League of Legends AMA Answers Questions About Irelia's Rework, Scrapped Abilities

Now that Irelia has had some time to show off her new blades on Summoner’s Rift, Riot Games is [...]

By Tanner Dedmon

League of Legends Irelia Rework
(Photo: Riot Games)

Now that Irelia has had some time to show off her new blades on Summoner's Rift, Riot Games is fielding all the questions League of Legends players have come up with regarding the champion's rework.

Released in League's latest patch, Irelia's update gave the champ a new set of abilities along with an updated model and skins. As players would expect following the release of a new champion or a rework, Riot Games opened an Ask Me Anything (AMA) thread on Reddit to welcome players' questions.

Not all of her abilities made it through to the final version though with Riot Games listing one such ability that didn't make the cut. Instead of the cage-like ultimate that Irelia currently has with her Vanguard's Edge ability, she almost had an ability that sounded visually similar to the old ultimate but with a different effect.

"Early on she had an R that allowed her to fire a wave of blades for 3 seconds or something. (Didnt follow her, just in the direction and spot she originally cast it in)" said Riot Solcrushed, the champion designer who worked on Irelia's update. "And this 'blade stream' knocked enemies back. Was cool thematically, ended being a support spell."

The scrapped abilities question is a staple in AMAs like these along with other inquiries looking to find out about any strange bugs that occurred when reworking Irelia. When asked about the bugs, Riot Rainslight, a capture artist with Riot Games, posted the video below while saying that the team wasn't really sure what went wrong when they were trying to create Irelia's trailer.

For those who have already played as the new Irelia, you may have also noticed that her auto attacks feel fairly smooth. Riot Games' JaasoH, an animator who worked on Irelia, said that the decision to make smooth out the auto attacks was entirely intentional with the goal of making her moves feel more like a dance.

"Irelia's attacks are in a way a form of a dance. Her main motions are designed to be smooth and flowing with each strike," the Rioter said. "Her blades on the other hand are fast and violent with some 'snap' so it feels good for gameplay. On a technical level, Irelia currently has two states for autoattacking depending on how close she is to the opponent. Her attacks also cycle through said autoattack 'dance' with each attack you hit on the opponent. Left. Right. Left. Right. Each attack ALSO has a unique transition to her running and idle animations so on her spin kick attack for example, she has a jumping spin recovery. There's a lot going on with Irelia when she's cracking skulls and she has 40+ unique animations I think."

Players' questions are still being answered in the AMA, so expect many more interesting Irelia facts to emerge by the time the session is finished.

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