Lee Sin is an incredibly fun champion to play, and is ridiculously versatile. He has incredible utility, while still dealing significant damage when used correctly. This guide will hopefully give you an insight as to how to play him, from a lower skill level. I am a low elo "Scrub" as some would say, and because of this, I feel the other Lee Sin guides take into account a much higher skill level player, so I created this guide to help people at lower levels like me understand how to use him.





Credits to jhoijhoi for the template, which you can find here.
Thanks to jhoijhoi for the line dividers/separators as well.

US - 5/8/2012 - Guide Started

spaaaaaaace

Pros + Fast clears in the jungle + Strong early game + Good ganks + Counter jungles well + Fun to play + Much stronger in a coordinated team

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Cons - Very difficult to carry games with - High skill cap/difficult to master - Isn't Mundo/Udyr/Shyvanna - Ridiculously hard to resist the impulse to use Resonating Strike, after landing Sonic Wave

For masteries, I choose 21/8/1, to maximize my damage potential, because of the incredible synergy of Executioner , with Flurry. I take 8 in Defense, grabbing an extra 6 armor from Hardiness , 10 gold when I smite from Summoner's Resolve , and an added 6 health per level from Durability .

• greater quintessence of Desolation: I take armor pen quints, when playing offensive Lee Sin, because with 31 Armor penetration, you do true damage to most champions, and considerable damage to those that build armor. I find that while flat AD helps me out all game as well, it seems that 25 ArmPen from runes increases my damage much more. *If you aren't building Lee Sin to deal as much damage, it is MUCH more beneficial to use Greater Quintessence of Movement Speed for stronger ganks, and use 0/21/9 masteries focusing on defensive stats, and movement speed.
  
  
  
  
• greater mark of Desolation: Again, ArmPen, seems to do more damage then Flat AD for me. On another note, attack speed Marks, do not help, almost at all, outside of the jungle. Because of this I believe they are not viable on a competitive Lee Sin
  
  
  
  
• Greater Glyph of Scaling Magic Resist: I take MagRes per level Glyphs, over Flat MagRes, simply because I feel that my mag res, end game is severely lacking, and 11 Magic resistance late game, I feel is worth the -8 MagRes at level 4.
  
  
  
  
• Greater Seal of Armor: Jungling any champ with these is always a good idea. It may not be the best idea, but it is a great one. You can never go wrong with Armor Seals on your Jungler. You can only be slightly less right, and even then, I can't think of a jungler (off the top of my head) who would find a different set of seals more optimal. Old Shen and Flat E/5 comes to mind, however they fixed that with his buffs. (Still ticked about the duration nerf to Shadow Dash. .5 seconds is a long time.)

Smite: If you are jungling you run Smite. No Exceptions. Sure, with Exhaust and Ignite you're much more likely to score a kill on a gank twice every 6 minutes. And that's if you're extremely lucky. And in the meantime, you lose every single baron/dragon, unless you have a Cho'Gath with Feast off cooldown on your team, and even then it's iffy. No exceptions. Take Smite or lose to a more competent jungler.

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Flash: Flash even post season 2 nerf, is ridiculously strong during the entire game. I understand Lee Sin has incredible mobility, but when you get jumped by the enemy jungler at 1/2 health, after taking red, and you lose the buff, give off first blood and die to an enemy jungler because you took something else and had no escape at level 1, that's on you. Take Flash. Ensure you don't get counter jungled and killed when you have no sight ward to Safeguard to.

Exhaust: Exhaust is a great summoner spell, and incredibly strong as well, however when jungling someone who doesn't have a targetless escape (I.E. Shen's Shadow Dash), I find it difficult to take. However in certain situations, Exhaust Can be useful. Generally when you have no fear of getting attacked, early before you have Safeguard, or if you do, you counter the enemy jungler hard enough to fight with a level 2 advantage, but a 200 HP disadvantage because of exhaust.

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Ignite: While Ignite is a great summoner spell, I wouldn't suggest using it over Flash ever. If you absolutely have to have it, only use it when your team has need of healing debuffs for the enemy team, and even then, while not optimal, Executioner's Calling is a much more viable solution. Try to stay away from ignite unless you feel you can't live without it.

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Ghost: An incredible summoner spell. I love flash because it can't be countered by slows, however if you don't want to use Flash, by all means, take Ghost instead. It is on par with Flash, if not better for Lee Sin and is really useful during a teamfight, to help with positioning.

• Flurry: Flurry is the second most import thing for Lee Sin users to pay attention to. His passive gives 40% increased attack speed to his next two basic attacks, and they refund 15 energy each. So don't spam your spells, if you can avoid it. Make sure to take advantage of the attack speed buff at all times that you can, however when skirmishing, it's okay to not take advantage of this as much. Just be sure to save some energy for your teamfight that you know is coming up.
  
  
  
  
  
• Sonic Wave / Resonating Strike (Q): Resonating Strike, is what makes Ree Shin Lee Sin. It does increased damage equal to 8% of the targets missing HP, so try to save the follow up Resonating Strike as long as possible when fighting an enemy champion. IT ALSO GIVES VISION. So if you need to steal dragon or Baron, place a sight ward on the wall outside of dragon/baron, where you would normally be attempting to steal it. Resonating Strike Baron/Dragon for vision, and then when it's low, Resonating Strike in, Smite steal (only if you have the experience to do so), then Safeguard out to the sight ward you placed. If you didn't have a sight ward, shame on you, and blow Flash to survive. If you didn't take Flash to begin with... Take Flash
  
  
  
  
  
• Safeguard / Iron Will (W): Safeguard Is your bread and butter, and this skill will save you from so much danger. The best part? You can use it to jump to a sight ward, so keep one on you at all times. I usually save my Wriggle's Lantern for this, and use it as a double Flash.
  
  
  
  
  
• Tempest / Cripple (E): Tempest is your ganking skill with lee sin, it gives vision in a 360 degree radius around you, and when activated again, slows those it gave vision on. Use this for ganking, and if needed, when you feel like there might be a sneaky Twitch around. Don't be afraid to just use it in the middle of the jungle, if the rat is there, you'll see him, if he isn't, you lost nothing, and nobody saw you just random skill in the middle of the jungle XD
  
  
  
  
  
• Dragon's Rage (R): Dragon's Rage is an unbelievable source of damage. My biggest mistake when first starting to play Lee Sin, was valuing this skill too highly, and only using it when trying to line up a knock-up/stun through their team. At rank 3, Dragon's Rage deals 600 Damage, AND is scales on a 2.0 AD ratio. This skill is what makes Lee Sin deal (to quote Phreak) "tons of damage". A great combo to use with this skill, and it works with escaping as well, is to Sonic Wave an enemy champion, then Dragon's Rage them toward where you'd like to be Resonating Strike over to them, and then Tempest their remains. With an evenly farmed Lee Sin this combo will make mince meat out of most ad carrys. Graves OP.

Hey guys, I'm not done yet, there's

Items
Jungling
Teamwork
Videos

still to come, but I'm tired, and think this was enough for one night. It's the basic explanation down, so give me some pointers if you can, thanks alot to all who comment, and once again, credits to jhoijhoi for the awesome template, which you can find here. She makes it so much easier to create a guide.