Kind of feel like old Irelia was more reasonable than new

Moody P·Sep 17, 2018·93 votes·19,164 views

Old Irelia wasn't bombarding your screen with Es and R and having ridiculous base damages. Her windowed power gave you far more time to handle her, especially in lane, compared to her no-downtime new passive that stays up for as long as she's touching you, which on top of her much-improved burst potential (IMO the real problem of the rework, nice 500 base damage on her R and spammable Q) is just a little too much killing power. Yeah, the old stun was annoying, but it was entirely a numbers issue and could be tweaked many different ways. Old Irelia was slippery through tenacity when outnumbered; new Irelia is just as slippery without the condition thanks to Q resets while also having a huge % DR soak as an emergency button. You can't really address new Irelia's issues with numbers changes, you'd have to start taking stuff out of her kit and I think we're going to keep seeing Irelia on the patch notes until Riot realizes this.

Also it doesn't help that her 2 skillshots are so ridiculously wide, especially her E which can stun you at least 3x as thick as the visual indicator might actually suggest. This isn't really a design flaw but it's certainly a massive headache.

73 Comments

DuskDaUmbreonSep 17, 201845 votes

New Irelia does have one thing going for her: She's not near as much point and click bullshit.

Stun is able to be dodged, ult is an actual ability, and passive is more than just semi-conditional Tenacity. There's a lot more to play around.

She's a tad bit strong, sure, but there's a lot more counterplay to the strength than before.

D357R0Y3RSep 17, 20184 votes

ult is able be dodged

omegalul trying to dodge a pre-rework nidalee Q lvl of width

DuskDaUmbreonSep 17, 201827 votes

I did say the STUN, not the box thing.

The box thing you just play around being inside. Or you see it coming if it's used at long range and dodge it.

D357R0Y3RSep 18, 20185 votes

the stun is only dodgeable if you have mobility that shit is too quick especially since irelia can cast it while dashing on a nearby minion or marked champ by ult

new irelia is cancer, they made her Yasuo+Renekton in one, people have an illusion that she has counterplay but she just doesn't and now she also gets a strong lvl 1+lvl 2 unlike before

"play around being inside"

you mean dying? because that's pretty much it since she 3 shots you with Q+AA+Q

TerozuSep 18, 20185 votes

I have dodged that shit and seens that shit dodged by Dr Mundo.

Boop Daddy Sep 18, 20182 votes

You can anticipate where she's going to put her second marker down and "perpendiculate" to dodge the stun. My argument ends there. The stun is dodgeable, and the only thing you need is like, 380ms.

ZackTheWaffleManSep 18, 20181 votes

I don't think that "perpendiculate" is the word you're looking for.

Boop Daddy Sep 18, 20181 votes

To make perpendicular? lol.

Perpendiculate. Meaning. Stand perpendicular to the hit box (or near). Somewhat perpendicular. Not Parralell idk how else to describe it other than dodge the damn thing.

chipndip1Sep 18, 20181 votes

Just walk perpendicular to her. That's how you dodge almost everything in the game.

NyarlathοtepSep 18, 20189 votes

Avoid trying to argue with D357R0Y3R . You are going to be surprised by his stubbornness.

lumanachiSep 18, 20181 votes

{quoted}

New Irelia does have one thing going for her: She's not near as much point and click bullshit.

Stun is able to be dodged, ult is an actual ability, and passive is more than just semi-conditional Tenacity. There's a lot more to play around.

She's a tad bit strong, sure, but there's a lot more counterplay to the strength than before.

Thank you

DracocrashSep 18, 20181 votes

{quoted}

New Irelia does have one thing going for her: She's not near as much point and click bullshit.

Stun is able to be dodged, ult is an actual ability, and passive is more than just semi-conditional Tenacity. There's a lot more to play around.

She's a tad bit strong, sure, but there's a lot more counterplay to the strength than before.

a little more counterplay.

MrFawknSunshineSep 17, 201823 votes

i do think the design concept in new irelia kit is better. i do agree she is over tuned.

but typically reworks are either completely busted or broken.

Moody PSep 17, 20185 votes

If new Irelia did not both occupy way too much of your attention and have the burst she did for as durable+mobile as she is, I do not think she would be an issue.

Currently though the way her kit works her ability to make E and R linger on the battlefield means you have to pay attention to Irelia herself, both of her E daggers, and the first cast of R (if you're going to dodge it) as well as the lingering disarm wall. All this on top of the fact that if she lands either E or R she's going to get a reset, and just one double tap Q in her rotation is enough for her to wipe your squishy off around mid game. You don't really get a chance to react to her actually going in when you're trying to be conscious of not getting stunned or crippled in the meantime.

AirKingNeoSep 18, 20181 votes

i do think the design concept in new irelia kit is better. i do agree she is over tuned.

how is Q spam one-shot better design than tempo based laning?

WeenswSep 19, 20181 votes

{quoted}

i do think the design concept in new irelia kit is better. i do agree she is over tuned.

but typically reworks are either completely busted or broken.

I feel her old outfit was prettier.

ThefrostyvikingSep 18, 201813 votes

OP what are you on about? O_O

First up, 500 base damage on her R is complete bullshit unless the person is dumb enough to walk to the wall after being hit by the actual throw itself, and this is at max rank, lvl 16-

Her Q base damage was gutted, now its entirely balanced around her getting a double reset AKA hitting E-Q-R-Q-Q.......and at lvl 9 this would deal 255 damage + 60% AD ratio.

If we compare this to jax W as a main damage ability at the same lvl then Jax deals 180 magic damage every 3 seconds (base CD) and it resets his auto´s while fueling his R passive too.......and his actual passive.

If you dodge the stun or interrupt her Q she is completely boned, someone like Jax and Fiora laughs in your face and smacks you anyway.

Irelia´s base damage´s are not particularly high, her stun is ridiculously easy to dodge if you have any kind of mobility to the point where she has to ulti first to even have a shot at landing her E by the ulti slow and if that fails she gets gutted.

High base damage? A 7 spehere Syndra ulti does like 1k base damage that cant be dodged by any kind of normal mobility or speed.

Darius? His entire kit pumps out damage for days and he is actually better at teamfighting as long as someone helps him get into range being the price for it.

Skeletons GraveSep 18, 20184 votes

you cant compare Irelia Q to Jax W without mentioning that it is a medium range targeted dash. So in Irelias combo she has 3 dashes and could have even more if enemy minions are around.

There is a reason Irelia is seeing more play then syndra and darius in higher elo and pro play. Its because she doesnt need to go top lane into bad match ups. She can be picked mid lane and crush mobile and immobile mages consistently.

Sure everything you said is tech correct but you gave a completely 1 sided argument that only lists potential downsides and ridiculous comparisons. Jax, fiora, and darius are melee duelists while irelia is essectially an assassasin. Irelia Q damage applies on hit so sheen procs are part of the abilities power budget. Irelia ult deals damage, slows, gives Q reset and potentially disarms.

Irelia is more like dianna in play style.

Kaisa is HotSep 18, 20188 votes

The real problem with Irelia right now is that her kit was not designed to have true damage in it since her damage is already really good without it. Then they went and added conqueror and broke her.

Fisher No ChainsSep 18, 20183 votes

This exactly. I feel that one of the reasons that makes Irelia so strong and annoying is the fact that you can’t really build against her until it’s too late.

She does physical damage, Magic damage, and some of that damage is also converted into true damage.

Linna ExcelSep 17, 20187 votes

Better revert irelia. Think of the Gbay99.

I kind of agree the old one was a little more reasonable. The only thing about the new Irelia I particularly like is her new W. I feel like the old one was less of an issue and managed to have less CC in her kit as well. The new one feels too much like katarina with how she jumps around so much when she ults.

Slave KnightSep 18, 20185 votes

I agree with you OP, I don't feel like Irelia's or Akali's rework put much thought into the concepts of 'counterplay'. In my honest opinion the majority of reworks seem to just overload previous kits with MORE things rather than cut and define clear weaknesses and strengths in a champion. This is doubly problematic when we take into consideration the poor state of runes and itemisation. I'm probably going to take a lot of flack for this but, I firmly believe the game was much easier to balance when all we had to worry about was overtuned stats. Stats are easy adjustments but new skills, interactions and what have you seriously powercreeps this game and turns an otherwise easy fix into balancing nightmares.

On that note however, there has been a very good rework recently (Nunu) and I'm hoping riot takes more inspiration from that rework then the not so great Irelia, Akali and Aatrox (please don't remove champions from the game) reworks.

AS I LAY FEEDINGSep 18, 20184 votes

Was oneshotting people on the old irelia with duskblade and electrocute. The new Irelia is balanced around 3Qs so WER base dmgs is abyssmal low. Imo "onhit" spells in general is just hard to balance around. The new irelia to me is just get kills or get killed.

Neptunia xoxoSep 18, 20183 votes

Nerf how much shes able to Q and lower it's damage a little. Also remove conq rune from the game. thanks

WoΘxerSep 18, 20184 votes

[{quoted}](name=Neptunia xoxo,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=YTmqf0z5,comment-id=0006,timestamp=2018-09-18T04:15:36.031+0000)

Nerf how much shes able to Q and lower it's damage a little. Also remove conq rune from the game. thanks

If u remove conqueror rune she will be trash, and u will have to revert all the nerfs, it's not the champion making her broken but the runes.

Neptunia xoxoSep 18, 20181 votes

{quoted}

If u remove conqueror rune she will be trash, and u will have to revert all the nerfs, it's not the champion making her broken but the runes.

Nope. You can run just about any rune on her and she will still be strong. Obviously conqueror is a pretty dumb rune but Irelia's kit is very overloaded on top of the high base damage allowing her to only build Trinity and can still deal high damage. Her W is absurd and her E is extremely easy to hit especially since it's instant on the 2nd use of it and her Q has way too many ways to reset giving her whats called "Hyper mobility". Even if conq rune is removed from the game she will still be an extremely cancer high damage and high mobility champion.

WoΘxerSep 18, 20188 votes

[{quoted}](name=Neptunia xoxo,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=YTmqf0z5,comment-id=000600000000,timestamp=2018-09-18T07:57:11.654+0000)

Nope. You can run just about any rune on her and she will still be strong. Obviously conqueror is a pretty dumb rune but Irelia's kit is very overloaded on top of the high base damage allowing her to only build Trinity and can still deal high damage. Her W is absurd and her E is extremely easy to hit especially since it's instant on the 2nd use of it and her Q has way too many ways to reset giving her whats called "Hyper mobility". Even if conq rune is removed from the game she will still be an extremely cancer high damage and high mobility champion.

Her E easy to hit?

Lol its so easy to dodge, because hitbox is tiny af.

RagnaveilSep 18, 20181 votes

And its not like they nerfed the cast range a few patches ago.

Sunbae IreliaSep 19, 20181 votes

Wait what? While conqueror is definitely the best rune for her, she could just as easily run press the attack into squishier enemy comps without any trouble. Gutting conquerer and PTA will not only affect Irelia but other bruisers and ADCs too.

SafaSep 18, 20183 votes

Ima say this from the get go the new Irelia is kind of an odd rework IMO . They kept her Q and changed her E everything else is new on her . I wouldn't mind if Riot pulled a Rengar on her (in a bigger scale ofc) and reverted her kit back to the old one while keeping the new model . Now ofc it won't be just snap with the fingers and bam its good to go the model design just won't be able to do the same animations so they will need to update it .

The current Irelia as it stands for me isn't a champion that is fun . I mained the old Irelia (call me a salty ex irelia main if you wish :P ) and I enjoyed her old kit duo to the factor it relied on timing and situations . For example her E stun depended if she had more health than her enemy or not so against a squishy it would be a slow while against a tank it would be a stun . On top of that how you maxxed her abilites impacted your lane quite a bit . If you were against a lane bully like Renekton you'd max q or e first depending on how aggresive he is while if you were against someone ranged like Kennen you'd max W first to sustain and play passive in the early level , while on the other hand if you were against someone like Shen you'd start Q and go looking for a fight with him in the early levels or at the very least deny him cs while using your Q reset to farm . One more thing that I loved about Irelia was her ult . If you timed it right you could get 4 sheen procks off which is quite a bit of damage especially if you have a trinity built . As it stands the current Irelia has nothing that keeps her as fun as the old one . Sure she's THICC (praise the lord for that) and I love her voice and animations but its just not enjoyable to play her . You go into a fight ya get your ult off (which is easy to juke just dash or flash before it hits ya) q once then q a second time because you ain't pulling that E stun off boy theres a 50% chance it will somehow miss or the enemy will have a qss or a mikael's or heck cleanse (does anybody even take that nowadays o_O) and then your last option is to W and praise the sun hoping ya live somehow because while you do get damage reduction you know that theres going to be a pissed off yasuo that you tried to kill a second ago waiting with a tornado , ult and ignite combo to just hasakey you to the earth's core . On the old Irelia you'd go in with your q on a minion or enemy (depends on the situation ofc) use your E to slow the enemy (its still a yasuo I ain't changing it) then use your W for the true damage and start whacking at the dude while using your ult to get off Sheen procks and if all else fails by the time the enemy is ganging up on ya your Q and E will be up again for either a harder engage (preferably on the enemy's ADC) or a good disengage ya gonna be low enough to stun pretty much anyone if they focus you down fast enough so you can easily pull off a stun on their bruiser/damage dealer and then you can easily Q to the farthest target or if your team follows up you can easily finish the job duo to the factor you got 1 of the enemies already low and they had their focus on you so theres a high chance they won't change it till they kill you and you are the goddess of sustain in that case cuz Spirit Visage + active W + BoRK = Am I getting attacked with tooth picks ?

Edit: O yea ima just put this here GBay99 the ''Irelia OTP'' that would have in his top 3 spots Irelia with around 1k games Jax with like 100 games and whatever was busted for 2 patches in third place with like 30 games on him/her now has Jax in first place and Irelia in second with a roughly 60 to 70 game difference . I am talking about a guy that has played Irelia since season 3 . Thats 5+ years of Irelia playing and even he is switching ... I think this would have been better than the wall of text I put up top oh well

Aight this is a wall of text so ima leave it here . Have a nice day [slayer-jinx-catface]

saltranSep 18, 20183 votes

Moody PSep 18, 20181 votes

Yes

saltranSep 18, 20182 votes

Yesn't

FurriesAreHotSep 18, 20182 votes

Old irelia's kit, though very fun, is much more toxic. I don't think her ult is an issue at all. Her stun is fine, it can be baited or just flat out dodged. I do think a way to fix her Q would be to give it a yasuo-e type ramp up, while also promoting switching targets.

OneBarrelSep 18, 20182 votes

I feel like I'm one of the few players who prefers old Irelia. New Irelia completely changed Irelia's kit and build from an AA based champ to a bursty bruiser. New Irelia has almost no differing ability path to old irelia where you would sometimes start E against hard matchups. I also prefer Irelia's old Q even though it was harder to cs with, it felt a lot smoother. I don't entirely have an issue with the skill requirement changes or build paths but I do have an issue with how they completely changed her kit/gameplay. Yes, they did keep her Q but they completely changed her damage output, ultimate, and teamfight/laning phase. . Old irelia was more controlled with the sheen powerspike and could acutally be abused in lane but new Irelia has a W that basically negates damage and CC and your entire goal is to stack up conqueror on minions and to hit level 2 for firstblood all-in. Even though new irelia has skillshots that debately take more skill, I still think old-irelia took more skill because the Q damage against minions wasn't amplified so chasing/kiting/procing sheen took more risky decision making. New irelia you just all-in whenever your E and Q are up and just reset, and missing combos doesn't really hurt you in lane, especially since Q damage is amplified on minions as a handicap wheras old Irelia didn't. Just my 2 cents, not everyone might agree with me but I did main old irelia. It's also a lot easier to play successfully as new irelia than old irelia and this is proven by players picking her up and winning games with almost no experience as a top laner or irelia player in general. Basically I feel the rework removed the uniqueness of being an "Irelia Player"

Scorpio SznSep 18, 20182 votes

Not to be biased as an Irelia player but legit everything Irelia can do most other skirmishers can do except better (Camille for lockdown, Jax for dueling and splitting, Fiora for a mixture of both) and the reason for this is because she's so relient on landing her e and r and getting q resets that if she misses any shes free meat.

chipndip1Sep 18, 20181 votes

Irelia is a diver, and so is Camille.

Irelia is meant to exploiting back line targets and creating a murder scene. Cam's more meant for target access and lock down with her ult.

invisiblecat1Sep 18, 20182 votes

I feel like this might be an unpopular opinion, but I don't think she's all that strong right now

On release her damage was stupid

Right now I feel like I have to hit EVERYTHING in order to even think about being able to kill a squishy

Can someone prove me wrong?

CeazaruSep 18, 20181 votes

I don't think they reworked for her being being unbalanced but her having an outdated design. Yes new Irelia is pretty strong but I don't know why people never pick her biggest counter. Garen , he has had a positive win rate vs her since her rework went live. Even now he has a 55.9% win rate vs her.

https://lolalytics.com/ranked/worldwide/platinum/plus/counter/Garen/Top/

ApocalypsicSep 18, 20181 votes

{quoted}

I don't think they reworked for her being being unbalanced but her having an outdated design. Yes new Irelia is pretty strong but I don't know why people never pick her biggest counter., he has had a positive win rate vs her since her rework went live. Even now he has a 55.9% win rate vs her.

https://lolalytics.com/ranked/worldwide/platinum/plus/counter/Garen/Top/

Because myself or both myself and or someone else on the enemy team bans him :). He’s far worse to deal with than Irelia lmao.

CeazaruSep 18, 20181 votes

[{quoted}](name=Hi Im a Cat,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=YTmqf0z5,comment-id=00130001,timestamp=2018-09-18T18:05:14.741+0000)

Because myself or both myself and or someone else on the enemy team bans him :). He’s far worse to deal with than Irelia lmao.

I mean sure he's hard to deal with if you can't abuse he's obvious weaknesses. CC and kiting. Get a tank line and a bunch of crowd control and Garen will struggle to do his job in big fights.

chipndip1Sep 18, 20181 votes

Old Irelia's kit just punished the enemy for playing League.

"Oh we're team fighting? Now I get free tenacity."

"Oh, I'm almost dead? Now I stun you instead of slow you."

That design's never going to fit in the game the way it should.

Also new Irelia's E isn't that hard to side step.

VekknaSep 18, 20182 votes

That's not really a fair assessment, imo. You could just as easily argue that Irelia's old E punished her for getting ahead. Look at Jax for example. He can be super fed, jump on you with an unconditional stun, and burst-per-second you to death in the kill window of an assassin. If old Irelia was fed and engaged on you with Q, she lost her stun. It's just odd to me that there are so many other fighters with stuns in their kits, but it was Irelia's conditional stun that was considered too toxic to exist.

"But if you got ahead, she would just stun and run/turn the fight." Ok, how's that different from:

Jax counterstrike Riven stun Camille stun, ult Gnar transform, stun Kled remount Tryndamere ult Olaf passive Warwick Q triple heal Volibear passive Trundle ult That precision rune that increases damage based on your missing health

chipndip1Sep 18, 20181 votes

Those guys reward them for using their abilities well or winning the fight. Irelia's E rewards her for losing the fight, then ripping the carpet from under you and beating on you while you can't move with no counter-play outside of "Lose the fight up to a point, then burst her down before she can finish you off", which is insanely clumsy to have to work around.
If old Irelia engaged on you while fed, she didn't exactly need a stun to kill you, anyway. New Irelia can't slow you without ulting. If you dodge the stun you're not getting unconditionally slowed while she cuts you.

VekknaSep 19, 20182 votes

Irelia's E rewards her for losing the fight

Just to clarify, do you think it would have been more fair if Equilibrium Strike was just a plain old unconditional stun? What made her E specifically unfair compared to the other stuns I mentioned (eg long duration at max rank, targeting, etc)?

Those guys reward them for using their abilities well or winning the fight.

Really not true, though. Trynd can ult through any cc and turn a fight exactly the way Irelia used to. Warwick, Voli, and Olaf get massive heal/sustain spikes at low health, allowing them to drain-tank losing fights. Trundle's steals more stats from you when you're ahead. Kled's dismount (burst immunity and untargetability) and remount are both capable of turning a fight and punish you for winning and being in range to finish him off.

If old Irelia engaged on you while fed, she didn't exactly need a stun to kill you, anyway.

Fair point, but at least she had weaknesses that could be exploited outside of laning. Her late game, team fight, and utility weren't great, and she had telegraphed windows of power with her W. Now she's loaded with all the same problems as Camille but without the level 6+ vulnerability and enforced burst delays.

If the only problem with old Irelia was her E targeting and tenacity passive, Riot could have reworked those without turning her into a balance abomination.

RagnaveilSep 18, 20181 votes

The only reason why she's so "oppressive" is the fact she just shreds through resists due to conqueror's true damage. Remove that and all you would have to do as either a tank or bruiser is build Adaptive Helm, Tabis, and any armor items you need/want and she'll just do less. This can be said about almost every other champ that can use and uses the rune: Darius, Fiora, Jax, Renekton, Udyr (if he goes AD Tiger), Master Yi, Kled, Draven, Tryndamere, Olaf (Top Lane Olaf), and Riven. If there is anything to learn from Conqueror, its a balancing error waiting to happen. Conqueror needs the true damage to be changed to something else if you want a healthy balance of tanks and bruisers in top lane. Long as the true damage exists, bruiser champions (and Draven) will be hard to balance. If you want a reason why armor just seems "not worth it", the true damage is where the fault lies.

Somebody Love MeSep 18, 20181 votes

Try playing Irelia with anything except Conqueror (like grasp, pta or fleet) and see how she fails to do anything. I can't tell if she was balanced around the keystone (since they came out about the same time) or the keystone is just so dumb that every bruiser needs it to be playable.

RagnaveilSep 19, 20181 votes

If I had to say, it was likely both.

Acrilyk3Sep 19, 20181 votes

Umm sir? R has 125 dmg for launch and 75 for wall at level 1. Just saying

LaçezSep 19, 20181 votes

I prefer this Irelia, you can actually put her behind by beating her unlike the last one where essesntially if yo're winning she gets a stronger kit. Not saying this one isn't OP (idrc tbh), it might be overtuned and it could be dealt with by increasing her cooldowns I think, but it's manageable in my honest opinion.