AD Irelia: From Bruiser to Assassin
A look at AD Irelia and the differences in play style and build from Irelia as a normal bruiser.
Irelia is a champion that has become somewhat prevalent in solo queue and professional play. While she is valued for her dueling potential and split push as well as backline threat another variation of Irelia has made its way to the surface. This play style and build was first brought to my attention by the pro player Ray of Apex Gaming and that would be full AD Irelia. While Irelia does work very well as a bruiser split pusher, building full AD on her seems to fall more on her backline threat power so let’s examine this further.
As the game is starting the differences between bruiser Irelia and Ad Irelia have already made themselves known. While normal bruiser Irelia would rely on either Fervor of Battle or Grasp of the Undying, AD Irelia instead takes Thunderlord’s Decree. While bruiser Irelia can still get by on Thunderlord’s Decree she will usually take the others because they provide more in prolonged fights. AD Irelia however doesn’t have prolonged fights because her entire focus is on bursting people out 100 to 0. Building more AD will also scale better with Thunderlord’s Decree because Fervor of Battle and Grasp of the Undying scale more with tankiness. With all of these things in mind Thunderlord’s Decree is the best selection possible. With that said though, there is a small argument that can be made for Stormraider’s Surge, but the damage is almost always better.
Next we have AD Irelia’s build. Her build actually starts out almost exactly the same as normal Irelia, Trinity Force. Of course Irelia still wants a Trinity force, with her Bladesurge applying on-hit effects it is definitely always a core item on Irelia (except for the fringe purchase of Lichebane on AP Irelia but that is a whole different story). After Trinity Force is where things get different. Instead of Irelia going into tankiness or something like a Wit’s End or Blade of the Ruined King she will purchase Youmuu’s Ghostblade and further down the line she will get Duskblade of Draktharr. These two items become to core of Irelia’s 100 to 0 burst potential. With the armor penetration and movement speed granted by both items as well as the high AD they work together to turn the bruiser Irelia into more of an AD assassin. After these two items her build gets more flexible, she can either move towards getting an off tank item like Maw of Malmortius or Sterak’s Gage and any other items that will help her either blow up a squishy or survive long enough to do so.
With all of this in mind though, is it really worth while to go AD Irelia instead of bruiser? Upon further examination I would say that bruiser Irelia does win out slightly. While AD Irelia can completely annihilate the backline, Irelia does this pretty well just being semi tanky, AD Irelia will not be able to fight full tank champions like bruiser would and bruiser is definitely still a threat to the backline. If however the question is “Are there situation where AD Irelia is better?” then the answer would definitely be yes. Having the power to 100 to 0 someone in an instant rather than over a period of let’s say five second is a huge difference. If you want to kill a squishy target killing them instantly prevents any possible counterplay from their team in response or them. While bruiser Irelia is still a backline threat but AD Irelia can instantly eliminate a possible threat before a fight even starts.
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The biggest point of contention though is how to position with Irelia if you go one way or the other. Irelia as a bruiser can be a frontline or flanking champion. AD Irelia doesn’t want to do either of those. While flanking to catch someone else isn’t a bad strategy on AD Irelia, the chances of the enemy team reacting in time to your attempted assassination goes up much higher. Frontline is just out of the question. AD Irelia can’t absorb much damage from the enemy so where you want to sit when grouping with your team is somewhere in the middle where you can follow your tanks into the fight, but not be the first one going in. Other than that, you want to focus more on wandering around trying to find an enemy by themselves. Most non-tank champions AD Irelia should be able to kill instantly so unless you are against a meatball comp you shouldn’t have any trouble. Focus more on not getting caught yourself while catching out others and you’ll be the terror of your team.
When alls said and done the way you play Irelia is completely up to you. While having an off tank on your team can be important, sometimes it’s important to eliminate that one target on the enemy team that’s keeping them in there. Bruiser Irelia and AD both have their pros and cons but doing what your team needs you to do is the important part. Even if your team needs AP you could always go AP Irelia (though I do not recommend it) and playing towards what your team needs is one of the better ways to play League of Legends.
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