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Riot please reconsider the Irelia Changes on PBE

Benteezy··1 votes·1,253 views

In anticipation of the Akali rework, I decided to check surrender@20 to see what else was coming in the next patch. To my dismay, I see a slew of Irelia changes:

Base AD up 3(Buff) Passive Dmg up from 1-12 to 4-17(Buff) Base Health increase 30 (Buff)

I immediately was like oh ok that makes sense, Irelia is currently sitting at 45.63% Winrate Top and 46.38% mid according to Champion.gg and according to Op.gg 43.13% Top and 49.29% Mid in Korea. There is not a position/region combination where she is breaking even, so I was happy as an Irelia main to see buffs. Then I saw this:

BladeSurge (Q) Dmg down 5each lvl, range down 25, ratio down .7 to .6 (BIG nerf) Defiant Dance (W) Damage reduction set to flat 50% from 45>65% (nerf) Flawless Duet (E) Full dmg to monsters from 50%, Dmg down 10 each level, range down 50 (nerf for laning Irelia which is her primary position) Vanguard (R) Range down 50. (small nerf)

All these changes were done the first PBE batch after the last patch, meaning they had no chance to see the impact of the last patch on the game. Source: Surrender@20 7/17 update ( http://www.surrenderat20.net/2018/07/717-pbe-update-akali-update-pool-party.html ) Irelia is no where near as dominant as she was in previous patches, and in fact is struggling. These changes are an extreme overnerf even if you still believe the champion to be too strong (even though that is not reflected in winrate or competitive).

Youre trading her mobility and range for hidden power in her passive, something that you adamantly try to remove from other champions historically. Her damage will mostly stay the same but she is less agile with 3 range nerfs across the board

This is my first post on the boards, I believe Riot should revert these changes unless they have context to show that she needs nerfs across all her abilities. These changes were implemented during the overhyping of Irelia being a terror, she is definitely strong in the hands of a player that has mastered her, which is an inherent feature of high mechanical champions, but the winrates show that she is not universally dumpstering anything anymore. Her rework brought me back to the game, She received various nerfs in 8.13, than indirect nerfs in the form of conqueror and TP nerfs in 8.14, and I think those were all fine changes and warranted. But please please reconsider these changes.

Sincerely, A lowly Irelia main

2 Comments

Brutalitops011 votes

The W changes aren't exactly a nerf. They're a small nerf (5% damage reduction) in the early game and a huge buff (15% damage reduction) late game, which I would call overall a buff.

Riot does have to be a bit careful with Irelia in the state that she is in because overtuning her can make her way too powerful again, however I don't think that the small base stat buffs warrant the nerfs and think that they will probably lower her win rate by a bit.

Sathelight1 votes

I have only one issue with balancing Irelia. Why can't we like lower her damage and see what happens before we ruin her mobility. Irelia got hotfixed 1 day after release and it was all skills, ad and health as well. Did it fix her? Hell no. She was unplayable until next patch where her top lane weakneses made her switch to mid and bot.

Old Irelia was a good top lane duelist because she had her stun. New one doesn't so the changes are quite questionable. (And no - 0,7sec micro stun in a telegraphed skillshot that can be easily dodged is not a stun. It's more like Kled's q yet it can be cleansed so it's even worse)

I appreciate this buff for her passive (autoattacks) but it won't help me with most top matchups. Irelia's E duration was scaling when she was launched and we kinda need that back for this whole powershift to work.

Nerf on her range is weird too... Now that her dmg is lower I need to be even more mobile to fight Darius or Renekton and not get killed for staying too long in one place.

I want to believe I'm wrong and these changes will work but I doubt it. So many changes in one patch will probably make her a busted jungler or support now. Or some other unintended bs Koreans will figure out in a few days :(

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