Is Irelia Jungle Viable Again?
Since Irelia is free this week, i decided to try jungling her again. Keep in mind I haven't really played Irelia since the beginning of S2, when i started playing, played her once, and fed so hard i promptly gave up. With the S4 jungle/itemization changes, I feel that she should be a top tier jungler. Here are my reasons:
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Safe clear w/ good sustain and clear speed I run AS quints and reds, armor yellows and mr/lvl blues on most of my atkspd junglers. With the buff you gain upon smiting krugs, along with your w (I believe w max is better than w max in the jungle, but not lane), the only junglers who clear with more hp are the likes of ww/fid/panth
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Strong early ganks When you jungle, try to keep yourself slightly below the hp of the enemy laners. This allows you to gank with a relatively strong stun, which is targeted.
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Decent duelist As far as I know, Irelia can hold her own in a duel vs the current FotM junglers like Lee
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Insane scaling with Devourer enchantment Last game, I managed to rack up over 70 on hit magic damage off that item. Coupled with bork and w active, Irelia deals a good amount of all 3 types of damage, making her extremely hard to itemize against when she's ahead, while true damage keeps her damage up when behind
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Elixir of Iron Irelia's passive with Merc Treads and Elixir of Iron comes out to 0.60.650.75=0.2925 of cc taken, giving you 70.75% tenacity with 21/9/0 masteries and 75.1375 with 9/21/0. This makes her lategame teamfighting insane, as it means she's extremely hard to lock down or peel
I've experimented in a few games in teambuilder (so I don't get raged at by teammates if I fail) and have gotten extremely good results (http://matchhistory.na.leagueoflegends.com/en/#match-history/NA1/209163095, the most recent game had a rather uncooperative mid laner).
As for build, I prefer mercs + hunter's w/ devourer + triforce as my core. If I'm ahead, I can get bork for more damage or maw vs ap based teams. Then with the remaining 2/3 slots, I build tank: pick and choose between banshees/sv/randuins/fh/ga.
What do you guys think?
P.S. When you take smite on Irelia hunter's machete is shown as the recommended item. I'm assuming that's Riot's seal of approval?