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Hey guys, I'm Brolong and this is my second guide on mobafire. I will be telling you how I personally play Xin Zhao jungle; one of the best jungle characters at the moment.

I've spent a bit of time on this guide, so I hope you enjoy it and rate it. Please don't downvote randomly, but I don't mind constructive criticism. :)

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SPACESPACE

PROS Great ganks Self-heal Lots of damage without items Lots of utiliy Ponytail!?!? ;)

SPACESPACE

CONS Long cool downs early With flash, enemies can easily get away

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I take 0/21/9.
I take 21 in defense just to give me more tankyness. If you compare the different tiers of the tree to the corresponding tier in the offense tree, defense weighs out.

To me,taking 9 points in the offense tree is good, but if you take 9 in utility, you get mana regen from Meditation , Flash cool down is 15 seconds less (can make or break you in situations), more mana/ level, and the most important: Runic Affinity .
Overall, this gives you more sustainability in the jungle (mana wise), Summoner spell cool downs, and 20% increased buff duration which is HUGE.

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For Reds, I take flat AD runes. This gives me an edge to my damage that I do to not only monsters, but champs as well.

For Yellows, I take flat Armor. These are essential to being an efficient jungler. They reduce the amount of damage you take from monsters and champions by a huge amount.

For Blues, I take flat Magic Resist. These give me the ability to take less damage from spells when ganking, mid game, and late game.

For Quints, I take 2 movement speed % and 1 flat AD quint. The 2 movement speed is essential for ganking, and just getting from camp to camp faster. I take the 1 AD quint for again, an edge to my attacks.

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First off I take Hunter's Machete and 5 Health Potion. This is standard, because the machete gives you an easier time clearing and it is cheap enough to get you 5 pots, which gives you the needed sustain.

First time back, I get Madred's Razors and a Boots. Madred's gives me much faster clearing, and boots give me better ganking and traveling.

After that, I get Kindlegem, Hexdrinker, and Mercury's Treads. Kindlegem builds into Locket of the Iron Solari and it gives me cool down reduction and a nice bit of health. Merc treads give me the needed MR to be tanky, and of course the awesome tenacity. **If you are playing against a low CC team, or perhaps an AD based team,feel free to build Ninja Tabi instead.

I then finish my Locket of the Iron Solari for the great overall stats + the shield.Next, I buy my first major damage item: The Brutalizer. By this point of the game, the enemy team is most likely building some sort of armor items like Sunfire Aegis, Zhonya's Hourglass, or Locket of the Iron Solari. This item will help you ignore some of that annoying armor and lets you do some legit damage. :)

I then buy the classic armor item: Sunfire Aegis. This gives you the tankyness you need and it has a great aura that does damage to nearby enemies. After, I finish my Youmuu's Ghostblade to do huge loads of damage with it's active and still shred some armor and I finish off with an Aegis of the Legion to provide my team with a huge aura that really helps in team fights.
Lastly, I finish my maw for a nice ammount of magic resist, and a great shield.

RECOMMENDED!

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These give you tenacity, and a hefty amount of MR

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GREAT overall item, nice shield and CDR too.

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Tons of armor, tons of health. Makes you tanky overall.

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Armor pen, CDR, Crit, and a great active. What's not to love?

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Great aura item that gives your team health regen, magic resist and of course armor.

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Shield, MR, and AD. Great magic resist item if they have a AP based team. Provides to your bruiser build.

SITUATIONAL:

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Super mega HP item, nice health regen too. Replace Sunfire Aegis

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Great damage item, splash is boss in team fights.
Replace Youmuu's Ghostblade

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Life steal, AD. Xin scales OK with AD, so this is a good item if you need sustain.

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Makes Xin more of an offtank, great damage dealing item. SPEEDY GONZALES!! :D

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Ultimate armor shred item, goes well with Battle Cry

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Here is the standard jungle path.

Giant wolf (1:40 spawn) --> Ancient golem (1:55 spawn) --> Wraith --> Golem --> Lizard elder

After this path, gank or recall.


Smiteless path:

giant wolf --> ancient golem Get alot of help here so you don't have to smite --> lizard elder (smite here) --> Gank.

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After getting to level 3, you want to start ganking. (with double buff)
Your standard combo is to Audacious Charge --> Battle Cry --> Three Talon Strike --> Auto Attack --> Auto Attack ---> Auto attack (knock up). By then the target enemy should be dead or very low. If he used flash to get away, just come back soon and kill them.

For an over pushed mid (enemy minions at your tower) situation, come either on the top or bottom straight bush (entrance of river) and wait for your mid to initiate and jump in.
For a not pushed lane (enemy minions at own tower/middle), you can either do the above, or come from that area that leads the enemy towards its blue buff or red buff.


For top, just come from the river unless its warded, then you may want to gank from the tri-brush. You can also do lane ganks, where if your lane is super pushed, you come from the back and stand in the brush and bait the enemy to you. This is hard to do, but very rewarding.

Botlane is hard. Tell your support to pink ward the river so you can gank from the river. If your support refuses, then wait for bot to push and stand in your own tri-bush (if you are blue team) and come out and gank.

As a bruiser-tank, in team fights you usually want to place your infront of the important damage dealers on your team: the ADC or the APC. If the enemy initiates, Audacious Charge into the enemy carry. ( Vayne, Ashe, Morgana) Your team will prolly engage after you do so just pop your shield from Locket of the Iron Solari and just keep trying to kill the enemy carry. Always try to make your Crescent Sweep hit atleast 2 targets.

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I take Three Talon Strike first so you can use it on wolves, and blue, where for Battle Cry the cooldown at level 1 is 16 seconds. I proceed to max Battle Cry for the additional clearing and the heal. After that, I max out Audacious Charge for the huge utility and great ganks. I max Three Talon Strike last because all the difference at level 1 and at level 5 is 60 more damage and less cooldown. There is no difference to the main reason I take it early: the knock up.

Of course take Crescent Sweep at 6,11, and 16

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Recommended

SPACESPACE

Smite gives you the ability to secure, steal and clear the jungle faster.
Ghost gives you the ability to gank 50x harder, and get in and out of fights.

Other Choices

SPACESPACE

Flash. This skill can save you, can get you a kill, or even steal your team a big objective like Baron or Dragon. This is a good summoner to take (replace ghost) if you want to get out of a bad situation instantly, but have worse ganks.

Exhaust can shut down a single target in teamfights, and can allow your team to destroy them before they can get away. Exhaust can also help you gank/ ensure an enmy is not gonna get away.

Teleport is a summoner spell I rarely get as Xin Zhao jungle. Though it is useful in lane ganking, and split pushing, I think it really takes away from your overall mobility which can suck at some moments. This would be a good Summoner Spell if you had a split push comp. (ex: Shen, Twisted Fate, or Master Yi)