I've been placing Xin Zhao alot before the end of season 3 and popped up to playing him again when Feral Flare was released and since then i've been trying different builds and found that the one above carrys your solo queue games the most. He's a fun champion with a bursty kit which also locks down enemies, except when they fly away. (This is my first Guide btw)

Pros

+ 3 CCs + Strong early and late + High jungle sustain + Locks down targets + Ganks are Stronk + Will do your math homework

Cons

+ Incorrect Ult can cost TF + Difficult to escape + Easily kitable + Prone to CC + Jax hurts

• Greater Quintessence of Attack Damage: Extra early game damage against champions and monsters for increased jungle clear speed.
  
• Greater Quintessence of Life Steal: Increases sustain and will stack with Jungle item and Xin Zhao's W's Passive.
  
• Greater Mark of Attack Damage: Increases AD, does more damage early game against champs and monsters which increases jungle clear speed.
  
• Greater Glyph of Magic Resist: General runes, gives magic resist, helps reduce damage.
  
• Greater Seal of Armor: General runes, gives armor, helps reduce damage.

Xin Zhao has 4 abilities (like most champions) which also explains his build.

Challenge
Passive, works with E and Q and AAs. His passive reduces his target's armor by 15% for 3 seconds and is applied every time you attack that said target, this happens by marking them (Works with champions and Monsters/Minions) you can see a mark above the target challenged. Works on 1 enemy at a time.


Three Talon Strike
Amplifies your basic attacks, your auto attacks deal bonus damage and on third hit, (doesn't have to be same target) will knock the sucker up in the air. Every hit with your Q will reduce Xin zhao's other abilities by 1 second, including his ultimate(Not his summoner spells). Damage scales off AD


Battle Cry
Percentage Attack speed increase on use. Passive use, heals Xin Zhao every 3 hits, and is never deactivated like other champion's abilities. Scales off AP. Heal increases with spirit visage.


Audacious Charge
Charges at an enemy, slows them and applies your passive. Scales off AP and has a 600 range, can be used on champions and minions/monsters. Use it to plan your escape!


Crescent Sweep
Knocks enemies around you back, except the target who is marked by Xin Zhao's passive (if any) you gain armor and magic resist for every enemy champion HIT for 6 seconds. This does 15% of the champion's CURRENT health + 1.0 of your AD + Base damage, so don't use it as an execute, will not deal alot of damage.

Ability Sequence in TeamFights

Lock down the enemy ADC by going in with your E (Yes you engage unless there's someone better)
Use your Ultimate so you can gain extra MR, Armor and to deal over 15% of everyone's health in 1 move.
Kill the ADC by popping your W and then your Q. Proceed to destroy.
Since the enemy's team cannot protect their adc, he's yours. Even if they do go to kill you, you have the extra MR and Armor.
Proceed by cleaning up the rest of the team.

Escaping in sticky situation with Xin Zhao

I'm assuming you do not have flash available


Since you do not have flash available, your best bet is using your Feral flare as a ward to be able to jump to monsters in the jungle since you can see them.

If in lane, you'd want to unmark an enemy champ, so hit a minion, or E to one, and proceed to use your Ultimate. This will knock every enemy champion away, if you have not used your E yet, use it and get the hell out of there.
If they are catching up to you, pray that you get your E quickly enough so you could ward onto a camp and E towards a Jungle monster. If you're ever going to get Hit by a slow, or stun I.E Elise's Stun, Braum's Slow/Ult Use your E to juke them by jumping onto a minion/Monster
Your best bet is running mostly.

Standard boots, buy if behind, buy if enemy has high CC potential.

You'd buy this if you're really snowballing early but even then, if the enemy team has high potential CC, if you get fed chances are, they will CC you! So go to the item above.

Core build item. Requires 30 large monsters slain, baron and dragon are included.Your stacks are recorded from hunter's machete so you don't need wriggle's to start getting stacks, but wriggle's is required to be able to upgrade into feral flare. Wriggle's gives a short ranged ward, (further than trinket) and feral flare gives really a large range, which means you can facecheck hedges from a safe distance.

Core build item. The damage you gain from it is unbelievably stronk. Not to mention, the extra health, extra mana, extra movement speed and there's a little crit to make you pwn people. If you're into damage and carrying is your thing, taking this is the right choice.

Should be automatically taken. BoTRK gives you, attack speed, attack damage, life steal, and does 5% of the enemy's health in damage, not mentioning the use of stealing their movement speed and 15% of their health. With the attack speed from, feral flare, this item, and your Battle cry's abilities' use, you should have over 2 hit per second.

This item is not what you should go for, it gives split pushing a huge boost, but that's not your roll, you're required in team fights. So this item is a no go. It's been designed for split pushing on champs that need it, i.e Shaco.

It's a decent item, and it'll make your slow combined with this completely stronk,but i wouldn't take it because there are just better items out there.

I'd take this as a defensive against AD because it's just awesome. Gives a slow, health, reduces enemy's AS on you. Great item overall, and you should take it.

This item has no health, but it's unbelievably great. If you're against a champ like Vayne or Yi, someone who's auto attack based, this is recommended because in the end they'll just kill themselves.

This item is a rare occurence to take, i'd take it instead of Thornmail, but i still do recommend thornmail over it if it's against Auto attack based champions since you'd really buy this mostly for the CDR more than anything.

Great item, boosts your healing on your W and your lifesteal i recommend it unless you need to take banshee's to survive high poke burst or pulls/CC (i.e Nidalee/Blitzcrank/Thresh etc)

Awesome item, i normally take this over Spirit Visage because of the enemy team's setup which always has high CC or pulls of some sort, (hurray for the meta!)

Depending which side you start, it'll depend which buff you'll start at. Please do note, this is for Xin Zhao, so i'm not including mana hungry junglers (Shaco)
Remember to use your Lens (if you started with it) on your next buff to prevent getting counter jungled.

Since you are Xin Zhao, you'll be farming alot, you're sacrificing your early game to get your mid game and late game power really well. This unfortunately is difficult to do in solo queue, because you can't trust that your fellow team mates will feed or not. To prevent them feeding, i try to gank as much as possible, and don't bother ganking in lanes which are doing better than others. (Top lane has a hard lane vs renekton, i'll gank a few times to prevent the pressure from getting too high. but if they have heimerdinger in mid lane, i'll ask her to take down his turrets before i enter, otherwise, i'll gank bot if they have problems there and just tell my mid laner to play safe).

Due to this, you'll have a hard time farming. If there's a lane in which you can't ensure a successful gank by making them flash/getting a kill/making him B, then go up there when you've done your jungle route to reduce pressure on your laner (unless it's nasus, he'll be fine if he plays properly)

Counter gank as much as possbile, so leave your camp if you've barely started, because if you're not ganking, at least help your team mates get to safety.

As for first few ganks, after level 3 at blue/red buff, go to top lane, followed by mid, then get level 4 snd go to bot lane. This all depends on how the lanes are going, of course.


And here are some more gank tips

Warding, and searching for them.

You are 5 people in the team, Bot lane should pink ward the lone bush between dragon and mid lane. You or the top laner should pink ward the lone bush next to baron (between mid and baron)
For wards, Level 1, ward lone bush in river to see for incoming ganks, trinket is on a 30 sec cd, so should be easier

You should sweep for wards level 2 at your next buff, your should sweep for wards at top lane bush in river, and in river, so keep it searching for a ward outside as well.
Mid lane, in the bush (one of them)
Bot lane, depends where you are ganking from, tribush? use lens there, if you're going to gank through river, sweep river and bush both (same way as top lane)

The pic below has sweeping areas and warding areas for both sides, you don't have to sweep and ward everywhere, these are just places where YOU should ward, everywhere else you can almost ignore.

If you notice from all this, Xin Zhao destroys and pillages making the fields of justice his playground. Play well, get rewarded. Hope everything here helps make you a better Xin Zhao player!