Fun fact: The real life version of Xin Zhao has a M.S. degree in Materials Science major from the Tsinghua University (P.R. China) and a P.h.D degree in Applied Science (Materials Science) major at the College of William and Mary.
Meet Xin Zhao, one of the easiest strongest champion in the game, lololol. The most important part to being successful with Xin Zhao is to listen to this song everytime before you start your game:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZSS5dEeMX64
Now obviously Xin Zhao is the cool guy and the fat slobs and the girl are all your nooby teammates.
Skill Order slightly varies depending on team composition, but usually I go:
R > Q > E > W
But starting off with Q, E, W.
If I have a heavy CC team like amumu/galio I will go R > Q > W > E because chances are I won't have to chase as far.
Build
--Doran's Sheild + 1 pot --Mercs treads --Ghostblade --Banshees Veil --Randuins (Use common sense on whether randuins is more important than banshees, if so buy it first) --Another tanky item. Guardian angel works great if you just need more mr/armour. Thornmail if they've got multiple ranged dps. Another negatron cloak if they've got shit tons of magic, turn it into qss or fon.
Summoner Spells
Ignite/exhaust and Ghost. You don't really need flash because of your E but if you're one of those girly men who needs to take flash on every character go for it.
Masteries
21 | 8 | 1
Yeah that's right, offensive masteries on a tanky character. Feel free to switch it up though. 0/21/9 is good, utility is good on every one but I feel it is the worst of the three on Xin.
Defensive Armor MR Strength of Spirit
Utility Improved Ghost
Runes
Marks Armour Penetration
Seals Mana regen/level (Can easily be replaced with other yellow runes, mana isn't really an issue with Xin it just really sucks to not have mana.)
Glyphs Magic resist/lvl
Quintessences Flat Armor Penetration
Playstyle:
Note: If you're going to jungle open cloth + 5 pots, q, w, q, e. Unless you gank pre lvl 4, then get e earlier. I'm not sure if this is optimal but I don't even activate my speed bonus when jungling until the last 5 seconds because when it's on cooldown you don't get the passive. Although every hit once w is activated reduces cooldown on your q so IDK. He's a pretty slow jungler but he can do it ok. I get wriggles over mbr.
Early game: Xin Zhao's really flexible, he can solo top quite easily for a melee character or he can sidelane and still have a strong presence early game. At early game fights around dragon Xin Zhao will most likely do not only more damage than the enemy sidelanes but also be a great chaser/disabler.
Rest of the game: As Xin Zhao, your mission is quite clear. You must execute your ultimate on AS MANY PEOPLE AS YOU CAN. Also when you get your three core items down chug green pots A LOT. Green pots on Xin do SOO much damage its insane.
Xin Zhao is a great initiator, not only does his ult give you magic resist and armour after you use it but it also does more damage based around their current health. So you obviously want to do R at the beginning of a team fight. ANYWAYS. Do this and then activate randuins.
After that, you want to pick which tiny baby ranged carry you want to start poking at with your very long and thick spear. Poking them forces the enemy team to start hurting you and that's what you want!
Tips: Don't be afraid to clear those big ass minion waves with an E - R combo. It'll kill all of them instantly most of the time and it feels really nice to hear all that gold.
Also don't be conservative about last hitting with Q during laning phase. Especially if your minions are pushed to your tower, using Q makes it a lot easier to get the gold.
Q resets your auto attack so you deal more damage if you hit Q right after you E somebody rather than having Q ready as soon as you attack. Q bonus damage doesn't affect towers but it does reset your auto attack once for that extra little damage.
That's about it! Nothing revolutionary here but oh well, if you have any questions ask away.
Feel free to sing this modified version to yourself if you've got noobs on your team.
Let's get down to business so I can eat my berries. Did Riot send me feeders, when I asked for carries. You're the saddest bunch I ever met But you can bet before we're through Noobies I'll... get a victory.. out of you.
Silent as a Russian But seriously dumb.. as Brazil Once you get to your lane Please don't feed.. [First Blood an Ally has been slain]...oh come on Zil! You're a spineless, pale pathetic lot ------------- (not much to change here) And you haven't got a clue ------------ ( same) Somehow I'll get a victory out of you
(Be a man) We must be swift as urf on a river. (Be a man) With all the force of malphite's ult (Be a man) With all the strength of a raging hotshot. Mysterious as the development of Sonaaaaaa.
Time is racing toward us till we can surrender Heed my every order and we might survive You're unsuited for the rage of LoL So give up, uninstall you're through How could I get a victory out of you?
Could you fill me in on why you wouldn't level up W first? In most engagements, having level 5 W activated will recharge both your E and Q in time to use them twice in a matter of seconds, and it also lets you spam your ult. Maybe I'll just have to try it.
Oh, and Xin Zhao is clearly Lu Bu in disguise. Why was this not covered?
this is the best guide on this site even if W > E, hahaha.
for whatever it's worth, I completely agree with Chrispy on LW -> tank spam >>> BR -> tank spam now that LW works with your ult. it's like, half the price and usually ends up being stronger overall just by making your ult so much better.
EDIT: oh yea, and I like 21 defensive and 9 utility on Xin.
On November 16 2010 09:45 Kratisto wrote: Could you fill me in on why you wouldn't level up W first? In most engagements, having level 5 W activated will recharge both your E and Q in time to use them twice in a matter of seconds, and it also lets you spam your ult. Maybe I'll just have to try it.
Oh, and Xin Zhao is clearly Lu Bu in disguise. Why was this not covered?
I've actually never really tried getting W first rather than Q so I can't comment there. As for why I prefer leveling E rather than W it's more of one of those things where you try it (I used to go Q > W > E) and it works and you just keep going with it. Like I said if I've got a heavy CC team where I know the carry will be shut down I'll get W after Q.
Oh and also I forgot to mention that I get one point in W at level 3 of course.. ^___^
i always get sword of divine and maybe ghostblade.
Makes your attacks true damage and you will be knocking people up constantly. I guess you can leave the ghostblade and go that tankbuild as well. It will hit more on squishies compared to old Lw, and less on tanks.
Both sotd and gb are great since they help your burst, the polly build is really easy to learn as long as you don't go straight for wriggles. Sitting on cloth armor + 3 longswords is way batter than straight wriggles if you b with little money.
Actually I think the way Q works against towers now is if you activate it you won't get the popups but you will get damage bonus as long as you don't proc the hits on creeps/champs.
On December 21 2010 08:52 arnath wrote: The polly build?
Wriggles-Ghostblade.
On December 21 2010 09:19 Chrispy wrote: Was it changed recently? AFAIK all that Q can do is reset your auto attack so you can kind of double hit a tower if you do it right.
Roughly half the "on next attack" skills work against tower without losing charges and the others don't, but which of those skills do and don't work rotate pretty much every patch.
Instead of getting SotD, why not get Starks? It helps the team alot and you never die with it b/c of lifesteal. I feel the advantages of it makes up for 20% aspd and 10 apen.
On December 23 2010 18:36 Owned Noob wrote: Instead of getting SotD, why not get Starks? It helps the team alot and you never die with it b/c of lifesteal. I feel the advantages of it makes up for 20% aspd and 10 apen.
Yeah, starks is most people's choice item for AS. (it's 40% btw, vs 55% from SotD) Really I'd only get SotD if they had a lot of exhaust. It's kind of a situational item to me while starks is more of a standard item.
SotD makes your combo a lot stronger, starks' effect isn't that different since AS is still good but lifesteal isn't the stat you go for when you are looking to do damage.
But if you have 2 more AD characters in your team then yeah, starks is good. Xin is prob the 3rd best starks carrier after mundo and kayle.
On December 23 2010 18:36 Owned Noob wrote: Instead of getting SotD, why not get Starks? It helps the team alot and you never die with it b/c of lifesteal. I feel the advantages of it makes up for 20% aspd and 10 apen.
Yeah, starks is most people's choice item for AS. (it's 40% btw, vs 55% from SotD) Really I'd only get SotD if they had a lot of exhaust. It's kind of a situational item to me while starks is more of a standard item.
No I was talking about the difference is aspd (I thought the aspd for SotD got changed?), so its 20%. Also, SotD works over exhaust? I never knew about this
Well form my experience wriggles gives you a free ward every 3 minutes which is a huge plus. Gives you the lifesteal you need to never have to go back unless you need to buy. Wriggles keeps the minion damage proc which can help a ton with baron/dragon with high attack speed.
On December 24 2010 12:57 arnath wrote: Can somebody please explain to me why the Ghostblade-Wriggles build is popular? I don't understand the point of Wriggles on a non-jungle champion.
I'm pretty sure they're taking about gb-wriggles with respect to a jungle Xin. Why would you say he's a non-jungle champion?
On December 23 2010 18:36 Owned Noob wrote: Instead of getting SotD, why not get Starks? It helps the team alot and you never die with it b/c of lifesteal. I feel the advantages of it makes up for 20% aspd and 10 apen.
Yeah, starks is most people's choice item for AS. (it's 40% btw, vs 55% from SotD) Really I'd only get SotD if they had a lot of exhaust. It's kind of a situational item to me while starks is more of a standard item.
Hmm i haven't used SotD in ages but doesn't it prevent enemies from dodging? In other words - you can still miss, they just can't dodge. Exhaust causes you to miss, not them to dodge.
Oh crap, page didn't refresh, lots of people already adressed that ;p
I guess the main idea with Xin is "grab 1-2 damage items and then just build tanky"? How does BR work with xin?
On December 23 2010 18:36 Owned Noob wrote: Instead of getting SotD, why not get Starks? It helps the team alot and you never die with it b/c of lifesteal. I feel the advantages of it makes up for 20% aspd and 10 apen.
Yeah, starks is most people's choice item for AS. (it's 40% btw, vs 55% from SotD) Really I'd only get SotD if they had a lot of exhaust. It's kind of a situational item to me while starks is more of a standard item.
Hmm i haven't used SotD in ages but doesn't it prevent enemies from dodging? In other words - you can still miss, they just can't dodge. Exhaust causes you to miss, not them to dodge.
Oh crap, page didn't refresh, lots of people already adressed that ;p
I guess the main idea with Xin is "grab 1-2 damage items and then just build tanky"? How does BR work with xin?
You're right, tested, I'm an idiot, ignore me. o_o
On December 24 2010 12:57 arnath wrote: Can somebody please explain to me why the Ghostblade-Wriggles build is popular? I don't understand the point of Wriggles on a non-jungle champion.
I'm pretty sure they're taking about gb-wriggles with respect to a jungle Xin. Why would you say he's a non-jungle champion?
He's so powerful in lane that he doesn't need to jungle. Just because something can jungle doesn't mean it's optimal.
On December 27 2010 08:20 Chrispy wrote: IMO no, it's not very good. Xin kind of needs to open some sort of attack speed. I recommend Ghostblade, others will swear by SotD.
Starks is an option too if your team is heavily reliant on phsyical dps.
Ghostblade seems good -- but no love for MBR? I'd vastly prefer it to SotD on Xin...
Hi. I'm actually a fairly skilled Xin Zhao and have a few thoughts on him.
The first thing is that Wriggles is good even on non jungling Xin. You start with cloth armor and 5 hp pots and just harass the shit out of mid or top (whatever solo you have). People simply can't stay in lane with you. After wriggles, you should probably go ghostblade. SoTD is OK, but its actually gonna come back to bite you if the game goes too long or you are needed for more damage than just ur ultimate.
After Wriggles, SoTD, Ghostblade (whatever you end up getting). You should get tanky. I think the best way to do it is actually grabbing a phage and then making atmas. You can finish the frozen mallet late game if you are full on slots, but just a simple phage is usually enough. Alternatively, you could get banshees against really magical teams.
Xin Zhao is an interesting champion to build. You want to get a solid mix of armor pen, attack speed, hp, and resists. Its tough to build him so you are always strong enough to kill people but beefy enough to not get one shotted.
He actually takes a lot of practice to build.
Just some general tips for building him though:
1. Start with Armor Pen/Lifesteal/Attack Speed 2. Get tanky fast 3. Don't complete Mallet before end game 4. Madreds Bloodrazor is NOT good on him 5. Sunfire capes are NOT good on him 6. Auru items are NOT good on him 7. Crit is surprisingly GOOD on him, with a Wriggles + Ghostblade + Phage + Atmas, and maybe a late game Banshees you are ridiculously strong. 8. Red and green pots are extremely OP on Xin
random stuff
your pop ups will occur even if you are dodged, exhausted, blinded, etc...
I dunno how clear I have been. LoL is such a varied game its like trying to set out a 200 food build order for SC.
Your build sounds exactly like the one Guardsman Bob uses actually. He does wriggles, GB, phage, atmas, banshee's and won't complete phage into frozen mallet unless he's item capped, pumping elixers constantly, and still has a lot of gold.
Order of phage. atmas, and banshee's normally is dependent on the game.
On December 27 2010 11:12 BlackPaladin wrote: Your build sounds exactly like the one Guardsman Bob uses actually. He does wriggles, GB, phage, atmas, banshee's and won't complete phage into frozen mallet unless he's item capped, pumping elixers constantly, and still has a lot of gold.
Order of phage. atmas, and banshee's normally is dependent on the game.
Thats the Udyr!!
Haha. Well yeah its a good way for Xin because you are a good mix of tank and DPS at all the right times in the game. Nice to have a build that a good player uses!
Yep I was going to post eventually that I really like that build and it's just extremely extremely solid, especially with the nerfs to the other tanky items.
Wriggles I think is a preference thing. Wards are quite an investment to keep buying now that they don't last as long and die really easily. So the gameplay value of wriggles went up.
On December 27 2010 18:18 Advocado wrote: Isn't building wriggles on a laning character putting you at an disadvantage?
Why? Its good for pushing, keeping you alive (with the lifesteal and armor), free wards, and it helps at neutrals (Xin is great with red, as well as extra damage at dragon and baron).
On December 27 2010 18:18 Advocado wrote: Isn't building wriggles on a laning character putting you at an disadvantage?
Why? Its good for pushing, keeping you alive (with the lifesteal and armor), free wards, and it helps at neutrals (Xin is great with red, as well as extra damage at dragon and baron).
That makes a lot of sense. Just that you get the Recurve Bow a bit later, but that doesn't matter so much I guess. I definitely like the Bloodrazer after having gotten it during a game of jungle xin zhao. Just seemed like you would have to go a bit out of your way to get it.
I played with Stinger earlier today and that felt really good, but probably more likely to be the opponents having a day off. The CD% is great and att spd is cheap on it.
instead of wriggles just build triple doran's, lol. It's still good. For 300 less gold you get the same attack damage and lifesteal and 300 health instead of 30 armor (wayyyyy better), and you don't have to build out of cloth armor and longsword.
On December 28 2010 07:53 UniversalSnip wrote: instead of wriggles just build triple doran's, lol. It's still good. For 300 less gold you get the same attack damage and lifesteal and 300 health instead of 30 armor (wayyyyy better), and you don't have to build out of cloth armor and longsword.
uh, it also takes up 3 inventory space. pain in the ass if you're still buying wards/hp pots, which as xin (an off-tank) seems like part of your responsibility. not to mention the fact that i like to build omen and bveil at the same time, going for some combination of hog, catalyst, chain vests and null magic mantle (with exceptions against certain dmg types), means that having your lanestaying item as 1 slot and combining partly with ward space is pretty convenient.
i do agree that i'd rather have starks over wriggles, but at the same time theres a pretty significant cost difference, not to mention the built in wards. not to mention the fact that theres nothing stopping you from simply selling your wriggles for starks once you've gotten pretty good gold returns from the bonus wards.
On December 28 2010 07:53 UniversalSnip wrote: instead of wriggles just build triple doran's, lol. It's still good. For 300 less gold you get the same attack damage and lifesteal and 300 health instead of 30 armor (wayyyyy better), and you don't have to build out of cloth armor and longsword.
uh, it also takes up 3 inventory space. pain in the ass if you're still buying wards/hp pots, which as xin (an off-tank) seems like part of your responsibility. not to mention the fact that i like to build omen and bveil at the same time, going for some combination of hog, catalyst, chain vests and null magic mantle (with exceptions against certain dmg types), means that having your lanestaying item as 1 slot and combining partly with ward space is pretty convenient.
i do agree that i'd rather have starks over wriggles, but at the same time theres a pretty significant cost difference, not to mention the built in wards. not to mention the fact that theres nothing stopping you from simply selling your wriggles for starks once you've gotten pretty good gold returns from the bonus wards.
Eh, what? I assume you're building blades ----> damage item (ghostblade, bloodrazors) ----> tank items. Going straight for wriggles or starks into tank items seems pretty questionable, you won't have much damage output even for an off-tank.
Xin is my second most played champion and I've played a lots of game with him. Upon reading this thread I notice that I don't use any items all of you guys seem to prefer. I also don't build him tanky most of the times.
My runes:
HP Quints Red AD or Apen (nowadays I prefer AD, helps jungle) Yellow Dodge Blue Mana
My masteries are:
21 - 9 - 0 when laning 21 - 0 - 9 when jungling (I usually jungle)
When jungling I start with the 300g armor and 5 pots into Madred's Razors -> Boots -> Wit's End. That's usually my basic build. From there I'll see how the game goes and what is needed against enemy champs. Usually I opt for Phage->Frozen Mallet or Madred's Bloodrazer. If they have a lot of AP I go Hexdrinker after Wit's End.
I personally love Wit's End. It's such a cheap item for the what you get. For 2150 it does 42 dmg, 40%, 30MR, burns 42 Mana. The only disadvantage is that you don't get the 42dmg as bonus dmg so it doesn't affect your abilities. Still, the items totally rules mid game imo.
I gotta try getting SotD and Ghostblade, because that's what you guys all seem to use as a basic build.
how do you lane against a good gp with xin? Everytime i play gp against xin top i deny him so hard while staying at my tower he can't even try anything. Then he manage to call gp overpowered when i finally go shop and own him with q. I fail to see what xin could do though, if the lane never pushes
I did play a GP mid once it was a pain in the ass I just had to be very careful and let your pots run their course before you go in to avoid an auto attack and his passive.
Hm, is there something I'm missing about Xin jungling? I've tried it a couple of times, and I must say I've rarely played a worse jungler, it's like, Shen's faster? My jungle runes are not at all optimized for Xin, that might be the problem? Running ArPen, Armor, CDR and Health.
On January 05 2011 05:48 Papvin wrote: Hm, is there something I'm missing about Xin jungling? I've tried it a couple of times, and I must say I've rarely played a worse jungler, it's like, Shen's faster? My jungle runes are not at all optimized for Xin, that might be the problem? Running ArPen, Armor, CDR and Health.
In my experience as well, I wasn't too impressed with Xin's jungle.
if you have to jungle with xin, the most important thing is to start at small gols. Blue golem isn't necessary and actually just slows your path up. He's a bad jungler on his first go-round, but he's a pretty good ganker and is a very safe jungler with a very dangerous gank once he has razors and his ult.
With Attack Speed Quints/Marks, Armor Seals and Flat CDR Glyphs Xin can clear in 4:00 starting at blue. I haven't tried starting at golems as I usually play other junglers.
Edit: On my first try going golems first I did 4:03 with plenty of health left over for a gank attempt. Not sure why people say Xin is slow.
It was a fairly straightforward Golems->Lizard->Wraiths->Wolves->Blue path. Saved Smite for Lizard and Blue, and didn't worry about saving mana until Wolves (and even then I saved too much). If you want I can try and put together a video when I get home from work.
People don't realize when they practice jungling.. You need bots in the game to make the monsters level up the fastest.
I practice with one bot on my team and 2 on the other side. That seems to get an optimally high level bot at any point in the jungle practice so that it's closer to a real game.
First blood games get even crazier if you already jungle at low health.
personally I hate the gols -> red route for the obvious reason that your red buff is wasted entirely on jungling. I do gols -> wraiths -> wolves -> blue -> wraiths -> red -> gols, though I think there's some merit to just backing after blue to buy boots and a ward for dragon if you want to be safe about that + to give you more time with boots + red buff for ganking.
EzPz had a sick early dragon vs. my Jungle Xin a couple days ago. I felt like I lost my team the game there, but then my team's solos were a lot better than the opposing solos, so we roflstomped.
On January 11 2011 02:56 ghen wrote: People don't realize when they practice jungling.. You need bots in the game to make the monsters level up the fastest.
I practice with one bot on my team and 2 on the other side. That seems to get an optimally high level bot at any point in the jungle practice so that it's closer to a real game.
First blood games get even crazier if you already jungle at low health.
Are you sure about that? I haven't been able to find a definitive source on the subject. The wiki claims it's based on elapsed time whereas this post claims it's based on the highest level champion in the game.
In either of those two cases the presence of bots in a practice game would be almost irrelevant for a straight clear as long as it wasn't slow. Your mid is going to hit level 2 at ~2:45, 3 at ~3:15 and 4 at ~3:45. Both routes shown in my video have the buff creeps dead by that point.
Edit: Just tested using bots. It's definitely based on the highest level champion in the game on either side. So for any jungler who can level faster than a solo laner bots are irrelevant.
in lane, I run Flat HP, ArPen, Armor, and MRes. As Chrispy and others have said, this does strain your mana pool a bit, but I just play pretty conservatively with my skill usage with Xin unless I have blue buff or am all-in on a fight. If you want you can replace Armor with Mana Regen and I've been thinking about doing so myself, I just like showing up on lane with over 50/50 in Armor/MRes. I run 0/21/9 and Ghost Ignite or 1/21/8 and Ghost Exhaust. The item build is d-shield -> boots -> merc treads + ghostblade (order depends) -> Black Cleaver + Guardian Angel + Banshee's (order depends).
in jungle... uhg, I'm currently bouncing between 2 builds. The first is my old build... AS Marks and Quints, Armor Seals, MRes Glyphs. 1/16/13. Start cloth + 5 hp pots, start gols (smite) -> wraiths -> wolves -> blue (smite) -> wraiths -> red (smite) -> gols. back and buy razors, then you go mercs -> recurve bow -> Bloodrazor + Guardian Angel + Banshee's Veil (order depends), occasionally with phage -> frozen mallet mixed in somewhere. The idea with this build is that you're an initiating tank. You go into the fight first and just try to last the longest. Who you end up fighting isn't terribly relevant because you pose a serious threat to anyone with bloodrazors and your CC which is super charged by your W + attack speed. The issue with this build and why I've been shifting off of it is that one of Xin's best uses is as a strict counter to ranged carries and just instantly blowing them up. While this build can kill anyone, it's not really optimized to blow up squishy high priority targets. Which leads into...
My new jungle build, which is ArPen Marks, HP Quints, Armor Seals, MRes Glyphs (same page as laning). same 1/16/13 spec as the other jungle setup, same starting path, though you don't end up as high health with this build, so backing after blue for boots, a ward and a couple pots and then going gols -> red -> wraiths -> wolves can be preferable. The item build is cloth -> boots -> wriggle's lantern -> merc treads -> ghostblade -> GA/Banshee's -> Black Cleaver. This build doesn't outlast tanks the way the other one does, but it will absolutely demolish opposing carries that you focus.
after the jungle MR changes i've been doing a bit of jungle xin (I KNOW HE'S BETTER IN LANE GOD) and i found this route to be p good
wraith jack (smite blue, use Q to reset auto attacks) -> pot on your way to SMALL GOLEM JACK make sure you pull them out of the sight of creep waves -> your own wolves -> your own wraiths -> your own golems -> B to get more pot + long sword -> blue wolf wraith golem b for madreds or wriggles and boots -> red GANK
yes the gank comes late, but if you have time to get a gank in anywhere, take it, cause you're at high HP for this whole route. for example last game after the b for long sword, top lane was pushed pretty far so i got an easy gank then headed straight to blue to continue the route. the main problem with this is that since you're not taking any of the high-money value creeps, you get your madreds later which slows you down a bit, but it's been pretty safe, it fucks the other jungler pretty royally (they were 4 when i hit 6, even though our bottom lane fed him a double kill x_x)
my item build for both laning and jungling xin has been the same, i feel like this shouldn't work at all but i have had gr8 success with it
wriggles (for jungle only) -> boots -> recurve bow -> sword of the divine -> mercs -> giant's belt, ruby gem -> phage -> frozen mallet -> hella survivability as appropriate, sometimes ghostblade.
ghostblade active + w nets you like 1.7 AS, combined with mallet no one is getting away from you EVER, it's great for just doing your standard E,R initiate then chasing down the already half-health carry and not dying because of imba armor/mr boost from ult and imba passive
also you mow down towers like it's your fucking job, which it is
i run MS quint arpen red ar/level yellow mr/level blue 1/14/15 or 0/21/9
note: i am 100% positive this is not an optimal build at all, smash's is probs wayyy better but like i said, for some reason this has been working fiendishly well for me so i'm gonna stick with it a bit
So I feel like I'm playing Xin wrong. When I play him, he feels so squishy, that even though I have a high kill count, I usually have a high death count along with it. This is especially true late game. Late game, should I play Xin as some sort of clean up crew instead of being in the mist of the battle?
Guardsman Bob seems to play late game Xin as an assassin rather than clean up or bruiser. Unlike mid game where you might charge in and ult as soon as you get the possibility to hit 3 opponents you instead wait till the opposing squishies show themselves and then burst them down and/or make them flee. After you've neutralized one of their carries you can go back and play clean up on their tanks and off tanks / tanky dps.
On March 24 2011 11:41 Misder wrote: So I feel like I'm playing Xin wrong. When I play him, he feels so squishy, that even though I have a high kill count, I usually have a high death count along with it. This is especially true late game. Late game, should I play Xin as some sort of clean up crew instead of being in the mist of the battle?
I've been having the same problem until I came to a striking discovery: always solo. Dual lane Xin is trash because he needs his levels.
Leveling E only gives 5 less damage per skill level than leveling Q--assuming you get all 3 attacks off on Q--and also increases the slow. I don't know if leveling either skill affects the cooldown but it seems to me that leveling E makes more sense than leveling Q.
But IMO the most important part of leveling E over Q is like crate said - you will NOT land all 3 hits with Q vs competent enemy (at least that's what bob said when he explained it lol! )
So I've played a few games of jungle Xin after the patch and I don't know, while his jungle is decently fast and safe and his ganks are amazing (surprise charge gank out of the brush is pretty much a secured kill unless someone flashes) he doesn't seem to run that well off jungle gold/exp because Xin really needs sololane exp/gold. You need Wriggles + Ghostblade/SOTD as core for damage/jungling but also a bunch of tankyness really fast so you don't explode instantly. Unless you play him like Akali but I think that's pretty stupid.
I use Stonewall's build which is
Route: Smallgolems > Wraiths > Wolves > Blue > Base > Smallgolems > Red
21/0/9
Attackspeed reds Armor yellows Mres/level blues Arpen quints
QWQE after that I do R > E > W > Q
Vamp scepter madreds boots 1 wriggles mercs Ghostblade/SOTD tank stuff (Randuins/Banshees) Cleaver as luxury DPS item
that route is ancient and not even optimal LOL. idk how anyone can even steal a route, there are only five damn camps on your side
correct way to do it is to smite the wraith, go to stone golems and have the lane pull them, wolves, if gank is possible red and gank, otherwise blue and base OR immediately do red if you have no fear (not that you will somehow die with godly jungler xin, just you won't have smite up so vry easy to disrupt)
I go wriggles triforce, i think triforce is op as shit on him now
EPT![[image loading]](http://leaguecraft.com/images/icons/champions/champion_55.jpg){kind=icon}
![[image loading]](http://graphene-battery.com/images/xinzhao.jpg)
Poking them forces the enemy team to start hurting you and that's what you want!
