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Irelia, something im missing?

Zero De Nosh·11/14/2014, 4:15:06 AM·0 votes·1,086 views

So i been playing Irelia for a few days and im having so much trouble playing her "well". See my issue is that:

1: Irelia seems to stream line. In which every thing she uses only seem to have one purpose with little to no side benefits. Example if you are Lee Sin you van jump to champs, minnions, ward, ect. But with Irelia you can only dash toward your target, meaning when you do it you have to commit to the action. Irelia has no escapes, no strong CC, so she can get ganked easy. Her slow/stun range is so close that you have, that you can risk putting yourself in a bad spot. The instant refresh on her dash is good, but she is so mana hungry you can't use it to farm even end game.

2: As a hybrid there are too many variables to how to build her. I have seen dozens of builds for her and still have no real answer beside, "rush triforce". There are several discussions over Armor piercing or Attack speed, Botrk or Blood thrister. I have never played a champ where there was such varied opinions on her. It would't be so bad if she wasnt so mana hungry, but even using the Ult to weakening minnions, and Q all over the place use why to much mana

3: She is a win or lose champ. Getting one kill behind with her seems like i will never catch up, i always behind in cs because the slight change in the opponents build is the deciding factor if i am hugging for the rest of the laning phase. If she is not 2-3 kill over the opponent, she mostly likely just trying not to die at tht point. If you solo push a lane late game and there is a champ in front of you and a champ behing your most likely going to die.

4: I can't figure out how to use her effectively in team fights. In team fights i find myself trying to isolate the carry(ies), but she never seems to have the burst capablities of champs like Yi, Kha Xix, or Rengar. It takes i a little to long to kill the champ so most the time, even if i kill the carry, i get kill myself. In the middle of team fight i have no escapes so i have to hope my team saves me. Even when im fed and have Triforce, Botrk, Guardian Angel, and Tobi Boots i can still get killed by 2 champs 3 level below me because they can burst me now.

5: I don't get her Ult and her passive. Her passive works like tenacity, and increase from 10/25/40% nullification depending on how many friendly champs are around her. The problem with this is that it feels useless. When solo laning or even jungling its just you so the most of the time the percent is 10%, that not a very good bonus for an assassin role champ. Even in team fight if the opposing team isn't heavy on CC it won't matter, and even if its heavy CC 40% isn't enough to keep champs from escapeing, or getting the advantage, it only really works if the whole team is chasing, which at that point your already winning. It remind me of that passive Xerath had where he got bonus armor, and you wondered by seeing as you would never make a 100% skill shot champ a tank. I don't understand Ult, like in general. It based mostly off of AP which almost no one build because only one of the quick use skill runs on AP. the heal she gets back is nearly unnoticable especially late game. It can chip away some health and be an ok late hit, but its a skill shot so you can miss. I wonder why the Ult doesn't have more to do with he being a melee champ, like a buff, spinning blades, movemnt speed, a sheild. Why give her a weak poke when the whole kit was about bursting down?

6: She feels like a single role champ. Hell i even support Xerath before, but she only seems to be able to do top lane well. She can jungle but it takes to long for her to clear and she has to be Lvl4 before she can gank. Beside that she can only gank is the lane as good CC or all she is doing is harassing. To many mid champs have CC, or can substain better than she can. Support, no. Adc, she has no range or defense from being hit. Unlike Yasuo who can wind wall and dash.

7: Even champs she counters seem to have a fighting chance. I played against champs that i read she counters and even they seem to have a fight chance. Only champs that she seems to counter are champs that are to be super tanks and thats only in early game. Champs like Garen, Volibear, Sing, and Shyvana, but thats it. Any champ with a stable range attack or a bit of CC complete wreaks her.

8: All she can do is kill. He sucks at pushing lanes, she sucks in a team fight, she sucks at initating, and defending. Best thing she can do is 1v1. And for an assassin/fighter she is so slow! like 410 movement speed eveb with T2 boots, and movement speed items.

By all means i am not a great player, hell i started in B2 and dropped into B5 only to push back up to B4. I would say that im a decent player i good with other champs (Vlad, thresh, zyra, mord, eve, Xerath and a few others). I might have played around 30 Irelia games and im losing my lane like 80% of the time, I think that i am playing her wrong, that maybe i should not CS i should just go for the kill. Don't push lanes looks for the carries and kill. But even when i kill the carry i end up getting steamrolled by the rest of the team. I like her play style (excluding the ult and passive), but some small changes would be nice. Maybe let her Q work on wards. Or Hiten style also does a small AOE burst. Or extend the range of her stun/slow a little. She basically like a spear to me, you throw it out, and if it doesn't kill you leave there hoping someone else will pick it up.

What do you guys think? Does she need to some work, or am i just way to inexperinced with her?

Please no rude comments...

7 Comments

Star Warden11/14/2014, 4:47:20 AM2 votes

You are inexperienced.

  1. This is an all in kill technique, use low health minions to jump around safely. I've seen plenty of Irelia jump to a low health minion to avoid damage then jump back to another to get to the target again, resetting it once again for when the opponent tries to escape.

  2. You are complaining about having options? Are you kidding me? Look at Gnar, the currently most unique top laner. He is ranged one second and melee another, his level 1 can be strong or his level 2 can dependent upon your opponent/skill choice/items. His lane phase spikes all over the place with so many variables in his build. We need good ways to have variation in our builds, while still balancing the champions that get these unique or variable builds. Options aren't bad, they are just giving you choices for every situation. Irelia does this very well.

  3. Irelia is also like rumble in her lane phase. One kill at any point gives her the edge she needs to make it back in, since she is guaranteed to farm well. Her Q ensures her farm, and her player ensures her kills. If she is losing lane she turret farms and waits until her targets get greedy, cocky, or make a mistake for her to capitalize upon giving her the chance for that comeback. She can then continue to farm safely, or take back the lead. One kill is basically all it takes for her to do REALLY well and snowball herself...in the hands of a skilled Irelia player.

  4. If you get trinity, which you almost ALWAYS should, you'll have the ability to kill the carry. (at least one) When you jump on the carry, wait for your health to be lower than theirs, then stun them, if they don't fight you at all, just walk next to them and kill them as you go, if they use their team, use yours and continue to screw the carry. Depends on how far behind you are if you should dive their team to kill their carry, but you can be behind by a good 2-3 items on Irelia and still kill the carry....usually. You need to also build tanky, so that you can survive. Even if you don't survive, killing the carry ensures that they aren't fighting or killing anyone else, so if your carries get peels from your team, they'll survive and continue to shred the team that killed you, cleaning up each fight, then pushing or doing dragon/baron.

  5. Think about it like this, tenacity doesn't stack....with items. Tenacity the passive on items, does not stack. Tenacity on items does work with the mastery....and her passive. So while other champs can only max out at a small amount of tenacity, Irelia has double or even triple that tenacity. Where a snare on someone with merc. treads will last 2 seconds, on Irelia it will only last .2 seconds. I've literally stunned Irelia and been completely surprised when the stun only last a tenth of a second then she just kills me. Tenacity mastery, passive, and an item mean that no cc will affect her long enough for her to be bothered in the slightest. Use this to your advantage and be sure you have all the options you can get. There are very few times when you'll want ninja tabi instead because of this tenacity.

  6. I wouldn't count her out of jungle, since the jungle changes may or may not make her viable. (I haven't looked at the upcoming changes) Irelia can mid as well, but her role is truly to be a bruiser. She isn't meant for supporting.

  7. Yeah, but have you played against HER counters? She can win against Jax and Ryze without much effort even though she is super hard countered by both. I think if you practice her more and try to think of all the theories you can come up with as to how she can win her trades/lanes you'll get to where you can beat these other champs.

  8. She is amazing at pushing. With a little damage behind her, she can kill most minions with her Q at about half health, add in your minions stacking up, and you can easily push things down. She isn't a true pusher, but she can do it well if you are willing to use your Q and use it correctly. She has lower move speed to balance out the whole tenacity thing I'd say, but like I said, don't use tabi.

Raja Chachki11/14/2014, 4:54:54 AM1 votes

Build Tri and another offensive item of ur choice, then go tank. As for in team fights, Irelia excels at tanking and stunning, while also being able to dish out damage. To me, she is not mana hungry, and she is usually always able to catch up, I say start Q, max W(I'm old-school like that), then max E or Q depending on match-up. I like building full damage Irelia from me to time, she really does well with AD and some AP.

Star Warden11/14/2014, 4:55:32 AM1 votes

Continued:

  1. She is melee, so she still will be faster than most ranged champs. Add in trinity and you get the phage movement passive and the zeal move passive so you should be fine on move speed. Maybe she just feels slow. Varus feels really slow to me, but his move speed is fine when I compare it to other champs in my matches.

Ult: I use this when the team is all piled on me to give me the sustain I need to finish of the carry before I go down, or to pick of the carry while they run away from me when I nearly kill them. It is also good to clear a wave and heal up depending on your masteries/build.

I think you just need more practice to be honest. Irelia and Gnar are what I would consider the strongest top lane champions right now, but what do I know? My duo partner has yet to lose his lane in the past 2 weeks (we may still lose the match, but he hard carries no matter what) by playing what most people consider one of the least viable champions for top lane, post lane phase, Aatrox.

I say practice her more, and practice using her Q to get close so you can engage, without placing it on cooldown. That alone will make a big difference. Also, if you really wanna learn her, I suggest watching Gbay99 on youtube or twitch, who is probably the most famous NA Irelia player, its basically all he plays unless he is requested to do otherwise on stream.

OhBoyItsaMegaman11/14/2014, 5:44:19 AM1 votes

Hi. I created a smurf to play only Irelia on. I played about 350 normals and 130 ranked since then, all of them as Irelia. I'm only Gold, but I can tell you a little.

  1. Irelia lacks escapes, yes, just like more than half the top lane champions. If you push out, you are gankable. You have your E to save you a little, and you can R backwards while running to gain some life back and hope to live, but for the most part you are relying on flash if you screw up and overextend without vision. The same can be said for a lot of other escapeless champs like Pantheon, Fiora, Darius, Nasus, Olaf, etc. This is just a drawback to live with.

  2. Mana problems early, yes. I haven't experienced mana problems later, but you do have to be careful during the early laning phase. Sheen/Tri helps a little with the small mana pool. Flask is viable start for her and that will help with the mana too. You really don't want Armor Pen or Bloodthirster for her because the AD component of her autoattacks isn't really worth enhancing. Life steal is also bad because her W true damage doesn't apply life steal. Generally you will want to build very tanky after finishing Trinity Force.

  3. Hugging your tower is fine. You're safer there, as long as you're not continuing to take damage so that the enemy jungler can come dive you. Irelia farms very well under turret due to the emergency Q for difficult last hits and the W damage boost. Against lanes that you anticipate losing, let them push. Farm and beat them later when you hit your strong point. If you are solo pushing, there shouldn't be an enemy champion coming up behind you. That's why we ward.

  4. Irelia shines in teamfights; you just need to pay attention to the whole fight and be prepared to make use of all her abilities appropriately. If you dive onto a Corki and attempt to finish him yourself as he easily Valkyries away and start kiting you, that's not going to turn out well. In some cases, you want to dive on that adc to scare them off, then lay down some general damage on whoever's the next best target. In other cases, you want to hold the front line until there's an opportunity to slap your considerable stun onto a key target and help your team burst them down. There's a lot you can do with her.

  5. Her passive works off of enemy champions nearby, not friendly, but whatever. Great for surviving teamfights. Her ult can be used in lane for quite a bit of damage and healing. If you land all 4 hits, it deals as much as a single-champ Fiora ult, while healing you a massive amount if an enemy creep wave is present. In later duels and teamfights, it allows you to proc Trinity Force several times if you're patient (don't fire off all 4 blades at once).

  6. She's fine mid. Many mid champions do not have large health pools and very few of them favor building health (instead of Grail, Zhonyas, Cutlass, DFG). Her true damage annihilates them. She's a troll support but I've done it (and generally do fine).

  7. A counter is only a counter if you understand the matchup. It means nothing to counterpick without knowing why you're a counter.

  8. She isn't a great split pusher but she typically runs teleport which allows her to go push but with the potential to TP in and join her team. She definitely doesn't suck in teamfights. I think she is less effective if you focus on just one part of her kit. She has a lot of versatility. Amumu needs to Bandage Toss into a group and ult. Poppy needs to ult the support and dive the carry. Ashe needs to initiate with ult and stutterstep around at max distance focusing the nearest target. Everyone has a clearly defined thing they're trying to accomplish in a teamfight, but Irelia has options. When you use her enough to understand those options and choose the best one, you'll start to see her strength.