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Would it be wrong to try buffing Irelia? My analysis.

Kaisa Aran··13 votes·22,474 views
https://imgur.com/H9PLv0B.png

tl;dr: No, at least not for 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. If you're wondering why I made changes in the first place it's because I'm really enthusiastic about getting Irelia (and some other champs) buffed & I want to do it in a way that's both not game-breaking & reasonable to play against.

#Part One: Winrates

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. Let's look at some different sites:

LoLAlytics: 50.05% winrate Plat+

OP.GG: 50.16% winrate Plat+

LeagueOfGraphs: 50.5% in Diamond+, 48.6% Plat+

lolking: ~49.7% in Platinum, ~49.7% in Diamond.

Champion.GG: ~48.08% in Plat+.

From this we can infer an average winrate of ~49.32% for Irelia in Plat+, slightly below the 50% mark. This likely goes up (given the limited data supporting Diamond+) as you get into Diamond/Master/Challenger but for the most part, for the larger part of the community it can be assumed from this data that:

  • Irelia is (toplane wise) slightly on the weaker side, especially for players who don't have a mastery over her.
  • TOPLANE WISE she could use a buff. Midlane wise she's fine (her winrates in midlane are at least half a percent higher if you check the links I gave above and looked at mid Irelia instead).

So, from a winrate perspective she is potentially applicable to being buffed slightly - not too much but there is room for experimentation.

#Part Two: Dissatisfaction against Irelia

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 infuriating 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 if your Riven player was against ANY toplaner. You're gonna have teammates that screw 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 bad to play against once they've snowballed (see Wukong before his kit + burst rune nerfs or current Graves) and while Irelia can be one of them I don't believe that it alone should restrict her ability to be buffed.

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. Besides, if she gets buffed and I was somehow involved you can always blame me and that's a promise. **

#Part Three: Irelia & the necessity of change.

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).

#Part Four: Okay, you have my attention. How would you buff Irelia?

This is the important part but I'm ready, let's get into it.

For an Irelia buff to be successful in my opinion it needs to successfully meet all of the following requirements:

  • The buff must be minor and not extremely significant in terms of damage, tankiness, dueling capability or any other applicable field. Niche situations are an exception.
  • The buff must COMPLETELY circumvent any benefit to Irelia's midlane play & her burst pattern, preferably by weakening it slightly.
  • The buff must target her main weak point as of current.
  • The buff preferably opens up room for Riot to nerf other aspects of Irelia's kit to make counterplay against her easier and in general to make her a more enjoyable champ to play as/against.

First up (without overcomplicating things) my opinion of Irelia currently is that she's extremely weak in her scaling, particularly in her late game DPS. This is the result of her being overpowered as a burst champion and having the ratios on her passive (originally %TotalAD) nerfed into %BonusAD while additionally losing up to 15% damage reduction on her fully maxed W. While I can understand the reasoning behind Riot at the time I still believe that Irelia's slightly underpowered to the degree where I want to buff her passive damage directly.

So, a passive buff. This will be the biggest upgrade to her kit.

Next I'd like to make one other buff clear - Her Q's last hitting to minions. It has felt AWFUL as an Irelia player to have had Q nerfed incredibly hard due to its burst potential only to have no compensation be given to minion damage. It's one of the worst feelings in the world to barely underexecute a minion by ~3 hp and it's so, so tilting. So to compliment the passive buff I'd like to add a bit of Quality of Life as well to bring back that last hitting.

Q buff to minion last hitting.

Finally I want to take the opportunity given to me here to also address one other problem that Irelia has - her dominance in the midlane. There's a lot of flak coming at Irelia for being an extremely burst-potent champ & I think a lot of that has to do with her ability to lane safely against most matchups mid, primarily magical ones. To make buffing her passive damage & Q more fair and to try and reduce the strength of Irelia when she's flex picked into mid I'll be accompanying both buffs with a base MR nerf.

So, the changelog becomes this:

##Irelia:

  • Base Stats (B):
    • Base Magic Resist reduced to 30 from 32.
  • Ionian Fervor (P):
    • Bonus AD Ratio increased to 5-20% (depending on # of stacks) from 4-16%.
  • Bladesurge (Q):
    • Bonus damage to minions increased to 75% from 70%.

Now do these meet the qualifications I specified above? Let's look.

  • Are the buffs MINOR and will probably not have a significant impact on her win-rate? Yes. The passive change seems pretty good at first until you do the math for it, then you realize its relatively insignificant outside of early laning phase/long late game trades & dueling.

  • Are the changes avoiding a buff to midlane Irelia and her burst? Yes, both by nerfing midlane Irelia in particular with a base MR nerf & by focusing power into her passive's AD scaling, not into her base damage or abilities.

  • Are the buffs targetting her main weakness(es) in the designer's opinion? The passive change is, the Q buff is also tackling the issue that many Irelia mains are currently fussing about.

  • Are the buffs opening up more counterplay potential to Irelia? Yes, not that much (it's mostly just in-lane against AP matchups) but it's still something. I also have a W change you can find in the link at the very top of this post that would open up counterplay quite a bit.

So in conclusion, that's all from me. I really think that Irelia is in a spot where she could use some small amounts of love and that with the reasons I've stated above that it's okay to try and slowly shift her power back up. I'd love to hear your (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.

19 Comments

LuaDotExe3 votes

A couple things, and since I'm going to bed soon, I'll actually attempt to keep it brief:

49.32% is actually a really good place to be, despite the fact that it's not at 50%. Overall, the goal is to keep everybody as close to 50% as possible, and she's not exactly under-performing especially by these numbers. At the same time, though, win rates aren't everything; Yorick is sitting at 52.27% (according to Champion.gg (Plat+)), well above 50%, and I'd argue that he's in a decently balanced spot at the moment.

While I'm not for Irelia buffs, I'd like to put it out there that a passive buff like that would be the way to go due to the point of "sustained damage VS burst damage" that I wrote in the next part before I actually wrote this.

I'm not sure how I feel about the W buff, since it would further add incentive building to a build more-so oriented towards flat damage rather than bulk, meaning more "burst" and less "melt" (especially since your W would give you the ability to survive more, which you'd normally have to build tank for), which is already adding a decent chunk of dissatisfaction. One of the biggest complaints is that Irelia has too much burst, making all her mid lane matchups easy, since they can't really fight back due to her mobility, and not enough sustained damage, making her top lane fights, where she has to stay and fight rather than dive in and dive out, less than favorable.

I also feel as though her ultimate's slow is in a rather healthy place at the moment, but that's a topic for another time.

Kaisa Aran1 votes

49.32% is actually a really good place to be, despite the fact that it's not at 50%. Overall, the goal is to keep everybody as close to 50% as possible, and she's not exactly under-performing especially by these numbers. At the same time, though, win rates aren't everything; Yorick is sitting at 52.27% (according to Champion.gg (Plat+)), well above 50%, and I'd argue that he's in a decently balanced spot at the moment.

To be brief (since nobody seems to like it when I go too much in-detail):

  • On 50% being ideal - You're probably right, it does make sense to keep a champ around that balance. However my main concern for Irelia is that as a more 'high-skill cap' champ that her winrate should be higher across the board, I feel like her mains aren't getting enough wins right now because she may not have enough built-in reward for using her kit properly. You used Yorick as an example at 52.27% and while his pick rate is shitty as fuck it just goes to show you that his mains are helping boost his numbers a bit. In other words - You're right but I'm concerned that good Irelia players aren't getting enough 'reward' right now, especially at lower ELOs.

  • On winrates not being everything - Completely agree, I don't usually utilize winrates as an argument and the only reason I did for this post was to give the community what they wanted (since they usually default to winrates as their first line of defense as to whether a champ should be buffed or nerfed).

I'm not sure how I feel about the W buff, since it would further add incentive building to a build more-so oriented towards flat damage rather than bulk, meaning more "burst" and less "melt" (especially since your W would give you the ability to survive more, which you'd normally have to build tank for), which is already adding a decent chunk of dissatisfaction. One of the biggest complaints is that Irelia has too much burst, making all her mid lane matchups easy, since they can't really fight back due to her mobility, and not enough sustained damage, making her top lane fights, where she has to stay and fight rather than dive in and dive out, less than favorable.

My train of thought with the W changes was to open up an avenue where Irelia would be more of a level/item reliant champ (moreso than now) where if she was put behind she'd be in a much shittier place. The cooldown nerf is the crux of this - if you lose lane & can't get levels to max W second (or if you try to max E second as E is generally the 'burstier' option) then you're gonna be hit pretty damn hard, especially if you don't have the bonus AD to get you that extra damage reduction. It's also not that much damage reduction when you do the math, like I said in OP it'd take 300 Bonus AD to get back to her pre-nerfed cap (65%) and mid-game you'd probably be looking at ~5-7% additional damage reduction in skirmishes & fights.

Devil's Advocate - I can see your concerns for giving a snowballing Irelia more ability to not have to build as tanky. My rebuttal: The damage reduction actually isn't that much & (as I mentioned in OP) if you allow an Irelia (or any toplaner really) to snowball then the responsibility partly falls onto you for making that mistake.

While I'm not for Irelia buffs, I'd like to put it out there that a passive buff like that would be the way to go due to the point of "sustained damage VS burst damage" that I wrote in the next part before I actually wrote this.

It's all good man. I was primarily just doing an experiment w/ the W change, the passive change is what I'd REALLY want to go through (alongside the Q QoL buff to minion damage). DPS over Burst any day.

I also feel as though her ultimate's slow is in a rather healthy place at the moment, but that's a topic for another time.

I'm curious to hear your thoughts on this, personally I dislike how the slow is sort of negligible when getting procced by it will be a semi-rare occurrence in the mid-late game. It was mostly just a love tap though so I'm okay with it not going through.

LemurKick2 votes

High skill cap champions should have a LOWER than average winrate across the board, due to their difficulty. Irelia's overall winrates are very similar to Yasuo's, lower than 50% overall, but rising up to 55%+ with 50+ games on the champ. These are both high skill cap champs that are plenty strong absolutely NOT in need of buffs.

Kaisa Aran1 votes

lower than 50% overall, but rising up to 55%+ with 50+ games on the champ.

Source?

Additionally you can say pretty much the same when it comes to one-tricks & champion mains, winrates almost always rise across the board when you get 50+ games in and there are plenty of champs (not just ones with high skill caps) that meet this condition. That also isn't mentioning that just because a champ may be winning doesn't mean it's properly balanced, it could solely be good because of an item, the meta or (in Irelia's case) the fact that she doesn't have to face many tank matchups nowadays or be forced into late game. Irelia still has issues that need to be looked at, winrates aside.

DearPear3 votes

Irelia struggles hard against any melee AD champion while she overperforms against AP champions. Toning down her base MR and giving her more base armor should really help rebalance her overall strength.

Kaisa Aran1 votes

Exactly my train of thought. Weakening her midlane burst playstyle while strengthening her ability to duel (with things like more base/scaling armor, better passive DPS etc.) would definitely be in the right direction in my opinion.

ModWuks2 votes

Approved!

Kaisa Aran1 votes

<3

Kaisa Aran1 votes

Actually to double check - is it showing up with the other posts? This is what I get when I look at Gameplay+ home and I'm wondering if its because I edited the post to include more information.

Edit: Both it and the AP Fighters post are hidden to me, the only way I can (very briefly) see them is if I spam refresh. They're there for about a tenth of a second and then are hidden to me again.

Edit 2: It's working now!

TheSingularity2 votes

I'd be open to buffs, however I feel her Q animation needs to be slowed down just a little bit. It's essentially an instant last hit making shoving her under tower obsolete and it makes it very difficult to keep track of her (especially when your brain has one gear, third when it needs to run in 5th). One second she's farming, 0.3 seconds later she's wailing on you.

Compare it to yasuo's E which she should be faster than but not this fast. Or Diana's ultimate, which she appears to be faster than.

Happy in between y'know?

Kaisa Aran2 votes

I understand that if she's buffed that there would be increased counterplay as a factor (as I mentioned above) but to be honest slowing down her Q speed would (in my opinion) feel absolutely awful. It feels REALLY nice as an Irelia player to be zooming to and fro like an actual blade, slowing that down would just feel super underwhelming.

To make it up to you though there are plenty of ways that Irelia can be opened up to feeling better to play against, power shifts mostly. You'd probably be interested in the W change I was experimenting with:

  • Defiant Dance (W):
    • [NEW] Damage Reduction now additionally increases with Bonus AD.
    • Ratio: 50% Base + (7% per 100 AP) + (5% per 100 Bonus AD)
    • Cooldown changed from 16/15/14/13/12 to 20/18/16/14/12

There are plenty of ways to make Irelia feel better to play against and I'm sure there's a mix in there somewhere that can make the best of both worlds, I just don't believe the Q change you're suggesting is it (though I appreciate your comment and your honesty).

TheSingularity1 votes

It feels REALLY nice as an Irelia player to be zooming to and fro like an actual blade, slowing that down would just feel super underwhelming.

I don't doubt it, I've used her and it's the smoothest farming experience of all time, perhaps give it a minimum damage vs minions so it isn't merely an instant last hit tool? So Susan isn't off crying in the corner XD. The W change would definitely be interesting and it does make more sense (idk why riot sticks AP ratios that will never be utilised). But I'd just replace the AP with the AD ratio given she won't buy much, if any AP anyway.

ankoanko192 votes

I just really want her Qs minion dmg increased. It got hit hard this patch without the intention for it.

Kaisa Aran1 votes

Yeah it was primarily hit because of her midlane burst potency but it never got compensated in terms of minion execute %. Increasing it to 75% should be more than enough.

Suzuken2 votes

It's so frustrating when I fail my lvl 1 passive stacking just because of muscle memory. I can't simply adapt to her Q dealing 50 dmg to a melee minion. It's absurd how low the minion needs to be in order to last hit it with Q. Hell I'm even getting tilted lvl 1 when I miss my Q :(

Kaisa Aran1 votes

I know that feel bro :(

Wolfalisk3181 votes

{quoted}

The second point is the easiest to throw aside - ANY champ feels infuriating to play against when they&#039;ve snowballed. It&#039;s a mistake by either you or your team to have let the enemy get to that point &amp; 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&#039;d probably happen if your Riven player was against ANY toplaner.

It's not a mistake by neither my team nor myself that the 0-2 shut-down Irelia finally completed her Trinity Force and can now 1v1 any player on my team, and in some cases 1v2 despite being levels behind with an item deficit.

Kaisa Aran1 votes

Actually, it is.

Trinity Force is Irelia's biggest item spike in the game, always has and always will be. The fact that you disrespected an Irelia who not only finally managed to get Trinity but also got time to get levels (meaning that despite being behind she scaled into the midgame) is entirely your team's fault. It's your team's fault for not being able to respect the power spike & play around it (usually by shutting her down further or by grouping for teamfights so that Irelia can't be nearly as powerful as she can be in skirmishes).

Logic like that is why Irelia "shouldn't" be buffed according to players at lower MMR - assuming the champ is strong when really it's just disrespect of her power spikes & ability to come back from a minor deficit (I hardly call two kills behind 'major' unless she's been denied tons of XP & gold). Again, you failing to understand how huge Trinity Force is for her isn't her being strong, it's you being disrespectful to the champ's item spikes.

And before you say 'Irelia is too strong when she gets Trinity, obviously her being balanced' there are two problems with that:

  • Irelia is DESIGNED to work fluidly with Trinity, her being strong with the item is intended.
  • Trinity Force itself is a major spike for several toplaners, not just Irelia. To name a few: Camille, Darius, Fiora (in some situations), Gangplank, Garen, Jax, Malphite (in some situations), Nasus (in some situations), Poppy (in some situations - her, Malphite and Nasus prefer IG most of the time), Trundle (in some situations) & Yorick.

The Trinity spike that you seem to be claiming supports Irelia being 'balanced' is just one of her biggest midgame item spikes that several other toplaners also benefit from while having similar midgame/better late game dueling than her (from the list I pulled she loses late game to all of them except potentially Garen, Darius & Trundle). Hence I see no strength to the argument that her being strong with Trinity means that her late game can't be buffed.

ORB1TS1 votes

tbh I laughed when I read the title

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