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Hi guys out there and welcome to my Lee Sin guide. I will try to explain here as much facts and tricks of Lee Sin as I know. In case you know nothing about Lee Sin: perfect! In case you already know him: read my guide anyway! :D And maybe there is a trick or fact about Lee Sin you are missing here - just leave a comment then :)

There are 3 main topics in my guide:

• Chapter 1: Lee Sin, the Blind Monk
• Chapter 2: Jungle Lee Sin
• Chapter 3: Lane Lee Sin

In the first chapter I will explain some general things about Lee Sin, his abilities, usage and so on. In the following chapters we will have a closer look on this two positions where you can play Lee Sin at and the builds.
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Lee Sin is a great champion and fits in the most teams you will see out there. He's definitely one of the best junglers in League of Legends due to his awesome gank abilities. As Lane Lee Sin he shines trough constant harassment, perfect defense, towerdiving and great farming.
So here you get the Pros/Cons!
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Pros + Great harassment on lane. + Great ganks right up from level 2/3. + Consistent and save jungling. + Huge damage even without a lot of damage items. + As jungler: no dependence on any buff. + Perfect positioning ( / / ). + Good counterjungling since junglers are most times at the beginning quite low ( Sonic Wave / Resonating Strike muhaha...). + He's Lee Sin the Blind Monk. Would you ask for Pros of Chuck Norris? Yes? Really? Why that? o0 He's Chuck Norris. That's the biggest Pro you can find. Same goes for Lee Sin.

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space Cons space - Squishy without Warmog's Armor/ Frozen Mallet. - Any spellshields can counter your combos when used well ( / / ). - Really not the fastest jungler out there. - Creep Waves can be good for you, but most times they suck - it's way harder or even impossible to hit with Sonic Wave / Resonating Strike. - He can't kick enemys from the map with Dragon's Rage like Jesse Perring would do. space space space space space space

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Thanks to jhoijhoi for the template you can find here :-)
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As Lee Sin there's no doubt your main skill is Sonic Wave / Resonating Strike. This skill allows you to chase, sometimes escape and finish people off. It's your main damage skill and the reason why Lee Sin deals even without offensive items a fair amount of damage. The only "Con" for this skill: it's a skillshot that also hits creeps.
This Con is also a pro when jungling since it allows you to clear the golem/lizard camp with the buffs faster, but when ganking or in lane these qualities can be quite annoying. Mastering this spell is one of the things you need to do to play a great Lee Sin.

Before getting back to Sonic Wave / Resonating Strike, I want to discuss some things about the energy system and Lee Sin's passive, Flurry.
The energy system in general means: you are able to use your abilities as much as you want over a long time, but in a short period of time you are limited in using them.

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... is, what allows Lee Sin a slightly different playstyle (comparing to a "normal" energy based champion like Shen). Flurry is your energy guarantee and source and extremely important for Jungle Lee Sin and Trinity Force-Builds - also for Lee Sin in general as his skills are very energy hungry. Mastering this chain of skills and attacks even in a teamfight is what differences good from bad Lee Sins, too.

Of course you can fulfill a combo without doing any autoattacks or getting out of energy, but you will recognize you can't do that in any longer teamfight. On the other hand, Flurry simply increases your damage.
So keep in mind: you WANT to do that autoattacks!

Your engagement, your damage, your chasing, your escape. Your everything.
But as I said, beside just requiring to be able to hit with skillshots, this skill also most times has to be combined with another skill: Safeguard / Iron Will.
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Blue: possible direction of Sonic Wave / Resonating Strike.
Green: possible target of Safeguard / Iron Will.
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As you can see, I can't hit Annie with Sonic Wave / Resonating Strike on the direct way - a minion blocks the way. I could run a bit top/left and then hit her, but a human player would just go behind these ranged creeps and I couldn't hit her again.
The solution: I use Safeguard / Iron Will on of these two creeps to get into a better position. From this position I can easily continue with my combo.
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In case there's really no other option you can also use your Flash to get into the best position - either to reach an ally with Safeguard / Iron Will or an enemy with Sonic Wave / Resonating Strike.

As Lee Sin has 7 different skills, it can be quite confusing what to use when. I want to give you some examples of skill sequences and when to use them.

In general has to be said, you always want to use Resonating Strike either way as early as possible to use Sonic Wave / Resonating Strike at the end of the combo again or as late as possible to deal more damage. Tempest / Cripple is most times just used to get the slow due to chasing possibilities or to pass your enemy to use Dragon's Rage to kick him back or something else.

Iron Will is not really useful for any combo except to let your passive trigger again. This skill is only to jungle safe or for heavy lane sustainability.
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Used as:

• Laner

Conditions:

• Nothing blocks the way to your enemy.

The standard and most obvious harassment combo when laning with Lee Sin, also used to towerdive. Between Resonating Strike and Safeguard / Iron Will you can do autoattacks and/or use Tempest / Cripple / Dragon's Rage.
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Used as:

• Jungler/Laner

Conditions:

• Target of Safeguard / Iron Will has to be close to the enemy or your ally has to have a slow/stun.

This is maybe your most damage dealing combo. You rush to a minion or champion, hit with Sonic Wave / Resonating Strike, deal some more damage with autoattacks and as soon as you're sure you can finish him off with the rest of the combo, you use Dragon's Rage. After this, you chase again with Resonating Strike and in case the enemy is still alive, you can slow him with Cripple.

Sometimes you won't need Safeguard / Iron Will or even the ultimate. Depends on the situation and ally.
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Used as:

• Jungler/Laner

Conditions:

• Target of Safeguard / Iron Will has to be close to the enemy or your ally has to have a slow/stun. In case there is no close ally target, you can try to close the gap further with Sonic Wave / Resonating Strike.

This combo is used to kick an enemy back (into your mates). Important when doing that is: you really have to stand behind the enemy! Even a small angle will cause your ulimate to kick the enemy into a completely wrong direction and your combo to fail. That's why you can use Tempest / Cripple to easily pass the enemy and get into the perfect position (sometimes you won't need that skill).
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Used as:

• Laner/Jungler

Conditions:

• None.

Heal up... (remember Iron Will gives beside lifesteal also spellvamp)

In teamfights (built as an Offtank) I would say Lee is the countercarry:

• You are the one who can get in most cases easily to the enemy's team AD carry with Safeguard / Iron Will and/or Sonic Wave / Resonating Strike.
• With Tempest / Cripple and Sonic Wave / Resonating Strike you can deny the carry's escape.
• Also Cripple if very helpful to fight an AD carry due to the attack speed reduction.
• In some cases you can even kick one or more squishies into your own team with Dragon's Rage to decide the fight quickly.
• In case you have to fight Vayne, Talon, Wukong or even Shaco - those champions who defend themself with short lasting invisibility skills -, what is quite annoying for any other champion without oracle or a ward you will shine with Sonic Wave / Resonating Strike and Tempest / Cripple.

But there are also other things to do. Your ultimate, Dragon's Rage, is great to stop certain champions from doing certain things (in general channeling spells).

For example:
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Plus, you can stop enemys from chasing your mates. A good placed Dragon's Rage will give your chased mate(s) time to recover, get into a better position and maybe even strike back - or at least escape.
Of course there is also the simple damage usage of this skill. In case the enemys are doing the bad mistake to stand in a queue or bunch together, you can deal tons of damage and ruining their whole positioning what may end in a win for your team.

In general, Dragon's Rage is all about positioning or rather dispositioning. Beside the defense options I explained so far in this chapter, there's always the chance of kicking someone out of the mob - at least to 1v1 him (of course Lee Sin is nearly unbeatable in 1v1's).

Due to his important skillshot Sonic Wave / Resonating Strike Lee does very well in teams with AoE stun(s)/root (e.g. Annie, Anivia, Swain, Cho'Gath, Amumu) and at least one single target stun, also for preparing ganks when jungling with him (e.g. Taric, Ryze, Irelia, Sion), or any split abilities (e.g. Anivia, Gragas, Janna, Blitzcrank) allowing him to focus out a target more easily.

When laning it's great if your jungler has any stun/root as Lee Sin is missing this (would be op, though :p).
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Some possible team compositions:

(Jungler)


(solo top)

First of all:
If you thought so far, wards are not necessary let me tell you: you are wrong. Wards are one of the most important mechanics in League of Legends. They will help you grabbing any buff - blue, red and even baron - or denying grabs from enemys side. They will safe you from ganks and bad teamfight positions and will help you to gank and find good positions.
Some good Sight Ward positions:
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I don't want to go any more in depth to wards, but I always would recommend to read this guide to get some more information about warding as it's really important.
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When playing Lee Sin wards are also useful to escape from somewhere by using your Safeguard / Iron Will. It's just awesome to escape that way, especially when playing Jungle Lee with your Wriggle's Lantern. In case there are no cliffs you can reach fast enough, you can also place a ward in front of you and jump to it to either way chase (wow, if you manage to do that send me a screenshot or video, please) or escape.
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Excluding the start items and boots, there are a few core items and builds for Lee Sin in general. Always have in mind Lee Sin's build is divided in two parts: the start build (depending on your position) and the follow up (depending on the enemys and situation).
I will discuss the follow ups here, we will have a closer look on the start items in the other chapters.

1. 
   This is probably the most known follow up for Lee Sin. You will be very tanky with tons of HP and a very high amount of armor. It is focused on late mid/early late game when you finish your Atma's Impaler and increase your damage that much. Also stacking that Warmog's Armor up needs some time in which you get stronger and stronger, what shows again the lategame focus of this follow up.
   This build is the best choice when you get focused by at least 2 champions and have to be tanky or when you want to get into a lategame.
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2. 
   Slightly different from the first follow up in playstyle and focus. Here you are very strong in midgame due to the earlier finishing of the follow up, the strong slow of Frozen Mallet and the earlier damage trough the +20 of Frozen Mallet comparing to the first one. Choose this, when you don't expect a lategame or have problems with chasing your enemys.
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   This is maybe the hardest build to play. Here it shows up if you really mastered Flurry - because you will not only get the bonus attack speed but also the proc from Sheen.
   This follow up deals the most damage in the whole midgame and stands not back in late. It has great utility functions (movement speed, slow) and strong burst damage what is perfect for any countercarry.
   I personally like to grab Aegis of the Legion after, because you are still very squishy with only Trinity Force and most times you wouldn't survive long in any teamfight. The defense aura is pretty useful, too (except someone else bought that item in your team as well, it will only stack for both of you then) - plus: it's all in all very cheap.
   The extra HP will also make sure you can follow up with Atma's Impaler to get even more damage.

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Everything you buy after finishing your follow up should be situational as well. There is none only and perfect build for every situation. Always have a look at the enemys and try to counterbuild them.

Some counter items:
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... counters: Burst damage mages whose damage combo is based on one (CC) spell or who need a certain spell to initiate their combo. For example: Malzahar, Annie, Morgana, AP Sion, Brand, Anivia, Karthus (not when laning against him).

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... counters: Any armor stacking from your enemys. Black Cleaver is also viable when they have less than ~100 armor.

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... counters: All attack speed based AD/auto attack champions who have no CC/only one chasing spell. For example: Xin Zhao, Master Yi, Jax, Nocturne.

What's to say about jungle Lee Sin?
At the moment, Lee Sin is probably the strongest jungler in League of Legends. He is safe and fast, can counterjungle, is able to stand counterjungling and his ganks are very strong - what is the most important thing about him.

LeeJUNGLING SPEED:

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LeeGANKING:

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Source: Who is your Jungler and what does he do?

When jungling with Lee, it's extremely important (at early levels) to make full use of your passive. Without the attack speed, Lee is far from being a good jungler at the beginning and you won't be able to get as much creeps as you would when timing your attacks.

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This Rune setup is focusing on safe early jungling and some defense in lategame.
Greater Mark of desolation is a must-have on Lee Sin as your two main damage skills Sonic Wave / Resonating Strike and Dragon's Rage deal both physical damage. Also useful in the jungle for some more damage with the lot of autoattacks you will do.
Greater Seal of Armor is for a safe first jungle round. We take the flat bonus here (instead of armor/level) because every champion starts with less armor and more magic resist while armor increases a lot with the level, nor does the magic resist. Means: in early game you will lack on armor, in late on magic resist. That's also the reason for taking Greater Glyph of Scaling Magic Resist here. You can also take "energy runes", but due to Flurry it's not really viable.
The two Greater Quintessence of Health are again for safer early jungling. Greater Quintessence of Desolation is just an addition to the marks.

You can change the runes to a more offense path as Lee Sin can also jungle under bad conditions (what's good for low level player - you are not really dependent on any runes/masteries, even though they are of course very helpful). For example:
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Here we use again a mix of damage focusing and some early defense buffs.
Hardiness , Sunder and Awareness are the most important buffs in this setup; if you change something you should at least keep these.

You can also take dodge-seals instead and skill Evasion and Nimbleness . In case you do so, putting some more points in the defense tree is also ok.
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This spell is a must have when jungling, doesn't matter with what champion you do it. You will jungle faster, resulting in safer jungling because you will have more HP left. This will again result in better and safer early ganks. You can steal buffs with it (requires wardcontrol again) and sometimes even decide the game when stealing the baron buff.

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Flash is - sadly - a must have in the current meta. Sometimes you can counter it with Ghost, but most times the possibility of jumping cliffs has to be put over increased movement speed. But as Lee Sin Flash is anyway pretty strong to get into a good position to use Sonic Wave / Resonating Strike/ Safeguard / Iron Will/ Dragon's Rage.

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We get all three skills as fast as possible to get our passive triggered all the time. A second point in Safeguard / Iron Will will help healing up faster, but you can also ignore this and put it in Sonic Wave / Resonating Strike.
We max Tempest / Cripple last as in lane. You maybe think "why that? It's AoE damage and perfect for the jungle". Well, that's right. But especially when playing such a great ganker like Lee Sin is, you won't do those small camps all the time. You just do red buff and go gank. In between you can heal up at the smaller camps. And here is the point in it: Tempest / Cripple is far from being that strong as Sonic Wave / Resonating Strike in killing the high HP monsters.
On the other hand, you will simply have problems to kill anyone, because you will lack on damage...

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Red: standard jungle path.
Green: steal their wraiths! (optionally)
Blue: gank from here.

On this picture you can see my standard jungle path. I start at blue buff for two reasons:

• You will be level 2 after finishing the golem camp.
• CDR is pretty nice on Lee Sin and will help you a bit getting trough the jungle.

The blue buff will also increase your energy regeneration, but as you have to use Flurry anyway, you won't need or even recognize that.

You can also change the path or rather the start of it. That's especially great when you get ganked and has to back off from the golem. Then start at wolves or the smaller golems - it won't be that worse than starting at blue buff.
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Stealing the enemy's wraiths can be quite annoying for their jungler. You should'nt use Smite except someone will help you a bit more at blue buff than just pull it. Stealing wraiths should be done with at least 3 people to be also safe from counteractions.
This tactic is not necessary to be a good jungler or to win or something else - you just want to maybe deny level 4 of their jungler, get some XP and show them who is dominating :)
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Here is a nice video showing the alternative path, starting at wolves. Play Video

There are 2 possible start setups for Lee Sin for jungling:

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This is the standard jungle start build. The Cloth Armor allows a safe jungling due to the better defense and the 5 Healthpot's will carry you (normally) trough the whole jungle. Another good point in this is, you already begin to build Madred's Razor - and you want that item as soon as possible.

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This also works for Lee Sin, as you already got amazing armor stats trough Safeguard / Iron Will - but you will need a good pull at blue (or start somewhere else). Vampiric Scepter is useful when you plan to gank early as does not limit you in your healing-up as the healthpots do. On the other hand, you are more vulnerable to counterjungling as you can't heal up that fast as you would with the healthpots.

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I always skill Safeguard / Iron Will first when jungling with Lee Sin as it offers a great defense and is the perfect skill for any jungler. But there is also the alternative of skilling Tempest / Cripple first. This will give you more damage and also safe you for a short duration due to the attack speed reduction. Starting at blue with Tempest / Cripple is also possible.

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As I said, this build has is devided in two parts:L Wriggle's Lantern and Mercury's Treads are the jungle phase items; Warmog's Armor and Atma's Impaler are your follow up.
The jungle build is pretty simple. Wriggle's Lantern is a must have at least for the jungler. It offers the same things as Smite does, just more frequently and stronger. The free ward is great in every team and situation, too. Especially when playing Lee Sin, as you can jump to this ward if needed.
Mercury's Treads. Of course. You are an offtank and countercarry. There's no use of you when being stunned all the time. So you need Tenacity. And as the other 3 tenacity items do not synergise well with Lee Sin, you take these boots.

Most times I use the Warmog's Armor + Atma's Impaler follow up when I jungle. Without a HP start item like Doran's Shield you are quite squishy. Warmog's Armor will fix that.
Additionaly, the timing is great: most times you will get into the first teamfights when you already got the Giant's Belt or sometimes even finished Warmog's Armor (depends on how many kills/assists you got). That's just perfect as you're now a little bit tanky what you really need in teamfights.

Lane Lee Sin focuses on constant harassment with the Sonic Wave / Resonating Strike/ Safeguard / Iron Will combo. Due to Iron Will he is very sustainable and with Tempest / Cripple even able to push.
Lane Lee Sin is also great to prepare ganks with Tempest / Cripple and Dragon's Rage.

In general you should play Lee Sin on solo top. This position allows you to farm a lot and shine with your 1v1 strength.
You can also play him at the bottom lane and I saw already a few Lee Sin's absolutely dominating there and also tried it on my own, but as you have no always avaiable stun and no heal for your mate, there are better champions.

The rune and mastery setups in build 2 and 3 are the same.
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This rune buildup focus on counter either the burst damage offtanks (dodge) or solo top mages (MR/level). We want to use the mastery Nimbleness here and won't need the armor bonus like in the jungle, especially when opening with Doran's Shield.
The flat HP quintessences are not needed here, too. Instead we focus on damage in early/mid trough high flat armor penetration.

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As I said, we want to use Nimbleness and of course Evasion in lane. It's ridicilous strong versus any melee's in a 1v1 when combined with dodge runes.
Other important masteries you should keep when changing the setup are again Sunder and Awareness .

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It happens so often there is this bit of damage missing and your enemy escapes with 50 HP. That's the first thing about Ignite: it won't happen anymore. But Ignite has also another function than just stealing and finishing: shut down someone from heal (his own/by the support). So in teamfights always have an Ignite right away on your target to deny any heal.

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We already talked about Flash. There is nothing more to say, it's standard and anyway great for Lee Sin.

Alternatives:

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Also great to shut down the enemy's carry. This allows you to either ignore him for a few seconds or kill him more easily. In lane, this will make you a 1v1 monster. There is actually noone who can beat you anymore when playing smart...

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When laning with Lee Sin, you want to max Sonic Wave / Resonating Strike first in most times (except it's a 2v1 lane, but then you shouldn't play Lee Sin on that lane anyway). Obviously your damage increases a lot and the cooldown will decrease with the level. At level 3 the cooldown is the same to Safeguard / Iron Will.
Safeguard / Iron Will is maxed second to secure a safe laning phase. In Tempest / Cripple is only one point needed, again.

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This is the standard build for Lee Sin and pretty lame, so to say. All you need to do is harassing with Sonic Wave / Resonating Strike and Safeguard / Iron Will as much as possible and of course farm. I can't stress the importance of farming enough. Noone cares about the K/D (okay, not about the rate, but you shouldn't die too often - otherwise your enemys will have too much gold :p), the gold you have is important! About 15 creep kills are equal to one kill. Just keep this in mind.

Doran's Shield is a great start item to make sure you will have a safe laning phase and farming. Alternatively you can start with Doran's Blade.

The Brutalizer is a great item for Lee Sin, offering you a lot of damage (especially through the armor penetration as most of your skill damage is physical ones) and utility with the CDR. In jungle you shouldn't grab this as it would delay your follow up too much, but on lane it's simply great.
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The follow up with Frozen Mallet is pretty the same, we already talked about the differences, so I want repeat that here.

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This is my personal favorite. It's simply a great midgame build and shines with great utility and damage. Even though, this is maybe not the best build for beginners, as you really need to do that autoattacks between using skills and need a good timing of your abilities to make the best use of Trinity Force. That means, you shouldn't use Safeguard / Iron Will right away when jumping to your enemy with Sonic Wave / Resonating Strike; you always (ok, most times) want to wait 2 seconds before activating the next skill. That requires of course some experience, but if you want to play this build don't be afraid, just try and train it ;)

I feel like playing with Trinity Force as Lee Sin really requires The Brutalizer to get to an acceptable amount of damage. As a lot of your damage will be now be made by your "normal" attacks, the armor penetration is really important.
I really disadvise to jump over The Brutalizer or buying something else instead.

As already mentioned, lane Lee Sin is all about harassing and on the other hand of course farming. Try to outfarm and outzone your enemy. A lot of other solo top champions can't stay always in experience range due to Lee Sin's huge damage he's dealing with Sonic Wave / Resonating Strike. This skill is perfect when used a lot over a longer period of time as the damage will increase more and more with the enemy's HP dropping. And always there is Safeguard / Iron Will to save you from any (counter)damage.
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All in all, Lee has a great laning potential and is very hard to kill on a 1v1 lane. Just be aware of AP champions on top (like Vladimir, Maokai, Ryze, Malzahar), they can get dangerous as your attack speed reduction becomes useless and your jump can get denied by a stun.
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Buy always at least one ward when going back! Ward your bush or the river to make sure you won't get ganked without knowing it and to make ganks from your own team a bit more safe.
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When getting ganked (do you placed a ward?), run into a bush and try to jump away with Safeguard / Iron Will or Sonic Wave / Resonating Strike. When you got your ultimate already, you can also force them into a queue by changing the angle and kick both back with Dragon's Rage to get some time.
Lee Sin is great at escaping ganks, you will recognize soon ;)

When your mates want to gank at your lane, you can prepare the gank easily. There are some ways to do that:

• Run towards the top of the lane (when dominating it, otherwise it maybe won't work). The target will go to the bottom of the lane most times to deny your possible harassment. Perfect position for your jungler to lunge out!
• In case you're not dominating and already ate some damage, you can give him a chance to attack you and then flee into the bush. If you let it seem like he could kill you now and you really need to escape, he may follow you - right into your jungler.
• Kick him there where you want him with Dragon's Strike. Tr0ll'd.

First of all: Wriggle's Lantern is maybe the greatest item in League of Legends. You ask why?
Well, it offers lifesteal, armor and attack damage. But that's just one side of it. The best things are the farming potential with the chance on the bonus damage versus creeps, making your farming/ lasthitting way easier and the free ward. It's so awesome. When laning at top, you will never need to buy a ward anymore to make sure you will know when you get ganked.
So why is Wriggle's Lantern not in the builds included?

Well, of course you could buy it. But as you really want to have The Brutalizer most times, you would need to buy both items. IN CASE you're playing the Frozen Mallet follow up, that's even ok most times (as you don't need to stack something and the damage is there right from the beginning)! But when playing with Warmog's Armor it would delay the follow up and the start of stacking the Warmog's and grabbing the Atma's Impaler for some damage finally way too much (except you're fed, but then you should be able to spend that 75g to a ward for sure...). And when playing with Trinity Force you need the armor penetration.
That's also the reason for not buying The Brutalizer when jungling. It's just too expensive to buy that much early game items.

Leave a comment! I will read all comments posted here for a long time and try to answer most of them ;)

Thanks to jhoijhoi and her guide-guide :p which motivated me to try to design this guide a bit more attractive...

Thanks to DOOMruNN3r who teached me playing Lee Sin :-) You can't imagine how bad I was before with that champion...

And to you for reading my guide! :D

I would be glad if you visit and vote my other guides, too! :)

gl & hf! xD
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9. Oct. 2011:
spaceGuide released.