7/19/12 XIN REWORK

Quoted:
Xin Zhao (Remade)

Stats
Base Attack Speed increased to 0.672 from 0.658
Attack Speed per level increased to 2.7% from 2.5%
Challenge (Passive)
Xin Zhao challenges his target with his basic attacks and Audacious Charge, reducing their Armor by 15% for 3 seconds. Only one target can be challenged at a time.
Three Talon Strikes
Now reduces his other ability cooldowns by 1 second with each strike
Attack Damage ratio increased to 1.2 from 1.0
Cooldown reduced to 9/8/7/6/5 seconds from 10
Battle Cry
Passive: Heals Xin Zhao for 26/32/38/44/50 (+0.7 Ability Power) every third basic attack
Active no longer reduces other abilities' cooldowns
Cooldown reduced to 16/15/14/13/12 seconds from 24/22/20/18/16
Mana Cost increased to 40 from 35
Audacious Charge
Now challenges the target
Damage increased to 70/115/160/205/250 (+0.6 Ability Power) from 70/110/150/190/230 (+0.4 Ability Power)
Slow increased to 25/30/35/40/45% from 20/25/30/35/40%
Slow duration increased to 2 seconds from 1.5
Range reduced to 600 from 650
Cooldown reduced to 13/12/11/10/9 seconds from 16/15/14/13/12
Crescent Sweep
Now knocks all unchallenged targets back
Now has a 1.0 bonus Attack Damage ratio
Cooldown increased to 100/90/80 seconds from 75
Armor and Magic Resist bonus adjusted to 15/20/25 per champion hit from 25 + 7/10/13 per champion hit
Now has a new particle


As of patch v1.0.0.143 this guide is now outdated. Over the course of the next couple of weeks I will be updating my guide. Do not use this guide anymore as I will probably change everything in it. After playing Xin for some time I have come to conclusion, he is quite strong borderline OP. His burst damage is ridiculous, and his kit is just so good. He has sustain, hard cc, gap closer, a built in Last Whisper and steroids. He is much better then he ever was.

Hi, I'm Kyle and im going to Teach You How To Kyle in this guide build or whatever you want to call it of Xin Zhao. This is really going to be basically my first serious guide. melee ad champs are probably my favorite type of champion. On the contrary to what people might think, Xin is a tough champ to play in my opinion. So I feel like if you are not experienced with Xin Zhao that jungling is the way to start with him because he is a very fast and quick jungler. With people who are experienced in league of legends in general you can try to solo top with him. I hope to help people learn how to play Xin Zhao better with this build. And I would love any one to comment and rate this build whatever you think it deserves.
ALRIGHT LETS GO

Pros/Cons is a good way to let you see how he excels and his drawbacks

Pros
+VERY good at focusing carries and knocking back the tanks because of his ultimate
+INSANE damage when tanky and when not tanky u can seriously 2 hit some champs
+Has a Knock up to get the advantage over enemies in 1v1s
+Has a dash


Cons
-Riot keeps nerfing Xin!
-If CC'd he will be destroyed
-Takes a bit of practice with the Rework

I usually use Greater Mark of Strength, and Greater Quintessence of Strength for easily last hitting minions. Also Xin Zhao now scales with AD so they help his damage on both Three Talon Strike and Crescent Sweep. Notice that Challenge is armor REDUCTION therefore armor penetration marks and quintessence are extremely useful too. Picking between AD and ArP is up too you. ArP is useful if you are planning on killing your opponent over farming, while AD is better if you plan on farming more while under a turret. Next up I use Greater Seal of Resilience, and Greater Glyph of Shielding to compensate Xin's squishyness at early to mid game. There are other options if you don't like the ones I chose.

Other options
- Greater Quintessence of Fortitude the extra health helps early game and can save you from the extra damage from ignite.
- Greater Quintessence of Swiftness Xin lacks mobility if he hasn't bought boots so this is a viable pick.
- Greater Mark of Alacrity its meh... but its better than attack damage per level, and critical damage.
- Greater Seal of Alacrity I don't really like using attack speed yellows, but its better than nothing.
- Greater Glyph of Replenishment Xin isn't really mana hungry, but there are times when you spam all your skills to get kills.
- Greater Glyph of Focus cool down reduction will let you spam your skills more (you really shouldn't but you sometimes will).

Offense

Summoner's Wrath- After the patch I've been using Exhaust and Ghost more and more so, it's pure stupidity to not get this mastery. It buffs both spells substantially for only one point.

Brute Force- I like this version of it better than the 1 crit chance. The 3 damage just benefits the most for you out of any of the other tier one masteries

Alacrity- 4% attack speed is nothing major for 4 points, but it is better than Sorcery.

Deadliness- Great mastery, took me awhile to see how good it was, but wow, the damage it gives is just amazing.

Lethality- Goes really well with Deadliness.

Weapon Expertise- I thought love was only true in fairy tales..., Now I'm a believer, Not a trace Of doubt in my mind, I'm in love I'm a believer..., All I have to say.

Havoc- T.T What have they done to you old friend... Either way 3 points for 1.5% damage is a toss up.

Vampirism- Mmmmm... Lifesteal *drools*, combined with passive its almost impossible to push you out of lane.

Sunder- Looks like the enemy is better off going into battle naked. Nothing changed about from the old masteries except it takes more points to reach it.

Executioner- 6% damage when enemy is below 40%, sign me up. Only thing I don't like about it is that it only works when enemy is below 40% health. The other top tier masteries work at all levels of health so unfair.

Its the best summoner spell for tanky dps champion. With Summoner's Wrath it makes you hurt alot. Along with masteries, and runes. You can use it to slow enemies in chases. Using it on an enemy AD carry shuts them down for the entire fight, and makes them easy pickings.

Flash is a great escape or initiation sequence to get close to the enemy without using your dash to save the dash when they are on the run. On the escape you can use it for clutch wall hops to not give up a free kill.


I love this spell on Xin because he is melee and it helps him get to his third hit on the chase to knock em up and from there its an easy kill most of the time. Ghost covers more area than flash which is why I like ghost but there are no clutch wall hops with ghost. Its mostly up to the user to pick ghost or flash.



Is really good at early levels for getting first blood, or shutting down Dr. Mundo, and Swain. If there is an enemy low on health toss this on them and get a free kill. Replace Exhaust with this if you want. I was underestimating this spell for a long time, but after using it a lot, I have seen its true value.

Xin's passive is very good through out the game. It's like a mini last whisper, but it applies a debuff letting your allies take advantage of it too. This means 2 things not only do your attacks hit harder, but if your are laning your minions do extra damage to the poor fellow. Note this is armor REDUCTION and not armor penetration.

Notes:
Does work on creeps, but not turrets.
Both Three Talon Strike and Audacious Charge apply it.
Works for allies as well.
When combined with Crescent Sweep the champion does not get knocked back.


By Far the best skill on xin zhao. it can completely shut some one down and allow you to get a few more auto attacks in on them without taking return damage. Xin always has the advantage against other melee champs because of this ability.


I love this skill because it allows you to be able to get damage before attack speed. For example, bloodthirster before your phantom dancer if you choose to have critical hit chance. The skill gives you a huge attack speed boost and the passive just allows you to stay in lane or jungle longer.

Be sure to know
It's passive works in blinds and on structures.


Great gap closer with a slow. Snag one point in it till the later levels for the utility.

Important:

Xin immediately hits his target again after he lands Audacious Charge.

Has about a 600 cast range, which is about the same auto attack range of most ranged carries. Ex. Ashe has 550 range, Vayne has 550 range, and Caityln has a range of 650. *Note* auto attack ranges are slightly larger than spell range.

Can kill invisible units from AoE damage. (rarely works, but I gotten 2 or 3 kills from the AoE damage)

It is long enough to jump through some walls. Any wall you can put a ward through, you can dash through. Remember you need to have sight for it to work, so most of the time its useless unless there is a team fight going on.

Counts as magic damage, so works in blind, and can't be countered by dodge.


Im so glad they changed his ultimate to be like this. It allows him to just completely isolate squishies and destroy them. It also deals insane damage which just makes his ultimate ridiculous

Remember:

His ult can knock through champion made obstacles like Cataclysm, or Crystallize as well as map terrain.

I like to hit my q and w before i even use my charge because xin immediately attacks after the charge making the three talon strike begin sooner than it normally would. If you are initiating a teamfight it is great to jump right to their adc or apc and automatically ult to get the tanks and all the cc away from you so you can just focus on destroying the carry.

The frozen mallet allows other people to grab the red buff because of the frozen mallet passive slow. it allows for more efficient and successful ganks and allowing your three talon strike to go knock up with ease.


Adds a lot of damage and is a last ditch effort against ap champions. as you get low on life you just begin to destroy even more. That is why i love this item. Because xin will take the most force when initiating team fights getting him down to low life in a pinch.


SOOO MUCH DAMAGE adds up with this thing at full stacks. This with his W's passive is just ridiculous which makes him hard to kill.


Guardian Angel is great when you get focused so when you come back from dying some one else will probably be getting wrecked in team fights so you can go back in and life steal some people and deal more damage with your maw of malmortius due to your low life.


Gives him the attack speed he needs when his abilities are down. And it adds a lot of damage and it has great synergy with his passive


An obvious choice in the jungle. Allows you to clear the jungle creeps EXTREMELY fast and efficiently

Difficulty
Easy Jungle. He doesnt take any skill to jungle. Hes basically an auto-jungler. just hit Q every once and awhile and you'll be fine.

Jungle Speed

Single Target jungler making him go faster and faster throughout the game not including the charge. But he does not have an AoE fast clear like other jungles might.

Sustain In the jungle

His passive allows him to stay in the jungle without any life steal items and as you grab the wriggles the jungle will be easier and you wont have to recall. Even without the wriggles you will not have to recall based on the jungle attacks. The only reason you have to recall will be after a tough gank that brought you low.

Ganking

Personally i like to go level 2 gank on the bottom side because its easy to grab a quick gank top if the top lane leashes you. Or if on the top side its better to w8 for the level 3 gank with double buff. But his gankability is amazing.

Countering counter-jungling

Can usually just chase some one right out of the jungle because he is extremely scary to most other champs



Xin is basically another master Yi. If he doesnt get the kills on the ganks he really becomes useless. When some one like xin has to really jump onto some one and do a ton of damage or get shut down then you better have some kills or you will be chewed up and spit out. But if you happen to be fed. you will be a **********in power house till super late game when every one has full items.

Tips and Tricks:
Three Talon Strike resets your auto attack, so swing then push Q for a quick double attack.
When using Three Talon Strike, you can hit anything twice and then the third hit will knock someone up. You can hit two neutral minions and charge out of the bush to get the third knockup hit on them.
When you are ganking someone, save your charge and use better positioning to get the hits in. They will flash away if you get close enough to hit them and THAT is when you should charge in. This will allow you to get them no matter what.
Your charge ability plus Three Talon does massive damage, so test your limits on who and when you can tower dive as Xin can generally kill someone before the tower even blinks and take only a hit or two.

I like ganking a ton. So this is the route i do

FYI
Purple Side

1. Get decent leash on blue with Smite

2. Go straight to red and wreck it. no need to smite because you wont have it anyway.

3. Then go to wraiths. By now you are level 3 and can gank top with great success

Make sure to gank mid every time you cross over from red side to blue side. It will help mid out tremendously.

All in all I really hoped to have taught you something about Xin Zhao and how he can be used. as i said this is my first serious guide and would like feedback in the discussion section and remember to rate it!!

TchMeHw2Kyle Out