Irelia, both before and after her rework, has been closely associated with the solo lane position in League of Legends due to her enormous damage output and strong dueling capabilities. However, this champion has always relied on a few key items to truly shine, making the idea of taking Irelia into the jungle seem nearly impossible. Yet, one gamer has discovered the opposite of what many believe – Irelia can clear all 6 jungle camps in just 2 minutes without any assistance, an astonishing speed.
One little-known fact about Irelia’s passive, Ionian Fervor, is that when she auto-attacks a large monster, the duration of the stacks will refresh. Therefore, Irelia’s jungle path differs from many other champions by using abilities on smaller jungle monsters, and then when the passive stacks are close to expiring, she auto-attacks the large monster instead of using Smite to take it down as quickly as possible.
For the runes, of course, Conqueror is still the most suitable, but this is Irelia jungle and the minor runes need to support jungle farming instead of lane pressure as usual. The odd stat points will be attack speed, AD, armor, and the next notable rune will be Legend: Attack Speed, with the secondary tree taking Ravenous Hunter. The starting item will be Hunter’s Machete as you’ll be auto-attacking a lot, and this item is the best.
Next is the most important part – the jungle path with Irelia. The special feature of this playstyle is that you do not start at the large buff but at the Wolf camp. The reason is that you will accumulate the most passive stacks with the least health while clearing this camp, thus greatly increasing your jungle speed.
To clear the Wolf camp, auto-attack each small wolf 3 times, then use Q – Bladesurge consecutively on those 2 small wolves (as this skill resets on kills). After that, you will immediately Q the large wolf to gain 3 passive stacks, auto-attack until you clear that camp.
After finishing the Wolf camp, quickly level up E, then stun the Blue Buff and use Q twice to maintain your passive stacks. If you can kite well, you will almost take no damage when clearing the Blue Buff due to its slow movement and your fast attack speed.
Do the same for the Gromp camp, but this jungle monster deals significantly more damage than the Blue Buff, so you need to save Smite to quickly take it down. Then you will level up W to clear the Raptors as fast as possible.
Continue moving to the Raptors, this is the most challenging part of this jungle path. You need to auto-attack once on the nearest bird, then back up a bit to pull the camp towards you and use E to hit all monsters. When you back up, the monsters will line up behind you, and you need to use E on that line. Then cast W and unleash it on all monsters.
You need to Q the large bird with the mark, then auto-attack once on the bird you hit first, then Q it again to immediately reset your skill. After that, auto-attack twice on the small birds and Q them to reset your skill, and continue repeating until you clear the small birds. Then use Q and auto-attacks to finish off the large bird.
Clearing the Red Buff is similar to the Blue Buff, however, you need to use W to tank a bit since the Red Buff moves much faster and you will take more damage clearing this camp. For the Golem camp, it is easier than the Raptors; first, E to hit both monsters, then Q the large golem to reset your Q, using W to tank some of the initial hits. Next, continuously auto-attack between the large and small golems to maximize the damage from the red buff.
When the large golem is almost dead, Q it to reset your skill, then continue to Q the small golems that spawn as they have very low health. After that, everything should be easy as you will heal a lot from the small golems killed by Q.
The key to this jungle path is to leverage the high attack speed from the passive and the instant healing and cooldown reset from Q – Bladesurge while maintaining passive stacks when hitting medium and large monsters. Naturally, to complete the jungle route at the fastest speed, you must practice quite a bit as Irelia’s skillset can be challenging to master and understand. If you’re not quite comfortable yet, the best advice is to practice more before taking it into battle.
