Hi guys and welcome to my Lee Sin guide.

I will try and explain to you how I like to use Lee Sin and hopefully improve your skills when using him. I would like to note that I do not often use Lee sin as a jungler, rather I use him as solo top or for normal duo laning if need be. However, he is obviously a very capable jungler and so I will include a jungling section for you to read if you want to use him in this role instead.

02/01/2012 - Updated jungling section to include a quick video I put together.

Pros
- Great damage output throughout game.
- Reasonably bulky, especially when built like this.
- Fantastic Maneuverability, when using and .Provides both chasing and escaping methods.
- Can gank well.
- Ult can change team fights, through high damage and a temporary stun and scatter of the enemies struck.

Cons
- Fairly high skill cap, you need to be good with your positioning and timing of skills.
- Has reasonable bulk early game, however an enemy gank at this stage of the game could ruin your item building speed and bring your laning to a halt. Beware of ganks!
- It is often easy to forget his passive and this is a key thing you must remember when playing him. Stagger your abilities slightly, otherwise you could find yourself running out of energy quickly.

greater quintessence of desolation and greater mark of desolation
This provides you with a grand total of +25 armor penetration. This is an incredible early game stat for dishing out damage, but provides you with good damage output throughout the game. You may be wondering why I have not included any runes to improve strength, with Lee Sin having good scalings. This is simply because I prefer to maintain a good damage output throughout the game, rather than having a slightly stronger early game. In the long run, I believe this rune set up to be more beneficial.


This provides you with +13 armor. Simply put, during early game AD champs will struggle to harrass you if you dont play overly aggressively. It also provides decent defensive capability throughout the rest of the game.


These are for the exact same reason as the seals, except providing a defence against AP champs. These, along with the seals, help to make Lee Sin a well rounded bulky DPS.

A 21-9-0 set up is ideal for Lee Sin. From the 9 points in defence, you collect some key stats that improve health and defences and really add to your early game bulk. The 21 points in offense include further life steal, that augments his and provides some ability to be sustainable in lane, further armor penetration giving him a total of +31 from the beginning of the game and boosts to damage output and critical strike chance / damage.

All in all, this set up provides a perfect balance between defence and offense, which is key to being successful with Lee Sin.

I always take this for the obvious chase and escape mechanism it provides. The bigger reason for taking it however is to get into position to use your ult. Flash in front of a fleeing enemy and knock them back to your teammate. Simple.


You may be wondering why another chase / escape mechanism is needed. It is however my preffered option. It allows you to chase for a longer distance and can get you out of many risky situations.

Other Viable Options


This can be useful when used in conjunction with Resonating Strike, and can be used for the decrease in damage the opponent dishes out, however Tempest has the same effect and so I dont usually use this option.


This can be useful if the enemy team has lots of CC, however this is the reason I choose to have Mercury's Treads. If you decide to go for cleanse, exchange the Mercury's Treads for beserker's greaves or Mobility Boots if you plan on ganking a lot.


This can be used if you want to go for early game kills / first blood. However, your damage output at the start of the game isnt massive, and so I'd recommend sticking to farming and not look to get quick champion kills so much.


This can be took if you wish to farm slightly more quickly. However, if you play correctly, your sustain should be fairly good and so you should not need to leave your lane too much.

and 3x
This is what you should start the game out with. It provides speed for harassment of your opponents and also provides a component for the mercurys treads which is the first item you will want to be working towards. The 3 health pots give you more sustainability and lane and can make harassment less punishing on your health.


This is your first full item of the build. It provides decent magic resist, but also reduces CC effects on you and so allows you to harass and gank much more easily. They are perfect for Lee Sin as if you use Resonating Strike on an opponent and they stun you, there is much less need to worry.


This is what you want to work towards next. At this stage of the game, your damage output should still be moderate, and so this is when you want to get this item. With your decent defences, the huge boost to health from this makes you incredibly bulky, and also sets you up for the dreaded atmog's combination.


Once you have warmogs, immediately work towards this. It will provide you with further armor (+45) and a critical chance boost (+18%) but crucially it adds 2% of your health to his attack damage. This boosts your attack crazily, and you should immediately feel the difference in his damage output. This item is also one of the most cost effective options for the stats it gives.


This item provides you with a slow, making ganking very easy, picking out squishies easy and resonating strike totally lethal. The huge boost in health again gives you more bulk, but along with Atma's Impaler makes your attack shoot up again.


This gives you a massive boost to your damage, with +100AD when fully charged and 25% life steal which gives you an indirect form of bulk, and allows you to 1v1 many champs with ease.


This is the final item I get. This gives a you a total of a 47% critical strike chance, and a huge boost to your damage and is my preferred item. However, this is the item slot in which i sometimes change to a situational item. If the enemy team has stacked armor for example, change this to a last whisper. This item slot is dependant on the enemy team and so you will need to consider this item carefully. Analyse your enemies, then make a decision.

This allows you to sustain your energy when farming or attacking enemy champions. You MUST ensure you use this passive to your advantage to reach a high level of play with Lee Sin. Between each ability, make sure you utilise the 2 quicker energy gaining strikes. With practice, this should come naturally and will make you much more deadly.


This is an incredibly useful move, and is Lee Sin's bread and butter ability. You can use sonic wave alone to harass, and when you see an opportunity use resonating strike to close in and initiate your attacks. It can be used in a multitude of ways, and therefore makes it a high utility move. It is definitely the move you will want to invest in at level 1.


This is Lee Sin's escaping ability, as well as being a key ability in 1v1 fights. You can use this move on allied champions, minions and wards. This is very important. You must be able to judge a situation and understand if you can escape after initiating an attack or not. If you carry a ward, then you can place it and use this method to escape, however try to avoid spending to much on wards if possible. use wards as a last resort escape mechanism.


This is a very good move for slowing enemy's movement speed AND attack speed. The damage to all surrounding enemies can be useful for clearing minion waves, however really you should just use this for the slowing effects on enemy champions and so I leave this at rank 1 until level 14.

dragons rage
This is a simple high damage knockback. However, it can be used for multiple purposes. You can use it to escape, to knock back an enemy squishy to your team (which i might add is easy with Lee Sin's maneuverability) and to knock back an enemy to their team which will temporarily stun enemies as well as damaging them and scattering them. This can change team fights completely if used correctly.

At this stage of the game, focus on zoning out your opponents and farming for yourself. Ensure not to take to many minion kills from your partner if you are duo laning for obvious reasons. The fact you rely on energy means you can continuously fire out your q without the worry of consuming mana. Focus on last hitting minions and whenever your opponents over-extend, sonic wave them. If you can escape, use resonating strike on them (remembering to follow up with the 2 quickend attacks after!), then simply w out to a minion after. This is where positioning is important.

The main point here is farm, farm and farm some more. You want to be getting your build as quickly as possible.

This is the time you should begin ganking other lanes. Wait until your opponents have over-extended in their lane, then punish them for their mistake. Resonating strike them, then use 2 attacks, tempest and cripple them to slow them down and reduce their damage output, Follow up with 2 more basic attacks and then if they are going to get away flash in front of them and use your ult to knock them back. From this position the kill should be indefinite.

You can also always grab the red buff for a slow which will work wonders for you when ganking. Combined with your e, you should have no trouble keeping enemies in range.

In lane, you should now begin focusing on enemy champions. Whenever you get a safe chance to attack, do it. Against squishies you should have no trouble. If however you are getting pushed back, call for your team to gank. It should be a simple matter to survive at this stage and so play quite aggressively.

By now you should have most of the item build and be fairly fed if you have played correctly. You should be able to participate well in team fights with your tempest / cripple and ult, and so you should attempt to push hard at this stage. Whenever you become to low on health, it is a simple matter to fix. Simply head to the jungle, use w on yourself and then use iron will. You should, along with the bloodthirster at full stacks and masteries, temporarily have 53% life steal and also have huge regen from warmog's. You can get your health back in no time while keeping the pressure on your opponents.

With good positioning and judgements you should be able to push the enemy back and take the win.

If you do want to jungle with Lee Sin, you can use the same rune set up but change masteries to 21-0-9, taking extended buff duration. Also start with a vampiric scepter and Tempest.

You will first want to head to the wolves. You should kill them without trouble, keep using Tempest . Then head to the wraiths and then the golems. When you hit level 2 take a rank in Safeguard. After this head to the blue buff (after heading back to base to heal, which actually doesnt cost too much time as its a similiar distance away). Then head back to the wolves, then wraiths and you should level to 3 in this time. Take Sonic Wave at level 3. After killing the wraiths for the 2nd time, get the red buff, you should level to 4,take another point in Sonic Wave. After this go to the golems just below and kill them for the 2nd time.

From this point, heal at base if need be and gank away! :D

I want to emphasise the point that you need to stagger your abilites, to benefit from your passive. Otherwise, you could find yourself running out of energy quickly.


Lee Sin - Jungle

Generally it takes me under 6 minutes to finish the jungle, usually about 5 minutes 45 seconds. At this point, you are level 4 and have both buffs, so you can expect a strong early game presense.

The item you may first want to work towards is wriggles lanturn. Not only is the vampiric scepter a component, but it is a genuinely useful tool for you to use in counter-jungling through the use of its free wards. Plant a ward at the enemy buffs. You can then dash in with resonating strike and still the buff and then finish their jungler off whenever they try getting it.

After this, go for the normal build, first getting Mercury's Treads.

Well thats how I like to play Lee Sin. I hope you guys consider trying this build and have great success in using it. :D

Please vote +1 and feel free to leave a comment.

Thanks for reading.