Right on schedule, Riot has released the official pre-patch skill list for the newest champion, Irelia. Her skill list looks interesting, and has the potential to be viable in the jungler, which would be a nice addition to the league.
Here’s what we’re looking at:
Bladesurge: Irelia dashes forward to strike her target. If it kills the target, Bladesurge’s cooldown refreshes and half the mana cost is refunded.
Hiten Style: Irelia is skilled in the art of Hiten, passively giving her physical attacks health restoration. Activating Hiten Style adds true damage to her physical attacks for a short duration.
Equilibrium Strike: Irelia’s attack balances the scales, dealing damage and slowing the target. However, if the target has a higher Health % than Irelia, then the blow stuns the target instead.
Transcendent Blades (Ultimate): Irelia summons four spirit blades which she can fling at her enemies. These blades deal magic damage to enemies that they pass through, siphoning life from them and healing Irelia.
Ionian Fervor (Passive): Each nearby enemy champion (to a maximum of three) reduces the effectiveness of Crowd Control on Irelia.
Definitely an interesting passive, though I wonder how useful it will be. In a teamfight situation, it’s rare for CC to be the thing that actually kills a melee DPS. The problem is usually being in the middle of the AOE-fest and taking more damage than you can handle. Building her as a tank could make the passive really interesting because she’d be think enough to withstand some burst and then able to make use of Equilibrium for some stuns.
Personally, I’ll be looking into her jungling capabilities first. Inherent lifesteal is always good, and the active on that skill could make it very easy to bring down the buff camps.
I’m also curious to see how that ult will work. From the wording, it sounds like you cast to summon the blades and then perhaps cast again to throw one at an enemy? Or do they all throw at once? Is it targeted or a skillshot?
My biggest concern for Irelia is that she’ll make Katarina obsolete. Kat already has a tough time in most games due to the prevalence of silences and stuns. Giving what sounds like a similar character a slow/stun, true damage, lifesteal, and Kat’s dash ability could take Kat off the radar for most players.
