Lee Sin has been one of the most popular and strongest junglers in both solo queue and competitive play for a while now. He has a lot of tools at his disposal but he takes a while to master. Lee Sin is really strong early game which he can use to pressure lanes or the enemy jungler. From there, Lee Sin scales into the mid game by taking vision control of the map with his mobility and Sightstone, then transitions into a utility based tank late game.

Pros

+ Strong early game + Fun to play + Very high skill ceiling + Fits into any team comp

Cons

- Doesn't scale well - Hard to play

Standard Runes

Alternatives greater mark of armor penetration

I use Greater Mark of Attack Damage, Greater Seal of Armor, Greater Glyph of Magic Resist, and Greater Quintessence of Attack Damage which is a standard page for any AD jungler. Anything close to this is fine as well; greater mark of armor penetration is fine and so are Greater Glyph of Scaling Magic Resist and Greater Glyph of Cooldown Reduction. I prefer CDR glyphs when the other team doesn't have much magic damage or when my mid laner doesn't need blue. The reasoning being that with 20% cdr (10% from Ranger's Trailblazer - Warrior and 10% from runes/masteries), Lee Sin runs out of energy if he spams all of his abilities, but if you get blue buff, you have enough energy regen to sustain spamming everything at 30% CDR.

I use 21/9/0 masteries for Lee Sin which accents his early game strength by giving him more damage from offense and a bit more survivability from defense. Some of the points can be changed around in the offense tree, for example you can use Sorcery instead of Fury or you can take a point out of Expose Weakness for something else.

As far at skill sequencing goes on Lee Sin, always take Q at level 1 and max it first while taking E and W at levels 2 and 3. There has always been a debate about which ability is best to max second. I usually alternate, taking points into W when I feel behind or points into E when I feel ahead. Both abilities in 4.13 were nerfed, but I think leveling W second is usually better because E no longer reduces attack speed.

(Passive) Flurry

Lee Sin's passive gives him bonus attack speed for two auto attacks after you cast a spell. Each autoattack restores energy as well. This makes it ideal to space one or two autoattacks in between your abilities when jungling or fighting to keep up your energy and make use of the attack speed.

(Q) Sonic Wave / Resonating Strike Cooldown: 11/10/9/8/7 seconds

Lee Sin's Q is a skill-shot nuke that deals damage, reveals, and allows him to cast it again to dash to the enemy and deal more damage based on how much health they're missing.

This is Lee Sin's core ability in the early game, being able to hit your Q is everything. I've found that being patient with the Q is the best way to hit it. If you shoot it at max range it's easy for people to dodge, but if you run at your enemies they'll usually waste time juking and allow you to catch up to them due to Lee Sin's high base movement speed, or they'll run away in a straight line which makes them easy to hit.

There is a huge urge to want to follow up on any Q that you hit but be careful because it's not worth it if it gets you killed.

(W) Safeguard / Iron Will Cooldown: 9 seconds

Lee Sin's W is a dash that he can use on himself or allies that gives a small shield for 2 seconds, it gets a reduced cool-down if it's used on a champion (including himself). If he activates W again, he gains a lot of life steal and spell vamp for 4 seconds.

There are a few tricks with Lee Sin's W that can make it more effective. I'd recommend that everyone who plays Lee Sin to make a separate hotkey to self cast this ability, because it's a lot easier than moving your mouse to target yourself every time you want to use it while clearing the jungle.

Another way to make use of this ability is by using it to jump to wards. Ward jumping is a huge part about playing Lee Sin. To make it easier, make sure you smart cast wards and this spell so that you can do it really fast. I set my smartcast item slot 2 hotkey to C, so when I want to ward jump I press C then W at the same point which makes the ward jump really fluent.

You can also use your W to cancel the 2nd part of your Q. You can use this to dash at an enemy to make them think you're going on them then jump away before the ability connects. It won't do any damage but it can get in your opponents head or make them waste spells thinking that you're initiating. Just be careful because the dash from your Q goes really fast and if you press W too slow you'll go all the way in.

(W) Tempest / Cripple Cooldown: 10 seconds

Lee Sin's E is an AoE magic damage nuke that also reveals units that he hits. Activating it again will slow everyone's movement speed that got hit by the initial E.

This ability is a bit underwhelming after the 4.13 nerfs because it doesn't slow attack speed any more but it's still a nice AoE slow and nuke.

The only trick with this ability is that you can E then Flash and it makes your E apply to the area that you Flashed to. You won't use this trick every game but sometimes you can catch people off guard with it because it's faster than using Flash then E.

(R) Dragon's Rage Cooldown: 90/75/60 seconds

Lee Sin's ult is a high damage nuke that knocks his target backwards and knocks up any enemy that the target gets knocked into.

Lee Sin's ult can be used a ton of different ways which makes incredibly versatile. You can initiate a fight by getting behind someone and kicking them into your team, you can kick someone through the rest of their team to knock up all of them, you can use the kick to peel for your carries, or you can use it to "secure" kills for yourself.

You can also ult then Flash just like you can with the E. It's pretty hard to do and it runs the risk of wasting your ult and Flash to save an enemy, but if you pull it off it's almost impossible to react to and looks really cool.

Early Game For items on Lee Sin, always start with Hunter's Machete + 2 Health Potions. From there, you want to get Ranger's Trailblazer as soon as you can.

After Ranger's Trailblazer - Warrior, you can either transition into a DPS Lee Sin or a tank Lee Sin. Tank is the more practical build that you see in competitive matches but DPS is pretty effective too, especially if you get fed.

Tank Lee Sin After finishing Ranger's Trailblazer - Warrior, buy Boots then a Sightstone as soon as you can. Switch to a Sweeping Lens when you get your Sightstone because you'll be at the ward cap anyway. After Sightstone, get Ninja Tabi or Mercury's Treads depending on what kind of physical/magic damage spread the other team has. After finishing your boots, work towards Randuin's Omen or Banshee's Veil depending on what kind of damage their team does and then finish the other one. Your last item can be anything, if the other team is mostly magic you can get a Spirit Visage or Maw of Malmortius, if the other team is mostly physical damage you can get a Thornmail. If it's an even mix, I would recommend getting a Guardian Angel.

DPS Lee Sin After Ranger's Trailblazer - Warrior, get Boots then build The Brutalizer. If the other team is mostly magic damage then you can get Hexdrinker instead of The Brutalizer. From there, you can really build whatever damage items you want, Ravenous Hydra synergizes well with Lee Sin's W but it's pretty expensive. Last Whisper scales well with The Brutalizer and Lee Sin's Q. If you build DPS just remember that you're really squishy so you should look for small engagements rather than full on team fights. I would recommend picking up a Guardian Angel at some point so that when you instantly die, you can come back to life to instantly die again. Keep your Stealth Ward and don't buy a Sightstone if you decide to go DPS Lee Sin. The build is only really effective if you're ahead of the curve and sight stone delays your build quite a bit. Keep the Stealth Ward for ward jumps to get yourself in or out of sticky situations.

(Early Game)
In the early game, pay attention to where the enemy jungler starts and which lanes from each team are vulnerable. If the other team's top laner looks gankable, then start on the buff closest to your bot lane so that you can show up top at level 3 with double buffs. If you think it's likely that your top laner is gankable and you see that their jungler started on the bottom buff as well, you can always hide in the bush and look for a counter gank. If you have a really good jungle match up (aka most champions other than Elise), then feel free to counter jungle the other jungler. By fighting the other jungler and taking his camps, it sets them behind and takes pressure off of your lanes because you have vision of their jungler.


(Mid Game)
Mid game is the period of time when you have Ranger's Trailblazer and Sightstone and at this point in the game you want to put as many wards down in the enemy jungle and look to make plays with Dragon's Rage every time it's up. Lee Sin can do dragon pretty easily once he has 2+ points into his W so look to secure that every time it's up. Keep checking buff timers and coordinate invades with your team to steal enemy buffs.

(Late Game)
Late game can be a bit awkward on Lee Sin, if you build tanky then you aren't really strong enough to kill anyone and if you build damage then you'll die if you ever go into a team fight. The most useful thing for Lee Sin to do in team fights is to either kick one of their carries into your team or peel for your carries. Try to apply your E to as many people as you can and hope your carries are strong enough to win the fight!

I hope you enjoyed my guide and learned something from it! Lee Sin is one the most versatile junglers in the game because there is so many things he can do with his kit, Good Luck! Also, if you want to learn more about how I jungle, follow me on twitter @Meteoslol and watch my stream at www.twitch.tv/meteos