Does Cho counter Irelia or am I just playing Irelia wrong? I can dominate or at least farm evenly against most opponents in top lane as Irelia, but Cho always seems to get the better of me. If I go into the creeps to farm I get worn down by spikes, silences, and the occasional knockup that I fail to dodge, and if I sit back then I get owned in cs. Help plz.

Dodge that slow ass Rupture, its easy as hell since you can dodge to a minion or just walk out of it... if you dodge a few, he's out of mana. His spikes just go straight from the angle he attacks at and don't do a ton of damage unless he levels them or build tons of AP. Many times, the best way to go against Cho'gath or anybody you have problems against is to start with Regrowth Pendant and laugh as you heal back their harass amazingly well... Works pretty well considering Cho'gath has little burst pre-6, and to do significant damage he needs to drop a nice bit of mana, on top of Rupture being easily avoidable and his scream being also avoidable. He also runs the risk of pushing the lane really quickly if he's hitting the minions with his abilities...

At a certain point, you both are rediculously hard to kill, and top lane is just farming without caring what the other one is doing...

If cho spams Q to try to hit you, he will be oom.

If he spams it in the minion wave, stay out of it.

You have more dps, hp gain per hit, and a reliable stun, there is no reason to be afraid to autoattack him with W on.

Irelia can't really do anything. A decent Cho won't run out of mana. When I play Cho I start with regrowth pendant (to build into Warmogs), a Sight Ward, 3 Health Potions, and 3 Mana Potions. And I don't use my Q or E to farm. I take and level up the spikes first. They do a lot of damage, push minions effectively and give me great farming potential and when I'm farming I aim my spikes at Irelia to counter her on-hit health return. Cho's passive returns any health Irelia takes in damage when she pokes and they return any Mana he uses during the counterattack on Irelia. I can't lose to an Irelia top as Cho without her getting great jungle support, but that's why I start with a ward as well. Cho is my main and there's a lot of effective ways to build him depending on what positon you're filling and who you're going against. Against Irelia, Cho doesn't even really need the potions, but they're nice to have just in case.

tldr; You can't win against a Cho top as Irelia unless you're a good Irelia and he's a bad Cho.

P.S. The comment above me is wrong about Irelia having more DPS. Cho has more dps even without building any AP other than what's in his runes. His Autoattacks (assisted by Vorpal Spikes) do more damage, and he still has a Knockup and Silence, each of which do decent damage and on top of that his ult is a free couple hundred true damage. Irelia can't beat a good Cho. She doesn't have to die against him (she will if she's dumb enough to fight him), but she won't outfarm him no matter what she does. Even if the jungler tries to help, turret diving a Cho with at least 30% health is suicide, all his cc + feast + turret damage means at least one of you will die.

P.P.S. I main Cho and they do need to nerf him. I can build him Tank, Attack Speed/Health/AP, or AP Carry and Dominate any way, he's pretty OP. And if you build him AP Carry, Feast alone does enough damage to nearly one shot an ADC.

Good Cho'gaths will not spam rupture if it's not going to land. They're going to wait until you go in to last hit, and you either miss your last hit and DON'T get ruptured, or you get ruptured, silenced, and then auto-attacked while you're silenced.. As soon as silence drops, Cho walks away and continues farming, which will regain any HP he lost from the exchange he just had. Against champs with Escapes, Cho can just silence you before he Q's, close to melee range to harass, and then use Q under you while you either run away or engage him.. Either way, it hits you, and the entire time you're CC'd you're getting auto-attacked.

Irelia has to use Mana in order to regain health, where-as Cho'gath regains both Health and Mana simply by last-hitting.

One of Irelias main strengths is her True damage and her ability to gap-close and burst down squishy champions. Cho'gath has innate health bonuses which counter her true damage, and if she Blade Surges to Cho he throws a Q at his own feet, and follows up with Silence/Vorpal Spikes.

Furthermore, Cho'gath doesn't really HAVE to harass you in order to win the lane. All he has to do is stand in the middle of the minions and last hit to his hearts content. It's not like he's REQUIRED to land a Q.. Just zone you out away from minions, since you have no chance of forcing him off minions before he forces you off of them, your best bet is to hope he pushes the lane so you can farm at the tower and ask for assists from your jungler.

Basically, as mentioned above, Cho'goth counters Irelia.


Edit: HOLY THREAD NECRO BATMAN.

Idk about this necro, but I have no idea what you are talking about. A well-played Irelia will definitely dump on Cho'Gath. Cho is inherently one of the weakest duelists in the game. The early levels will be somewhat even and/or skill-based, as both Cho and Irelia have weakish early levels. From 6 onward, Irelia will dump on Cho as long as she stacked AS and can micro worth a damn. Cho simply does not have the dueling potential to match up toe-to-toe against a champ like Irelia.

Cho doesn't have to duel her. She can't stick to him nor deal enough damage to kill him without either help from a jungler or a really poorly played Cho'gath. Cho'gath isn't designed to stand Toe-to-toe and get into an auto-attack war with Irelia, nor would he. He does however have the tools to prevent that from happening unless he's caught out in the open without summoners and mana. He also has enough harass to push her off minions.

How exactly is she going to dump on him if he just walks away? She can stun and get a few auto-attacks off later game, then bladesurge to a minion.. But by the time Irelia has enough ASpd to start putting out a significant amount of damage, Cho already has 6 stacks and a Frozen heart. It's about 66/33 for Cho.

Even though it's a necro, I'm going to put in my 2 cents.

I've beaten plenty of Cho's as Irelia. I've also lost to a few exceptionally good ones, but that was before I knew how to play Irelia correctly.

I'd say it's a skill matchup. If you can anticipate and dodge Cho's skillshots, then you're going to out damage him, which will allow you to zone him and deny him from using his passive to heal. However, if you get hit by Rupture or Feral Scream, then he's going to get a few hits on you with Vorpal Spikes, and you're going to be hard-pressed to even out that trade.

The secret (as Irelia), I think, is to save your Q strictly for dodging skill-shots. If you need to gap-close on him in order to get into trading range, then wait for a minion near him to get low and dash to that instead so it doesn't consume your cooldown. Once you're close enough, you should probably use your E before he gets a chance to cast something. Ideally, that's going to stun him and allow you to get in a couple W-empowered auto-attacks before he casts his W or Q. If you dash away as he's coming un-stunned, then you just won the trade.

As with any champion in any matchup, try to avoid trading when the opponent has a significant minion advantage. That damage really adds up in S3. Against Cho, that's not always an easy thing to do since he pushes so easily against an Irelia. A smart Cho will kill off your minions with Vorpal Spikes and sit inside his wave so that if you try what I outlined above, you'll be taking minion hits the whole time and almost certainly lose the trade. If he tries this, then call in some Jungler support either for a gank, or just to make him back off so you can free-farm the minions he just pushed into you.

If you're going for a kill on Cho as Irelia, you HAVE to keep moving. If you don't move after every auto-attack, and just try to stand still and swing away, you're probably not going to win. If you keep moving, then you have a chance to make him over-shoot his skill-shots, or make him aim with the edge of them instead of the middle, which is a lot easier to dodge.

Besides that, it's a good habit to always move toward your opponents path of retreat anyway so that you get more attacks off before they can make it to safety. If they're ahead of you as you're chasing them, then you're often going to be out of auto-attack range, but if you pace them and try to keep to their side as long as possible, then it will take them a lot longer to get out of range.

What are you talking about? Irelia is one of the best champions for sticking on Cho, with her dash and stun/slow. Competent Irelias will be rushing items like Zerker Greaves/Wit's End/Phage precisely to stick on Cho'Gath. Cho doesn't have to duel? Then what does he do in lane - sit at tower and watch the creeps die? He HAS to go up to CS. Even a full AP Q>W waveclear won't work, simply because it's top lane and Irelia can freeze the lane if Cho decides to push quickly to avoid fighting. Duels will happen without fail when Cho goes to CS, and this is when Irelia dominates him. She'll simply orb-walk past his ruptures and auto him back to his tower.

At Silver Tier like you're currently at, I agree that Cho would beat Irelia, simply because players at 1400 won't have the micro ability to deal with Cho's ruptures. The higher up you go, the more the match tends to swing in Irelia's favor. As a Cho main, by the time I hit the plat/gold barrier, Irelia had become the most common counterpick when I picked Cho.