CC
Her ult is sustain, waveclear, and burst when combined with TF.

She has a good mix of tank and damage. Now depending on which rioter works on her, he might say "let's make her an assassin/skirmisher" whereas another one might say "let's make her a full tank". In truth she's a bruiser to a lot of her fans. If you go back to the poppy rework based on how she was played before she was redone, she should probably have been a diver who could go either tank or DD, instead she was made into more of a warden with a weird mini-game passive.

BTW, the minigames in reworks are a large part of the funky stuff I don't like about them.

RalanrDec 16, 201633 votes

"Forget about the mechanical and gameplay parts of a champion that people love."

Have you ever stopped to consider that it's the part that players love that is the main issue of the champion? I get that people hate seeing their champions changed, but after talking with these people over and over whenever I rework comes out I start to get the impression that they loved the unhealthy aspect of the champion.

Key example is Poppy. Old Poppy was an incredibly unhealthy champion. The truest feast or famine champion in the game. Her ult was the most cancerous thing in the game as it pretty much made her unstoppable in fights. She was so bad that Riot said they would nerf her on the spot if someone ever found a way to make her viable with that kit.

And there were people who said that her ultimate was the best thing about her. That it could have been nerfed to make her work. I don't believe everyone said this, but enough were vocal about it when I debated with them.

Personally I feel Irelia is in a similar boat because she is punishing you for winning lane. Not simply trading, not coming back and suddenly getting harder to kill, but simply punishing you for winning by stunning and then all ining you with everything until you're dead or forced to retreat. Then she'll just sustain off of minions while you're at base.

She stat checks. The only interesting mechanic in her kit is her Q waveclear (which I don't find interesting but whatever). Her stun isn't interesting. I'd much rather it be just a stun that some stupid %health thing that "supposedly" is about equal footing.

This isn't even considering how she's pretty much wasting the psi-blade archetype because everything except her ult could be represented with a regular sword. Hell her ult itself is pretty dumb IMO because it's a ranged ability on a kit that's built to get in close.

It's there because it pretty much completes her kit having everything a melee champion could want!

TLDR: maybe what you like is what's unhealthy in the first place.

Swiftstrike4Dec 16, 20168 votes

{quoted}

Personally I feel Irelia is in a similar boat because she is punishing you for winning lane. Not simply trading, not coming back and suddenly getting harder to kill, but simply punishing you for winning by stunning and then all ining you with everything until you're dead or forced to retreat. Then she'll just sustain off of minions while you're at base.

I don't think Irelia punishes you for "winning" is really accurate. I think she punishes you if you try to frequently trade, which a lot of lower elo players do instead of farming at early levels. It is the same thing as Riven, if you try to trade early against a Riven you are very likely to lose (or die).

Irelia's scales into the mid game but after that she really doesn't bring much to the table. With Irelia, just like Riven, your best bet is to only hard engage when you can win an all in OR let her engage on a trade and you respond with an all in.

I don't think she is an overly complex champion, nor is she really that powerful. The biggest problem with Irelia in the past was her cooldowns. Her utlimate had a very very low cooldown with the first point (60 seconds I think maybe it was 70).

Irelia posed a problem because she could hit level 6, all in you, and either succeed in a kill OR back off and retreat. Then she would come back to lane and use her ultimate again while your ultimate was still on cooldown. She was dominant because she was very low risk and high reward in the mid game. Her Q did a bit more damage if I recall correctly, her passive was stronger, fervor was really strong and she could build item 3124 as a cheaper alternative to triforce because the triforce changes and STILL be just as strong.

There were A LOT of things going on with Irelia that made her really strong in the first half of last season.

Her E does need to be more "consistent", but I don't know how they would adjust that. It just needs to be more apparent to the opponent when Irelia could be weak, without it giving Irelia a huge window of weakness. Think the fiora mini game with her passive being on you backside instead of the front.

There are way more problematic top laners than her at the moment. All the ranged top laners, to me, need to be toned down or more vulnerable at different points. If I play a melee champion into a ranged champion I typically feel pretty powerless in laning and my job is to basically not die. They can just continue to farm safely and get their items and kill people ( Jayce and Kennen ). I do think Kennen is a bit more heathier than Jayce, but I am tired of playing against high damage ranged top laners as a melee champion.

Chembaron YamadaDec 17, 20164 votes

Evolving the laning fighter.

That article explains pretty well why Irelia is in need of a rework. She is pure stat checking, all her skills are point&click except her ult (and how are you going to miss that if you stay in melee range the whole time anyway?).

In her kit there is no need for her to reposition herself. You usually don't have to make any smart plays as Irelia. You just stand there hitting your enemy. No dynamic experience at all, not for the enemy and even not for the Irelia player himself.

Trying to make that "blade dancer theme" become real is a great thing in my opinion and I like that Riot is sticking to the theme of a champion and try to make the kit represent it. Not asingle of Irelia's abilities (again: except her ult) gives you the feeling of being a user of telepathic controlled blades. You are just a bunch of stats hitting the enemy.

I enjoy the rework, since they give me the feeling that the character is actually doing what his design implies on the field, just like the recently reworked Yorick.

LankPantsDec 17, 20165 votes

Personally I feel Irelia is in a similar boat because she is punishing you for winning lane.

No, she doesn't. This is something tossed around by people who have very little experience playing as Irelia and almost no knowledge of how her kit works.

Let's take a second to actually think about Irelia's trading pattern when you trade into her at low HP, she stuns you then she can either get a quick burst of damage in before trying to run or try to DPS you down with her AAs, she will get some sustain in doing either. There's another champion with this exact same response to being traded on while at low HP, and he's actually more effective at the burst and run strategy than Irelia. If Irelia punishes you for winning lane then so does Renekton.

Of course Irelia doesn't actually punish you for winning lane, harassing someone down isn't inherently winning lane as people always seem to forget when they talk about Irelia. Winning lane is having an item or level advantage, in the case of an item advantage that means that you have to be winning in CS, kills or both and have backed. Irelia doesn't punish you for being up in kills, CS, levels or items, so she's not punishing you for winning, she's punishing you for careless trades. The only champs in League I can think of who actually punish you for winning are Garen and Mordekaiser, mostly Garen though.

Sahn UzalDec 16, 20164 votes

I'm pretty damn Sure Reav3 or Meddler (or someone else, but I think it was either one of them) already stated they like her Q and want to keep it.

l Helios lDec 16, 20162 votes

I think you're probably right in the problem with Irelia; Irelia's hyper synergy with attack speed on her W makes her really hard to combat, and the unpredictability of her E can make it even harder to fight her. You are basically punished for trading with her, and if you try to bait the E from her, she just out-trades you. If you do get stunned, you almost certainly lose the trade. Those two things are the most problematic from the game play side of things. Thematic wise, there's a lot more issues.

BastionKrossDec 16, 20162 votes

Reav3, do you think Irelia's ability to win lane against ranged champs as a melee champion will be specifically preserved, or do you think the update may or may not keep it as it's not worth specifically preserving?

Personally, I feel that Irelia brings a niche that should not disappear if she gets reworked: The niche of a melee champ that can not only survive, but thrive, against a ranged champion. Whether or not Irelia herself keeps this niche or another champ is lifted up to fit into it is fine with me either way; as long as the niche has someone in it.

RiotReav3Dec 16, 201615 votes

I think that we would want to preserve her ability to be good agaisnt ranged champions. It does make her unique and it also keeps certain top laners in check. By making her less "stat-checky" though it will require more skill to win vs them, but overall she we would likely wan't to make her still strong vs those types of champions.

AnonagonDec 17, 20165 votes

I don't think being good against ranged is a worthwhile niche for Irelia or for any champion to have. The reason its such a noticable part of Irelia's fantasy is just because melee vs. ranged matchups in toplane are just bad for everyone else. Most top lane players agree that the melee vs ranged dynamic needs to be improved upon as a whole, and if that ever happens, "being strong against ranged" ends up being a really lame power fantasy.

All her identity should be focused in the telepathic blades direction. Its a really unique concept, and I don't expect Riot would make any other champion with them, so Irelia needs to deliver on them, hard. Some people might be concerned about keeping her existing playstyle, but there is nothing there worth keeping that isn't also on another Diver - Camille in particular seems very much like an Irelia replacement, being a laning Diver with conditional damage effects, tank-busting properties, and a powerful double-dash gapcloser.

SkiasDec 17, 20161 votes

{quoted}

Hmm not sure what I can do to alleviate concerns because I'm not sure what "funky stuff" means. What I can say is that right now Irelia is a very "Stat checky" champion. She is also not really delivering on the "Blade Dancer" fantasy that she occupies. We would likely try to make her much less of a "State Check" and much more of a "Blade Dancer" but we haven't started on a kit or anything yet so I can't say what the details of that would be.

I thought she was supposed to have telekinetic floating weapons somewhat like Noctis from FFXV. She sort of has a pointy surfboard she smacks things with. I don't really get blade dancer from that.

RiotReav3Dec 17, 20164 votes

Blade Dancer is more of a archetype of characters of which floating telekinetic blade welders generally fall under

:P

NyctalusDec 17, 20161 votes

Blade Dancer? But.... We already have Katarina, Yasuo and Master Yi.

SteelMankindDec 17, 20164 votes

Think about how Irelia can control her blades WITH HER MIND, but only does so by holding them together and smacking people with the cluster. She could have some very unique auto attacks (conditionally being ranged, able to issue attack commands on multiple targets simultaneously) but it's really not present in her current kit.

LongHair FoxDec 17, 20162 votes

Would be really cool to see her get more conditional resets on her q. If that becomes an outplay factor she would become harder to play, less stat checky and still be good against ranged champions. Well that probably still does not deliver on the blade dancer thing. To be honest at this point I would much rather see Irelia with a new theme and then a totally new champion with the blade dancer theme.

MyrmironDec 16, 20165 votes

Please don't kill her identity like you did with Poppy.

warpenguin555Dec 16, 201616 votes

cant kill what she didnt have

SpideraxeDec 16, 20161 votes

OT How are your enjoying the new Hearthstone expansion so far

RiotReav3Dec 16, 20165 votes

Pretty cool so far. I like that it added a lot of new decks to the meta, more so then previous expansions.

SpideraxeDec 16, 20161 votes

Goons, Kabal or Lotus?

RiotReav3Dec 17, 20167 votes

I generally have 1 deck per class so I can do any quests I get. I have had most fun playing Jade Rogue though and generally like the flavor of Lotus the best. Golems are a girls best friend!

elon wątrobaDec 17, 20161 votes

Any info on potential pantheon rework?

RiotReav3Dec 20, 20166 votes

He's definitely on our VGU list. He is one of the last remaining "pizza feet" champions in the game :)

EROTIC RAID BOSSDec 20, 20161 votes

When you guys do update him, do you think he'll keep greek influences? Targon doesn't come off as very 'greek' so I find pantheon so weird how hes on a bunch of ruined columns and looks like hes straight from sparta

Jeddy017Dec 20, 20163 votes

I'm sure they'll keep the greek influence. They just need to push him more as a Runeterra version of a Spartan rather than a copy-and-paste from 300 Spartan.

RiotReav3Dec 20, 20163 votes

We haven't fully decided yet. We should make a decision and announce something early next year.

Edit: Oops, this was supposed to be in response to a different comment asking about what class we will rework next. Sorry for the confusion.

EROTIC RAID BOSSDec 20, 20163 votes

do you mean an announcement of who you'll be reworking? or what you'll do with pantheon?

RiotReav3Dec 21, 20162 votes

Oops, this was supposed to be in response to a different comment asking about what class we will rework next. Sorry for the confusion.

warpenguin555Dec 21, 20161 votes

how long will there be in between Warwicks rework reveal and the announcement of who the team is moving to next?

RiotReav3Dec 22, 20165 votes

I'm planning on doing another "State of Champion Update" blog sometime in Q1 of next year that will go over the next class update as well as what's next after Warwick/Galio.

TomekszDec 20, 20161 votes

You have just spoiled that Pantheon gonna get reworked after Galio!? :O

RiotReav3Dec 21, 20162 votes

Check out my edit above

Chromatic EagleDec 20, 20161 votes

That's interesting that you said early next year.

RiotReav3Dec 21, 20162 votes

Check out my edit above

AbyssphereDec 21, 20161 votes

So Panth is the next rework after Galio.

Looking forward to hearing why you guys decided on him.

RiotReav3Dec 21, 20162 votes

Check out my edit above

RiotReav3Dec 20, 20163 votes

Making him more Targonian would be a goal of the update, yes. Targon does still have Greek influences, it's just a bit more space-y these days.

dynamo312Dec 20, 20161 votes

I want talk about Lux VGU too... If you read this write, I want to your answer...

RiotReav3Dec 21, 20169 votes

Not sure about the future but as of right now Lux is not on our list for a VGU. Her gameplay and art has aged pretty well. We also would never make a ultimate skin for a champion we think needs a VGU anytime soon.

RaxistaichoDec 21, 20161 votes

So we all know Irelia's getting reworked, is it likely to be a big-scale rework like Poppy or a smaller one like some of the ones we saw last year?

Is she going to get a visual update alongside it?

RiotReav3Dec 21, 20165 votes

Full VGU like Poppy

RaxistaichoDec 21, 20162 votes

https://media2.giphy.com/media/I7YnHbAt2rLS8/200_s.gif

As long as you guys leave her Q mostly intact and keep her general identity as a fighter who thrives when the odds are against her, I don't care whatever else happens :p

warpenguin555Dec 21, 20163 votes

from what i know Q isnt changing much but they want to make her blades more of a key feature. Chances are the outnumbered part wont stay

Are we gonna get an Irelia rework anytime soon.?

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