First of all, I'd like to state that this is my first published build and that I'm not from a country in which english is a main language, so I'm sorry if I misspelled something.

Furthermore, here are the reasons to why I made this guide:

• When I knew that Lee Sin was going to be released, I just HAD to buy him. I mean, my nick was always "Lee" in any kind of game I've ever played and to be able to play with a champion that has my nick is just awesome =]
  
• After the champion spotlight (the real one, not the april fool's version), most people considered him a great jungler, but maybe because people are not used to a champion that has 7 different skills plus the passive I haven't seen a single successful Lee Sin jungler.
  
• Because of the above, some even try to go to a side lane and leave the jungling job to a warwick or a udyr, only to feed the enemy team or to just be 0/0/0 until mid game.

With this guide, I intend to show everyone that Lee Sin can go to a side lane, but, although we can't say that he's currently the most effective jungler (because of the bug with Tempest and, of course, the changes that RIOT almost everytime do to their recently released champions), he's just better of at the jungle than laning right now, for two simple reasons:

• Being a melee champion, you won't farm enough gold in the side lanes unless you abuse the Tempest bug, that will soon be fixed, or you choose to level Sonic Wave first (for last hits and harrass), which, as it stands right now, is just a TERRIBLE idea.
  
• Lee Sin can jungle incredibly fast, even if you don't exploit Tempest's bug, altough I must say: DON'T TRY TO JUNGLE UNLESS YOU ALREADY HAVE MY FULL MASTERIES AND RUNES BUILDS.

I must warn you guys that Lee Sin is not an easy champion and for that reason you should consider following another build if you're still learning how to play him, since my core items won't give you enough survivability to just jump in the middle of a team fight without knowing when to jump, who to target and who to avoid.

On the other hand, if you are comfortable with Lee Sin's play style, I think you'll agree with my core build. If you preffer Frozen Mallet, there's a section down there comparing Trinity Force and Frozen Mallet. If you still think FM is better than TF after reading it, probably

But enough of this, let's get to the guide =]

You can find them above.


AND

There isn't much to explain here. Armor Pen marks and quints will help you jungle AND ganking, so they're just necessary.




Even though I like Dodge seals, Lee Sin can't trust on those 7% dodge at the first neutral minion kills, so Armor seals are much more reliable and it's also usefull if you intend to do a quick tower dive to get that last hit on a sprinting Teemo (I hate Teemos).




These are the ones that you can change to whatever you like. I chose Magic Resist per Level because I preffer to keep normal boots until I finish Sheen, which means I won't have those 25 MR from Mercury Treads as soon as the enemy Karthus can ult.

Not only this, but the fact that Lee Sin is melee makes him an easy target for magic damage nukes. Hence, magic resist glyphs are, for me, the best option. But you can change it to cooldown reduction or cooldown reduction/lvl if you like.

P.S.: As for flat MR glyphs, as a jungler, you won't have to deal with early magic damage nukes, which means that by the time you start receiving heavy magic damage, you'll need all the MR you can get (and that includes those extra 11 MR provided from MR/lvl glyphs).

There are two possible jungling paths, which I'll demonstrate as follows:

REGULAR JUNGLE PATH

It's the faster one, but surely not the safest. You must follow this order:

• Blue buff (big golem): Smite him WHILE YOU HAVE IRON WILL ACTIVATED
• Wolves
• Wraiths: Smite the bigger one
• Golems
• Red buff (lizard): Smite him WHILE YOU HAVE IRON WILL ACTIVATED
• Gank bot or Wolves
• Gank top (if you went to wolves again)

With this fast path, you'll gank as soon as a rammus or warwick. You can choose to go back to base and heal first, but if you see an opportunity to gank a low health solo top, don't hesitate: even though your hp might be a little low, Iron Will's gonna turn the tides on your favor.

ALTERNATIVE JUNGLE PATH

Although it's a little longer, this is the safest jungle path of all. It's nearly impossible to hand over first blood to the enemy this way because you start by the wraiths, which leaves you close enough to a turret if the entire team tries to gank you.

• Wraiths: Smite the bigger one
• Mid lane: yes, go there and steal exp from your mid lane teammate until you reach level 2 (not much, just 2~3 minions). Try not to steal his last hits tough =P
• Blue buff (big golem): wait until your smite is like 12~10 seconds cooldown and start the fight. Remember to always use smite while Iron Will is activated AND when you know you'll fully benefit from the lifesteal (don't use smite before your life is at least at 50%)
• Regular path from here on

JUNGLE GENERAL STRAT

This is just so you get what exactly is the order you'll use Lee Sin's skills in a way that you won't be humiliated by dying to a neutral minion.

• Start by casting Safeguard on yourself (if you have trouble clicking on yourself in the middle of the creeps, try to define a hotkey to autocast Safeguard on yourself automatically, or just keep the mouse cursor over your champion photograph at the lower left corner of the screen)
• Hit the minion twice
• Cast Iron Will
• Hit twice
• Cast Tempest
• Hit twice
• Cast Cripple
• Hit twice
• Cast safeguard
• And so goes on...

And there it goes. You won't die to a single neutral minion if you do it this way, as long as you remember not to panic and to always use smite on the right minions (that is, Blue buff golem, Purple wraith and Red buff lizard) while Iron Will is activated.

I'll add videos showing both paths as soon as I find out what's wrong with my recorder.

• Changed recommended masteries for Utility over Offensive on 04.11.2011.
• Added Trinity Force x Frozen Mallet analysis and DPS build on 04.05.2011.

After your core items are complete, the rest of your items will define your role in the game. Here's the DPS build.

MOST COMMON ITEMS

Those are the most common items you'll find yourself in need to build if you're DPS.

• Infinity Edge should be bought first, since it'll give a major improve to your DPS and not only you'll destroy completely all the squishies (after all, you have more lifesteal than anyone when you activate Iron Will and if you're fighting against an auto-attack champion, Cripple will just make his lifesteal useless).
• Phantom Dancer will improve your attspeed, movspeed and critical chance, which is a great item to combine with infinity edge + lifesteal.
• The Bloodthirster is bought by some people earlier in the game, but I don't think you actually need it, considering that the damage from TF's ability will be a great boost early on and, well, you're already a lifetealing machine, so buying this because of it sounds redundant. Nonetheless, it's the item that provides most damage in the game, so you might want to trade that Wriggle's Lantern for this at late game.

SITUATIONAL ITEMS

If you find yourself struggling to stay alive or not surviving at all, you might wanna stop killing yourself...

Joking.

You should consider building one or two of these (but don't overdo it or else you'll become a tanker, not a dps with some survival =P):

• Banshee's Veil is the best item you can build against heavy AP and crowd control if you're having trouble with that. The HP will help with survival, the MR will mitigate the damage received and the bubble that negates a spell damage once every 45 secs is worth the gold. Unfortunatly, you'll have to live with the fact that you're buying a Mana item to your Energy champion. Don't blame the enemy team. Either your teammate fed their AP champion or you didn't do the ganking job right =/
• Quicksilver Sash is also usefull against heavy crowd control. With this item, Cleanse is just a waste of summoner spell. I don't know why I don't see this item much... I guess people don't like the fact that you have to use it in order to get away from the CC. Banshee's Veil is better than this one, but if you feel like it's not helping enough, you really should buy this.
• Hexdrinker is an underestimated item that can make a great difference early game. You buy this when you look at the enemy champions and they have at least 3 AP users or 2 heavy AP disablers (Malzahar, for instance). Buying this early is the key to making it worth the gold spent. Buy this right after Mercury Treads (yes, it'll delay your TF a little while, but you can live with it).*
• Spirit Visage is also a nice early game anti-magic item. It improves your lifesteal, gives CDR and reduces the magic damage received. You should only buy this over Hexdrinker when they do have some AP champions, but not that many crowd control (AP Ezreal, Vladmir, Katarina etc.).*

* Both this items should be bought at early levels and as soon as you think it'll be usefull (it really depends on your judgement), but you should sell them when you notice you need to replace them with Banshee's and/or Quicksilver Sash.

• Shurelya's Reverie is a good item to help on the HP department, but I don't think it's really a nice fit for Lee Sin. You see, it's more like a support item, so your team's Soraka, Sonna, Karma or whatever should buy this instead of you.
• Randuin's Omen is clearly better when it comes to HP and Armor to endure a little bit more against those AD carriers from the opposing team. Don't ever forget to activate it when you need to run or chase!!

• Guardian Angel is a good option for a well-balanced enemy team. Banshee's is still your best option against CC, but, if they're really full of CC and not all of their champions are magic damage dealers, you should buy his over Quicksilver Sash. The rebirth will give you a second chance to run or even kill the enemies (with a little help from your friends, as The Beattles would say =P) while providing armor and magic resist to help with survival. Besides, that Guardian Angel aura always makes people focus the other squishy in your team over you, since they don't really like to kill a lifestealler monster twice while being bursted down by a ranged carrier.

OTHER VIABLE CHOICES

These are some items that I would recommend against specific enemies.





Will explain those on next update...

After your core items are complete, the rest of your items will define your role in the game. Here's the Tank build.


Will explain those on next update...

There are two possible jungling paths, which I'll demonstrate as follows:

REGULAR JUNGLE PATH

It's the faster one, but surely not the safest. You must follow this order:

• Blue buff (big golem): Smite him WHILE YOU HAVE IRON WILL ACTIVATED
• Wolves
• Wraiths: Smite the bigger one
• Golems
• Red buff (lizard): Smite him WHILE YOU HAVE IRON WILL ACTIVATED
• Gank bot or Wolves
• Gank top (if you went to wolves again)

With this fast path, you'll gank as soon as a rammus or warwick. You can choose to go back to base and heal first, but if you see an opportunity to gank a low health solo top, don't hesitate: even though your hp might be a little low, Iron Will's gonna turn the tides on your favor.

ALTERNATIVE JUNGLE PATH

Although it's a little longer, this is the safest jungle path of all. It's nearly impossible to hand over first blood to the enemy this way because you start by the wraiths, which leaves you close enough to a turret if the entire team tries to gank you.

• Wraiths: Smite the bigger one
• Mid lane: yes, go there and steal exp from your mid lane teammate until you reach level 2 (not much, just 2~3 minions). Try not to steal his last hits tough =P
• Blue buff (big golem): wait until your smite is like 12~10 seconds cooldown and start the fight. Remember to always use smite while Iron Will is activated AND when you know you'll fully benefit from the lifesteal (don't use smite before your life is at least at 50%)
• Regular path from here on

JUNGLE GENERAL STRAT

This is just so you get what exactly is the order you'll use Lee Sin's skills in a way that you won't be humiliated by dying to a neutral minion.

• Start by casting Safeguard on yourself (if you have trouble clicking on yourself in the middle of the creeps, try to define a hotkey to autocast Safeguard on yourself automatically, or just keep the mouse cursor over your champion photograph at the lower left corner of the screen)
• Hit the minion twice
• Cast Iron Will
• Hit twice
• Cast Tempest
• Hit twice
• Cast Cripple
• Hit twice
• Cast safeguard
• And so goes on...

And there it goes. You won't die to a single neutral minion if you do it this way, as long as you remember not to panic and to always use smite on the right minions (that is, Blue buff golem, Purple wraith and Red buff lizard) while Iron Will is activated.

I'll add videos showing both paths as soon as I find out what's wrong with my recorder.

Will add later.

More on Lee Sin's role on mid and late game team fights will be added soon.

Lee Sin, although is still new to League of Legends and will most certainly pass through a series of buffs / debuffs, is, right now, better played as a jungler not because he's the best jungler of all, but because you can farm very well and make good use of your ult as the ganking skill it is designed to be at early game.

This might change with the next patches and Lee Sin might be terrible for jungling, but I'll keep updating this with every new change in order to help people achieve the best way to play Lee Sin early game - jungle or lane =]

Hope you enjoyed and look further for comments (even though people are not reading Lee Sin's guides just yet).

• Changed recommended masteries for Defensive over Offensive on 04.11.2011.
• Added Trinity Force x Frozen Mallet analysis and DPS build on 04.05.2011.