Attempting an irelia rework based on riots core design philosophies

Affinity2·Jan 13, 2015·1 votes·1,829 views

The title pretty much sums up what im trying to do. This will be a full gameplay and thematic rework to make irelia the best addition to league she can possible be.

from the community i would like to know

What makes irelia special compared to say..... someone like xin in terms of gameplay. What are your best highs and lows with the character (even if it includes 100 to 0ing someone in lane over and over) What fantasies has the community sold you on irelia's gameplay that you feel havent been met or could be better fullfilled (for example do you think she should be a 6 item carry or do you like her role as a mid to late game snowballer).
Do you think her stun (the comeback turn around lower percentile health single target nuke) should stay? is it core to her thematic as a comeback killer or do you think the ability is unhealthy enough to be replaced with another comeback mechanic.
even if your uncomfortable with the idea the passive tenacity is leaving her kit. I find the passive powerful i love the passive but. others dont appreciate the power as the ability does not have much visual gratification.
Do you find her ultimate to be lackluster or very satisfying. Could it look and feel cooler if her theme were updated with it. Is tossing out single blades very baddass

Thematic

If I were to describe one thing about irelia's personality it would be the ionian comeback kit. How about you?
Do you think her thematic as a blade magneto is well fleshed out or could use some additional aesthetic or baddasery

Tell me what you think and i can put a draft together by the end of the week. Not everyone will be happy with it. but it would be a fair competitive and thematically baddass irelia that we know and love.

i completely understand if some people see her a little more like this. http://www.senpaigamer.com/sites/default/files/news/arcade/2014/03/17-guilty-gear-xrd-sign-4.jpg

but when i picture irelia its something like this

30 Comments

GreenLoreJan 16, 20152 votes

Overall her theme as a levitating-blade-champ is barely used in her kit 3 of her 4 abilities have nothing to do with that and I always feel like her R is a bit underwhelming anyway.

LongFur FoxJan 16, 20151 votes

these are thing that could be solved by animations, q: have her step on the blade and fly on it to the target. This would be a quick animation and maybe impossible. Another possiblity would be to have the blade fly to her target first and then her fast afterwards (this would mean a delay in the gapcloser so not too good an idea) w: Have her blades more visibly fly around when her w is activated. e: Having her blades fly around or pin down a slowed or stunned target

On a related note her levitating blade theme is only something people have given her later since neither her title "will of the blades" or her story specifically says her blades levitate.

Affinity2Jan 16, 20151 votes

[{quoted}](name=LongFur Fox,realm=NA,application-id=A8FQeEA8,discussion-id=TlRcE1kr,comment-id=00040000,timestamp=2015-01-16T13:14:49.726+0000)

these are thing that could be solved by animations, q: have her step on the blade and fly on it to the target. This would be a quick animation and maybe impossible. Another possiblity would be to have the blade fly to her target first and then her fast afterwards (this would mean a delay in the gapcloser so not too good an idea) w: Have her blades more visibly fly around when her w is activated. e: Having her blades fly around or pin down a slowed or stunned target

On a related note her levitating blade theme is only something people have given her later since neither her title "will of the blades" or her story specifically says her blades levitate.

i understand that her lore is important to alot of people but the theme itself is a little underutilized imo. the lore is cool really cool in fact irelia might altogether kill the levitating blade theme altogether for this reason. its kind of polorizing

GreenLoreJan 16, 20151 votes

Well the thing is what else general archetype would you associate with her?

To create diversity they generally try to give every champion their own unique thematical archetype,like rek'sai is a tunneler monster,kalista a vengeful ghost,azir an emporer/sand-mage,etc.

irelia doesn't really have much besides the levitating blades. Sure there is her coming back from the brink of death,but that is more of a background information and not much of a unique thematical archetype anyway.

GreenLoreJan 16, 20151 votes

The thing is that even with visual changes the skills remain basic melee-fighter skills,that don't make use of the "levitating-blade aspect" of her character.

Small changes to the skills could be a viable option though,like you mentioned the Q could let the blade fly to the target first and then she jumps after it sounds like a nice idea.

LongFur FoxJan 16, 20151 votes

If you read the rest of this thread you might stumble upon some of the problems with creating a half ranged character. Most fundamental is that gapclosers to champions rarely fit very well without getting oppressive and you end up with weird buildpaths.

As an irelia main i actually never thought of levitating blades as the theme that sold me. To me it was always the refined maybe even serene defender (english is not my main language, sorry). To me it is much more about her personality than levitating blades. Now the theme is cool but levitating blades goes into something ranged and maybe even an adc while her steadfast personality as "will of the blades" would suggest more of a bruiser that dives the enemy team and takes all the focus. Another thing i would really hate for her is to become some kind of medium melee medium ranged thing which cannot be itemized for and ends up weak in both forms due to her numbers needing to be crazy high since her itemization being trash tier no matter what she builds.

bloodmothJan 16, 20151 votes

I believe there is a way to make her satisfying as both ranged and melee, that involves making her R a basic ability with a few charges, keep her melee, allow her to harass with transcendent blades but force her to get in to melee for most of her damage. This will make her a melee champ with ranged capabilities (sort of like how gragas is melee with ranged barrels)

i think there are alot of ways to make this work, for instance, if you R into an enemy, the blade gets lodged into them, when you dash to a target with a blade in them the CD is reset, meaning you can set up a dash path before engaging by hitting multiple targets and dashing between them. now you have a unique champ based soley on that paradigm.

There are other ways to make melee matter as a champ with ranged capabilities (they got it wrong with jayce and nid) for instance, if her transcendent blades caused half damage up front and required you to melee to deal the other half, she would need to get into melee.

LongFur FoxJan 17, 20151 votes

I do agree that there are ways to make it work but the suggestions by op does not seem to be in the right direction. I do realize that i was not very clear but in that context i meant the ranged aa that op suggested (i posted a quote in this thread but otherwise you can go to the RoG website though i have no idea why there is two threads.....)

GreenLoreJan 16, 20151 votes

The thing is that you don't look at irelia and think of "oh serene defender" without reading her lore(ok the serene aspect maybe,but we have other serene champions,not to mention that serene is rather subjective)

Champs should add something thematically to the game.I mean yes they should have unique personalities too,but there is after all nothing that prevents them from having unique personalities AND a unique theme,so to get the most out of the champs everyone should have a unique theme.

And yeah the range thing could end up problematic,I am aware of that,if they'd emphasize on the levitating stuff,then they'd obviously wouldn't give it such a good range,but a few attacks at medium range could be ok(think of the range of Darius spin move and would need to not overdo it(so only one ability with such a range would be ok)

LongFur FoxJan 17, 20151 votes

Two people posting almost the same thing xP. Well my response to this is going to be the same so here goes:

I do agree that there are ways to make it work but the suggestions by op does not seem to be in the right direction. I do realize that i was not very clear but in that context i meant the ranged aa that op suggested (i posted a quote in this thread but otherwise you can go to the RoG website though i have no idea why there is two threads.....)

GreenLoreJan 17, 20151 votes

yeah I agree that a ranged auto attack is the wrong way to go,it would really change waaaay too much for irelia and would either turn her into a n ad-carry or into a potentially second Urgot

RaxistaichoJan 13, 20151 votes

Well the problem with your concept of Irelia's personality is that she's very clearly meant to be an incredibly strong-willed and determined woman, which I think fits nicely with her comeback mechanics.

Affinity2Jan 13, 20151 votes

{quoted}

Well the problem with your concept of Irelia's personality is that she's very clearly meant to be an incredibly strong-willed and determined woman, which I think fits nicely with her comeback mechanics.

im not against that at all i completely agree shes strong willed. As a matter of fact, i picture the blades as an extension of her soul and she can control them because of her such strong will. she is humble courteous and overall the exact opposite of syndra. Im merely asking what you think i havent decided on a rework yet. thanks for the input upvote is nice for attention

LongFur FoxJan 13, 20151 votes

If have always pictured fate/stay night's gilgamesh as a syndra like entity when it comes to handling weapons. To me they always felt like they had gone mad on power. And the extension of her soul almost the exact reason i am against summoning more blades. Well i guess we have more in common than i thought but how do you tie this posts to picturing irelia like gilgamesh?

Affinity2Jan 14, 20151 votes

[{quoted}](name=LongFur Fox,realm=NA,application-id=A8FQeEA8,discussion-id=TlRcE1kr,comment-id=000000000000,timestamp=2015-01-13T22:15:26.384+0000)

If have always pictured fate/stay night's gilgamesh as a syndra like entity when it comes to handling weapons. To me they always felt like they had gone mad on power. And the extension of her soul almost the exact reason i am against summoning more blades. Well i guess we have more in common than i thought but how do you tie this posts to picturing irelia like gilgamesh?

i think her ultimate could be more visually intimidating. I think shes not generic she just looks like it. On another note the alistar and tristana updates give me hope on an irelia update

In terms of how she attacks while i dont want her to summon an infinite number of blades i think she could definitely use those 4 blades surrounding her in her splash art better. Obviously these images are two extremes and there are probably better images to sum up what i meant but this is the first to come to mind

LongFur FoxJan 13, 20151 votes

I think i have seen you before trying to do something similar and i as someone who has a radically different view on what irelia is and should be (thematic wise) compared to you i guess i can take a shot at it. I should probably post that this will go onto a lot of topics which i think are important to discussing irelia or any other bruiser so let's start by getting that out of the way. I will bold the important parts for those that don't like reading (what are you guys doing on a text based forum anyway?).

{quoted}

The title pretty much sums up what im trying to do. This will be a full gameplay and thematic rework to make irelia the best addition to league she can possible be.

Not sure if i agree a full rework is needed and i honestly believe there are higher priority targets than her if we are talking about larger reworks. And by higher priorities i mean things including almost any top lane bruiser including jax, darius and many others. To me irelia is a case of the "ball of stats" that riot likes to put it which to me means a combination of the problem that people can build so tanky in lane that they ignore each other aka "the wet noodle fight" and that top lane is not a melee only lane. Now the last problem does not seem very big at all but it carries some restrictions on how kits can be. All other lanes the champions have ways to farm from range (even for melee champions like zed) and those that don't survive lane by either the threat of bursting the opponent (akali) or being able to take a trade and get safely out (fizz). So if we want to rework irelia's abilities she either needs to keep her threat of all inning an opponent, give her a way to farm from range (i have seen ideas to make her ult a basic ability, which if spamable she could use to farm), or give her a way to safely disengage after a trade (this would mean either make her dash able to target the ground or giving her an extra dash and i frankly don't think either fits her).

from the community i would like to know

What makes irelia special compared to say..... someone like xin in terms of gameplay. What are your best highs and lows with the character (even if it includes 100 to 0ing someone in lane over and over) What fantasies has the community sold you on irelia's gameplay that you feel havent been met or could be better fullfilled (for example do you think she should be a 6 item carry or do you like her role as a mid to late game snowballer).

I have several highs for irelia the "healthy" one are being able to flash+stun a carry that is out of position and then kill them even if i am alone (bit of an assassin thing except they do it better), outplaying opponents by jumping around to minions to get away or dodge abilities (sure lots of mobility is bad but this is super gated and can be predicted). There are a few others but they are not major to me. The biggest unhealthy high is probably her ability to jump an adc in a teamfight an play out like an unstoppable force that often takes a lot of cc to peel (rip this feeling with so many knockback and knockups). This comes purely from her passive tenacity and her sustain through ult and w.

Do you think her stun (the comeback turn around lower percentile health single target nuke) should stay? is it core to her thematic as a comeback killer or do you think the ability is unhealthy enough to be replaced with another comeback mechanic.

Concerning teamfights and mid to late game: I can understand it being unhealthy and having illogical counter play (not getting more % health than she has) but removing cc from dash bruisers (or any bruisers at all) is very hard. There are a few champions that functions like that and instead they are called "disruption tanks" (looking at you shyvana and mundo). If you wanna remove it she needs burst as a compensation (which means removing her on hit damage and reliance on aa since they no longer work as intended) or another hard cc since slows hardly does anything now that not having a dash on an adc is a weakness and having one is the norm.

Concerning laning phase: Having a comeback mechanic is not a bad thing in it self and can in some cases punish opponents for sticking around in lane when you both are at low health much like an execute would. Comparing the two then the execute is good even if you are slightly higher health while comeback mechanics can often be used even if you are only slightly poled down. If anything i would say that most melee champions could do good with a comeback mechanic in lane as it makes counters a bit less painful and in melee vs ranged lanes it ads the extra choice for the ranged champion if they should poke the melee champion down. On the other hand in lanes where you win the comeback mechanic gets less useful and thus giving the opponent the easier lane. In irelia's case i believe that having a comeback mechanic is what allows her to have the good laning phase she has in certain mathcups such as jayce, kennen, teemo, gnar and other ranged top laners (where she almost always gets a stun) without becoming obnoxious to weak laners like mundo, nasus, maplhite and other melee champions. The reason for this being that if she is playing against an other melee laner she cannot spam her low counter play move of stun+aa and walk away as the stun simply ceases to be a stun and without it her all in is a lot weaker.

even if your uncomfortable with the idea the passive tenacity is leaving her kit. I find the passive powerful i love the passive but. others don't appreciate the power as the ability does not have much visual gratification.

This will probably go as it is one of those invisible powers that only irelia mains will realize exists. That being said i love utilizing it to go for the adc and absorb all the enemy teams cc only to die to my teammates like katarine or yi since there is no cc left. That being said i do think there is room to give her conditional tenacity like when her w is active or after she has used a certain skill so that she contains this fun part of her kit but reduce its effect on normal game play or in situations where she is caught out.

Do you find her ultimate to be lackluster or very satisfying. Could it look and feel cooler if her theme were updated with it. Is tossing out single blades very baddass

This is actually the easiest way to distinguish a person who play irelia a lot from one who does not. (Sorry if the next part offends you) Generally if a player feels that her ult is bad it is because they do not realize how well it synergizes with spell blade and how much it heals for. Power wise it is very good thematic wise though i can see your point.

Thematic

If I were to describe one thing about irelia's personality it would be the ionian comeback kit. How about you?

I think you are in the right direction but there is more to it. Irelia certainly has the lore for a comeback ability but maybe even more so for a stall wart defender of ionia and a military commander that while inexperienced rises to the occasion and grows stronger the better the foe is. If we are to translate her lore into a playstyle i would go with a relentless frontliner cutting trough anyone who dares oppose her (kinda similar to the role of a bruiser but one that dives and takes all the focus and still does not give up because old sion gives her a "cryptic gaze"). Her kit supports this by giving her tenacity which scales with enemy champions, giving her a comeback mechanic and the sustain needed for staying in the front line for a long time.

Do you think her thematic as a blade magneto is well fleshed out or could use some additional aesthetic or baddasery

This right her. This is the main point we disagree on. When i look at irelia and her floating baldes i do not thing magneto or anything like it. I think she has a (perhaps magic) blade that is effectively an extension of herself. Heck i can see her serving tea in a tea ceremony with those. To me she does not consider the blades as weapons but just an extension of herself that just happens to be sharp. To further take away from the magneto theme she can only control those 4 blades or as described in her lore "her father's enormous blade". I can kinda see your point on the fate/stay night gilgamesh (i think was his name) but i have a hard time seeing her using another weapon and definitely not being careless with any weapon she has.

Tell me what you think and i can put a draft together by the end of the week. Not everyone will be happy with it. but it would be a fair competitive and thematically baddass irelia that we know and love.

i completely understand if some people see her a little more like this. http://www.senpaigamer.com/sites/default/files/news/arcade/2014/03/17-guilty-gear-xrd-sign-4.jpg

I have not played enough guilty gear to be sure about this but even this is not something i agree with. The characters weapons are way too big and the feel i get from a quick 5 search does not show the refined yet hardened feel i think is important to irelia. Well i guess it is hard to come up with a good feel on text with a few lines but i hope the previous things i wrote will give you a feel on my take.

If you read to the end of this: Sorry for going on a rant but i have a hard time cutting this down without loosing things and do posts replies if you think i left something out or unclear.

Affinity2Jan 13, 20151 votes

Thanks you for your input and forgive me if i dont write as long as you but i did read the whole thing. i am a very long time irelia player and i do think her ult is strong. thousands of damage late game or with a trin force but its slow and over time making alot of people think it feels weak. its also on a low cd making it godly.

i would like to take you to my cross post thread at reign of gaming http://www.reignofgaming.net/forums/league-of-legends/general-discussions/92045-irelia-rework-gd-xpost

reading her quotes http://leagueoflegends.wikia.com/wiki/Irelia/Background

after reading them i can see why the thematic and personality choices you made are more fitting with her. shes still committed not humble as a unbreakable defender. im not sure my current kit reflects that so much. but the soul and determination do remain she now has more of a focus on her soul powering and controlling the blades as an extension of her body and she has alot of the same high points as before with some definite lows added. im gonna do a more in depth post later.

upvotes help if you want to get more attention on the matter. and i will most definitely reconsider my position on how her kit ties in with her personality possibly do 2 reworks

LongFur FoxJan 14, 20151 votes

Thanks for reading it. I have a tendency of posting long rants when i first post in threads like this. Fortunately it gets shorter as i feel people know my reasons.

The reign of gaming post was how i found this place. The reason i post here is because many random people on reign of gaming post in those kind of threads and post short "generic" responses like

The problem with Irelia is just that a kit that is far too generic. There are few cool, unique mechanics there and E is one of them, so I'd like it to stay.

I actually wouldn't mind a complete identity change into sth like levitating blades manipulator."

There is nothing wrong with that but it clutters any real discussion and critique that might come from long time irelia players. Another thing this forum has is that it allows for responses like mine without 5 people posting TL;DR.

Now onto the real point which is my reply to what i think you posted on reign of gaming (assuming you started the thread): Now the next part will be a bit long again so let me start with the summary and a bit of praise: I like the ideas you have for her theme wise, i really do. But i am worried that her playstyle is going to be really wierd if this goes through and my worries are mainly based around giving her range coupled with a dash that creates distance if the enemy is on top of you. Granted this might be your goal but it is a far cry from how i picture her (both are acceptable and it could lead to interesting discussions).

Her proposed kit interacts with itself a lot so read the whole and then come back to my comments on each part if you are new to the thread.

passive ionian fervor: Irelia loses access to hiten style when she falls below % health and Hiten style ends after .5-1 second (testing would be needed to determine a healthy time) and afterwards gains bonus damage for 10 seconds (probably percentage based or ad per 3 levels) 60 second cooldown.

Is this a set % health or compared to her opponent? In either case since hiten style is her harass tool and her tool to farm safely doing this means she has to get in danger (possibly for an all in) as soon as she loses it to make use of the increased damage. Actually the more i think the harder i have seeing why you would want this. Being on low health is exactly the time you want to be ranged (even her cost for becomming ranged decreases if she is at low health) unless you are in a tight situation and need the extra damage to barely win the all in. I would propose to change this to some kind of extra on hit healing with a semi long cd. This means that when she is low she gets a chance to comeback but at the risk of being bursted and since that is a risk zoning her should be a possibility. Having the healing instead allows for this passive to be useful even if you are not in a close all in.

Q Blade surge (hiten style)/courageous dive: Same as before (but range reduced from 650 to 550) reset removed. While hiten style is active the cooldown and cost is reduced by 50 % and the damage is reduced by 50% irelia also goes the maximum distance after using the ability (fizz q yas e) cooldown 10/9/8/7/6 same cost no refund on kill.

This ability has to me always been the ability where irelia had outplay potential towards adc's as opposed to other bruiser who have a hard time outplaying an adc (even if they are hard to outplay themselves). That being said if we are going with this kind of dash then lowering the range might make it hard for her to close the gap on adc's like tristana and caitlyn where those 100 range really matter. The synergy with hitenstyle however is highly unintuitive. The lower cooldown is good and same for the lower mana costs but i would argue that with the massive costs hiten style has it will hardly ever be worth it. I can understand the decreased damage to give her a tradeoff but i feel that the tradeoff is not significant enough to clearly convey if she chose the right thing. Always going the maximum distance is almost exclusively a buff unless you are fighting with them melee (fizz solves this problem in that he has many gapclosers) where in this case it could take you outside of range from them. This could be fixed by stopping her early if she ends up outside her aa range with hitenstyle. Assuming this gets fixed and we want to keep the tradeoff i think the cd should be lower than just 50% at the cost of all its damage (maybe in her melee form she stops at the opponent even) (also costs the same amount of mana). Setting the cd to maybe 1 or 2 seconds so she can kite and dance her way around the battle field would really be something that could look pleasing and fit into a great theme.

W hiten style/soul drain: passive Irelia gains health for each attack for x per level in ability (+) .25 bonus ad. active: Irelia loses the passive bonus and places her soul into her blades allowing her to manipulate them gaining (55,110,165,220,275) AA range and magic damage on each hit for 9 seconds. for clarity this is 400 max aa range. i think this is a healthy space for her to operate given the kind of damage i expect her to put out. the magic damage scaling as well as the e will determine her strength spikes and can be adjusted to meet community standards at any time. Irelia will also have short base attack time and the same base attack speed in the new build CD now 18 seconds Cost 8-12% current HP + some mana cost

I am no against her gaining range on her aa (though she would turn into a semi adc kinda like kayle) i am however against the long downtime she will end up with. My first thought was to build a frozen heart now with this to reduce the cd but due to the very high current hp cost you gave her (and the fact that she can't activate it at low health) means that building health on her becomes half bad since you would only end up with resistances. You might argue that she can still build health but every time she activates this she would lose 8-12% of her health and she wants this active in teamfights and many poke situations. Even trades with ranged toplaners she would want this active for the decreased dash cd. But unless those trades forces the opponent out of lane she needs to activate it again later thus making her health buys even worse. So if she does not build tanky then she build many of the same items adc build or goes for a runnans/on-hit build. This has it's own problem however because unless she can dip into things like nashers tooth to give her cdr she can only stay in fights for 9 seconds before backing out and becoming useless until her hiten style comes back up. I don't have advice on how to make this better beside lowering its cd so you can have it up all the time during teamfights or make it a toggle which does the same except you don't need to get a magic cdr number every game to unlock her teamfights. I should however mention that her e needs longer range to be used as anything but peel if she does get this range increase and you might wanna make it longer since any ranged character with a lot of on hit effects will end up building glass cannon or maybe even adc builds.

let me know what you think so far this i think gives alot of wiggle room for the ult and E and definitely fits into her core theme (which i can elaborate on because it might be hard to picture)

Affinity2Jan 14, 20151 votes

[{quoted}](name=LongFur Fox,realm=NA,application-id=A8FQeEA8,discussion-id=TlRcE1kr,comment-id=000100000000,timestamp=2015-01-14T00:56:12.466+0000)

Thanks for reading it. I have a tendency of posting long rants when i first post in threads like this. Fortunately it gets shorter as i feel people know my reasons.

The reign of gaming post was how i found this place. The reason i post here is because many random people on reign of gaming post in those kind of threads and post short "generic" responses like

There is nothing wrong with that but it clutters any real discussion and critique that might come from long time irelia players. Another thing this forum has is that it allows for responses like mine without 5 people posting TL;DR.

Now onto the real point which is my reply to what i think you posted on reign of gaming (assuming you started the thread): Now the next part will be a bit long again so let me start with the summary and a bit of praise: I like the ideas you have for her theme wise, i really do. But i am worried that her playstyle is going to be really wierd if this goes through and my worries are mainly based around giving her range coupled with a dash that creates distance if the enemy is on top of you. Granted this might be your goal but it is a far cry from how i picture her (both are acceptable and it could lead to interesting discussions).

Her proposed kit interacts with itself a lot so read the whole and then come back to my comments on each part if you are new to the thread.

Is this a set % health or compared to her opponent? In either case since hiten style is her harass tool and her tool to farm safely doing this means she has to get in danger (possibly for an all in) as soon as she loses it to make use of the increased damage. Actually the more i think the harder i have seeing why you would want this. Being on low health is exactly the time you want to be ranged (even her cost for becomming ranged decreases if she is at low health) unless you are in a tight situation and need the extra damage to barely win the all in. I would propose to change this to some kind of extra on hit healing with a semi long cd. This means that when she is low she gets a chance to comeback but at the risk of being bursted and since that is a risk zoning her should be a possibility. Having the healing instead allows for this passive to be useful even if you are not in a close all in.

This ability has to me always been the ability where irelia had outplay potential towards adc's as opposed to other bruiser who have a hard time outplaying an adc (even if they are hard to outplay themselves). That being said if we are going with this kind of dash then lowering the range might make it hard for her to close the gap on adc's like tristana and caitlyn where those 100 range really matter. The synergy with hitenstyle however is highly unintuitive. The lower cooldown is good and same for the lower mana costs but i would argue that with the massive costs hiten style has it will hardly ever be worth it. I can understand the decreased damage to give her a tradeoff but i feel that the tradeoff is not significant enough to clearly convey if she chose the right thing. Always going the maximum distance is almost exclusively a buff unless you are fighting with them melee (fizz solves this problem in that he has many gapclosers) where in this case it could take you outside of range from them. This could be fixed by stopping her early if she ends up outside her aa range with hitenstyle. Assuming this gets fixed and we want to keep the tradeoff i think the cd should be lower than just 50% at the cost of all its damage (maybe in her melee form she stops at the opponent even) (also costs the same amount of mana). Setting the cd to maybe 1 or 2 seconds so she can kite and dance her way around the battle field would really be something that could look pleasing and fit into a great theme.

I am no against her gaining range on her aa (though she would turn into a semi adc kinda like kayle) i am however against the long downtime she will end up with. My first thought was to build a frozen heart now with this to reduce the cd but due to the very high current hp cost you gave her (and the fact that she can't activate it at low health) means that building health on her becomes half bad since you would only end up with resistances. You might argue that she can still build health but every time she activates this she would lose 8-12% of her health and she wants this active in teamfights and many poke situations. Even trades with ranged toplaners she would want this active for the decreased dash cd. But unless those trades forces the opponent out of lane she needs to activate it again later thus making her health buys even worse. So if she does not build tanky then she build many of the same items adc build or goes for a runnans/on-hit build. This has it's own problem however because unless she can dip into things like nashers tooth to give her cdr she can only stay in fights for 9 seconds before backing out and becoming useless until her hiten style comes back up. I don't have advice on how to make this better beside lowering its cd so you can have it up all the time during teamfights or make it a toggle which does the same except you don't need to get a magic cdr number every game to unlock her teamfights. I should however mention that her e needs longer range to be used as anything but peel if she does get this range increase and you might wanna make it longer since any ranged character with a lot of on hit effects will end up building glass cannon or maybe even adc builds.

Ok lets go over everything starting with the passive.

So below 25 or 30 percent health she doesnt have access to hiten style and she now enters a higher risk and reward state. the comeback in a nutshell. She gains increased burst with her passive is forced to comit to an all in with q and she has increased regen from the passive combined with the w passive. I dont plan on making her e a stun anytime soon. but it could be a slow. At the same time its meant to be counterplayable. As an irelia player you have to prepare to enter melee form and be ready to utilize this change.

The idea with the passive is she no longer has the energy left to control her blades so she loses the ability to manipulate them with her consciousness and now has to wield them. it is very very debatable whether or not the forced swap should be there but i definitely dont want her to have the ad bonus while shes in ranged form. I also think it gives the opponent alot of control similar to a volibear passive and therefore is allowed to be very powerful

definitely subject to change on the passive

Q: the cd might be too short at level 1 especially if irelia is going to be maxing w in lane. but besides that were definitely in agreement. In melee form it works identical to live minus the reset mechanic meaning irelia stops when she reaches an opponent.

The damage reduction is to place emphasis on the fact that q is now a positioning tool over a damage tool while irelia has hiten style active as well as a means to create more equal play between the two forms which is heavily emphasized by the large cost on w and the decent regen while w is not active. This is a clarity balance and intuitive change and i think it should stay.

W: when i though of her itemization as well as the space i wanted her to occupy i thought of three things. her current itemization, her status as a drain tank, and a build path that would allow her to carry. W promotes regen stats because health increases the cost when activated making items like botkr zephyr and ga all work naturally and scale with the w. the magic damage allows for wits end and she still feels on hit heavy.

the current % HP cost is there as a balance tool meant to reduce the effectiveness of the ability in lane and give windows in which the opponent now has optimal and obvious opportunities to harass whether melee or ranged. furthermore this ability takes more than a couple levels to ramp up meaning her power spike takes a while to be reached. The passive regen is flat and scales off of bonus ad so its tune-able in lane and powerful as the game goes on especially in conjunction with the passive.

Now the CD as well as the uptime i am very willing to talk about. currently hiten style has a 15 second cd and a 6 second uptime meaning it has an identical downtime with a lower uptime to my proposed W. if anything i felt i was being lenient in allowing this and i assumed it wouldn't be spammed because of the cost attached to the ability. Im not sure how much more i could or would be willing to stretch that but, what did you have in mind.

Her ult would still scale off ad so a full onhit build is unlikely.

Im uncertain about an ap ratio on w but its something to think about

LongFur FoxJan 14, 20151 votes

{quoted}

Ok lets go over everything starting with the passive.

So below 25 or 30 percent health she doesnt have access to hiten style and she now enters a higher risk and reward state. the comeback in a nutshell. She gains increased burst with her passive is forced to comit to an all in with q and she has increased regen from the passive combined with the w passive. I dont plan on making her e a stun anytime soon. but it could be a slow. At the same time its meant to be counterplayable. As an irelia player you have to prepare to enter melee form and be ready to utilize this change.

I can understand this but it is going to feel dull, a bit like sion passive if the oponent just runs away with your q on cd or if they have a gap maker when you jump them. Some times it is just not possible to go all in on those ten seconds and if you waste it then she becomes a good deal weaker. I can understand where your position and what i write is not fact just worries.

The idea with the passive is she no longer has the energy left to control her blades so she loses the ability to manipulate them with her consciousness and now has to wield them. it is very very debatable whether or not the forced swap should be there but i definitely dont want her to have the ad bonus while shes in ranged form. I also think it gives the opponent alot of control similar to a volibear passive and therefore is allowed to be very powerful

definitely subject to change on the passive

Forced swap itself is ok but i would set i lower as i see her build with these skills being very squishy and loosing range when an assassin or bruiser jumps you is bad.

Q: the cd might be too short at level 1 especially if irelia is going to be maxing w in lane. but besides that were definitely in agreement. In melee form it works identical to live minus the reset mechanic meaning irelia stops when she reaches an opponent.

The reset loss is quite large and makes it impossible to all in ranged champions if they have a gap maker. I doubt the cd is too short though it seems fine to me.

The damage reduction is to place emphasis on the fact that q is now a positioning tool over a damage tool while irelia has hiten style active as well as a means to create more equal play between the two forms which is heavily emphasized by the large cost on w and the decent regen while w is not active. This is a clarity balance and intuitive change and i think it should stay.

I realized this but her two forms are not going to be equal powerful unless her e or ult empowers her melee form simply because range is a very strong stat. As i see it her melee form is going to be her regen form which she uses in the start of the lane and late game whenever she is safe. In teamfights she want her ranged form as she is simply not sticky enough without tenacity and hard cc to be close to an opponent for a long time.

W: when i though of her itemization as well as the space i wanted her to occupy i thought of three things. her current itemization, her status as a drain tank, and a build path that would allow her to carry. W promotes regen stats because health increases the cost when activated making items like botkr zephyr and ga all work naturally and scale with the w. the magic damage allows for wits end and she still feels on hit heavy.

the current % HP cost is there as a balance tool meant to reduce the effectiveness of the ability in lane and give windoows in which the opponent nw has optimal and obvious opportunities to harass whether melee or ranged. furthermore this ability takes more than a couple levels to ramp up meaning her power spike takes a while to be reached. The passive regen is flat and scales off of bonus ad so its tune-able in lane and powerful as the game goes on especially in conjunction with the passive.

Depending on the numbers of her passive w i think the build is going to be vamp scepter as first item and then possibly botrk, BT, GA, ruunans and two last items which are most likely offensive and depends on her numbers and cds.

Now the CD as well as the uptime i am very willing to talk about. currently hiten style has a 15 second cd and a 6 second uptime meaning it has an identical downtime with a lower uptime to my proposed W. if anything i felt i was being lenient in allowing this and i assumed it wouldn't be spammed because of the cost attached to the ability. Im not sure how much more i could or would be willing to stretch that but, what did you have in mind.

Depending on the build you wanna push her to only having her ranged form for a short amount of time can be okay but her melee form needs to be sticky or bursty to compensate. If you want her to build a bit like she does now with 1-2 offensive items and then tank then having it up some of the time is fine if a bit weird to have that much range while you are practically melee. The other build would be a glass cannon build where you use the hiten style to stay in the backline and function like a sort of short range adc. This could be fine too but then she needs the ability to have her range at all times or she is going to die the moment she goes into melee.

Her ult would still scale off ad so a full onhit build is unlikely.

Im uncertain about an ap ratio on w but its something to think about

All in all i am a bit curious what you would like to see her build with this skill set? For me i would imagine something like item 3153 item 3072 item 3085 item 3006 item 3172 item 3026 but it depends on her w uptime and its health cost. Those are probably the two things that will dominate the item choices.

Raja ChachkiJan 14, 20151 votes

I say we give her invisibility and when she is near 3 or more enemy champions she gains invincibility. She also needs 2 charges of her Q, she's not sticky enough.

Affinity2Jan 14, 20151 votes

another thing about the uptime of w vs the CD of q at range one q cd allows for 1 use of q while w is active.

im curious about how beefy should should be with a build like this. 35 percent cdr and q procs trin force like nobodies business in ranged form.

Im gonna think of a fair e and r before i proceed with modifying an suggestions are helpful

LongFur FoxJan 16, 20151 votes

If you are still doing this... And i assume you are then a good suggestion i think would be to make her ranged form her ult. This way you can guarantee she will not spam it due to long cd for free and you get the benefit that it can be really strong.

Affinity2Jan 16, 20151 votes

[{quoted}](name=LongFur Fox,realm=NA,application-id=A8FQeEA8,discussion-id=TlRcE1kr,comment-id=00030000,timestamp=2015-01-16T03:06:24.258+0000)

If you are still doing this... And i assume you are then a good suggestion i think would be to make her ranged form her ult. This way you can guarantee she will not spam it due to long cd for free and you get the benefit that it can be really strong.

I am still doing this. im just concerned that its been done before. but your right perhaps it makes her simpler and easier to balance. although i feel a high impact high damage ult fits her stalwart personality a little better. maybe theres a way i can fit in both

LongFur FoxJan 16, 20151 votes

Well since all her abilities change when she is in "ulti mode" her e could technically go from a hard cc to a high damage nuke (she needs the hard cc to pose a threat in lane unless her ult mode can outright kill ranged champions with low risk of them escaping)

Affinity2Jan 16, 20151 votes

[{quoted}](name=LongFur Fox,realm=NA,application-id=A8FQeEA8,discussion-id=TlRcE1kr,comment-id=0003000000000000,timestamp=2015-01-16T11:47:59.777+0000)

Well since all her abilities change when she is in "ulti mode" her e could technically go from a hard cc to a high damage nuke (she needs the hard cc to pose a threat in lane unless her ult mode can outright kill ranged champions with low risk of them escaping)

I kinda agree and there really isnt a high impact ranged transformation outside of gnar thats used as an ulti. ill see what i can do. ill have to rethink the melee ranged theme entirely if i go off of this.

on another note maybe just the pushback for ranged form and single target nuke (call it resolute strike or something) without the %Hp stun.

i think the ulti sort of gives her shyvana syndrome where now u have a lane pattern and then just a teamfight ulti which tends to be not as interesting.

furthermore its alot harder to make the ranged form not create odd optimizations and unintentionally difficult item choices due to short duration of carry potential then immediately falling into a higher risk pattern.

For example the reason why gnar works is because his range form is considered the risk (that percent hp damage always helps though) and his melee form is the carry pattern allowing gnar to minimize his ranged risk by building full tank allowing him to at least transform once every engagement without fear of exploding before that.

LongFur FoxJan 16, 20151 votes

Agreed but what you are stating here as problems would also be the case if the ranged form was on her w since you gave it a rather high costs and long semi long downtime after it is finished (unless you get a lot of cdr).

Saying all this i probably should remind you that i am not all too keen on this whole idea and i think some very minor gameplay changes and heavy visual changes would be enough to make use of her theme and make her as healthy as riot is willing to admit a bruiser (or any melee toplaner) can be. That said the reason i am here is to point out weaknesses of what you do and get this rework in an optimal shape.

Affinity2Jan 16, 20151 votes

[{quoted}](name=LongFur Fox,realm=NA,application-id=A8FQeEA8,discussion-id=TlRcE1kr,comment-id=000300000000000000000000,timestamp=2015-01-16T17:51:56.615+0000)

Agreed but what you are stating here as problems would also be the case if the ranged form was on her w since you gave it a rather high costs and long semi long downtime after it is finished (unless you get a lot of cdr).

Saying all this i probably should remind you that i am not all too keen on this whole idea and i think some very minor gameplay changes and heavy visual changes would be enough to make use of her theme and make her as healthy as riot is willing to admit a bruiser (or any melee toplaner) can be. That said the reason i am here is to point out weaknesses of what you do and get this rework in an optimal shape.

To be fair a 9 sec cooldown feels like an intended weakness a 30 second cooldown to access a kit you build for is just frustrating. I understand and appreciate the input i think im gonna change the e around a bit. The ult im gonna post from rog when i get home.

With that being said i feel like the playpattern i came up with seems pretty fun good highs and lows and would be useful imo obviously some number tuning is needed. This idea prob wont ever go through but im gonna post the final idea to the board with some concept art

bloodmothJan 16, 20151 votes

She psychically controls her blades right? she should have gameplay that reflects that. currently her kit is very generic. dash, steroid, stun. personally i dont think that she has any gameplay hooks that make her unique, just stats really. Passive -> tenacity Q -> dash W-> stats (more damage/lifesteal) E-> conditional stun, slow damage. Ult-> rapid fire skillshot, 4 charges The only interesting ability is her ult. the rest of her kit is, mostly, power without gameplay. Id say she needs a huge gameplay rework to carve her out a niche.

I like the idea of mediium -> close range champ, utilizing her blades range before engaging when a favorable opportunity presents itself. one idea i have that works on this is making her ult a regular core ability that holds 4 charges and they regen at a set rate. when you hit an enemy with them the blade sticks into the target, max 4 blades stuck in, then when you Q into the enemy they Either take extra damage or get CD reset, just 2 ideas.

W and E can just get completely replaced, they arent very interesting. ditto to her passive. She could use a damage avoidance ability, her blades can form a shield fairly well, would look look and feel badass IMO.

I guess she needs some direction, she fills no real role, she doesnt really have any niche, which i dont think is too bad, having universal champs can be a good thing, but she has such a unique thematic i really feel like she needs unique gameplay to compliment it

LongFur FoxJan 17, 20151 votes

As the part time problem finder of this thread i seem to have become i thought i would give my opinion on this:

{quoted}

She psychically controls her blades right? she should have gameplay that reflects that. currently her kit is very generic. dash, steroid, stun. personally i dont think that she has any gameplay hooks that make her unique, just stats really.

The next part is analysis and might be a bit boring.... (sorry) The problem with melee champions who can't jungle is that they need a way to survive lane against ranged champions. This involves either being able to shrug of their damage (this falls heavily into the "wet noodle fight" problem), being able to get a reliable number of farm through ranged abilities (such as zed's shuriken or mundo's cleaver), or have kill preassure (irelia falls into this categori as does most top lane bruisers). To fall into the last categori a champion needs a way to get on top of or deal damage to their opponent. This either requires their spells to be semi ranged and then they typically can just use them to farm from range or have a gap closer as most bruisers do. When a bruiser then gets close to their target they either need burst, hard cc, or a huge slow to keep the target in range while they kill them. If they have none of these they end up having a hard time actually killing anything.

With this lets look at irelia's abilities:

Passive -> tenacity Q -> dash W-> stats (more damage/lifesteal) E-> conditional stun, slow damage. Ult-> rapid fire skillshot, 4 charges The only interesting ability is her ult. the rest of her kit is, mostly, power without gameplay. Id say she needs a huge gameplay rework to carve her out a niche.

I like the idea of mediium -> close range champ, utilizing her blades range before engaging when a favorable opportunity presents itself. one idea i have that works on this is making her ult a regular core ability that holds 4 charges and they regen at a set rate. when you hit an enemy with them the blade sticks into the target, max 4 blades stuck in, then when you Q into the enemy they Either take extra damage or get CD reset, just 2 ideas.

W and E can just get completely replaced, they arent very interesting. ditto to her passive. She could use a damage avoidance ability, her blades can form a shield fairly well, would look look and feel badass IMO.

Q: Irelia's gapcloser might even be one of the more interesting point and click gapclosers as it got counterplay elements for the opponent and when combined with her ultimate can be used to make #LCSbigplays as the irelia player. Arguing that her gapcloser should go because it is generic more about its animation than anything else i would say and could be made better by having her ride her blade like a surf board when she uses it or just take your suggestion with the ult (though teleporting to her blades does not really fit in her theme either). W: Most champions who fight huge battles alone or typically are in the midst of battle are given some kind of sustain. Or at least that was the case with older champions and even some newer ones (irelia, xin, sion, aatrox etc.). The true damage i can understand hardly fits but almost all bruisers has and needs some damage steoroid to win trades top lane and actually have kill pressure. Jax has his passive and his ult passive, xin his q and w, vi her w, and so on. Changing it to something other than true damage however could be a thing. E: As i said in the analysis a hard cc is needed for a bruiser or anyone who want kill pressure on ranged champions in lane and the comeback mechanic ties well into her story. The animation team could do good working in updateing it and have blades pin her target down or swarm around it though. R: Well we agree here at least though i do think it could be a bit more showy and combining it with her q as you suggest would be an awesome upgrade.

I guess she needs some direction, she fills no real role, she doesnt really have any niche, which i dont think is too bad, having universal champs can be a good thing, but she has such a unique thematic i really feel like she needs unique gameplay to compliment it

I think she fills a very real role which is why she keeps going in and out of meta. She fills the role of one the few (if not only) bruiser toplaners that can effectively lane against ranged champions without regularly getting behind.