Irelia is one of the strongest mid lane champions in season 13 of League of Legends. She has an insane amount of durability, damage, mobility, and utility. Irelia can easily carry a game 1v9 if you play her correctly.
But what kind of items should you build on her?
And is Irelia an AP or an AD champion in LoL? Does Irelia do more magic or physical damage? Does Irelia’s passive scale with AP? How do you play and build Irelia AP?
I’ll answer all of these questions in this post!
Is Irelia AP or AD?
Irelia is an AD fighter. She uses basic attacks and AD-based abilities to deal mostly physical damage. Irelia favors attack damage fighter items such as Blade of the Ruined King and Immortal Shieldbow.
Irelia has AP ratios too, but no one builds Irelia full AP in ranked.
Irelia’s build rarely changes in season 13. Most people go for the optimal combination of runes and items that has the highest win ratio on each patch.
And this means that, currently, the best way to play Irelia is to take Conqueror as a keystone and Immortal Shieldbow as a mythic item.
Besides her auto-attacks, the main source of damage for Irelia is her Q – Bladesurge. This ability allows Irelia to dash to her target, dealing physical damage in the process. And if the target dies, the cooldown of Bladesurge resets.
But since basic attacks are a core part of Irelia’s playstyle, she has to build AD items to increase her overall damage. Her passive – Ionian Fervor grants bonus attack speed each time she auto-attacks.
And at 5 stacks, Irelia deals bonus magic damage!
And this leads me to my next point – how does magic damage fit into Irelia’s champion design?
Read Also: Full AP Jax Build Guide
Does Irelia Scale with AP?
Besides attack damage, Irelia scales with ability power too. Each spell in Irelia’s kit with the exception for her Q has an AP ratio. In fact, Irelia’s passive, E, and R abilities are magic damage and not physical.
So if you build Irelia full AP, these abilities will do some serious damage.
AP Irelia isn’t such a crazy idea once you take a look at her damage numbers and ratios. 40% AP scaling on W, 80% on E, and 70% on R is actually huge for this kind of champion. Given a few AP items, Irelia’s E and ult can one-shot an enemy ADC.
Does Irelia’s passive scale with AP?
Irelia’s passive does NOT scale with AP even though it does magic damage and not physical. The base damage of this ability grows with each level and it only has 20% bonus AD ratio.
But if you buy items like Void Staff, you’ll improve this magic damage.
Depending on how well you aim your E and R, AP Irelia can be a very fun playstyle. I recommend you try the build in normal or ARAM games to see how you like.
One fun fact about playing AP Irelia is that if you have 450 ability power or more, your W – Defiant Dance will reach 100% physical damage reduction.
And if Zed, for example, attacks you, you’ll be completely immune to his damage for 1.5 seconds. Even better than Zhonya’s Hourglass!
So, here’s my full AP Irelia build!
Read Also: Akali AD Bruiser Build Guide
AP Irelia – Runes & Items
Here are the best runes for playing AP Irelia:
- Electrocute – deals bonus adaptive damage when you strike an enemy champioon 3 times in quick succession.
- Sudden Impact – grants you magic penetration when you use Irelia’s Q.
- Eyeball Collection – gives you bonus AP passively.
- Ultimate Hunter – lowers the cooldown of your ultimate by a significant amount.
- Presence of Mind – restores a portion of your mana when you score a kill or an assist.
- Coup de Grace – allows you to deal more damage to enemies below 40% HP.
Dark Harvest is also a good keystone for playing AP Irelia if you just want to have some fun. The more souls you collect the more damage your abilities will do.
And it’s definitely more useful for late game than Electrocute. But if that sounds like a drag, let Electrocute be your go-to rune.
Here are the best item build for playing AP Irelia:
- Riftmaker – increaes your overall magic damage and grants you bonus true damage too.
- Nashor’s Tooth – gives you more AP, attack speed, and another on-hit effect.
- Lich Bane – synergizes with the rest of your ability and Irelia’s kit.
- Zhonya’s Hourglass – allows you to play agressively and shield yourself against any type of damage.
- Rabadon’s Deathcap – greatly increases your total ability power.
- Mercury’s Treads – grants you magic penetration and tenacity.
You can also play AP Irelia with Everfrost as a mythic item. Everfrost will give you more CC and will make it easier for you to land your E.
But Riftmaker is a reliable mythic item too.
Read Also: Riven AP or AD – Guide
Conclusion
That’s Irelia’s damage in a nutshell. I hope this guide helped you understand how Irelia’s abilities deal damage, how they scale, and how they work in League of Legends.
Keep in mind that I’d still recommend playing AD Irelia in ranked, simply because of how powerful the build is.
But I’ll always play AP Irelia in normals and ARAM because it’s simply way too fun.
All in all, here are some links if you want to learn more about Irelia’s damage:
