I personally think it's a weaker start because regen isn't a combat stat. It also doesn't built into anything offensive straight away so it'll likely remain a rejuvenation bead for at least 20 minutes. This is my personal opinion because I play with a mindset of outlaning the enemy laner rather than sustaining through lane.

I usually start with rejuvenation bead, ward, 5 hp pots and 1 mana pot. Hp regen is helpful and I don't find myself needing more potions. What do u think about it?

I've changed my playstyle with Irelia fairly dramatically recently and I want to update as soon as possible. I'm studying 5 days a week at uni and working on the weekends so it'll be a slow and painful process but bear with me. I'll try to keep the summary sections at the top updated so if you're not interested behind the reasoning you can still get the general gist of what I do.

Finally! I see a real irelia guide with good items. Great Build and guide!

I also never start boots pot 4 unless I'm up against a person who has high kiting ability (nidalee, teemo, etc.). I need that extra movement speed to catch up to them and get more auto attacks in to further close the auto attack animation gap.

@fengzou - Maybe it's a little different at 2k ELO but I'm currently at Gold I promotion (maybe platinum soon) but I still find that boots 4 is still the most aggressive start possible. While I agree that hard lanes generally call for cloth5,flask3,ward9,null2 etc. I don't think I come up against those situations enough. I simply still find that boots are the most versatile start offering both offensive and defensive traits.

I'm still adding to items and the entire guide really, I'm in the middle of a lot of assessments at the moment so it'll still be a while before I get this finished.

i used solely irelia to reach ~2k last season and plat this season, i agree with most things in your guide but I would say that boots+pots is just not worthwhile anymore with boots only giving you 25 ms.

As most heros outlane you in the early levels, cloth+5p gives you the much needed tank+sustain to survive the early game. null magic mantle+2 pots vs AP. I would get double dorans blade for extra sustain/laning power after this even before boots, to win against hard lanes like darius/jarv/jax etc. double doran will completely destroy heros like shen, completely negating their harass, try for yourself.

tough skin is also a great passive every top laner should take, as trading hits and freezing lanes will make you take alot of creep hits, the -2 dmg from minions really helps.

In regards to Zephyr:
Zephyr is probably the one item introduced in S3 that I considered core to Irelia. As you can tell I've just been too lazy to edit my guide and change everything up. There are a few more changes I want to make as well.

What about Vi?

Why not taking Zephyr as a core item ? This item fits so well on irelia : CDR, Attack speed, Movespeed, Damage, Tenacity... This allow to get tabis or berserkers, deal more damage and still have insane tenacity.