Xin Zhao is a high carry/DPS type of character. The second to last patch nerfed his CD's which I think was a little too much. But Riot noticed the same thing and buffed/nerfed his ult and battle cry skill. Still if you know how to play him right he can devastate the other team. He's built for ganking and killing all those carries. The only down side to him is his strong weakness to any form of CC. I will explain ways of avoiding this, but it requires the sacrifice of part of the build.

Now some of you might turn away this build simply because the overall stats are very good. But let's look at the specials each item gets. Madred's gives 4% of their health as magic damage, if this is a tank then you're doing 100 damage from that alone per second. The trinity force after every spell gives one hit 150% more damage, so quite literally the second after u engage, you have done almost 850 damage, hit three talon strike, another 1000 damage from the three hits, and 250% AD, that's something like 1600. So this is practically the first two seconds after engaging and, you have done 2450 damage. Ult and that ranges from 350-1150, plus again the 250% AD, and that's 900-1750. In total that's about 4200 damage. Not counting the magic damage from Madrid's which ranges, for the entire fight, 135-300 damage. And agian the life steel, is not added in which is 25% of ur AD, and the black cleaver has shreded up a large amount of armor. So pretty much in a course of 3 seconds after engaging u will do probably 5000 damage. The other team will not have enough time to react at all.

As a Masteries I go a 21-9-0 with one point in exhaust. I also get armor pen marks, AS seal, CDR glyphs, and armor pen quintessences.

BTW I would really appreciate it if you guys could vote and comment... it would be very nice

In the beginning of the game I start out with Dagger, and grab a health pot while I'm at it. Just because his passive heals him, you have to remember he has to hit something to heal. And a good harasser will prevent you from healing. As a skill I tend to get TTS because if the other team wants to fight, this will provide all the damage you will need, plus a knock up which can be very useful. If they start to run exhaust them and chase to get that early game kill. If you can try to lane with someone with CC or is a ranged, often times I get hooked with a melee(I did not spell that correctly) and we can't farm at all because of a damn harasser. A ranged person should harass, while you farm, or a CC'er will shut them down, and you both kill them. Once you have enough gold for boots buy them, Occasionally I also have enough money for the dagger as well. After that Save up for the black Cleaver. Whenever you can try to set up a gank, but make sure your laner knows this.

Mid-game is all about ganks. And this is Xin's specialty, go to mid and gank that damn carry, support. Gank top gank bot gank mid. GANK EVERYTHING, and while your at it get the red buff. Also farm anything, jungle, any type of gold you can get your hands on, DO IT. This build is expensive, but can easily pwn anything. If you can maybe push mid tower. This will create the team fight. and End-game begins.

End game is pretty straight forward with team-fight, push, team fight, push. and just that repetitive sequence. In a team-fight you want to focus the carry/squishy. Yes you have alot of damage and maybe be able to take out that tank 1vs 1. But in a Team-fight you focus the tank=you dead. Take out the carries, and let the tanks battle each other out. The people you should be focusing are players like Ryze, MF, Ashe, Annie etc. Just about any squishy with too much DPS for their own good, take them out. Make sure you whole team initiates the fight. It can be very tempting to AC and end up dying cause ur team doesn't follow. ALWAYS LET YOUR TANK INITIATE, then they attack him first and, u just pick off everyone else. =)

I've been telling you all this information without really telling you what skills to use in what order or when to use them. So I always initiate the fight with AC, CS, TTS and then Battle cry. TTS is not based on who fast you attack. IT IS IN FACT A CHANNELING SPELL. This means that using battle cry before TTS is done will do absolutely nothing, and you won't benefit from getting the CD reduction.

The reason you start out with dagger, is because AS is xin's bread and butter. His heal benefits from it, his AD benefits, his CD battle cry benefits from it. AS is his thing, and yes early game you won't be able to solo those people, but this allows you to immedietly start going into his build of boots.

His boots are obvious, if AS is his bread and butter then just get the berserker's Greaves.

After his boots I go immedietly into black cleaver. I will say sometimes I will go for Madred's razors first, especially if I'm laning against a strong harrasser. The Black Cleaver is very good for xin as it provides massive AD and AS, but it is extremely expensive, which is another reason Madred's razors might be better if I'm gaining money slowly.

Madred's bloodrazor is not an item you see very often for a non-jungling xin. But it's very useful against tanks. Nobody expects a full AD champ to be dealing the magic damage seen by madreds, not to mention it also happens to give both AD and AS.

Now normally by this time the other team has surrendered, or it's a really close match. But I'll get the Trinity force, it's sort of just an full out everything. I build sheen first sense he will be able to do tons of damage with that extra 100% AD/crit. The slow is nice as well, since the charge only really slows them durring the battle, often times they can run just fine later.

Next I get Randuin's omen, or in some cases force of nature when the enemy team has a couple too many AP mages. This is purely for defense, to prevent the other annoying carries from attacking you, and killing just a little too quick.

Lastly I get the Bloodthirster. This item gives a large amount of life steal, to help you in any teamfights that last too long.

Now all of these items are important in some way, I've mostly labled them in my idea of most important to least important, but all of them have their uses. Don't be afraid to mix these items up. If you are dying really early in Team fights, maybe rather then getting Madred's or Trinity you might get Randuin's or Bloodthirster first. If the other team has no real tank, then you might decide that Blackcleaver is not needed yet and go for Trinity edge immedietly. It all depends on how the game is going.

Items and when to use different ones.
Runes
Pros/Cons

If anyone has any more suggestions just put them in the comments below. =D

Does anyone know an easy way of getting the pictures of skills/items into the text? I would really appreciate it.

Guys IDK why this is happening but when I view the page it shows four of the same build. Just letting you know this is only one build.