Can you give me some Irelia tips? I'm going to attempt to learn Irelia, Ryze and Lulu for some champ diversity.
I find that Irelia loses to almost everyone at level 1-2. I just let people push me into turret and last hit there until I hit level 3.
I usually start flask+pots unless i'm against renekton/darius/jayce. You need cloth armour to survive these match ups and survive the early game.
Against melee and champs with no flash abilities at level 1, you want to take the stun(E) first. You never want to trade against these champs. A thing i've learnt is that when they hit you when you try and cs and you stun them, you usually win the trade from minion aggro. PLUS, the minions push into your turret so you have an easier time csing.
Against ranged or champs with flash abilities, you want to take Q first. Give up caster minions unless you can reset Q off it so you can get out if they start hitting you too much. You have to be unpredictable and try to use Q when the enemy is going for a cs so you don't take too much harrass. You want to Q to a minion and run back into the bush ASAP and you keep doing this. You should be able to use pots to stay on full hp during this time.
Note: this is probably the most difficult thing about irelia (along with estimating hp %s for stuns). If you misjudge your Q damage or your opponent's damage, you will die for your mistake. But it's just something you gotta get practice because it's the only way you will ever get cs when you aren't under tower. It's very hard to target irelia when she is resetting off an entire wave.
Only time you want to harass pre-6 is when you can get your stun off.
Try and auto a caster minion so it gets low but don't kill it. When your opponent comes to last hit, Q to the caster, E to stun and harass with W->autos. If the opponent bursts you for to much, feel free to Q back to a melee minion to get out and win the trade. If the opponent decides to run and not hit you back, feel free to Q into him to chase him out of lane. This is risky since youre a free feast for a jungle gank but if noone comes, you completely push them out of lane.
You never want to auto anything without your W up. Feel free to waste Q on a melee minion to get out of trouble if you find yourself in a bad position. Fighting without W up is simply suicide.
Also, phage ad + Q with the sheen proc should be able to one shot caster minions when you're level 9+ if you decide to take my rune page(that is, if you don't fall behind). So you can use this knowledge to abuse Irelia's Q reset and stun on the enemy when they go to cs.
The games where I shine are the ones where people go even in lane because Irelia mid-late game is an absolute terror if you know how to hit the stun and hold onto your Q to reset off minions when people run. No matter how badly you do in cs, you will most likely outscale your top lane oopponent in team fights because of Irelia's insane utility and damage to instantly kill ADCs and Mids.
There is almost never a time in the entire game where you need to initiate with a Q that you can't reset. Having Q up is the most important thing to Irelia's ability to survive/kite/continuously kill in teamfights. But if you need to use it to get to a fed champ that can be killed by a sheen proc, feel free to do it and soak up damage for your team to clean up.
In team fights, know that you can stun full hp targets when you are full hp yourself. What I usually do is just flashing onto the adc/mid to hit the stun when we are both full hp and kill them within the stun. This should be extremely easy to do with nothing but a triforce.
Just remember, never use Q for upfront damage AND ALWAYS save one ult proc when they do flash out. There have been so many times where I killed people with one ult proc after they flash
Since I know how crappy irelia's early game is, I take scaling armour and magic resist, ad reds, 1 ad quint and 2 AS quints. Play safe and become a team fighting or split pushing monster.
Build wise, I hate Botrk on irelia. I just go triforce, randuins, banshee, zephyr and GA/thornmail. And yeah, Triforce is enough to instantly kill adcs and mids for the entire game. Even when they are 6 itemed and level 18. Zephyr is there to make you unstoppable and give you the option to get even more tankier with ninja tabi
I don't find last whisper necessary but it's there for you if there's a malphite who goes thornmail against you.
R on Sona? Is she changed for the better? Worst? Is it still auras? That just seems too much for me to read.. (yes I'm that lazy).
