How to lane as Irelia?

Paniick·5/11/2015, 3:12:43 AM·2 votes·3,886 views

She is clearly a god in top lane but I CANNOT, I repeat CAN. NOT. Lane as that little bitch. I can never cs without taking way too much harass, I don't know how to get ahead in lane early on so that I have the easier time csing to get to trinity force. I just CANNOT do it. I always feed, I always lose, I don't get any cs at all. I start full pots and the damn crystalline flask but I still just get torturously poked down but yet when I'm in a lane against an Irelia the little c**t kills me like 5 times in lane. What the actual HELL am I doing wrong? It's pissing me off so bad!

7 Comments

Rew7115/11/2015, 3:37:17 AM1 votes

I think that ultimate got over nerfed cause it deals like no damage to me. It's a Corki ultimate with the same damage but longer cool down.

Simplicate5/11/2015, 3:51:46 AM1 votes

No idea what you are doing wrong since after you get Trinity Force you should be dominating lane and almost every other lane. Here are a few tips:

*If you are having a lot of trouble with surviving up top then I would suggest maxing E first so that you can escape easier. Maxing E also means that you are constantly pushing lane so make sure to ward too.

*If you are always pushed under tower then max W and use it constantly.

*This next tip is pretty universal but if someone pokes you and they DONT have a hugh group of their minions behind them make sure to trade back so that they don't dive you.

*Use your ult whenever you can if you either A) Have a big wave to clear or B) Need to get some harass onto the enemy DONT save it for later.

WalkingInACircle5/11/2015, 4:09:37 AM1 votes

Irelia's basic strategy is to endure harass early to build up a few levels, then come back with teleport and use a leveled Hiten Style and new toys to dominate.

If you're trying to get ahead in your lane early, you're doing it wrong. She needs a leveled Hiten Style to power spike, more than she needs a Trinity Force.

ZergReap5/11/2015, 5:38:00 AM1 votes

Irelia is my favorite and best champ and I would love to help. It's the only champ I feel I truely understand everything about (AKA who I can or cannot fight at any given time, etc). There is a lot of things that could be going wrong for you. I play the lane phase the same almost every single time and come away with a solo kill or a big advantage at lvl 6.

Lvl 1-3 you really don't want to fight anyone, and there is no point to fight them. Your kill pressure would rely almost purely on a huge misplay by your opponent. She sucks early. It is more important to farm and not die to ganks. I usually avoid trading, take the beating and let them shove me under my turret (which is fine because of Q you won't miss cs). A trade during lvls 1-3 would be them engaging with you retaliating with a stun -> AA -> and backing off. You'll win these from them being stunned in your creep aggro. You will have to retaliate and take bad trades because if you never fight back at all they will take note and abuse that. When you are hyper zoned early game (TY Darius Renekton ) Q to last hit a creep and stun if they go in on you. Ideally you want to back for item 3057 item 2044 , but if you had to leave sooner item 1036 item 1028 is fine, just less kill pressure.

You need to decide if you are going to max W or E for your matchup. Both are very viable and I end up spreading the points out depending on how the lane goes. In general you want to max E vs champs that are hard to stick too and are more bursty Riven Gnar and max W for easier match ups / sustain battles Vladimir DrMundo .

Your Q is only used for last hitting. It is not something you want to waste just for a little extra damage. Hold onto it for as long as possible in an all in fight. Use it to dash to a minion that is low while they are on top of it for a free gap closer. or to get out of a fight. There are lots of tricks to learn.

Now we are both back in lane with lvl 6. At this point with item 3057 you are extremely strong. Go for a trade where you make sure to stun with E. If you do get to land the stun use your ult, but the key is to not spam it all at once. Don't be stingy with your ult on Irelia. Space them out to get more sheen procs unless you need the healing quickly in a close fight. There's not many champs who will win the trade. You have saved your Q to chase after they blow their gapcloser / flash. At this point a flash auto will finish them if necessary.

Just play normal games and try it, eventually you will be surprised at how much damage you actually do. If consistently die multiple times in lane you will also need to improve general lane mechanics, but you gotta start somewhere.

Survive lane until you have 1200 gold for Sheen
be lvl 6
Set yourself up to stun them (Be lower %hp)
All in after stun

Lot's of people say Irelia is op which may or may not be true, but the impact she has on the game can be insane in the right hands. Once you have item 3078 You want to tp to the fights that will happen (every single game) near the bot lane / dragon area. Always try to get the top tower quickly so that you could walk down to dragon instead and have TP to save your turret if needed. Basically, you want to fight 3v3 5v5 or whatever at this point because this is your strongest point in the game unless you are getting really fed. The impact you will have in fights can make up for your under fed adc / mid laner. Only go top to split push the tier two tower or shove lane (don't be afraid to use ulti to clear big waves).

I get item 3110 as a second item 90% of the time. Irelia as a champion scales with cooldown reduction and attack speed mainly. Building flat AD just isn't ideal. Even when fed there is no reason to rush more damage items right away. When you are snowballing hard getting tank stats makes you insane. Not many champions can do that much damage while being hard to kill.

My typical full item build

item 3078 item 3110 item 3065 item 3143 item 3153 item 3111

If you want I would be happy to talk more about it or maybe even spectate you for tips! I am not an undefeated challenger player, but I've had much success in ranked.

Hasztalan25/11/2015, 11:40:08 AM1 votes

learn how to play passive farming style until lvl5 where she hits her first powerspike thats all. She is not the champ who will get the first blood.

colesy5/11/2015, 6:38:08 PM1 votes

laning as irelia revolves pretty much entirely around how you handle your E and your spellblade procs (when you get a sheen).

for ranged match ups it may be worth starting q so you can last hit, for melee match ups it's worth starting e. then level 2 you just pick up the other with w at level 3 (not really worth using W until at least level 5 since it does absolute jack shit early and irelia guzzles mana when you play aggressive).

to trade in lane, stun with e, autoattack once then back off. if they want to trade back you can just hit them again and they'll be taking creep aggro which is pretty damn painful at the low levels. q you normally want to use to last hit minions, but a tactic you can use is to q a low health minion and then e your opponent getting the stun off if your hp is equal. it also resets your q cooldown so if you need to escape off of a creep or whatever you still can. it can be worth using your q on a champion in extended trades too. for example, you could q to a minion, e the champion, auto attack and q again and the burst of damage will probably scare them off a bit. works better post-6 since you can apply serious damage at that point.

sheen is probably your biggest power spike in lane and handling the spellblade procs and playing around its cooldown is what will win you trades. at this point, e + auto becomes a whole lot stronger thanks to the extra damage, and if you're 6 then each of your ult charges can proc the spellblade so it's definitely worth not just firing off all of your ult charges immediately. your best bet is probably firing two, your sheen comes up and you can fire off another and then if still trading your last charge can fire off too. q'ing a champion will also immediately apply the spellblade too.

another thing to note as well is that when chasing champions, don't just right click on them, right click and then actually move yourself towards them immediately so that they don't create as much distance between you. later on in game, doing that and having access to the rage on phage/trinity, t2 boots, randuin slow and your stun/slow on E makes it extremely hard to escape from you. you can build zephyr too if you're ahead, want more chasing power and didn't buy merc treads.

one last thing is altering your build path if necessary. this isn't ADC where you go IE > PD > LW > BT > BV/GA every game. if you're getting dumped in lane, you can rush phage or its components for extra survivability, you can rush spectre's cowl against AP (it builds in to SV/BV later on anyway so it's a good buy since you can complete it later), or you could buy warden's mail/chain vest versus an AD who is destroying you. that plus phage gives you extra HP and armour to survive lane, plus of course they both build in to trinity and randuin/frozen heart so again, they're good items to pick up since you finish them later. this works so nicely with irelia since if you max W you're still increasing your damage without investing much in to actual damage items if you start building defensively early on. of course it will make you miss your trinity spike at the 13-20 minute mark, but if it's the difference between going 0/3 in lane and going 0/0 and just being a little behind in items, i'd just do it.