As most of you know Xin Zhao excels at jungling. I have been playing alot of Xin Zhao lately and have found him to also be one of the best solo laners especially middle. Xin has a real edge in lane against ranged carries/ap carries. He does however struggle in a solo lane against other counter carries ie: Morde / lane wick etc...

Xin Zhao's skills make him a huge asset to ganks. The ability to close distance and slow with Audacious Charge and then knock in the air with Three Talon Strike means your allies will have plenty of time to come in and clean up the scraps (if you haven't already finished the enemy off).


Your passive heals you every 3 hits. This is a HUGE advantage in early game. It means you can lane for long periods of time without wasting money on lifesteal. Even mid and late game you will be healing rather quickly with all the attack speed you will be getting.


Not only do you get in 3 quick hits with bonus damage, but you knock up your opponent on the third hit. This allows your teammates to help you out, or slows down the enemy enough to get that kill shot in. Spam this skill as much as you can. It works great in combo with the active of Battle Cry.


This skill is great in itself as a passive ability. It boosts your attack speed up to 35%. That's like two daggers for free! You'll want to level this skill early because attack speed benefits Xin like no other champion. Faster attack speed with Tireless Warrior means faster healing. It makes your Three Talon knockup hit sooner. It makes your cooldowns reduce more quickly with Battle Cry's active. Moral of the story? You want attack speed.

Battle Cry's active is also amazing. It doubles the bonus of the passive for 7 seconds. An extra 70% attack speed? Yes, please! Also, during those 7 seconds all cooldowns are reduced by 1 second. This is a HUGE benefit for three talon strike. Don't forget, this also reduces the cooldown of your ult, making it nearly spammable. Word of caution: your passive attack speed bonus goes away while this active is on cooldown. That shouldn't stop you from spamming this skill (extremely low mana cost) to farm and get your ult off of cooldown.


This is a great skill for initiating fights and the first skill you max. It's a distance closer, but also slows all enemies around the target. Typically after using this skill, you want to immediately use your ultimate for maximum damage.




This great skill deals some flat damage, as well as a nice 20% of the current enemies health. What does that mean for you, almighty enemy pwner? Use this skill first when you are going for a kill, while their health is still high. A typical skill sequence is Battle Cry, Audacious Charge, Crescent Sweep, Three Talon Strike, and repeat the TTS and AC as much as possible. Not even tanks will last very long.

Flash and ignite are by far the best two summoners

x5
You may be thinking to yourself right now WTF that is the same starting items i use for jungle Xin. The reason I start with Cloth Armor and Health pots is so you can last hit and still have lane stability.

(Why 2x Zeal?) Later you will be getting 2x PD and with those PDs you can get 2 sets of Three Talon Strike in one Battle Cry which means you can fight without having to chase forever.
Catalyst the Protector You will start to get hit pretty hard by some champions and its nice to have that extra health boost at the 15-20min mark.

(Look Up)
Need to put in some damage to give your attack speed viability.
Necessity on almost all Melee champions.
you should be at or close to 100% critical strike with this and at this point you are an unstoppable machine.
Enemy's usually itemize to stop you if you are fed beyond belief which you should be. Some needed armor pen helps you keep your presence in team fights alive.
At this point sell your boots and get a Bloodthirster. You will have enough move speed from your PDancers to sacrifice the boots. Bloodthirster is amazing at this point because you have 100% crit and armor pen out the ***. If you make it here you probably should have ended the game by now :P

In ranked games if your team will allow it take middle. Xin is amazing at shutting down those pesky carries. Once you hit level 3 you start to make your move by initiating with Audacious Charge and activating your Three Talon Strike. After that third hit of Three Talon Strike use your Battle Shout and get that FB :P

- Amazing 1v1 champion
- Anti-Carry
- Knock up
- High base health
- Good at initiating team fights

CONS

- Gets focused down easily
- No real easy way to escape