Would it be wrong to try buffing Irelia? Here are my thoughts.
tl;dr: No, not toplane. Her TOPLANE winrates are slightly on the weaker side, Riot has the ability to buff TOPLANE DPS IRELIA while leaving MIDLANE BURST IRELIA the same/nerfed & experimentation and slightly ramping up her kit with slow, careful change won't make her into the monster she was on release.
Side note: In terms of the changes I came up with (see the link) I'm going to stress that they would NOT ship together. I'm getting a lot of feedback that only her Q & R changes would ship first which I honestly agree with, both are a lot smaller and go in the right direction.
As the link shows I've already tampered with potential changes to her, a bigger question though is whether or not it'd be REASONABLE to buff her.
First off let me address what people want to see the most - Her TOPLANE winrate. Irelia's currently sitting at either a 50.16% winrate (if you prefer op.gg's system) or a 48.6% winrate (if you prefer lolking's system). Averaging the two gives us a 49.38% winrate, decreased to an average of 48.94% if you also add in the stats from champion.gg. Take that information as you will but in my opinion it gives two clear indicators:
- She's slightly on the weak side.
- TOPLANE WISE she could use a buff. Midlane wise she's fine (her winrates in midlane are at least half a percent higher).
So, from a winrate perspective she is potentially applicable to being buffed slightly - not too much but there is room for experimentation.
Next let's talk about why players (perhaps like you, the one reading this) dislike playing AGAINST Irelia and are by extent afraid to see her buffed. I can see some obvious possibilities:
- Her burst can be incredibly high (see pre-gutting Irelia with %TotalAD ratios on her passive & much higher Q damage to champs)
- Her snowball can be incredibly frusturating to play against
- Her midlane playstyle is still very strong leading to the concern of any toplane buffs being transferrable to midlane.
The second point is the easiest to throw aside - ANY champ feels shitty to play against when they've snowballed. It's a mistake by either you or your team to have let the enemy get to that point & while I can understand (and relate to) how shitty it feels to be 1-0 mid only for your toplane Riven to have inted 4 kills to the Irelia...yeah, that'd probably happen with any toplaner. You're gonna have teammates that fuck up big time & tilt, personally I'd be glad that it's an Irelia and not an Aatrox or Gangplank. So to this point - it sucks, but it isn't exclusive to Irelia. There are a lot of champs that feel really, REALLY shitty to play against once they've snowballed (see Wukong before his kit + burst rune nerfs or current Graves).
The first & third points are trickier, but not by much. I've already explained in my previous post that there are some changes that would buff toplane Irelia incredibly but leave midlane Irelia about the same, primarily in buffing/nerfing around her passive. Basically it makes sense that people hate to play against burst champs and by no means do I think Irelia should be one. To that extent there ARE options to buff toplane Irelia while leaving midlane Irelia the same/weaker by comparison. To list a few off:
- Buffing her passive DPS and nerfing her burst (which Riot's already done but could probably do a bit more).
- Buffing her base armor/health but nerfing her base magic resist.
- Buffing W max & nerfing E max (E max is way more 'burst oriented' compared to W max).
- Buffing her midlane counterpicks while also doing one of the three options listed above.
So, in other words...**don't be afraid to buff Irelia. There's a lot of levers out there that Riot can 'pull' to ensure that only the DPS-centric toplane Irelia gets a buff while her burst-oriented midlane equivalent goes even/gets nerfed. **
Finally let's talk about experimentation and the willingness to nudge the meta. League is an ever-evolving game & for it to become state really fucking sucks. For a recent example did any of you really enjoy the burst meta, the 'fun' that was being two shot by Zoe, Talon or Wukong while DPS and tanks were in the gutter? Take it back to Season 5 and was the juggernaut meta enjoyable? How about the tank meta? The ardent meta? My point is - things can become stale and without change to the game, without risking things every now and again it'll just become dull and monotonous for players (if not absurd).
With that in mind, why do I want Irelia in particular to be experimented with? Frankly it's because I love her kit, it's a pretty interesting mix of abilities & whenever I see a champ that has a moderately high skill cap it makes me feel really nice to see them making it worth it to players who main them. It's also because I feel like she could arguably be on the weaker side, especially since she started off too strong & now is in an 'underwhelming' state to her mains. It's like when you chug a gallon of LSD only to be able to have half that later, the feeling just isn't the same. Now I'm not saying to just buff her because her mains got shafted, I'm just trying that buffing/nerfing is a fundamental part of League and that after all the changes she's received Irelia may not be at her proper threshold just yet.
It's another good point to note that Riot doesn't have to (and REALLY shouldn't) jump the ball with buffing a champ like Irelia. Her situation is slightly weak toplane, that doesn't mean she needs a huge buff. Riot's had a long history of overbuffing/overnerfing certain champions because they take things too far and don't allow them to settle down so that a proper idea can be gained of how strong or weak a champ is (recent examples being Kai'Sa, Ornn, Zoe, individual Wukong/Quinn nerfs w/ runes on top of that & more). With that in mind I think that if Riot proceeds with caution, looks at the champ CAREFULLY and with good time slots inbetween to ensure that players get used to whatever they do to said champ (be it minor buffs or minor nerfs) then they can successfully end up with a change that meets both their goals & the hopes of players. They've been doing this very recently with Akali and I'm glad to see it, now I'm asking you to let them to do the same to Irelia.
So, in the end - Would it be wrong to reverse the meme and buff Irelia? I don't think so, at least not for her toplane DPS equivalent. Trying to put Irelia into a better place both top (stronger) and mid (even/slightly weaker) would probably be best for both Irelia mains & those who dislike playing against her, especially if Riot does something similar to my suggested W change and add in more counterplay against her when she screws up. And with that in mind, I rest my case. My opinion is to buff Irelia slightly in 8.18 (realistically with minor passive buff + Q minion execute buff/base MR nerfs to make her DPS/toplane better, her midlane weaker and to make her last hitting w/ Q better since it was hit pretty hard with the nerfs to Q over the past few patches).
That's all from me, I'd love to hear your (hopefully objective & not one-line 'I hate Irelia so no') opinion. Remember that I'm NOT asking for midlane Irelia buffs, only slight changes to help out toplane Irelia while also potentially NERFING her burst equivalent. That's all.
