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Xayah Build Guide by Fruxo

ADC ✔️ How to use Feathers

ADC ✔️ How to use Feathers

Updated on March 10, 2024
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League of Legends Build Guide Author Fruxo Build Guide By Fruxo 131 3 316,041 Views 16 Comments
131 3 316,041 Views 16 Comments League of Legends Build Guide Author Fruxo Xayah Build Guide By Fruxo Updated on March 10, 2024
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Runes: Recommended

1 2
Precision
Lethal Tempo
Presence of Mind
Legend: Bloodline
Coup de Grace

Inspiration
Magical Footwear
Biscuit Delivery
Bonus:

+10% Attack Speed
+9 Adaptive (5.4 AD or 9 AP)
+10-180 Bonus Health

Spells:

1 2 3 4
Ghost
LoL Summoner Spell: Flash

Flash

LoL Summoner Spell: Ghost

Ghost

Hi, I'm Fruxo and welcome to my Xayah guide. I've been playing League of Legends since September 2014 in Season 4 and have been maining different roles & champions since the day I started. Xayah was one of my favorite champions to play whenever I got ADC. The top rank I've achieved is Diamond I in solo queue. If you have any questions or suggestions about the guide then feel free to leave a comment, I try to respond to everything. If you want to support me, an upvote or +rep would be very appreciated.
Before we begin, I'd like to give a big thank-you to Katasandra for her massive help with coding this guide (as well as my other guides). Always helping me make this guide look great but also as mobile-friendly as possible. Be sure to check out her how to write a guide tutorial & coding guide as well as her own guides!
Xayah is another example of the ranged champions whose power almost exclusively revolves around their basic attacks: using their reach to land massive continuous damage from a distance. Only downside is that you're tremendously vulnerable to burst damage, due to your fragility whilst also being exceptionally weak early in the game. Due to your potent reach and DPS, you're particularly strong against more durable opponents, namely fighters and tanks, but fall quickly to the burst damage of assassins and mages.
Great Waveclear
Good Poke
Very Strong Root
Excellent Pusher
Fun to Play
Untargetable R
Needs Set-up Time
Fairly Immobile
Poke Lanes Suck
Tricky to Learn
Must keep track of her feathers
Weak to CC when ultimate is down

Xayah's weakest point in the game is by far the earliest stages. Her cooldowns are quite high and your overall damage early on is pretty weak as you do not have much damage to work with and you're reliant on attack speed to get your feathers going. Early combos are still strong on her and mastering the early phase, when you can trade and when you'll definitely lose the trades is the 2nd most important thing on her, with getting minions and obtaining gold and exp being the most important.

Featherstorm gives her a lot of survivability and freedom due to her untargetability and the feathers it provides. This makes the lategame her strongest point in the game only because she gains access to a lot more freedom, and with a few items your overall damage will be extremely strong. Xayah does not fall off much at all during the endgame and thus she always stays relevant. However, heavy CC and bad positioning during fights will get you killed without a doubt.

As you might have already thought, Xayah works very well in teamfights. She will always be able to deal with the frontline carries/tanks and once they're dealt with, will always give her the opportunity to target the backline once the moment arrives. She has major troubles to stay alive when it comes to assassins (e.g. LeBlanc, Fizz & Zed) specifically as with most AD Carries, otherwise she'll be at her strongest point in the game if they're dealt with.
Useful Tips
Try to manage your feathers as much as possible, as they're the MOST important aspect about Xayah
Incorporate auto attacks inbetween every ability that you cast, it'll help tremendously
Has a hidden passive - Lover's Leap which lets you and Rakan recall together
Clean Cuts is quite a unique passive. You can only store 5 feathers at once, this means if you were to use Deadly Plumage and Double Daggers right away, you'll be missing out on one feather each time. This means you'll have to manage your feathers as much as possible. Ideally, you'll want to incorporate auto attacks inbetween each ability use, so as to not waste feathers you can throw out onto the ground and then call back with Bladecaller.

Having out as many feathers as possible is pretty important as Xayah is the only champion in the game with this feather mechanic and most of her entire damage heavily relies on her feathers being able to hit and the insane nuke you have on Bladecaller depending on the feathers that does pull through enemies on the way back.

Useful Tips
If Double Daggers is aimed at terrain, it'll attempt to place feathers on the other side, even if it says it won't
Can be used to check bushes for enemies as it'll show if targets are within the bush

Things to note
Be careful aiming Double Daggers around terrain, as the feathers can be placed at weird locations
Double Daggers is an interesting ability, it produces 2 feathers and pierces any enemies in its path. Though however, only the first target hit will deal the most damage, and any other targets afterwards will take less damage. This does mean that during the laning phase you won't be dealing that much damage with this ability as it'll usually be hitting minions before the target.

The ability is quite useful to have due to it producing 2 feathers everytime it's used. If used together with auto attacks inbetween it can allow you to setup very quick and effective combos using Bladecaller to get fast roots - this is especially prevalent within the early stages of the game.

When used for poke can be very effective - as long as you still keep track of where your feathers are. Since Xayah is all about feather management (due to her being the only champion in the game with such a mechanic) it's very crucial not to auto pilot games and forget where your feathers are - they're your damage.

Useful Tips
Should always be used against towers as the attack speed and extra damage makes it faster to damage the tower
If Rakan is near (ally), he also gains the effects of this ability - though gets the MS whenever Xayah hits any target
Deadly Plumage is extremely useful for kiting opponents or to chase them. This ability is by far one of the best parts about Xayah's kit.

This is essentially because of it being an attack speed steroid that also produces an extra feather that deals more damage on top of it. When this extra feather hits an enemy champion, she'll also gain herself extra movement speed (MS).

Try to use the attack speed and movement speed you're getting from this ability to pump out a ton of damage and place more and more feathers onto the ground to call back with Bladecaller.

Useful Tips
Can be combined together with Flash or Galeforce to redirect feathers onto targets giving very little react time

Things to note
This is why being able to manage feathers matter so much - this ability & the feathers is a majority of your damage
Arguably the most important ability in Xayah entire kit, Bladecaller. This ability will call back all of your feathers that you dished out back towards you and is your main go-to source of damage outside of your auto attacks. This is also the one ability that makes her kit so incredibly unique from other traditional AD Carries.

When you recall your feathers, any targets they pass through will take a massive amount of damage depending on the amount of feathers. Enemies will also take a percentage of damage from your feathers depending on the amount of feathers that was hit to feathers that has already passed through minions before the enemy champion.

If 3+ feathers has hit any target, it will cause them to get rooted. This is exceptionally useful as you can still dish out more damage whilst the opponent is still rooted.

Useful Tips
Can also be combined together with Flash to redirect your ultimate and thus where the feathers will land
You cannot use any abilities during your ultimate, but you can use every summoner spell - including Heal

Things to note
You are untargetable during your ultimate - however, summoner spells e.g. Ignite or Exhaust will still affect you, can damage you and can kill you
At last we have her ultimate, Featherstorm. After casting your ultimate it'll leave behind 5 feathers on the ground every time, so you'll always have an option to either call them back immediately with Bladecaller or keep them there to get down more feathers in order to look for a bigger combo or root.

Within teamfights this ability can be crucial as it'll pull through an entire team if they're clumped together and together with Bladecaller it'll give your team a very devastating teamfight.

The better use of the ability however is as a defensive ability/last resort. If e.g. Zed, Syndra or Fizz use their ultimates ( Death Mark, Unleashed Power or Chum the Waters) towards you, this ability can be used to avoid both the CC and the damage itself entirely due to your untargetability. If timed correctly (Used early for Zed's mark, before the orbs hit you for Syndra and right before the shark pops for Fizz) you can avoid any danger altogether.

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Q

W

E

E

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R

7

8

9

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W

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E

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Always skill this first. It's your main tool for poke, damage and early farming and will especially be needed for your level 2 spike.
You'll be unlocking this at level 2. Use this to setup feathers and root combos together with your support to get an early lead within the lane.
Your main ability for attack speed and overall damage aside from your feathers. This one gets levelled last as the prior 2 are much more needed early.
S
E
Q
U
E
N
C
E
This is your main source of damage for an ability, always max it first. You'll be using it to do practically anything and to even stay relevant at all during the game.
Max this one second. Attack speed and movement speed is very crucial to Xayah and thus should always be maxed second. Bladecaller damage should always be maxed first.
Always third max. It'll increase the damage that your feathers from the ability deals, but not enough to justify it being maxed any earlier. The other 2 abilities are more important.
Try to put points in it whenever you can. It'll make you stronger whilst also just making you more of a champion when you have it available. It's your ultimate after all.
So, here's an overview of which summoners you can take on Xayah. You should always run Flash & Ghost in almost 90% of your games for obvious reasons. Then we also have the situational spell options that you can go for which is Heal, Exhaust & Cleanse.
Slot 1
Slot 2
Always
Most times
Situational
This is a key spell for every champion in this game and although some still perform great without it, it’s still very useful. It’s also insane to have on a marksman like Xayah due to her massive immobility that cannot be covered with any abilities that she has. As an ADC you're incredibly susceptible to ganks and CC - being able to avoid these situations if all else fails is an incredibly valuable thing to have.
An incredibly popular spell choice that have only increased in popularity. Ghost removes any defenses you'd gain from a summoner spell and instead rewards you with a more flexible option. It can provide you with movement speed to both chase and kite enemies. Remember to make yourself familiar when playing with this spell as it's not like the rest.
A must have on every ADC as it's your main spell option for about 90% of your games due to the immense value it provides. ADCs are very squishy by nature - and compensates this weakness with their sheer ability to dish out damage. It's a great pick due to its ability to help your survivability - pick it if your Support isn't already picking Heal.
If you're against champions that can make the laning phase an utter hell. Try to define which lane matchups you struggle the most with - and for which this spell is more worth against (e.g. Draven / Thresh - for very heavy poke, Twitch / Lulu - heavy scaling and strong damage/support or Lucian / Nami - amplifying damage/heal to accomplish more.
Against champions that provide lots of heavy CC. Very common pick against most APC champions like Syndra, Cassiopeia, Veigar or Xerath as their CC can lead to immediate death if they're allowed to accomplish their goals in lane the way that they want. Generally a good pick if you can't or haven't learned how to dodge skillshots.
The most common keystone option you can pick for this type of champion. Lethal Tempo allows you to extend past the regular attack speed limit for a couple of seconds in order to deal more damage and to set up a lot more feathers than you normally would be able to for a great Bladecaller. You'll find yourself having much higher attack speed throughout your combos in comparison to other keystones, allowing your bursts to be a whole lot quicker and for you to be able to fit in an extra auto attack inbetween your combos. It's an extremely consistent option and works very well in combination with her kit.
PRECISION
Precision is mostly taken as a primary tree as it offers great benefits for the type of playstyle that you play - especially accompanied with Lethal Tempo.
Very well-rounded rune that provides a lot of good mana sustain which will be needed for you.
Underrated, provides a ton of life steal and health assuming you can stack it effectively.
Pretty self-explanatory, it'll provide you with even more damage the squishier the targets are.
Provides the opposite of Coup, this rune instead gives you more damage the tankier targets are.
INSPIRATION
Inspiration is taken as a secondary tree. When taken it offers extra benefits such as free boots and incredibly good lane sustain which is needed to scale well and survive the lane early on.
Saves gold you can spend elsewhere. Only that you have to wait 12 mins, with takedowns making it less.
Helps significantly with sustain while in lane and is a good aid against heavy poke matchups.
DOMINATION
Domination is taken as a secondary tree. When taken it offers extra benefits such as lots of sustain and general cooldown reduction for your ultimate - which is very valuable. This type of page offers a far more offensive kind of playstyle in comparison to inspiration which is the more "safer" option.
If used well, it provides a lot of free healing everytime you deal damage towards a champion.
Gives a lot of ultimate haste. Beneficial to reduce your ultimate when it's most important.
The standard stat shards on Xayah. Feel free to swap Health Scaling for Tenacity and Slow Resist if against a team composition with a lot of CC threads.
This chapter features the items Xayah can build and when and why you build them. To help you on your way I created an item set you can import into your league client!
How do I import item sets?

Item set code: Marksman Build
Starting Items
The standard choice to use. Doran's will provide you with anything you'd need for the early stages of the game and gives you lots of stats to aid you on your way. If you're against matchups that aren't as difficult or against generally easier matchups, this item is massive.
Against matchups that has incredibly heavy poke - you'll opt to get this starter item instead. By heavy poke, these are matchups such as Caitlyn / Zyra or anything inbetween, that aims to shove you in and destroy your health bar from afar.
This is the most common potion to go for no matter what starter option. It'll always be able to give you enough health back to sustain yourself during the laning phase and should allow you to get your more major items that actually matter.
The usual starting trinket. It helps with getting early vision and will always be a generally good choice. You should always go for it at the start and use it to gain vision near the bushes for your lane. Botlane is very prevalent to ganks due to how snowbally it is - keep your vision in mind!
Once the game extends past 20 minutes you'll be looking to pick up this item. As an ADC you're your team's main source of damage and dying is a massive setback - this trinket allows you to gain vision without having to place yourself into bad situations to gain said vision for your team.
First Base
The best basing scenario is when you can afford Noonquiver which can be used to build into Kraken Slayer on your first base (the current most popular first item on Xayah by far). However, sometimes you won't have enough gold for the item because of a bad laning phase or dying, in such a case you should look to get one of the items below instead.
Builds into Kraken Slayer, is a good item you can get early on for 700g - if your lane went horrible.
If you're having a real bad time, you can opt to buy this for 350g to get some damage to work with.
Will provide you with some great early attack speed to aid you - especially when you benefit from this stat.
Early boots will help with dodging skillshots. If you did not pick Magical Footwear - try to get these early.
Don't forget to buy extra potions for more sustain if you really need them - they will never hurt you.
If you have 75g left, buy one to use for vision in bushes or to prepare for an important objective.
Boots
I build these boots in 100% of my games as they're the most recommended option to pick from due to the sheer amount of attack speed that it provides. It's exceptionally useful on someone like Xayah in order to get her feathers out faster and to allow her to set-up combos more effectively.
Item Pool
Provides Xayah with anything that she requires, ranging from AD and attack speed to general critical strike chance. The item effect is also incredibly useful to have due to the additional damage it's able to provide for a champion that really requires more damage for her kit.
Empowers your ability and proc damage that's dealt by your abilities whilst letting your basic attacks reduce your important cooldowns. This is one of her most popular item options (if not the most popular) - but it does require getting used to.
This item is very effective for you because Xayah tends to attack a lot during combat and can utilize the increased attack speed while also being best paired with other sources of attack speed in order to stack up the effect quicker. It'll allow you to keep melee enemies at a distance.
A lot more of an item you can use to sustain yourself and survive throughout the game, but it's a risky purchase. It's completely countered by Grievous Wounds, making it a lot less inviting of a buy if the enemy has a ton of Ignites or built their own healing reduction items.
Gives you a ton of useful armor penetration and also critical strike chance, damage and a passive that lets you deal more damage against targets with more health than you. If you're against tanks (>3000hp) and have a lot of gold, this is a dream come true.
If you need armor penetration fast, you can also opt to get this one earlier in the game and sit on it until you need to upgrade it.
Is a very common item I buy due to how often healing champions and life steal items are picked/bought at this point (e.g. Vladimir / Soraka / Dr. Mundo / Blade of the Ruined King). The other stats that it provides are also extremely good for you in general.
If you just need quick healing reduction at the start of the game, you may choose to sit on this item to deal with the enemy team.
Get this when the enemy team has a lot of bursty AP champions that are incredibly ahead/fed (e.g. LeBlanc / Syndra / Fizz). You get a ton of free magic resist and the shield will be able to save you more times then I can even count.
If the burst champions aren't that fed but still a threat, you can choose to build this item and sit on it until you absolutely need to upgrade it.
Not an item that's built all too much but is still very much a solid option. If you're struggling with a lot of crowd control on the enemy team, you can always opt to build this to specifically deal with those targets and break free from chains. Especially useful against Mordekaiser and similar.
You can also choose to buy a simple QSS and sit on it until the end, only upgrading it to Mercurial if it's really necessary.
A great item where moving or attacking will build up an energized attack. This energized attack is incredibly useful due to the extra range it provides you. If you're against team compositions where you ideally want to stay far away when you attack - this is the item to buy.
Fantastic item to pick up if your main motive is survivability. There are so many things in this game at this point that will completely 1shot you, being able to gain a shield that can help you survive heavy burst will go a very very long way.
Always a useful item but the reviving passive will only work for a single fight. If you have gold for it before a very game-deciding fight (e.g. fighting for baron/elder) then try to pick it up. If you built GA & already used the revive, sell it and build another item (passive cooldown is 5 minutes).
If you're completely new to botlane, this role won't be all too different from the other roles, yet gives more opportunities than most of the others due to it being a 2v2 dominant role where it's you and your support vs the enemy ADC and their support. With that said, don't be frightened, once you learn the fundamentals of the role, it's actually much easier to manage playing the role.

This section is rather large so here is an overview of all the general topics that will be covered:
Early Game
This is an ideal scenario that you could start the game off with.

Key points:

- Enemy support dies
- Fast push the wave without losing minions
- Crash the wave to the enemy tower
- Recall to get new item powerspikes

Last hit as many minions as you can. Probably the most self-explanatory topic ever to discuss, yet highly important. I see many players outright missing important CS that they otherwise easily could have gotten. Practice your last hits so that you're able to consistently gain gold/exp.

Be present for Dragon attempts/contests. Always make sure you're able to partake together with your allies in order to secure Dragons or attempt to gain said objective. Objectives are a very key aspect to winning games and should never ever be ignored.

Avoid dying! This should always be priority number one. You want to be able to farm up and keep yourself healthy whilst avoiding death as much as humanly possible. Botlane is a special lane in that it's the lane that sees the absolute most jungle ganks out of any other lane on the map.
Mid Game
Farm as much as possible! - Yes, kills are still important. But not more than regular farm. As an ADC your main job is essentially to inhale as much CS as you possibly can - which includes Jungle Monsters during the mid stages of the game. You want to get your item powerspikes and create the point within the game where you can carry, that is your main focus. Keep in mind that 15CS is the same amount as getting a kill.

Siege down towers! Once the mid game starts - which is usually when the first enemy botlane tower falls, you want to look to switch with your midlaner and go mid, whilst your midlaner goes bot. This is because your midlaner can start sidelaning whilst you siege the first tower midlane to further extend your lead. This is even more important if you're ahead - if you're behind you want to just focus on farming.

Be present for fights! Always be present and partake with your team when it comes to appropriate skirmishes or very important neutral objectives - this could singehandedly lose you the game if you ignore.
The mid- stages of any game as an ADC is all about CS management and getting as much gold as humanly possible.

Key points:

- Botlane tower has been taken
- Botlane wave is deeply pushed to the enemy
- Wave at mid is completely free
- Allows you to take and contest mid tower because the bottom lane is already as pushed as it needs to be

Late Game
Dragon Soul
Obtaining the dragon soul is usually the biggest win condition for most games. This is why you should always prioritize dragons early and often because of the stats they provide. Some individual dragons are less important to get than others but the dragon soul is always a buff your team should fight over by default. Also don't get tunnel vision, the dragon soul is way more important than a baron buff, not the other way around.
Baron Nashor
This is another common win condition that you can go for. If you're in the mid-game or the start of late game, try to look to do this objective! The buff will allow you to push your leads further by sieging towers or even end the game immediately.
Elder Dragon
If the game stalls out long enough, this will be your next important objective. Elder Dragon is way more important to get than the baron buff because of the execute. Try to look for fights after you get this objective.
Combos
This chapter features all the combos that Xayah is able to do and how you can do them. There might be even more then what is listed here as these are just the most common combos that are used.
Meaning of Icons
AA
Flash
Q
W
E
R
Quick Trade
Some examples
This is the easiest pre-level 2/3 combo that you can make use of. You can cast an auto attack inbetween casting Double Daggers and so casting it first and then following up with an auto will make it easier to poke the enemies while not recieving too much back.
Early Poke
Some examples
Very effective and quick to use combo to poke opponents with when you don't have time to fit an auto inbetween or just want the combo to be fast. This works exceptionally well if used when the enemy ADC is pushed under their tower as you can quickly poke them while they're trying to farm their minions dying to the tower.
Standard Trade
Some examples
The best combo in order to output the most damage pre-6. Casting AA > Q > AA will cast 4 feathers towards the target location and only 3 is required to cast your Bladecaller for a root. You follow this up with Deadly Plumage during the entire rotation in order to maximize your damage output.
Q Flash / R Flash
Using Flash to cover distance for your Double Daggers or Featherstorm in order to set up feathers faster and thus set up roots more effectively can always be an option. Just remember that you should always use Q OR R first then Flash rather than the opposite. This is because the animation is much faster and you can only use summoner spells during your ultimate.
E Flash
Some examples
Flash can also be used to redirect your feathers whenever you use Bladecaller to call them back. This is a very popular combo and is extremely effective as it gives the opponent little reaction time to your feathers before they either get instantly rooted, or just destroyed entirely from the damage of the feathers. Just remember to Bladecaller first, and then use Flash, rather than the opposite. Makes it quicker and harder to notice.
Full Combo
This combo puts together some previous combos and adds on a secondary late ultimate. This is just an example and generally your ultimate should be used as a last resort to either dodge CC or for survivability. However, the more feathers you have out, the more damage you can deal once you call them back with Bladecaller.
Pre-Lane
The pre-lane stages of the game is dependant on whether you're required to leash or not.

Key points:

- We did not need to leash our jungler
- We can get to lane right as minions arrive
- We can immediately start pushing the wave to get the level 2 advantage as quickly as possible

Leash for your jungler? Before you start the lane whatsoever, you'll more than likely be assisting your jungler with their first camp if they haven't decided to start on the top-side of the map. After providing a leash, you'll want to walk the long way back to lane unless you or your teammates have warded the tri-bush prior.

There is a good reason for this. If the enemy's jungler has started on the top-side of the map, then there is a chance that the enemy botlane has walked into your tri-bush to try and set-up an ambush. Without proper vision, you'll be running the risk of losing lane immediately before you even get there. So, unless it's already warded, your odds are better off with running the long route back to lane.
Early Lane
Always clear the first wave as fast as possible! This means trying to push the wave to your enemy's turret. The early stages is a major fight between who's able to reach level 2 first. You want to hit lvl 2 earlier than your opponents and create a wide opening for you and your support to play aggressively and look for all-ins. If the enemies decide to play safe and not contest - this just lets you push the wave faster.

At the same time the faster you push the wave to your opponent’s turret, the harder it will be for the enemy ADC to farm as their wave will be taking additional damage from the turret. It's very difficult to farm well under turret.

Make favorable trades. You want to create the option for you and your support to make trades against the enemy botlane that benefits you. An early level difference is massive due to being able to have an extra ability point. If your support manages to catch one of the enemy laners out, you can trade with them and deal significant damage towards the target that will affect the rest of the laning phase.
Mid-game is about CS management and making sure waves aren't being missed for no reason.

Key points:

- Want the wave to force push for a recall timer
- Rell tries to poke and we trade slightly
- We figured that the enemy jungler was bot so I allow my Rakan to be further from me, if the enemy jungler shows up (which they did), he'll be able to get to me quickly and we can disengage

Think about how to play the lane! What I mentioned previously does not mean you should just blindly go in and look for any trade possible. You should actively look for opportunities where the opponent's positioning is terrible and punish it or where you and your support are able to engage onto an enemy without sacrificing too much health. You want to gain small leads that with enough time, can amount to a significant advantage.
Tracking Jungler
It's essentially just another term for knowing about the enemy jungler's whereabouts. It's the art of tracking where 1 player is on the map at all times.

Why does this matter? Botlane is a lane heavily contested by junglers due to it being a 2v2 dominant lane that is very easy to snowball. Thus it'll more than likely always be ganked one way or another.

How can this be avoided? There are numerous ways to track where the enemy jungler could potentially be. The simplest and easiest way to determine this is whether they got leashed or not - most junglers require some form of assistance to get a very good first clear. In these cases, they'll often start on the opposite part of the lane that they want to "dominate". For example, if you see the enemy Top laner arriving to lane already (before your Bottom laners get to lane) then it’s probable that the enemy jungler started Bot-side.

If you know where the enemy jungler started, you should be able to estimate and track their jungle route from level 1, at least up until their first gank. For example, if they start bot-side, then they want to path and likely gank Top, if they start top-side, then they want to path and likely gank Bot.
How is this useful at all? - It's very useful because it'll allow you to make plays early and go for trades without the fear of being ganked since you already know where the enemy will likely be headed, this will allow you to play around the enemy laner and potentially gain an early kill. If you see the enemy jungler top-side - you won't have to be frightened to push your lane and make plays.
Keep in mind! - Enemies are able to do what's called a "fake leash". For example, if you see both the Top laner and the Bottom laners arriving to lane at the same time to buy time for their jungler then it'll be pretty difficult to determine where the enemy jungler might have started if you do not have prior vision.
Tempo
Tempo is all about time efficiency and making less mistakes.

Key points:

- The enemy support already died
- Enemy ADC tries to roam to a skirmish that we ended up winning
- Because I'm alone bot, I shove the wave quickly
- While I collect my plating I make sure I shove the next wave as well, this allows me to get a free recall timer without much effort

In League of Legends, "Tempo" essentially just refers to having free time. You don't have any enemy minions you need to farm, you don't have an enemy champion you need to fight (they are either gone, recalled or hiding under tower), and you can't (safely) get any tower platings. You can use the time to recall and buy items, roam to gank other lanes together with your Support, grab spare jungle farm if the jungler is on the opposite side of the map, help your jungler take dragons and so forth - the list continues.

The term "Tempo" is borrowed from Chess. There, it means that you are the player that gets to decide what will happen next. The opponent must react to what you do, not the other way around. The opponent is busy doing something important and will have to stop doing that important thing if they want to counter whatever you choose to do.
ADC 101
This chapter will feature a few more ADC aspects that you can make use of in your own games if you're interested in becoming a lot better at the botlane role or simply want ways to get small leads or advantages.
Lane Priority
It's another term for lane dominance. It's decided by whoever is able to gain control of the lane and aggressively shove it in their favor, basically meaning whoever has the winning lane that can sufficiently waveclear.

Why does this matter? The things that your own jungler is able to do on the map is somewhat of a blockage by the strength of the lanes. If you're able to sufficiently waveclear and has the main control over your lane, whilst your jungler wants to attempt to take scuttle, take drake, or invade - you and your support want to be the first people that are able to come and aid your jungler before the enemy does.

If you and your support decides not to aid your jungler whilst they're trying to go on about their shenanigans, it can lead to the enemy jungler and their teammates collapsing onto your jungler instead and now you have one more death added to your team and potentially even a lost drake due to the cause.

Look at your map! Try to train yourself when it comes to looking at your map and pay attention to where your jungler is and what they want to do or achieve. If you're able to understand what your jungler wants to do, it can significantly help whatever you're trying to accomplish as well.
Having a Game Plan
When you think about it, League isn't actually that different from any normal Card game such as Legends of Runeterra. In both games you'll always have certain factors that are fully under your control and factors that have an element of uncertainty that you may have zero influence in changing.

For example, you have full control over the cards that you put into your deck before you look for a match and you'll already have an idea of what cards are out there so that you can optimize your own deck for the popular decks you're expecting to face. However, until you actually play against your opponent, anything is possible.
In League of Legends, your "deck" would be similar to your ability to choose your main role, your champion and your rune pages. At Champion select, apart from getting auto-filled or having your champion banned, you’re generally able to get the champion you want. However, outside of making suggestions or requests, the champions that your allies choose are completely out of your control.
When the game begins, you have to play to the best of your ability in relation to the game state presented to you. Sometimes, everything goes well & you get all the cards you need - You destroy the lane, get a double kill and the game is in your hands. Other times, everything goes badly & you don't get good cards whilst your opponent seemingly hits every card they need - Same as starting the game immediately losing the lane permanently to a Draven whilst your support is not very good. So, how can you consistently succeed when there is so much variability between games? The key is having a game plan, to know what you're going to do next before you even arrive to that point in the game.
You should know by now how hectic League can get. Sometimes weird stuff happens and a champ that should be weak early gets insanely strong or a champ that is strong early fails miserably. For these cases you have to adapt to the state of the game. One example of good game plans is from looking at pro-play. Solo queue is, of course, a lot more disorganized so sometimes you'll just have to work with what you got. Just make sure to pay attention to the loading screens & look at tab often, evaluate all the information at your disposal.
Map Awareness
A really ideal kind of early game you could go for in my opinion.

Key points:

- Botlane tower is down
- Botlane wave is already pushed
- A skirmish midlane is about to break out
- After everything we manage to come away with 3 free kills along with a pushed midlane wave, whilst botlane is already pushed

Map awareness is basically the cheat code - to accomplish proper play by using your map. Not only can you farm and rotate to fights, but you also won't get killed by a flanking assassin because you're looking at your map all the time. This comes with time but you will get a sense of looking at your map and as to what objectives are being contested/open and can work around your team.

Farming for ADCs is a nightmare - to try and explain in essence, even though it's your most important thing to do you are still squishy and susceptible to being collapsed on whilst you're farming. However, the big thing is to try and inhale as much farm as humanly possible to get to your item spikes, don't inconvenience your team by sharing farm though - try to find lanes to farm and if necessary, try to ask for someone in your team to hover around you while you farm so you won't have to get picked for dinner.
You want to almost aim to farm 2 lanes at once. This is to try to keep you above the 10 CS per minute rule as long as you're consistent or at the very least get very close to it. This is because you should likely be spending time farming minions botlane, and when that lane is taken you'll head over to midlane to farm there, and when that lane is taken you'll head over to toplane to farm, and maybe even take jungle monsters - rinse and repeat. This won't always be possible of course, as CS isn't entirely the deal breaker within games and sometimes you'll be busy teamfighting or making sure you're around if a teamfight breaks out. But, in general you'll always want to look to farm waves upon waves as much as possible and avoid the concept of "waffling" - the act of wasting time without being able to accomplish anything.
Kiting
There's one general mistake most people make whenever they're playing ADC - which is not properly kiting targets. It sounds very easy to kite, in theory; right click any enemy, right click backwards, right click any enemy, right click backwards... seems easy, right? But what happens if you click ever so slightly off within your movement and now it's instantly ruined and you now get greeted by a very familiar grey screen? That doesn't sound so amazing now does it?

Plenty of players missclick all the time, and honestly, it's a very common occurence even with myself. Most good players (and especially Challenger tier ADC players + Pro Players) aren't affected too badly by these random missclicks, and the main reason for this is because of a built-in setting in League called "Attack Move".

Attack Move is a setting that acts very similarly to a regular right click; if you attempt to use attack move onto an enemy, you'll obviously attack that enemy, and if you use attack move and right click towards the ground, your champion will move towards that spot. The difference between using Attack Move and regular right clicks however is that if you move towards the ground, your champion will stop to auto-attack an enemy if they run into one before they reach the destination they originally intended to get to.

To any inexperienced League of Legends player - this seems incredibly useless, I mean it sounds just like a regular right click with no benefit whatsoever? However it actually has a multitude of different uses. For example kiting, if you right click backwards, then attack move your enemy, then right click backwards, rinse and repeat - congratulations you've successfully kited an enemy champion. Another significant detail about Attack Move to keep in mind is that it will always target champions when used, this means that if you're let's say diving an enemy under their tower - you won't have to worry about accidentally missclicking your auto attack onto the tower.

Kiting targets is the more obvious area of expertise for ADCs in which Attack Move becomes almost invaluable, as it'll save your life so many times, maybe even a multitude of times during a single game if used well. There is no downsides to using this setting for kiting and there are only upsides in what it's able to provide for you.
Teamfighting
Teamfighting around objectives with the sheer goal of taking them is a very convenient way to play the game.

Key points:

- Midlane and botlane waves are both pushed
- Enemy towers are gone up until their base
- After pushing waves we go for a baron call
- Enemy team does not have any vision, making it unlikely for them to know we're on the objective or have a way to react and contest

Stay alive. Do whatever is necessary during any teamfight or skirmish you encounter that you need in order to get into a safe position where you can deal damage without repercussions.

Stay safe. Always continue to adjust your main positioning during every major fight as to not die or place yourself in a position where you aren't useful whatsoever to your team.

Hit their front line. ADCs are the primary tankbusters that exists on the team - you have the most damage out of any champion in the game to deal with targets that can pose a threat to you or your teammates.
Hit their back line. Destroy the enemy's back line to void any hope of them contesting an objective, winning the major teamfight or getting any kind of advantage within the game. However, only do this when it doesn't conflict at all with priority 3 of the teamfighting checklist - hitting their front line.
Wave Management
This chapter goes over anything you'd want to know about wave management or otherwise named wave manipulation. During the lane you'll always have some sort of ways to manipulate waves every single game, same as the other lanes. It's mainly a set of guidelines to help you understand what to do in order to help yourself get ahead and remove possibilities of getting behind.
Slow Pushing
Good example of how to utilize "slow pushing" and optimized recall timers.

Key Points:

- Jungler gave us a gank, letting us pick off Rell
- Due to Rell dying, we can push the wave
- Only last hitting the minions or using abilities if absolutely necessary so that the wave doesn't push too quickly
- Set-up a recall timer once the slowed wave eventually pushes
The art of slowly pushing waves towards your opponent's tower whilst harassing the enemy in the process. Slow pushing is mostly used to create big waves and apply pressure - especially against botlane matchups that cannot contest it and risk the chance of losing multiple waves of minions in the process.

What does it do? This form of manipulation will allow your minions to take much less damage compared to the enemy minions, and as a result, your minions will be able to slowly push the wave to the enemies tower. This is because your minions will last longer and not die quickly because they will always have the numbers advantage over the enemy.

Why is it important? Slow pushing is a term that is used in this sense of gameplay because your minions will – even with the numbers advantage, still take some time to kill the enemy minions. When you're not able to freeze the wave, you want to deny as much gold/exp as you're able to from the opponent and slow pushing waves is a great concept to accomplish just that.
You should slow push when...
>> You want to roam and help other lanes
>> You want to recall to pick up items whilst the enemy is forced to CS under tower
>> You want to make other plays around the map or contest very important objectives
You should not slow push when...
>> The enemy jungler can attempt to gank the lane
>> The wave does not need to be pushed (e.g. there is no objective to contest)
>> You're able to set-up a freeze which can permanently deny gold/exp
Fast Pushing
A good example of how you can utilize "fast pushing" within your games.

Key Points:

- Enemy botlane is dead
- Abilities and autos are used to push the wave to the enemy tower as quickly as possible
- Set-up a recall timer once the wave is cleared
Fast pushing is a form of manipulation that is used to create immediate and attention seeking behavior that needs to be addressed quickly by the enemy. Without this, enemies could take liberty and be gone for a long time without missing much. Fast pushing is used to force the enemy to make split decisions that may not be fully thought through.

In order to push a wave fast - you need to kill all the minions as quickly as you possibly can. You should look to use your auto attacks as well as your abilities to make the wave clearing much quicker to perform and make use of.

Pushing waves requires only one thing – more minions. The more minions you have compared to the enemies, the faster and more powerful the push will be. If you're clearing every minion the enemy has and only yours remain, they'll push very quickly to the opponent's tower.
You should fast push when...
>> The enemy is attempting to roam and help other lanes that are struggling
>> The enemy has left the lane to recall, buy items and spend their gold
>> You want to dive the enemy under their tower (usually accompanied by your own jungler)
You should not fast push when...
>> The enemy is still in lane and could set-up a freeze for themselves
>> The enemy jungler could attempt to gank the lane and you're both low on health
>> There is no dive to be made that requires pushing the wave really fast
Freezing
A good example of how you can utilize "freezing", both setting up a freeze and how to attempt to manage it.

Key Points:

- We keep 4 enemy minions alive at our tower
- Said minions can permanently keep the wave in place without it moving
- We know that our jungler is bot side so we do break the freeze to attempt to poke and harass the enemy laners
- In the end we end up trading 2 for 2 and switch over to a fast push for an efficient recall timer
Freezing is one of the more complicated types of manipulation to perfect as it requires a lot more work because you have to constantly manipulate the wave in your favor whilst keeping an eye on your opponents. When freezing, you want to be able to zone the enemy off the farm and make them overextend if they want to get any farm.

If you want to freeze the wave - all you need to do is have at least 4+ enemy minions comparative to yours and last-hit the enemy minions at the last possible second. Sounds simple right? Well…it’s going to get a bit more complicated. Whenever the enemy damages a minion through either auto attacks or ability use outside of last-hitting, you will need to match their damage. This is because your allied minions will die quicker as they have less health and as a result, the enemies wave will be pushing towards you.

Due to having to match the damage - all the minions will die at roughly the same time which prevents the wave from pushing in either direction – thus creating the freeze. If you didn’t match the damage, or you start randomly auto attacking the minions, then the wave will not freeze and instead start pushing in a direction you may not like. Attack too little, and the wave will push against you. Attack too much, and it’ll push towards the enemy.
You should freeze when...
>> You’re very ahead of the enemy or if you’re even with them
>> The difference in strength between both parties is not very significant
>> When your jungler is not at your side of the map and you can track the enemy jungler well
You should not freeze when...
>> You’re extremely behind and can't properly set-up a freeze.
>> The enemy laners have a massive lead and is stronger than you
>> You have a lead and is ahead (you want to just push, push and push if you are ahead)
Warding
Seeing as you're an AD Carry, most of the times you won't have the biggest possibilities to just casually walk around the map and place wards. More often than not, that'll be the role of your Support to accomplish instead.

With that said, there are still some places and situations where you'll either have the need or the time to place down your Stealth Wards before eventually changing it out for a Farsight Alteration once the midgame starts and the game starts to get much longer.

Here are some good warding spots you can use (click the images to enlarge them):
Level 1 Wards
RAPTORS
These wards will give you information on the enemy jungler's early pathing. If they start on red side they'll either cross over this ward from Krugs to do Raptors or skip and do wolves. If they don't cross over the ward, it's likely they started blue side and plans to invade or make use of this information in another way that presents itself.
PIXEL-BRUSH
This gives you very early information on whether the enemy team plans to invade your team and jungler early on in the game. It serves as a way to be noticed of invades before they actually happen so that you won't have to die and give the enemy free gold.
LANE WARDS
These wards will give you information on decisions made by the enemy botlaners. In higher ranks, most botlaners will attempt to set-up an ambush and get an early health lead within the lane if they do not need to leash for their jungler. This ward allows you to be aware of that problem.
Defensive Wards
PIXEL-BRUSH
If you're getting pushed in very often and you're frightened at the attempt of the enemy jungler pathing towards botlane to attempt to set-up a dive, you can opt to place down these types of wards. These are wards that are heavily defensive and if you spot the enemy jungler in these brushes when you're pushed in - it's about time to leave the lane and lose a few waves to stay alive.
RIVER
If you're against junglers that don't gank lanes very quickly and have a very linear pattern they play from such as let's say Olaf. These wards are great because they provide vision over the whole river whilst not making you all too surprised from ganks that wrap around and helps you see if you can kill them in a 2v2 fast enough even before their jungler arrives.
LANE BRUSHES
Whenever you're recalling back to base and you've got spare wards, always try to place down a ward into your own lane bush that's closest to your tower. This serves a number of different uses. First of all it helps create flanking options for Teleport users and secondly, if you're freezing the lane - obviously the enemy jungler has to come and help. Lane ganks are very prevalent in higher ranks and should never be fully ignored.
Offensive Wards
ENEMY PIXEL-BRUSH
These wards are more aimed to give you the necessary information against junglers that very often execute ganks extremely quickly (e.g. Hecarim / Zac / Shaco or can jump over walls with ease like Kayn. Especially junglers that tend to gank a lane at level 3 or even as early as level 2.
MID-RIVER
If you've got the necessary spare time to play this offensive, wards like these can be very useful. This one will always cover river and will always make sure it spots the enemy jungler each and every time they decide to attempt ganking your lane for free kills.
Objective Wards
AROUND THE OBJECTIVE
Very useful ward locations if you're trying to prepare for an objective and want vision around the objective to spot enemies trying to lurk around. Putting down a Control Ward isn't always needed, just having 2 Stealth Wards work just as fine.
THE OBJECTIVE PIT
The most common Control Ward spot in the game. Primary reason is because it covers the entire dragon & baron pit so enemies trying to put wards over the wall to get vision will get denied entirely. It also serves as some good general vision if you're gonna prepare for it or if the enemy team might start it.
MID-RIVER NEAR OBJECTIVE
If you didn't buy any Control Wards or simply just don't have any in your inventory you could place down a Stealth Ward in this location ( Control Wards also work but will give gold when destroyed) and it'll still reveal any enemies passing through it, or trying to do the objective (assuming they're not jumping the wall).

Congratulations! You’ve finally been able to reach the end of my insanely long guide on Xayah. I'd really like to thank you for taking this time and walking this road together with me. Writing this guide has learned me a lot as well, when it comes to both Xayah herself, playing the marksman role in general and how to play her better in order to become the kind of player that I want to be. I hope this guide helped you on your way to success of becoming a better Xayah player and I hope you got to know everything you wanted to know about her. I also hope you’ve learned something after reading all of this, and I hope I’ve inspired you to play more of this champion.

It might happen that I've missed some things so feel free to let me know. Just leave a comment or send me a PM and I'll fix things up for you! If you have any objections to my build’s content, comment in the discussion section! I’ll be more than happy to hear your side of the argument. If you think I'm wrong, please don’t hesitate to correct me. I want this guide to be as accurate as possible in order to help as many people as I can when it comes to this champion, and I will update it if I do end up agreeing with you! I'd always love criticism as long as it's helpful to me so that I can make this guide even better to help more players looking to play Xayah.

If you enjoyed the guide, then please like mentioned before an upvote or a +rep will always be appreciated as it'll always help me and it’ll be an indicator to let me know that my guide has been helpful to you, as it’s what I wanted to do in the first place. I really enjoyed making this guide and I hope you've enjoyed reading it as well. Good luck out there and I hope you reach the desired rank you're looking for! Good luck feathering your way to victory!
I'd like to thank Jovy for taking the time to make the beautiful looking banners, titles and the majority of the graphics for this guide and in most of my other ones as well! Be sure to check out some of her other work at her signature shop and her own guides! ❤
I would like to thank Katasandra yet again for helping me with anything related to BBCoding both to make it fit for users that view the guide on PC but also for ones that view it on mobile. Also for helping me a lot in the past with anything. Make sure to check out her guides! ❤
And lastly, I would like to thank Silverman43 for helping me create a few of the images that you can find throughout the guide, most notably the ones for "jungle tracking". Make sure to check out his guides! ❤
I'd also like to thank the following people for helping me improve my guide even more:
March 10, 2024:
  • Updated for patch 14.5

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