Xin Zhao makes for a great jungler and great in lane, because of his passive Tireless Warrior. In this guide i will be showing you my way of playing DPS Xin Zhao. The core of this Build is DPS which I feel is the best way to build Xin Zhao.

These runes will help to proc Xins passive Battle Cry, and also give you that extra bit of damage and survivability, which Xin craves.

For masteries I run a standard DPS build, choosing 21-0-9 taking armour pen and increased damage, for the utilities I chose to take 15% longer on neutral monster buffs as Xin can be mana heavy if you use his abilities frequently. Anything to help you get kills, such as the slow from red buff or the cool downs from blue it all helps.

All the items outlined above play to Xins advantages while trying to minimize his weakness. but the core or the build is attack speed and critical damage. The attack speed from the Black Cleaver, Phantom Dancer and Berserker's Greaves all help to increase the effectiveness of Xins passive Battle Cry , which heals a certain amount every 3 attacks Xin does. the damage and survivability come from the Frozen Mallet, Blood thirster and the Infinity Edge, all of these items put together in combination with Xins attack speed and passive, translate into some crazy damage and life steal.

Some other build's are as shown below.

When choosing your skills I would always advise taking Three Talon Strike over Battle Cry as one you have level Battle Cry once it only provides a small bonus as opposed to the extra damage from Three Talon Strike. Also I have found that taking one point in Audacious Charge is all the is required as the damage increase is insignificant compared to the damage of other skills.

Challenge This is Xins Passive, For every third attack Xin gets off it will return a flat amount of health, this amount increases by 5 every 2 levels, the base amount is 30 so by level 18 you will return 75 every third hit.

Three Talon Strike This is Xin's bread and butter this skill provides Xin with the cc that he needs, when activated this skill will give each of the three attacks extra damage, and on the third hit knocks the enemy champion.

Battle Cry This is a great skill as it passively increases Xin's DPS, when activated Battle Cry gives even more DPS while reducing the cool downs of Xin's other abilities while active.

Audacious Charge This skill acts as a great initiation and escape tool, but not only does it leap to the opponent, it also slows by a flat amount on hit. This is extremely useful for ganks and as mentioned before initiating and escaping.

Crescent Sweep This is a great ultimate, when activated it does a flat amount of damage plus 20% of the opponents current health. On top of huge damage for every enemy Champion hit it give Xin a Short boost of armour.

When leading into a solo target I find it best to open like this

E, W-Q, R, Q

As you can see the WQ are in the same group this is because they are both proceed simultaneously, to time this correctly you activate you E and select a target, wait to activate your WQ until Xin is leaping towards the target this gives that instant damage from your E and then instantly leads into mass damage from your [three talon strike] and also your knock-up, once you initial knock-up is completed your three talon strike should be ready to go as, [Battle cry] takes one second off all your cool downs for every attack while the spell is active. If required use [ignite] during the fight to reduce opponents life steal and do that extra damage you may need.

Ignite I have found that ignite is one of the best spells for Xin as he is faced agenised opponents with life steal or he needs extra damage this spell provides that.

Exhaust To be honest I know exhaust can be an extremely useful spell but I have found it to be not needed because Xin has a knock-up which provides a surprising amount cc.

Flash is a great spell for Xin as it provides a great get away spell as Xin has literally no good methods of evading unwanted attention, on that I would definitely recommend this spell.

Ghost is a great spell for closing the gap between you and the enemy, although sometimes i find all you need a quick flash to get that last hit of three talon strike off to knock-up your opponent.

Pros:
- Destroys squishy targets
- Passive heals Xin even when hitting turrets
- Great lifesteal
- High dps
- Good Movement speed

Cons
- Depends on lifesteal
- No good methods of escaping
- Basic skin looks Terrible XD

Jungling is one of the things Xin does well, for example if you have been laning for a while and at around level 9 you should have Berserker's Greaves + Dagger, with these xin can take one red and blue buffs, although i would advise you give the blue buff to a more mana heavy champ, or possibly mid if they find they need it. These buffs can make a big difference during laning as they provide extra xp and gold, and the obvious benefits of the Golem and lizard buffs.

Xin is a champion that excels at ganking with his great DPS and his knock-up you can easily pick up a kill early game, when going for the gank before you hit level 6, you should aim for lanes like mid or solo top or bottom as they will be easier to pick off. the key to ganking it communication between your team and good positioning. The key is to evaluate your teams CC and if you feel your ganking partner has sufficient cc to keep the opposing champion from escaping, simply wait in the many gank bushes located next to the lanes until they are pushed up to a good distance where you feel they won’t escape. If for example you are laning with a Morgana and she lands a successful Dark Binding, open with Audacious Charge, and while Xin is leaping to your opponent activate your Three Talon Strike along with Battle Cry, to provide a quick knock-up, remember to lay down an Ignite during the fite to ensure the kill.

Laning with Xin is a relatively simple as his passive provides great life steal early game. But with Xin like many other champs to ensure creep kills you should try time your hits to ensure last hits, if this is proving a little too difficult you can always just hold off from attacking until the minion is low enough to one hit, although this will affect your healing if you are only last hitting.

So if this guide helped you, vote for it and also it would be great if your creating a new account, if you could sign up using my referal link.

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Many Thanks

Baked

1.0 Guide relesed
1.1 Guide Corrected
1.2 added item tags
1.3 added colour
1.4 added optional builds
1.5 added screen shots
1.6 Updated for new masteries


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