@Riot, @Meddler, Does Irelia lack a sense of identity?

In both a gameplay and thematic sense, Irelia seems to lack any kind of identity. At best, the most I could muster up is "really, really, really good synergy with Triforce"

Looking at the other two top-lane, melee-carry, bruiser-slayers; and , it's quite easy to say who they are and what they do. Jax is (stop me if you've heard this before) a dark and mysterious individual with similarly unknown origins, but is known within Runeterra as the guy who can and will beat your ass with anything from a spiked mace to a fishing pole. His gameplay revolves around on-hit, mixed, sustained damage and hyperscaling into a raid boss that will either clean up and ace you ruthlessly, or backdoor all your inhibs and end the game. Fiora stands for honour, discipline, and pretty pictures and draws (at least part of her appeal) from being a no-nonsense matriarch of a noble household with immense pride, and who can best any man in a duel with little effort. Her gameplay revolves around manipulation of vital proccing, outplaying your opponent with good use of Riposte, and being a threat to absolutely everyone with her %health true damage.

And they both have downtime. Fiora and Jax are both (relatively) vulnerable when their Riposte and Counterstrike respectively are down. Due to the nature of their kits being heavily based on auto-attacking, they're also weaker in 2v1's against them.

Irelia is...really, really, really good at abusing Triforce. She also has innate sustain so it's harder than usual to push her out of lane. If you manage to keep her health low and harass her, you're giving her free access to her completely fair and reasonable stun which she will use to win the trade or all-in. If she's caught low, she can just slurp up a tonne of health back by ulting the wave, whereas Jax and Fiora are either forced back or have to play a risky game in order to get their health back.

I imagine a more dedicated Irelia player could come up with something better, and more flattering.

But my point is, Irelia is an incredibly generic AA-based Fighter-type with an overloaded kit that boasts unfair designs. You could call Fiora overloaded too, but her mechanical ceiling extends beyond aggressively clicking on the enemy and pressing buttons. I have yet to play a lane where Irelia gets her Triforce and I am still able to even match her, let alone beat her - something that doesnt happen with any other Champion in the game.

I'd like to say that she should be Old-Poppy'd and put into such a trashheap state that playing her is a detriment to her team until full build, but I won't, because no Champion deserves that.

I will say that I think she really needs changes, or at least needs to be looked at and should absolutely be one of the "big 6 or 4" that Riot tackles in the eventual Diver Update.