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// I am not in ranked yet, so this is NOT for ranked players, however I have recently been having extremely good games with Xin Zhao, I have read Vapora Dark's Talong guide and I tried it out on Xin, made a few changes here and there, and it is amazing. // SPECIAL THANKS: Credits to jhoijhoi for the template, which you can find here.

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Pros + Great at offensive Ganks + His W grants him tons of attack speed. + Good sustain if built right (Follow my build) + His passive allows you to shred through armor early in the game + He's asian. + His ultimate can be used to knock enemies into turrets or away from squishy team mates. // Xin Zhao is one of my favorite champions who can play mid, top, and jungle roles. He has great dueling potential and honestly I have never lost a 1v1 fight with him in the last half of the game, and rarely in the first. His Q Three talon Strike provides massive damage output early game and a form of crowd control that allows for a guaranteed fourth hit. His E Audacious Charge is a good for initiating against squishy champions who you can kill and great for slowing down tanks so they can't run away.

Cons - Tanks are his enemy early game - Item dependent when farming jungles - Easily kited by long range champions if he doesn't gank. - Susceptible to cc's especially stunning // Xin's great weakness most notably is his early game against tanks and champions with early sustain like Aarox or Darius. If a gank is not initiated the right way he can be susceptible to kiting without movement speed quintessences and Utilities.

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// Xin Benefits greatly from lots of damage, I imagine some of you might ask why I put the last extra point in cooldowns instead of attack speed as most of you think attack speed helps him get that last hit in. The thing is extra cooldown reduction helps him perform audacios charge again if his enemy is outrunning him, which not only also helps him get that last hit in as he can now simply audacious charge to his enemy who is running away, but his W gives him plenty of attack speed anyway.

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• Greater Quintessence of Movement Speed: // As I mentioned before, early game and sometimes mid game he is weak against tanks and can be kited easily. Combined with his masteries he get's 7.5% movement speed outside of battle which might not seem like much at first but it allows you to catch up to enemies outrunning and run away from tanks easier if your ally doesn't help you out in a gank like you think he should have. Quintessence of lifesteal is another viable option.
  
• greater mark of ARMOR PENETRATION: // Xin's passive reduces his targets armor by 15% Combined with his masteries and these marks Xin starts out with gives him 23% ignored armor and 23.04 armor penetration, which let's him basically deal true damage against anyone he may be laning against at the start, and it scales later in the game with his items. I don't go for attack speed of flat damage because flat damge only helps with last hitting which doesn't apply in normal games, because people normally don't last hit in normal games. I would like to but I find that my team mates often push too fast so I have to go and gank for them so they can take the turret, ganking usually means fighting champions not minions and this is the best for fighting champions.
  
• Greater Glyph of Cooldown Reduction: // As I explained before in the masteries. If you didn't put your points in cooldown before you can use magic resist or scaling magic resist but late and mid game he really doesn't need protection from mages, he simply bursts them down. Another reason why cooldowns are important, my build focuses on bursts and this lets him burst more often.
  
• Greater Seal of Armor: // THIS IS THE ONLY SEAL YOU SHOULD TAKE, simply because it mitigates minion agro and no others seals are worth the ip you spend on them in my opinion.

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Flash: // Flash is great on Xin, it's like a second audacious charge that you don't have to put a point in. I don't really use it defensively much because the only time when it can be useful is when I walk into a mob of enemy champions in the jungle in which case they have already bursted me down. Don't take me wrong I have gotten a few penta kills with Xin, these are when I was taken by surprise and they had time to prepare for me. Sometimes though you end up killing all of them anyway if you react quick enough.

Teleport: // I normally don't take teleport as It would only be a useful spell for split pushing, and often I find my team relying on me in team fights and I can't split push. However If I didn't take Exhaust I would use this one as It would let me take a tower and then teleport to a team fight in mid.

Exhaust: // Personaly this is my favorite spell on Xin even when jungling, the reason I would never take smite with Xin is because simply Xin is made to gank, and this spell is the best spell for ganking. That way you don't have to worry about initiating with your audacious charge. You will have time to burst them down with this, and if they do run away by the time this wears off your audacious charge will be up.

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• ABILITY Challenge: // 15% ignored armor, combined with my recommended masteries and runes you start out with 23% ignored armor and 23 armor penetration. Need I say more?
  
• ABILITY Three Talon Strike (Q): // I take my first point in this when jungling but my second point when laning, this is a great damage source and at level 3 if you initiate with audacious charge dealing damage and slowing all nearby enemies, then use Battle cry giving you attack speed, then use this you can often take out 50% of most champions health and giving you a major health advantage and lane dominance, if you have Exhaust you can use it on them and burst them again. However that often uses up your flash too, though that combination of abilities and summoner spells is pretty much guaranteed to get you a kill if you aren't up against a tank.
  
• ABILITY Battle Cry (W): // permanent passive gives you healing on every third strike, active it gives you attack speed, this is partly the reason we don't need attack speed marks or masteries, at level one this increases your attack sped by 40% for 5 seconds, which should be more than enough to get your full burst in. Take this at level two when jungling unless you are already called to gank (Some games I am pretty much ganking all the lanes at once) and first when laning for the extra sustain.
  
• ABILITY Audacious Charge (E): // In laning always take this at level 3, however you you are already ganking top lane take this at level two, this will allow you to slow down the enemy champion and with three talon strike damage him, giving you and your top team mate a health and speed advantage, however against champions like darius you start out with tones of damage and already tanky I'd wait to gank till level 4 or 5 if possible.
  
• ABILITY Audacious Charge (R): // I'm gonna be honest with you, I like all of his other spells better than this one, it's nice to have to push enemies away and let you escape if suddenly your top has to go heal then you are double teamed early on (It usually ends in a double kill for you mid and late game), however around level 11 I start killing most of the champions too fast to use this anyway. However it can be Hilarious if an enemy runs out of turret fire then you audacious charge to an enemy minion in front of them and push them back in it so the turret can kill them. You can practically hear the ragequit.

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Crescent > > >

// Though his ultimate isn't all that useful It still is never a good idea to not take a point in an ultimate, it just isn't. Three talon strike needs to be the first thing you max, if your jungling and you find yourself ganking a lot you should level audacious charge before battle cry sicne the extra cooldown can sometimes let you burst twice. NOT DONE I WILL IMPROVE ON THIS MORE VERY SOON, so far though how do you guys like it?

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// This item gives Xin +30 Attack Damage +15% Critical Strike Chance +10% Cooldown Reduction +20 Armor Penetration +20% Movement Speed and +40% Attack Speed (Active.)

All of the passives are very nice especially the 20 armor penetration which gives Xin a total of 43 armor penetration. But we also get this thing for the movement speed and attack speed, if you find yourself losing a battle after a burst click the item and you are all of a sudden doing 40%more damage for 6 seconds. You shouldn't need it except for the armor penetration and to catch up to running champions during late game, (I never have.)

// This item is not only a great source of CC as it steal speed from an enemy and gives it to you but you do 5% of their current health in extra damage and 15% of their maximum health on the active. This thing let's you obliterate tanks. Just remember if you do use the active on a tank the passive is much more effective if you use three talon strike on them first and then hit them with the active.

// This item ives you 40 extra damage which is decent, not great but we really don't get it for the damage anyway, we get it because we ignore 35% of a targets armor, combined with your masteries you will ignore 43% of their armor. With all your items together you will reduce someone with: 100 armor to 17 armor 150 armor to 21.5 armor and someone with 200 armor to 43 armor. Although rare I did play against a Cho'gath with 272 armor but because of my items his effective armor was reduced to 74 armor. You may ask why I don't also get The Black Cleaver. Well the black cleaver yes gives some armor penetration and some health but it's passive is only effective if you basic attack the champion 5 times. I would only buy this item late game and buy them most champions don't last 5 basic attacks against me, (I count three from three talon strike.) And if they do they are so low one more burst will kill them. So this is the last armor reduction item you will need.

// This item gives Xin lots of extra damage and extra sustain. Some of you may argue that he needs a defensive item. Well guess what, this item and blade of the Ruined king will give him 33% lifesteal, later on you will buy Ravenous Hydra, which will total you out at 45% lifesteal. Given all the damage you can do unless your enemies can take you out in an instant, (completely possible with a whole team bursting you down or even some individual champions like Talon) you will be able to come back. One time Jinx took me from full health to 300 with her ultimate and her zap and auto attacks, but I caught up to her, and came back to full health by auto attacking her, and a few minions after I killed her. After your full build you will not need to go back to base ever, unless you are bursted down.

// I take this for the same reason Vapora dark takes his with Talon, extra damage and it adds up to 40% critical hit chance, and an extra 50% damage to your critical hit. Multiply 40 by 2.5 which is 100 and you end up averaging an extra 100%, or double increased damage from this item and youmuu's ghostblade. I know it is chance and not guaranteed, but that is just an average I'm giving you.

// You don't really need this item, it's just a luxury that I prefer. Increased damage and lifesteal, nice passive for pushing, great ultimate for increasing your three talon strike burst, but feel free to replace it with any defensive item you think you need if you think you need one. You shouldn't because thinking ahead and knowing your opponents is much more effective and much less expensive than Warmogs and Randuin's Omen, (By the way Warmogs isn't that great anyway) .

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// Xin Zhao is the best initiator I have played with, and can easily take down 1-2 opponents before a fight starts so the fight is essentially 3v5. What you should do is stay ahead (but not too far ahead) of your team and use all your spells but the ultimate on the enemies adc, then use your ultimate and focus the support or a tank. By the time the enemy can react your team is there to defend you and they are often down two players.

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// Xin is not the best champion in the world and I am not the best summoner, however he dominates normal games, I win 4/5 games with him. I wanted to make a guide because it was killing me to show my ideas for Xin, and because I wanted to make a guide that wasn't meant for ranked but one for normal. I would like you guys to try out the final build and see how you like it. I do have a setup for the build order but I'm not confident really in any of it except you rush Youmuu's ghostblade after rushing bilgewater cutlass, and Ravenous hydra or whatever defensive item you prefer is last. If you feel I should make some improvements tell me in the comments, if you have a good build order idea also post it in the comments. // SPECIAL THANKS: Credits to jhoijhoi for the template, which you can find here.