Wild Rift Irelia guide: Best runes, items, tips and more

Patch 2.3 just arrived to League of Legends: Wild Rift, after a season full of teasers and the introduction of new champions and more skins into the mobile game, bringing more diversity to its expansive roster with nearly 70 characters available at the moment.

As part of this new update, four iconic champions from the realms of Runeterra will be making their debut in the Wild Rift, with two of these being now ready for pick along with the limited-time event Broken Blades, Riven and Irelia.

For this guide we will talk about Irelia, a fighter thrusted into the role of resistance leader and figurehead of Ionia, thanks to her training in the ancient dances of this nation, that let her use graceful and careful movements to levitate a host of deadly blades to protect her homeland, giving her the nickname of the Blade Dancer.

Irelia’s active and passive abilities

(Picture: Riot Games)

Thanks to her passive, Ionian Fervor, whenever Irelia hits enemies with her abilities, she will gain additional stacking attack speed. At maximum stacks, she will also gain bonus damage on hit.

Let's move on to her active skills:

• Bladesurge: Irelia will dash towards a target to attack it, healing herself on impact. If the target is marked or killed by Bladesurge, its cooldown will restart.
• Defiant Dance: Irelia charges an attack that deals more damage the longer she charges it. She also takes reduced physical damage during the charge.
• Flawless Duet: Irelia sends two blades which converge on each other. Enemies hit by them take damage, in addition to being stunned and marked.
• Ultimate - Vanguard's Edge: Irelia throws a large number of blades that explode outward after hitting an enemy champion. Enemies hit by the blades will take damage and be marked. The blades then form a wall, dealing damage and slowing champions that pass through it.

Runes and spells recommended for Irelia

• Conqueror: Triggers on successful skill combos and trades, dealing bonus damage to affected enemies and increasing her burst damage.
• Brutal: Grants bonus attack damage and armour penetration.
• Second Wind: Increases health regeneration having a doubled effect on melee champions. Also, after taking damage from an enemy champion, it regenerates a portion of your missing health.
• Hunter - Genius: Grants additional ability haste for each unique takedown.

Being played in both the Baron and the mid lanes, her summoner spells are an easy selection for her aggressive playstyle and unmatchable mobility:

• Flash: Allows you to have more offensive options when entering combat, in addition to serving as an escape tool.
• Ignite: Use it as a tool to finish off enemies in case they want to escape with low health and to prevent strong healing effects from your enemies.

The best items for Irelia

Her itemization will be focused on maximizing his damage stats, increasing her offensive stats and burst damage to the limit, by buying artifacts with lots of damaging passives to make your opponent’s life a nightmare, but also letting you escape easily in case the battle is not in your favour.

• Blade of the Ruined King: Increases damage and attack speed, plus its passive allows you to inflict additional physical damage on each hit based on the enemy's current health. As a bonus, it allows you to steal your enemy's movement speed.
• Trinity Force: Its passives increase her explosive damage, in addition to granting her additional movement speed and attack speed.
• Sterak's Gage: Grants additional health and a passive shield, which gives Renekton an advantage in fights, allowing him to stay in fight longer with a great chance of emerging victorious.
• Death’s Dance: Converts a percentage of the damage taken into delayed damage, giving you more room to be in the fight along with his physical omnivampirism.
• Guardian Angel: Its revive effect allows you to fully attack squarely, without risking giving away a kill along the way.

To complete her build, you can choose between the Plated Steelcaps or the Mercury's Treads depending on the enemy comp, both with Teleport Enchant, and you can change some of the items of the main build for the Maw of Malmortius, Mortal Reminder, or Youmuu’s Ghostblade, based on what you need for the game.

Tips for Irelia’s playstyle

Irelia is a champion known for her great speed when attacking and moving towards the enemy thanks to the power of her dozens of blades, which gives her incomparable dexterity when facing a single opponent, as well as against an entire team at the same time.

The effectiveness of Irelia's abilities will depend a lot on how you handle the last hits against minions, since these will give you a window of opportunity to maximize the stacks of her passive and reach the best possible damage potential.

For this, try to use her Bladesurge on the minions about to fall as soon as you notice it is possible to eliminate them. At all moments, try to check the amount of life remaining from the others around you so you can connect a streak with all of these, allowing you to get all the necessary stacks faster.

Once you have them (which you will notice by the brilliant effect of her blades), it is time to start attacking the enemy. Whenever you are within range, use your Flawless Duet so that you can take unsuspecting enemies by surprise and subdue them with basic attacks that will break any shield they activate easily.

In case you have the opportunity to finish some with low HP, or you see a teamfight close to you, do not hesitate to use the Vanguard's Edge as it will leave your opponents defenseless in addition to cutting them off with a good slowdown, leaving them to your mercy to slice them with your attacks or those of your allies.

Finally, in case you find yourself cornered or you simply want to finish off someone from a distance, you will have the Defiant Dance at hand that allows you to channel a charged attack, giving you a damage reduction, in addition to making you invulnerable to crowd control effects.

Using Irelia to perfection can take some time given the speed of her abilities, however once you have her mastered, you will be able to kill any opponent before they can even blink.

Don't forget to check out more champion guides, as well as new updates through our Wild Rift dedicated section.