Hello and welcome to my top lane Xin Zhao guide. Xin is usually seen in the jungle, however, his sustain, excellent 1v1 potential and steroids, make him also a very good top laner. I buil Xin as an auto-attack based damage dealer, pretty much like Irelia and Jax. This is my first guide for Season 5. I hope you enjoy it and learn a thing or two. Constructive criticism is always appreciated.

I take flat attack damage marks, for the scale, the trade power and the last hitting potential. You could potentially use armor penetration marks, as an alternative, more late game oriented approach.

I take flat armor seals, because it is laning essential, for early trades and minion aggro. Against an AP laner, I would go with Flat Health.

I choose scaling magic resist for glyphs, for the late game defense vs the enemy AP Blaster. If I am against an AP laner, I would take flat MR. In case the enemy team is full AD, I would go flat CDR.

As for quintessences, I take flat AD for the reasons stated in marks. A good alternative, would be life steal, for that awesome lane sustain.

As for masteries, I firmly believe that a defensive build like mine, is essential for top lane xin zhao. Normally, you won't be building any defense items early on, so you need the minor boost from masteries, in order to survive as a bruiser.

However, masteries highly depend on player preference, so you can try something else that you think that can work for you.

Challenge makes you a stronger duelist and a squishy destroyer. It is percentage armor reduction so it is applied before any other penetration. Which helps at bring down the enemy armor by much.


This is your main damage tool. It will reset auto attack timer and can be also applied on towers. It also comes with a potential of hard cc which makes it lovely. Did I mention that for each hit empowered with this, the cooldown of other abilities is reduced by 1 second. It goes really well when combined with your next tool which is...


Hulk is not apparently the only one who becomes stronger when he shouts. This skill has 2 parts. The innate part, is a form of lovely sustain which is really good for the lane phase. It is in no way connected with target's nature which means that you get healed even if you hit towers.


This is a mobility tool, that can be used to engage, gank, escape and generally make plays. It comes with a nice slow and applies your passive. It is also magic damage so it can be of great help vs someone who stacks armor.


And finally your own personal hadouken. This can be a great source of damage at a start of a battle and it is a true beast of a move in teamfights, since it splits the enemy team apart except for the guy you wanna focus down and gives you massive defensive steroids if you hit multiple people.

+ because I am a hipster. No one ever uses flash+ignite!
Apart from joking, flash is the best spell in the game because it offers insane utility. You know what it can do, don't make me write it all over again. As an alternative to flash, I would suggest Ghost because it is actually pretty good on xin, who needs to stay on the target to deal his damage.

Ignite gives more kill potential in lane, cuts healing off and it is true damage which means it can only be countered by pure health. As an alternative to ignite I would use Exhaust against auto attacker teams, or Teleport which is an incredible team-oriented spell, that allows you to be anywhere at any given time.

I am not gonna tell you what to build at a certain minute. I am just gonna give you general advice.

Lane Phase: During this, you need to try and build the first parts of your core damage items. If you feel like the lane is hard and you win some extra help to win it, then build some
(2-3)
and a this will enhance your damage and make you significantly tankier.

Also, depending on your enemy laner, build an armor or magic resist item. It will help a lot.
I suggest Warden's Mail or Spectre's Cowl

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Mid game: complete your core damage items ( Trinity Force+ Blade of the Ruined King) and start building defenses. In the cheat sheet, I've listed all possible options. Just get some depending on enemy team. Easy stuff. If the game is super easy, build yummu's ghostblade and/or Zephyr. Their stats are of remarkable power on Xin.

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Late game: Just finish your damn build. Remember to grab a red trinket in order to kill wards. Buy enchantments for your boots, and some elixirs.

Early game, you wanna farm. Don't play recklessly, go in for the kill whenever it is 110% sure you will kill. If you need it, ask for jungler's help.

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Mid game, the farming continues, but there are objectives too. Push lane then leave for a gank. Also you should be all about the dragons. If you had a super easy lane phase and you're fed, remember in mid game fights to leave the kills for the carries. They need them for late game. A well done early game should make you a mid game beast with all the damage and defense you can instantly get from steroids.

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Late game is all about objectives of huge importance, such as barons, massive lane pushes/split pushing and of course, the funniest part, teamfights.

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In teamfights, you generally want to jump on enemy priority target, then ult 5 people to get 125 armor and magic resistance. Try to cut as much hp as possible from the guy you dived on. If you manage to kill them, turn your head an face the other guy that carries them. Try and kill him too. When you dive the first guy you must split the enemy team up with ult. They will try to get back together/peel you off which is not that bad, since they will be focusing a single (really tanky) person and not your teams carry. Your team then can proceed into killing them after. If they engage you, try and peel for your carries, using your knock-up and/or slows. Alternatively, you can counter dive their carry. Either they will focus you and stop focusing your carries or their carry will die. Both cases are good.

Xin Zhao rule #1: You are supposed to dive on the carry, but you shouldn't really initiate the fight. Let the tanks go in first to soak up damage, and disrupt, then go in and do what I wrote above.

You're the man you can oblige anyone to play with you. But there are some people you really like see join forces with you:

Shen lets you focus your target better.
Orianna can do wombo combos with your dash and knock back.
Amumu stuns them, you kill them. Easy.

That was my short but informative (I hope) top lane Xin Zhao guide. Advice and constructive feed back is always appreciated. Cya in the fields of justice.