Xin Zhao is a tanky melee DPS that can dish out a lot of damage and bring some great crowd control to the battle. He has a slow, as well as a knockup that co-ordinates with your auto attacks. He can lane or Jungle. I will go over my jungle Xin first, and then Lane Xin afterwards.
Skills
Passive. Challenge - Xin Zhao challenges his target with his basic attacks and Audacious Charge, reducing its armor by 15% for 3 seconds. Only one target can be challenged at a given time.
This passive in combination with your ultimate helps you isolate your target and beat them down quickly before the opponents can save them. The armour reduction is there to help you take them out quicker, although against low armour carries, 15% isn't an extremely noticeable amount.
Q.Three Talon Strike - Xin Zhao's next 3 basic attacks deal bonus physical damage and reduce his other abilities' cooldowns by 1 second each. The final strike also knocks the target into the air. Cost: 30 Mana Cooldown: 9 / 8 / 7 / 6 / 5 seconds Bonus Damage: 15 / 30 / 45 / 60 / 75 (+ 20% AD)
This is what makes people hate facing Xin Zhao. The knockup from this spell comes very quickly once you get decent attack speed (since it modifies your auto attacks instead of having its own attacks). Can be used to stop channeling abilities and is what makes your ganks deadly. In the 2012 rework, the cooldown reduction from W was moved to this skill, but can only reduce the other skills' cooldowns by three each time. Activating this right after battle cry will not only let you attack faster sooner after, but once your W is maxed, the cooldown on both skills will end up around the same assuming you use one after another. If you want to gank at level 2 from a jungler's perspective, open with this skill.
W. Battle Cry - (Passive): Xin Zhao heals himself on every third basic attack. (Active): Xin Zhao unleashes a battle cry, increasing his attack speed for 5 seconds. Cost: 40 mana Cooldown: 16 / 15 / 14 / 13 / 12 seconds Heal: 26 / 32 / 38 / 44 / 50 (+ 70% AP) Attack Speed: 40% / 50% / 60% / 70% / 80%
The attack speed brings you up 40% at level one, which is very important for clearing the jungle and getting your TTS off quickly. I start off with this skill in the jungle, the sustain and increased attack speed makes Xin extremely strong in the early levels. In combination with the Hunter's Machete, attack speed is even more effective. This skill is better to open when planning for level 3 or 4 ganks after taking both red and blue crests. Do note that in the case of a level 1 fight, this ability will not help you in invades/counterinvades. Do not level this skill before knowing if an invade will occur.
E. Audacious Charge - Xin Zhao charges and challenges an enemy, damaging and slowing enemies for 2 seconds within a small range. Cost: 60 mana Cooldown: 13 / 12 / 11 / 10 / 9 seconds Damage: 70 / 110 / 150 / 190 / 230 (+ 60% AP) Slow:25% / 30% / 35% / 40% / 45%
Ew, a skill that scales with AP on an AD champion. This is your initiation skill. It is a basic charge that slows a small area around your target. This should be your lead spell when ganking, and should be the first spell used in teamfights. Can make chasing easy, while also helping teammates escape (charge the opponent to slow). When combined with your ultimate and passive, this can be used for some interesting initation. You can charge to a target behind who you want to kill, and then immediately ult to send the intended target back into your team. As it was in season 2, this should be the first skill you max for the increased slow percentage and the lower cooldown.
R. Crescent Sweep - Xin Zhao unleashes a sweep around him that damages enemies in range equal to a base amount plus 15% of their current health, knocking them back. Xin Zhao gains bonus armor and magic resistance for 6 seconds for each champion hit. Crescent Sweep does not knockback a challenged target. Cost: 100 mana Cooldown: 100 / 90 / 80 seconds Base Damage: 125 / 225 / 325 (+ 100% bonus AD) Extra Armor & Magic Resistance:15 / 20 / 25 per champion hit
While this is not the greatest ultimate in the league, it can do some nasty damage at the start of a teamfight. You want to use this spell early to get the most extra damage out of the +15% health bonus. The armour and magic resist also help you survive in the middle of the fight (since thats where you should be using this skill). Try to hit as many opponents as possible with this skill. The cooldown is fairly short, so don't be afraid to use it to knock away chasers or save an ally. Remember that this will knock away all but the one target that is affected by your passive.
Jungle Xin
Runes & Masteries Runes:
9x Greater Mark of Attack Speed OR 9x Grater Mark of Attack Damage OR 9x Greater Mark of Armour Penetration
9x Greater Seal of Armour
9x Greater Glyph of Scaling Magic Resist OR 9x Greater Glyph of Cooldown Reduction
3x Greater Quintessence of Attack Speed OR 3x Greater Quintessence of Attack Damage OR 3x Greater Quintessence of Movespeed
Xin has a lot of flexibility on his rune page, fit the runes you pick into the items you decide to build (Eg. Get some Arpen if you use attack speed runes, etc). I personally swap between Aspeed/armour/CDR and Armour penetration/Armour/MR per lvl/MS depending on the opponent team.
Masteries:
Xin is also very flexible in masteries due to his great sustain and high early-game damage. You want most of your points in the offense and defence tree, opting for one or two in utility for improved recall or improved flash (if you take it). I use a 14/15/1 page. I go for attack speed, Arpen, AD/lvl and % increased damage in offense, Standard jungle defence masteries and tenacity, and then improved flash in utility. I also take reduced turret damage in the defence tree to allow dive ganks from behind to be slightly less dangerous.
Here is what your mastery page could look like at level 30.
Summoner Spells
+OR Smite is standard for all junglers, Xin is no exception. As for your second spell, Flash or Exaust depending on the opponent team. Exaust if you are going extremely agro, Flash if you are not (although A Demacian never retreats).
Other summoner Spells:
Ignite - I could see using this against sustain heavy teams, but this is a pure offense spell and if you charge in to an unwinnable fight, you are screwed.
Ghost - Extremely viable as an alternative to Flash/Exaust, but I almost never use it purely due to personal preference.
Heal - No...
Barrier - Might work against extremely low skill opponents or teams that are extremely high burst (Leblanc + Akali + Lee jungle or soemthing), but otherwise don't consider it.
Revive - No.
Cleanse - I've never really tried cleanse on Xin, although If I was in a spot where CC was trouble, I'd just build merc treads and go flash.
Clairity - This spell should not exist outside of ARAM games.
Items
+ 5x OR + 2x Open with Hunter's Machete and some health potions. You could also open a longsword and potions if you plan on being agressive and ganking very early.
OR OR
For boots, Ninja Tabi are fairly standard for junglers due to the Tenacity gained from the defence tree masteries and/or the Spirit of the Ancient Golem. If you feel an extreme need for extra Tenacity or Magic resist, Merc treads are also good. Beserkers Greaves should only be bought if you are carrying your team from the jungle.
OR Your first major item should be one of the Spirit items. If you are going for a mainly damage build, the Spirit of the Elder Lizard will boost you damage and give a DoT that can deal true damage. For a more tanky Xin, build the Spirit of the Ancient Golem for Tenacity, regen and health.
At this point you want to judge your situation and decide whether you want to go tanky bruiser and initiate fights or be an assassin and build high damage high risk.
For tanky Xin, the following items should be considered:
Spirit Visage: For magic resist and increased healing from your W.
Randuins Omen: For facing off against teams with multiple auto attackers.
Maw of Malmortius OR Wits End: For a combonation of magic resistance and offensive capabilities. OR
Locket of the Iron Solari: If your support doesn't build aegis/Locket, it is up to you to get it.
Iceborn Gauntlet: While the effect is lessened for melee champions, this makes engaging and singling out targets easy.
For assassin Xin, the following items should be considered:
Black Cleaver: Reduces armour of the target allowing you to do more damage.
Blade of the Ruined King: Has a great active for chasing and gives you all the stats you need (Lifesteal, Aspeed..)
Statik Shiv: Lets you do a little more AoE damage.
Frozen Mallet: Makes it extremely hard for targets to run from you after you have tagged them.
Wits End: A small amount of MR and a bunch of attack speed.
Skill Order W,Q, E, E, E, R, and then R > E > Q > W. The 40% attack speed in the jungle is critical for clearing the first camps in a reasonable time. Get your E when you are ganking, and start maxing it by level 9. Now that Q has a lot of bonus damage on it, it is extremely beneficial to max it second. While maxing W for extra attack speed may seem smart, it only gives you attack speed when active rather than half and half, and the sustain from one level in the skill is more than enough for the early/mid game.
Jungle Route
Xin can either do the standard red-blue-gank route, which gets him level 3 around 2:30ish, or the level 2 gank red route, which takes red and then starts ganking right away. Xin isn't extremely blue-reliant assuming you don't use your E on the jungle camps and can start donating blue buffs at the second spawn.
I am working on revamping this section, please be patient.
Runes & Masteries Runes: Armour Penetration marks Flat armour seals Magic Resist (Flat or Scaling) Glyphs Flat AD Quints
Masteries: 21/X/X Take 21 in the offense tree, then stick the 9 wherever you want. Here is what your mastery page could look like at level 30.
Summoner Spells Flash and Exaust are what I take on lane Xin. Flash makes juking and escaping in general easier. Exaust allows you to chase easier, and slow down the opponent AD carries during teamfights.
Ghost can be swaped in replacing flash, as well as Ignite for Exaust. It is up to your preferences.
Items Open with Cloth armour + 5 Health potions Wriggles is your first item Merc Treads or Ninja Tabi depending on opponents BF sword item (Usually Bloodthirster or Black Cleaver) if you are dominating, otherwise Phage Wit's End (Finish your Fmallet here if you didn't get a BF item) Situational Tanky, Maw, Randuins, Atmogs, FoN, whatever else you feel is good for the situation
If you need to get tanky earlier in the game (Opponents are snowballing or farming much harder), skip the damage and go right for tanky items.
Skill Order E,Q,W,W,W,R and then R>W>Q>E. You want E and Q for level 2 agression, but W is still the best skill to max first in my opinion.
Well, the standard blue route ends at level 4 (Not sure of the timing on this, 4 mins or around there?), and you are on low hitpoints so you need to go back to base before ganking. This jungle route ends at level 6 at around 7ish mins, and nearly at full health, allowing for ganking right away. It is also safer, as the only time you are really low on hitpoints is after the first wraith/wolves camp.
You can use the Blue route, I just prefer the level 6 route.
I was under the assumption that the general consensus for xin was E>W>Q like Bob does. Q has a flat cd, so all you are getting there is bonus damage. You buy damage anyway, so there is no point spending money to compound something you are already buying. On the other hand, by getting E you get damage you arent going to itemize, and W will help you out in jungle and lane a lot more that Q will.
Yeah, now that I actually think about it, the carries that you should be targeting aren't going to have much armour in the first place, so stacking Apen is probably not needed. Any reccomendatons on an item to replace LW?
Wits end is better than LW IMO. And a BV is ALWAYS a better mr item than FON. ALWAYS.
Id also drop the cleaver and pick up triforce. Bits of it (phage, ect) can make you very tanky. Your build is WAY squisheir than it needs to be in order to get the job done.
You also need to make mention of the fact that mercs are the better choice against teams with hard cc. Melee DPS need some form of tenacity. And that endgame it is often a good choice to sell wriggles and pick up a BT.
I honestly would just go with Smash's Jarvan guide for items. There's honestly no reason why Atmogs wouldn't be good, and it MUCH harder for damage dealers to start catching up to you if you have a fully charged warmogs.
On July 25 2011 23:15 Two_DoWn wrote: Wits end is better than LW IMO. And a BV is ALWAYS a better mr item than FON. ALWAYS.
well no on melee champs FoN is usually a better pick. the movespeed is crucial for closing gaps and chasing, it offers more MR, and the spellshield is usually trivial on a champ that has to be in your face to do damage
on xin it's debatable, as he gets mucho resistances from his ult so HP is more effective, but to say that Banshee's is always better than FoN is a severe misunderstanding of how the items work
If you are only getting one MR item, as is this build, I am a STRONG believer that BV is a better buy. ESPECIALLY on melee dps. Spellblock is op. Its as simple as that. If you keep that bubble up for a fight, you cut a HUGE part someone's initial burst. And especially on Xin, who gets free resistances as you said, health is much better. And if its movespeed you want, grab a zeal.
Its as simple as the carry who stays alive deals more damage. FON helps you heal if you happen to survive. BV keeps you alive.
I doubt good teams will let a tanky DPS engage with their bubble still on; for tanky DPS the bubble makes almost no difference since what's going to kill you is the cumulative focus of a team.
Only for ranged DPS/casters is the bubble really worth its money
spellblock would be OP if it properly interacted with more spells as it stands banshee is a good item on ranged champs and a niche item on melee champs
it doesn't work with karthus' wall (i.e. you are still slowed and the bubble is not popped) kogmaw's slow will pop your veil and still slow you [same with MF's? i don't remember] TF and noc can pop for free with their ults and still have their full effect anivia can still stun you if you block the first hit of her Q [citation needed, i'm not 100% on that one] and more than half the champs that you would be jumping on have a throwaway poke that will pop veil for 45 seconds (volley, mystic shot, morde's volley, duskbringer, wildcards, akali's E, tantrum, etc etc etc)
plus it's been nerfed endlessly from one patch to another. it's dumb to just relinquish FoN as a "helps you heal if you survive" item. the MR advantage is significant as well as the MS and the 0.35%/second isn't a laughably small number. but in the instance of xin, i agree with spine's heath, quicksilver is a better item especially in tandem with warmogs
On July 25 2011 23:15 Two_DoWn wrote: And a BV is ALWAYS a better mr item than FON. ALWAYS.
.
What? You should rarely be getting BV on melee champions that don't rely on something like nunu ult or galio ult. If you want health and magic resist get giants belt+negatron and build them into some crazy op item like warmogs+fon, or just QSS.
I almost always go fast warmogs on xin btw. Definitely need the survivability. Sometimes getting wits end or atmas is arguable, since they provide a LOT of damage and tankiness.
I look at BV one way. The point of getting MR is to block spell damage. The best way to block spell damage is to not get effected by a spell. Will it occasionally get popped by something that doesnt do a lot of damage? Yes. But most spells that dont do a lot of damage tend to have a fairly large amount of CC involved.
I dont like FON because in order for it to be effective, you need to live for a while after a teamfight so the regen can do its job. However, most of the time this is meaningless late game because you either A- won the fight and can now push and get shit done before you have to back because the enemy team has spawned, or B- Lost the fight and are now dead. A BV on the other hand is useful IN the fight, not after it.
Am I saying never get an FON? No, I get it on a lot of champs. But only after I have either a ton of health or a BV already.
Maybe I should have said ALMOST ALWAYS a worse choice than a BV. If you need MR in order to live, I believe BV is a better choice. If you are gonna live anyway and just want to limit the damage you take, knock yourself out with a FON.
One of the biggest weaknesses of melee champions is pokes/kiting when you aren't comfortably fully committing. A spell block is going to eat up a spammable poke like volley, tornado, corki rockets, mumu toss (breaks veil but gets him in range to ulti anyway) any ap poke, etc. A FoN doesn't block the spell but it means you can regen a lot and it means you can back out of focus fire and regen up and go back in again with a bit more health when people are low, your cd's are up and you have some form of lifesteal. (i.e every bruiser after 6 seconds to wait for cooldowns)
In terms of effective health, just leave it as a negatron and build something with health (warmogs hi) instead of itemizing toward an item that is very expensive for the stats (2.715k for 375 health, 50 mr, spell block which I don't think it going to be useful)
I always feel stupid building BV and having 2.5k health instead of just building warmogs and having 3.5k and building a negatron later. I don't like to stack too much MR anyway on melees since you get so much with runes+base stats+mercs and AP's are getting void staffs shortly. Just 1 item is usually fine and I find that's usually wits end. FoN if you really don't like pokes and have to be really tanky, but I find warmogs+fon is not enough damage, you need some damage items if not 2 first. (warmogs +atmas + fon works kinda).
I'm just going to say the opposite: BV is almost always the worst item you can build from a Negatron.
Most important exception: enemy Blitzcrank.
BV is not very efficient. The spellshield is only good if it blocks a CC or a huge nuke. QSS can clear all CC and more, and it doesn't get popped by random AoE spells. About the huge nuke: Your enemy will almost always be able to send a minor nuker your way before he drops the huge nuke. In theory this is harder if you are a ranged champ, but in practice some melee will jump on you and accidentally break the BV anyways. If you are a melee champ, chances are that your enemies won't even have to care about your BV: It will be gone long before the first major spell hits you. Blitzcrank is the big exception because you can't QSS his grab and you typically die if you get grabbed.
I disagree with both FoN and BV, neither provide anything xin really wants beyond MR, and just getting the plain negatron covers that.
heck, getting wit's + boots covers his MR needs really. wits too strong like that. only ever need nega if they went overboard with magic dmg. Xin has enough natural from his ult that a core of wriggles/wits/mercury + runes gets him all the resists you really want to build, only getting more if you need to counter something that got fed.
Also, black cleaver as a core damage item is very risky. if you get fed, it makes you nigh unstoppable, but if you aren't at least comfortably ahead, the cost and the lack of defensive stats makes you too squishy. one stun and done. your build literally has zero hp items aside from a late randuins, and that's seems like it's going to be absolutely horrendous on a melee champion.
imo phage is something i find incredibly good. it builds into either mallet for more tank, or trinity for more carry raping. either way it provides a little more hp than none.
On July 25 2011 22:43 57 Corvette wrote: Well, the standard blue route ends at level 4 (Not sure of the timing on this, 4 mins or around there?), and you are on low hitpoints so you need to go back to base before ganking. This jungle route ends at level 6 at around 7ish mins, and nearly at full health, allowing for ganking right away. It is also safer, as the only time you are really low on hitpoints is after the first wraith/wolves camp.
You can use the Blue route, I just prefer the level 6 route.
The whole point of using a jungler like Xin is for his ridiculously strong, easily repeatable early ganks. He's perfectly capable of exiting the jungle at level 4 with full health before 4:00 without a leash at blue. You can even tack on an extra 30 seconds to recall and buy boots before Red if it seems necessary or health is an issue (but it shouldn't be).
The level 6 route you're using only works in ideal situations where you aren't counter-jungled and your lanes can thrive without jungle support for five minutes. It's not enough for them to survive, they need to be able to farm as well.
The point of starting small gols with xin is you can gank at level 2 and probably pick up a free kill. After that the fast 6 route has benefits in that you can break off any time in order to gank, where blue first is generally a bit more regimented in nature.
On July 26 2011 02:30 Two_DoWn wrote: The point of starting small gols with xin is you can gank at level 2 and probably pick up a free kill. After that the fast 6 route has benefits in that you can break off any time in order to gank, where blue first is generally a bit more regimented in nature.
not entirely. starting small gols also lets you start at 1:40 rather than 1:55 so it tends to lead to slightly faster clears in you're not CD/Mana dependent.
You can kill the big wolf while waiting for blue and leave the smaller wolves for later. Just because you're killing blue buff ASAP doesn't mean you need to sit on your hands waiting for it to spawn.
Similarly, no experienced jungler should be particularly hung up about breaking off from a straight clear to take advantage of a ganking opportunity/save a lane. That should only be a problem when using a jungler whose health dips low throughout the route (e.g. not Xin).
Right but killing big wolf -> blue -> full clear tends to leave you lower HP throughout than doing a Small Gols -> wraiths -> wolves -> blue path. Anyway, neither here nor there, I'll post a miniguide on my jungle Xin tonight when I have a bigger chunk of time.
On July 26 2011 01:13 Sponkz wrote: Nobody going youmoo's on him anymore?
I used to go Ghostblade, but honestly I feel there are better items on Xin. My previous build was Wriggles, ghostblade, mercs, BC, Randuins FoN, but most of the times my team lost before I finished my BC.
Xin is a very strong lvl 2 ganker (as strong as lvl2 ganks can be), I'd say on par with red buff shaco. When I'm plaing him, I'm trying to put as much pressure on the enemy team as possible.
I've also run teleport instead of flash/ghost with some success. The reasoning is that you already have a gap closer/slow and having TP gives you even more map presence.
My route in 90% of the games is golems -> gank -> wraiths -> wolves -> base. Start with Q, lvl2 E, that's when you gank while the lane is still lvl1. I'd say 70% of the time I was able to do some damage and pop the enemy's escape summoner, getting my lane an advantage. 20% of the time I got FB. And 10% I died, shit happens.
This works much better if you're purple, since you're ganking 2v1 instead of 3v2. Bot lane it's worth waiting for support who helps the jungler with blue, wards dragon and then goes through the river. I often start longsword + pot if I'm purple to maximize the gank, otherwise vamp scepter is best.
On July 26 2011 06:17 Mogwai wrote: I open dblade in the jungle cause I'm a boss.
I definitely would appreciate to hear about your setup and path. I wanted to open DBlade too so I can gank harder while my lanes all fail, but my first attempt at it didn't turn out too well.
basically, as I see it, Xin is like halfway between Shaco and and Warwick. he has an obscenely high sustainability in the jungle like Warwick, but he also has beastly low level ganks like Shaco. I tend to lean more on the Shaco-esque gank heavy style of jungling with Xin because I think LoL is won more by winning lanes than it is by farming jungle, so even if you set yourself back in the jungle, if you set a lane up to succeed, I find that that leads to victory more often than farming up in the jungle for the midgame. In light of this, I run a 21/0/9 setup with my AD jungle page (same as the one in my 21/0/9 Jungle Jarman guide) and I open DORAN'S BLADE. The reasoning here is that the 10 AD lets you clear jungle camps ASAP and gives you considerably better burst on ganks, but having a dblade's HP and Lifesteal also keeps you higher HP than opening longsword (also viable). Also, at no point in time are those stats wasted on Xin, so while it does delay my wriggles to open dblade, I never feel like I've wasted money because it's an efficient item giving me stats that I want.
Anyway, so I open dblade and then set up shop at a Small Gol spawn with Q first. A leash is nice, but not necessary. Using smite, you should clear the camp prior to 2:00 even without a leash, which will let you grab your E and go for a level 2 gank on whatever lane seems appropriate. If you have a strong bot lane like Taric + Cait or something, you can open blue small gols -> level 2 gank bot and basically get a free kill every single time due to the crazy damage and CC of all those chars together. If your bot lane won't be able to support you that well, then fuck them and gank a solo to beat the bag out of someone and force their flash. You should literally always be able to force a flash so long as you don't get CVed and you'll frequently get 1st blood if you have a good leash and can camp the top river brush and the opponent runs up river from leashing blue. You can also go with top lane down to the opposing blue and gank their jungler there. The point is that Xin's level 2 is CRAZY strong so you rush your level 2 and use it to immediately boss someone up and buy an advantage for one of your lanes or dick over their jungler. After this, assuming you didn't get super low, you clear wraiths (smite the big one, it should be up, but you can still kill them without too much trouble without your smite) and then wolves, then back for your boots and a vamp scepter if you got a kill, otherwise grab an hp pot or 2 to pad your HP. With your boots up, go grab red. Blue's cool and all, but Xin's mana costs are basically non-existant (don't use E in the jungle, that's his only skill that costs mana) and again, we're using our strong early levels to fuck people up, so now you want your red. Keep track of who has their flashes up and gank the lanes without them at this point. Xin with red hitting someone without flash in the middle of a lane is basically a kill every single time. From here, grab your wriggles -> wit's end -> some HP (spirit visage + phage vs. double AP teams, Funfire or Mallet vs. AP + Tanky DPS teams) -> Triforce + Tanking items. It's commonly thought that Xin needs AD, but I'm a really firm believer in building him like WW and favoring utility and AS on my offensive items. The reason here is that his kit lets him just constantly CC people and output strong damage through abilities rather than needing to lean on balls out items like BC and Ghostblade. Besides, you're a jungling ganker, not a carry, make yourself a useful meatshield for the real carries.
On July 25 2011 22:43 57 Corvette wrote: Well, the standard blue route ends at level 4 (Not sure of the timing on this, 4 mins or around there?), and you are on low hitpoints so you need to go back to base before ganking. This jungle route ends at level 6 at around 7ish mins, and nearly at full health, allowing for ganking right away. It is also safer, as the only time you are really low on hitpoints is after the first wraith/wolves camp.
You can use the Blue route, I just prefer the level 6 route.
The whole point of using a jungler like Xin is for his ridiculously strong, easily repeatable early ganks. He's perfectly capable of exiting the jungle at level 4 with full health before 4:00 without a leash at blue. You can even tack on an extra 30 seconds to recall and buy boots before Red if it seems necessary or health is an issue (but it shouldn't be).
The level 6 route you're using only works in ideal situations where you aren't counter-jungled and your lanes can thrive without jungle support for five minutes. It's not enough for them to survive, they need to be able to farm as well.
My experience starting at blue is not the case. You using AS runes and all 5 pots?
buy longsword + pot means getting a pot, which is flushing 35 gold down the toilet
dblade lifesteals 3% off of ~80 damage/hit = 2.4/hit meaning that you only need about 41 hits before the lifesteal and base HP from dblade overtake the 200 hp you get from a potion and meanwhile you haven't wasted money on a potion.
On August 11 2011 08:13 Mogwai wrote: buy longsword + pot means getting a pot, which is flushing 35 gold down the toilet
dblade lifesteals 3% off of ~80 damage/hit = 2.4/hit meaning that you only need about 41 hits before the lifesteal and base HP from dblade overtake the 200 hp you get from a potion and meanwhile you haven't wasted money on a potion.
The pot is an investment in flexibility/security. Suppose you get counterganked by their jungler after their blue on your way out from your level 2 gank. Or you just take a fair bit of damage in the level 2 gank. If you get low enough, you can't risk continuing your jungle, but if you have a pot, you can simply continue. The DBlade EVENTUALLY catches up to the pot's healing, but that's the same in lane--you use pots because it takes too long for the eventual regen/lifesteal to get your HP back up to safe levels and you'll lose too much time otherwise.
Xin normally has the sustainability to not need to worry about that, but level 2 wraiths without smite and with QE seems like probably the most annoying camp for Xin in his first rounds through the jungle.
On July 25 2011 22:43 57 Corvette wrote: Well, the standard blue route ends at level 4 (Not sure of the timing on this, 4 mins or around there?), and you are on low hitpoints so you need to go back to base before ganking. This jungle route ends at level 6 at around 7ish mins, and nearly at full health, allowing for ganking right away. It is also safer, as the only time you are really low on hitpoints is after the first wraith/wolves camp.
You can use the Blue route, I just prefer the level 6 route.
The whole point of using a jungler like Xin is for his ridiculously strong, easily repeatable early ganks. He's perfectly capable of exiting the jungle at level 4 with full health before 4:00 without a leash at blue. You can even tack on an extra 30 seconds to recall and buy boots before Red if it seems necessary or health is an issue (but it shouldn't be).
The level 6 route you're using only works in ideal situations where you aren't counter-jungled and your lanes can thrive without jungle support for five minutes. It's not enough for them to survive, they need to be able to farm as well.
My experience starting at blue is not the case. You using AS runes and all 5 pots?
AS Quints/Marks, 21/0/9 and using all pots if it's clear that mid or the nearby lane is in a good ganking position. Otherwise I can cut a couple pots and recall before Red.
My point is really that whatever your setup, waiting to gank until 7ish minutes is a waste when jungling as Xin. If you're going to do that you really should pick a different jungler with a stronger level 6 gank/better late game.
I've been prioritizing skills like R>E>Q>W. Is R>Q>E>W that much better? Seems like the level gains on E per level are better than the gains on Q per level.
Prioritizing E over Q increases your frontload burst and increases the slow % from E. Why wouldn't you get more levels of E after 1 level of Q? Having level 5 E at 9 pretty much makes you a burst caster, which is a good thing to have, not a bad thing. Your jungling might be slower because E costs lots of mana, but your ganks are real terror.
On August 11 2011 09:13 Chrispy wrote: Eh I wouldn't advocate going D-blade. If you're going to be ganking a lot just get boots + 3 pots. :$ Early game movespeed is the best.
This is actually like, really smart. FUCK, Chrispy so good, gonna try this.
On August 12 2011 07:12 R04R wrote: Prioritizing E over Q increases your frontload burst and increases the slow % from E. Why wouldn't you get more levels of E after 1 level of Q? Having level 5 E at 9 pretty much makes you a burst caster, which is a good thing to have, not a bad thing. Your jungling might be slower because E costs lots of mana, but your ganks are real terror.
After 3 hits, extra levels in E have less damage than extra levels in Q, not even counting the fact that E does magic rather than physical damage (and you should be specced for armor pen). I dunno, I guess this makes some sense for the slow duration, but I think it would really hurt your pre-wriggles jungling speed. Maybe QEWQQREEEER for first 11 levels?
E definitely scales better from levels than Q does, since in the best case you're getting less than one extra autoattack's worth of damage from leveling Q instead of E (25 extra damage by going level 5 Q instead of level 5 E while keeping the other skill at level 1 ... even with arpen runes instead of mpen and attacking a champ the difference certainly won't be more than about 50-60 damage). If the extra slow lets either you or your laner land an extra hit you've already done more damage by leveling E, and you get a lower cooldown on it to boot so it's not out of the question that you get a second slow from it either.
It would lead to slower jungling without bluebuff because of the mana cost, but if you have the mana to use it in the jungle you kill stuff pretty much at the same speed.
But I don't play Xin, so this is mainly from looking at numbers.
On August 13 2011 03:55 crate wrote: E definitely scales better from levels than Q does, since in the best case you're getting less than one extra autoattack's worth of damage from leveling Q instead of E (25 extra damage by going level 5 Q instead of level 5 E while keeping the other skill at level 1 ... even with arpen runes instead of mpen and attacking a champ the difference certainly won't be more than about 50-60 damage). If the extra slow lets either you or your laner land an extra hit you've already done more damage by leveling E, and you get a lower cooldown on it to boot so it's not out of the question that you get a second slow from it either.
It would lead to slower jungling without bluebuff because of the mana cost, but if you have the mana to use it in the jungle you kill stuff pretty much at the same speed.
But I don't play Xin, so this is mainly from looking at numbers.
what?
you're like, thinking too hard about the math and just doing it wrong
Each level of Q is +15 damage/hit x 3 hits = +45 damage Each level of E is +40 damage
Leveling Q is more damage, and it's on a shorter CD until level 5 E (at which point they're equal) so just looking strictly at damage, Q is superior. But there is definitely merit to increasing that slow and decreasing that CD for ganking hard so E makes some sense, but I think my proposed QEWQQREEEER is a better way to go about it to avoid hurting your early jungling speed.
Yeah, you get 5 damage extra for each level of Q over E, so at most you're getting basically half an autoattack or so from it. If the extra slow gets you any extra hit that Q doesn't, E is better.
edit: I suppose there's also a window where you've gotten 10 or 11 seconds of cooldowns between actual time ticking and your W where you'd have Q off cooldown again but not E but I'm not sure that happens often enough to be notable, especially since E goes on cooldown immediately but Q won't start ticking until you've used all three hits.
Just picked up Xin because I had the IP and I died laughing at the Be A Man video like 8 times. I got some comments/questions.
1) E feels like it costs SO MUCH MANA. Didn't realize it for a while.
2) Jungle isn't bad. Really nice sustain, ganks are actually pretty hilarious with charge/slow/burst/knockup.
3) What is my role late game? I feel like I can still burst carries alright, but do I play like an assassin or a tanky dps? Charge in right off the bat, or wait for the action to subside and clean up?
4) When laning, is there any alternative to Wriggle's? The sustain and damage is nice, but I feel like with his passive, I could get away with a DBlade or two and just play aggressively instead.
5) Am I not supposed to have an escape besides Flash? I'm used to Riven/Graves/Ezreal where I can just gtfo with an ability, but with Xin I feel like once I engage, I'm stuck there until one of us dies or they run away.
6) Other items that aren't part of this build? I think he'd work well with Trinity or FMallet, but I'm not sure and don't want to hold back the team while trying it.
On November 03 2011 01:12 Requizen wrote: Just picked up Xin because I had the IP and I died laughing at the Be A Man video like 8 times. I got some comments/questions.
1) E feels like it costs SO MUCH MANA. Didn't realize it for a while.
2) Jungle isn't bad. Really nice sustain, ganks are actually pretty hilarious with charge/slow/burst/knockup.
3) What is my role late game? I feel like I can still burst carries alright, but do I play like an assassin or a tanky dps? Charge in right off the bat, or wait for the action to subside and clean up?
4) When laning, is there any alternative to Wriggle's? The sustain and damage is nice, but I feel like with his passive, I could get away with a DBlade or two and just play aggressively instead.
5) Am I not supposed to have an escape besides Flash? I'm used to Riven/Graves/Ezreal where I can just gtfo with an ability, but with Xin I feel like once I engage, I'm stuck there until one of us dies or they run away.
6) Other items that aren't part of this build? I think he'd work well with Trinity or FMallet, but I'm not sure and don't want to hold back the team while trying it.
1. It does cost a lot of mana. You want to try to avoid using it a ton during the jungle phase/early game.
2. The jungle is average if not slightly above. He is also one of the easier characters to pick up and jungle, because for the most part his jungle is safe (as in not getting low HP)
3. Imo, you should be more of a tanky dps lategame. Riot tried to design him as an assassin, but compared to other assassins (kat,akali), he just doesn't compare burst-wise. Most of the damage will come from the ult and auto attacks, so you want to be in the middle of the fight, and thats not where an assassin should be. If you have a tank initiate, charge in right after him and ult. If not, you can charge in and initate, but don't expect to live 100% of the time.
4. I suppose Dblades could work, it more or less comes down to personal preference. I like the wriggles for the armour, lifesteal and free wards, but if you are up against an easy lane i don't see a huge problem in building dorans blades and then going straight to BC.
5. No, unless you can somehow charge to an enemy minion that is on your path. If he had an escape he would be extremely op.
6. The items i listed aren't the only viable items. Triforce or Frozen mallet/mogs are also viable, depends on personal tastes. Experiment for yourself in normals or co-op if you are unconfident.
He seems really strong in the right hands, able to 1v1 a lot of champs easily and works pretty well in teamfights as well. Why isn't he used a lot in competitive play? His only real counter seems to be Exhaust or a similar ability, he feels like he could be really useful in a lot of comps.
On November 03 2011 01:29 Requizen wrote: Nice, quick reply, thanks!
He seems really strong in the right hands, able to 1v1 a lot of champs easily and works pretty well in teamfights as well. Why isn't he used a lot in competitive play? His only real counter seems to be Exhaust or a similar ability, he feels like he could be really useful in a lot of comps.
Comparatively poor control as a jungler (no escapes/ranged CC so counterjungling is extremely dangerous), requires a lot of farm to be useful, while not having a kit suited to farming super fast, so he requires successful ganks that turn into kills to get rolling.
On November 03 2011 01:29 Requizen wrote: Nice, quick reply, thanks!
He seems really strong in the right hands, able to 1v1 a lot of champs easily and works pretty well in teamfights as well. Why isn't he used a lot in competitive play? His only real counter seems to be Exhaust or a similar ability, he feels like he could be really useful in a lot of comps.
Comparatively poor control as a jungler (no escapes/ranged CC so counterjungling is extremely dangerous), requires a lot of farm to be useful, while not having a kit suited to farming super fast, so he requires successful ganks that turn into kills to get rolling.
The odd thing is, he reminds me a lot of Akali, who is played a lot at high levels, but suffers from requiring farm and no real escape (bubble is really iffy at times). I suppose she has higher burst, but she doesn't have the CC knockup or attack speed boost.
Whatever, I think he's pretty fun, so I'll keep playing him for a while.
Who's a good duo queue partner for Xin? Probably a bursty mage type, I'd think, so I guess I'll get a friend to play Annie or something.
On November 03 2011 01:29 Requizen wrote: Nice, quick reply, thanks!
He seems really strong in the right hands, able to 1v1 a lot of champs easily and works pretty well in teamfights as well. Why isn't he used a lot in competitive play? His only real counter seems to be Exhaust or a similar ability, he feels like he could be really useful in a lot of comps.
Partly because he is countered extremely hard by Exhaust + focus fire. Partly because tournament level teamfights usually involve lots of poking and disengaging. Xin engages and does not retreat. It's a hard call to make: Will we win the fight? There is no out for Xin if you make a bad call.
On November 03 2011 01:29 Requizen wrote: Nice, quick reply, thanks!
He seems really strong in the right hands, able to 1v1 a lot of champs easily and works pretty well in teamfights as well. Why isn't he used a lot in competitive play? His only real counter seems to be Exhaust or a similar ability, he feels like he could be really useful in a lot of comps.
Partly because he is countered extremely hard by Exhaust + focus fire. Partly because tournament level teamfights usually involve lots of poking and disengaging. Xin engages and does not retreat. It's a hard call to make: Will we win the fight? There is no out for Xin if you make a bad call.
A Demacian never retreats!
Also, about the comparison to Akali, there are a few main things that set them apart. The most obvious is Akali uses energy, so doesn't go oom. Akali is more snowball-y because imo it is easier to snowball with AP than it is with AD. Akali has ranged harrass, Xin doesn't.
Akali in general just seems to be trickier to deal with than Xin Zhao. The biggest problem I have with Xin is that he is probably the most one-dimensional champ in the whole game. Consequently, dealing with him also is a very one-dimensional affair.
So I had some success forgoing the standard build and building straight AD carry, Wriggle's - BC - Zeal - BT - PD. I could 1v1 a lot of non-tanks just with lifesteal and passive plus high damage. It was interesting, but I was squishy as hell later on obviously.
I really have to doubt how good building him like that is considering how he has a really high dps capability even without much damage items. Building wriggles and sotd/wits end gives him enough dps until lategame atmogs. I don't really feel like he needs so much damage items.
On November 03 2011 01:29 Requizen wrote: Nice, quick reply, thanks!
He seems really strong in the right hands, able to 1v1 a lot of champs easily and works pretty well in teamfights as well. Why isn't he used a lot in competitive play? His only real counter seems to be Exhaust or a similar ability, he feels like he could be really useful in a lot of comps.
Partly because he is countered extremely hard by Exhaust + focus fire. Partly because tournament level teamfights usually involve lots of poking and disengaging. Xin engages and does not retreat. It's a hard call to make: Will we win the fight? There is no out for Xin if you make a bad call.
This is relevant. When I was duoing with a low elo guy back in season 1 I had to carry really, really hard on xin and I had to kept jumping in and running away again and I realized irelia is far, far better suited for that, Nocturne basically does his job better and has more burst damage due to more front loaded damage on his skills.
On November 03 2011 02:33 koreasilver wrote: Akali in general just seems to be trickier to deal with than Xin Zhao. The biggest problem I have with Xin is that he is probably the most one-dimensional champ in the whole game. Consequently, dealing with him also is a very one-dimensional affair.
Best description of Xin Zhao. Either he closes the gap and kills your OR he doesn't and you kill him.
I'd like to see some kind of change to bring him back from lolnoobxin to WINZHAO!
Ideas: Have charge be a soft cleanse with some slow reduction/immunity? Give his R some disable component (Silence or Slow)? Give him a new passive and give the heal passive as an addition to another one of his skills.
Well he's essentially a 100% brute force champion, what do you want from him? l0l. I think he's fun. They've nerfed his baseline abilities so much though so I'd like to see some kind of buff to his late-game scaling to compensate.
Yeah, I think it's mostly his design that's holding him back. He's all damage and only damage (and minor/major CC), so if you make him too strong, he just kills everything (lol release Xin), but if not, he has nothing else to bring to the team other than minor knock ups.
The only real way I could see them buffing his late game is by changing his scaling. Make E scale with AD, and/or make R's health % damage scale with AD similar to Children of the Grave.
He's all damage and only damage because riot keeps nerfing his already laughable cc.
He's not so one-dimensional as you think but he definitely has that side to him. The cooldown reduction from W on your E lets you do cool things but yeah he is built a bit bland.
Well that's what you get with such an extremely straightforward champion. I mean there really isn't much depth to his skill set so all you get is numbers and they keep nerfing that because he shits all over incompetent players since he is much easier to play properly (not optimally) at lower levels compared to many other champions in the league.
If they let him jump to his teammates or something and lowered the stats, but gave it a really low cooldown, I think he'd be a lot more fun. They might have to get rid of the CDR thing. Too immobile, doesn't offer much cc.
Here's a thought: give his Q a slow on the first and second hits (not a lot) have the cdr bonus apply only to Q, remove the slow from his E, lower the cd dramatically, let his E jump to teammates and friendly creeps and wards and so on.
He was actually pretty cool before after the first release nerf. It's not like Xin has huge amounts of sustain, especially compared to the standard nowadays. Sure all he can do is jump on people but I mean, he has no ranged or safe way of harassing or disengaging so it's interesting in the sense that you actually do have to commit quite hard when you play him. Not only that even if you know you can win the trade and jump on them, he has no defense against ganking him when he does commit. Playing against Rammus and other good counter gankers was pretty tough. Having said this he wasn't considered anything more than a niche pubstomper pre-nerf, but it was pretty fun and effective imo.
I think Akali has way more laning power than pre-pointlesss nerf Xin which is why I don't understand the nerfs. She can last hit with Q and shroud where as Xin has to just eat harass.
Part of the problem with Xin now is they nerfed his skills along with nerfing lane wriggles so he basically isn't good in any lane, then buffed his jungling which made him even worse at low elo's since the only difficult part about Xin was early in the laning phase. Sure a jungler with low cd auto aim gap closer + knockup and minor sustain is going to destroy low elo games.
Xin also offers a lot of CC with the CDR aspect if you build him how successful Xin's were, (Doji, Gman Bob etc...) If you combine ghostblade and other ASPD items while maxing e>w>q they end up on next to no cooldown at all.
Anyway I wish they would buff him back up so he could lane rather than just being jungler with easy mode ganks.
My point was back then the lifesteal worked on the 500 damage proc, so even if they hadn't nerfed him he would be weaker in lane now than back then and he wasn't considered anything amazing even then.
On November 04 2011 17:37 rob.au wrote: My point was back then the lifesteal worked on the 500 damage proc, so even if they hadn't nerfed him he would be weaker in lane now than back then and he wasn't considered anything amazing even then.
it was physical back then. now, since its a magical damage procc you will spellvamp from it, which is pretty cool on lee sin
On November 08 2011 06:09 Mogwai wrote: man, everyone needs to grow up on Magic the Gathering so that they can know the difference between Activated and Triggered Abilities :p
I blame Yugioh. Apparently, according to ancient egyptian pharaohs, "to use" and "to set off" are the same verb -_-
So how does XZ's power curve look like as compared to other similar champions? What is supposed to be my role at various stages on the game? Does he shine more in the jungle or as a top-laner? And most importantly - can you dunk people well?
I'm looking to buy him, he seems like a pretty cool champion (I like the sick animation of his ult :D) but I want to understand how people like smash actually play him. The only few xins I've seen build him retarded (they thought they were tryndamere or something ridiculous).
From what I understand (because I haven't seen him played in forever), Xin is pretty weak right now. The current roster of junglers and top-laners are a lot stronger and offer much more than what he does.
On February 24 2012 13:50 Jaso wrote: From what I understand (because I haven't seen him played in forever), Xin is pretty weak right now. The current roster of junglers and top-laners are a lot stronger and offer much more than what he does.
Nonetheless, his ganks are pretty scary.
Well my point is smash likes the guy. So he has to be good in some way.
One of the worst champs at the moment. He is only good early game. You'll have too get fed. After 25 mins he's as bad as eve. Just how I feel. He was my most used champ season 1 until they nerfed him 400 times.
On February 24 2012 16:17 Terranasaur wrote: I'm so glad you bumped this. I just bought Xin and am loving him so far. I'd love to hear these Smash secrets that he keeps alluding too in GD.
yeah, I'm transitioning to playing all the champs smash like lol. Bought karma last week - first game 10/1/3 lolwtf.
On February 24 2012 16:17 Terranasaur wrote: I'm so glad you bumped this. I just bought Xin and am loving him so far. I'd love to hear these Smash secrets that he keeps alluding too in GD.
i think his primary secret is that he keeps xin as a backup to thoroughly trash yorick in top lane. I've played the matchup as well, and have to say yorick is much easier to deal with with xz than most other champs. The only other person i've done as well with vs yorick is swain.
i have no clue what his skilling order is tho, and am kinda curious. I usually max e first (this is what gman bob did a loooong time ago when he solo laned xin, dunno if it's out of date), then kinda alternate between q and w depending on how i feel like it.
in lane EQWEER R > E > W > Q in jungle QEWEER R > E > W >Q (red buff with boots opening for level 2 gank) or WQEEER R > E > W > Q (vamp scepter, rush wriggle's opening)
On February 25 2012 00:28 Mogwai wrote: in lane EQWEER R > E > W > Q in jungle QEWEER R > E > W >Q (red buff with boots opening for level 2 gank) or WQEEER R > E > W > Q (vamp scepter, rush wriggle's opening)
actually that makes a lot more sense than what I was doing. Going back and looking at Q it's def a 1 point wonder, since its level scaling consists only of an extra 15 dmg (so 45 extra dmg per level, assuming you hit all 3, which doesn't always happen) per activated hit. W, on the other hand gains cdr per level as well as bonus aspeed.
Why do you max E over W? To enhance your ganks with the %slow scaling, and augment your chances of a second E available (in case of a flash, for example) thanks to W and E's reduced CD per level?
you want to be bursty on ganks and E gives the highest upfront damage, and has slow % and CD scaling with each level. it's your best PvP skill and the CD going down makes a huge difference with your W active.
I've really been liking opening Dblade on jungle xin. Going 21/9/0 with damage quints/ armor yellows/ mres lvl blues/ 3 arm pen reds and 6 atk speed reds. You're at full HP at every point in the jungle and that 10 damage and 100 hp to take a tower hit is baller for early ganks. As per usual I do a lot more ganking than jungling with xin so I've been toying around with not even getting a wriggles. I haven't decided if that's retarded yet, but really you're already staying at full hp, the only stat you need is the damage which is meh and the razer proc.... I dunno I clear camps quick without it.
Before I used to just copy Dun1007's build but they removed SOTD so I've modified it slightly. Dblade>boots>HoG>dagger> Phage? Giants belt? > then pick up whatever you need. Tankyness finish Randuins/Frozen Mallet/Negatron or an offencive option like just a plain old zeal / Atma / Black Cleaver if you're owning / Triforce is amazing on xin but expensive so usually can't get it.
On March 19 2012 14:56 Ruken wrote: I've really been liking opening Dblade on jungle xin. Going 21/9/0 with damage quints/ armor yellows/ mres lvl blues/ 3 arm pen reds and 6 atk speed reds. You're at full HP at every point in the jungle and that 10 damage and 100 hp to take a tower hit is baller for early ganks. As per usual I do a lot more ganking than jungling with xin so I've been toying around with not even getting a wriggles. I haven't decided if that's retarded yet, but really you're already staying at full hp, the only stat you need is the damage which is meh and the razer proc.... I dunno I clear camps quick without it.
Before I used to just copy Dun1007's build but they removed SOTD so I've modified it slightly. Dblade>boots>HoG>dagger> Phage? Giants belt? > then pick up whatever you need. Tankyness finish Randuins/Frozen Mallet/Negatron or an offencive option like just a plain old zeal / Atma / Black Cleaver if you're owning / Triforce is amazing on xin but expensive so usually can't get it.
Mogwai what you say?
uhh, I still like wriggle's -> wit's -> mallet on him (opening vamp or boots depending on how much I want to gank). if you're skipping wriggle's, I'd say dblade -> boots -> HoG -> Recurve -> Phage -> Wit's -> w/e with the option to skip HoG if you just want better early power.
I've seen Smash mention Xin as his go-to pick against Yorick several times now, and I'm very curious why and how the match-up plays out.
It seems to me that Xin's strengths are his ability to force a fight any time he wants, and his moderate sustain. His weakness is of course his inability to disengage.
Yorick's strengths are his strong poke, his great brawling and chasing power, and his strong sustain.
Now I haven't seen a Xin top lane recently so I haven't actually played the match-up, but I can't think of a way for Xin to do anything, unless his damage is much much higher than I think it is.
I see things going like this: Xin jumps to Yorick, Yorick auto-attacks and then Qs, Xin knocks him up, Yorick Ws and Es and keeps auto attacking; he is doing vastly more damage than Xin is, Xin can't disengage without taking massive damage because he is slowed and Yorick is sped up. Once behind, Xin can't CS because Yorick will chase him away with ghouls, and he has no retaliation.
After you get a few levels and/or wriggles you have pre-nerf Irelia levels of sustain from just autoattacking. Not to mention Xin's a monster at assisting ganks.
On March 21 2012 13:53 Ryuu314 wrote: Xin's sustain is pretty insane :\
After you get a few levels and/or wriggles you have pre-nerf Irelia levels of sustain from just autoattacking. Not to mention Xin's a monster at assisting ganks.
How many levels is a few? Yorick should be able to zone you pretty handily starting at level 3, Wriggle's will be a long way down the road.
Again, I haven't played the match-up but Xin's kit is similar to Irelia's, and Yorick trashes her for the same reasons.
On March 21 2012 13:53 Ryuu314 wrote: Xin's sustain is pretty insane :\
After you get a few levels and/or wriggles you have pre-nerf Irelia levels of sustain from just autoattacking. Not to mention Xin's a monster at assisting ganks.
How many levels is a few? Yorick should be able to zone you pretty handily starting at level 3, Wriggle's will be a long way down the road.
Again, I haven't played the match-up but Xin's kit is similar to Irelia's, and Yorick trashes her for the same reasons.
Based on my (very limited) experience playing against Xin his sustain is very respectable at lvl 1 and by the time you hit lvl 3 you have some pretty silly amounts of sustain.
Think of it this way, at lvl 3 you heal 30 hp for every 3 attacks, that's basically 10 hp an attack, which is basically equivalent of having 15% lifesteal. Ofc it's not that black and white, but you get the point. It also helps that not that many champs (Yorick included) can 1v1 Xin Zhao early game with few items due to the incredible synergy of his kit.
On March 21 2012 15:13 Mogwai wrote: wtf are you talking about? Xin bashes Yorick's face in super hard for the first 5 levels. I dunno, I can show you if you want, but it's mad easy.
i think he's just talking from the perspective of never playing the matchup before but having a fair idea of how both chars work, and i tend to agree, it's kinda hard to pin down why exactly xin just trashes yorick (and i think more specifically why xin works and irelia doesnt, when their kits are somewhat comparable). It's some combination of burst and sustain that just makes it a complete disaster for yorick.
i have to say, i myself was skeptical until i saw it and then tried it.
Xins early burst is much higher and his animations are quicker and his sustain when W on is higher. The guaranteed knockup and cd reduction on E also means you can burst and E again like a beast. Irelias kit is better in terms of pure numbers but xins is simpler and more effective for just jumping someone and bashing their face in.
For example, irelias Q can work as both a jump and an auto attack reset, but not both, this is useful later on but in lane xin has a jump AND and auto attack reset both of which are absurdly strong early levels.
The low mana costs and guaranteed CC also mean that he can repeat his combo more than Irelia can and that Yorick can't just disengage after the dash the way he can vs. Irelia.
His kit is really weird, though, in that his ult is clearly an intiation move (scales on enemy's current health) that needs to be in the middle of their team to be most effective (small AoE and gives you more stats for more people hit).
His Q and W seem to complement a dps build centered around AD and crit since you get so much free attack speed and a knockup on your third auto.
Seems like your build won't really be able to make full use of his kit no matter how you build.
The thing with Xin is he scales really well of both damage and attack speed. It is a good idea to get pure damage items like BC or BT, and to get the green pot a couple of times as needed. That maxes out his skill really well. Also, his ult does more damage the higher XP the target has, but you might not always want to use it early as its a good finishing skill. You'll have to use your judgement to decide.
tried jungle xin just yesterday. got first blood and 2 more assists. enemy udyr who was 0-2 was still able to outlevel me, getting to 12 by the time i hit 10. just couldn't make him work. build was boots -> d-blade -> HoG -> d-blade -> mallet. was trying to go tanky into AS, but still ended up getting blown up.
trying xin v yorick right now top lane though, right now! will report back
haha, alright. that was silly. haven't dominated a lane that hard since like 1200. bonafide counterpick. great work mogwai
went with my "riven" runepage (21 armor, flat MR, lots of arpen and 2.3 AD) and 21/9/0. cloth + 5 start. auto attacked him down to 200 hp at level 1 and never looked back. ended up 5 kills on him and +100 cs, even with shaco ganks. disgusting.
Why did you forgo wriggle's on jungle xin? His E has really poor mana efficiency early on so realistically he has no fast aoe clearing =/ All he has is q AA reset and w aspd boost
On April 12 2012 15:19 Seuss wrote: A Xin who focuses on pure damage items and sits his ult is a Xin who, against competent opponents, is going to explode before he does anything useful.
Xin doenst need an escape, it would completely break him. The whole point of champions like Xin and Fiora for example is that you need to pick your spots and pick off the squishys. If you are able to dive in, kill and dive out, the champion becomes broken.
On April 12 2012 21:38 ihasaKAROT wrote: Xin doenst need an escape, it would completely break him. The whole point of champions like Xin and Fiora for example is that you need to pick your spots and pick off the squishys. If you are able to dive in, kill and dive out, the champion becomes broken.
Are you kidding? Xin is suffering from lack of escape. It would not break him. Almost all champs have some sort of way to escape except Xin. Especially champs that can dive in and kill. The way Xin charges at an enemy makes him very common target.
And the list goes on and on. He's not Soraka who can stay on the sidelines. He's a melee champ that needs to charge into enemy team and use a global ult at the beginning of a teamfight.
On April 13 2012 02:04 Seuss wrote: If you're going to count Irelia's E as an escape, why doesn't Xin's Q count?
The difference is E is a direct cast but his Q needs 3 autoattacks, by which time it'll most likely be too late. The most common scenario when you need to escape is you have multiple enemies chasing you with one of them who has cc close to you. At this instance, Irelia just has to E that one enemy and run. Xin will most likely not get time to pull off his knock up and survive.
But yes, Xin is definitely one of those few champs without escape. Even Jax who is one of those champs who needs to fight to stay alive can jump to his team-mates. If Xin could dash to his own team-mates/creeps, it would make him perfect, not OP.
The reason he doesn't have an escape is because... he's designed to not have one. It's like the difference between Pantheon and Jax. Jax would be pretty awful without an escape and Pantheon would be nearly untouchable. The issue isn't Xin so much as new champions just having entirely too much mobility and/or too many escapes. Xin's kit is fine (though he's not balanced, but it's not because he has no escape), champions should have some sort of weakness (or attribute you have to take into account) and not be well rounded in every single area.
On April 13 2012 02:04 Seuss wrote: If you're going to count Irelia's E as an escape, why doesn't Xin's Q count?
The difference is E is a direct cast but his Q needs 3 autoattacks, by which time it'll most likely be too late. The most common scenario when you need to escape is you have multiple enemies chasing you with one of them who has cc close to you. At this instance, Irelia just has to E that one enemy and run. Xin will most likely not get time to pull off his knock up and survive.
But yes, Xin is definitely one of those few champs without escape. Even Jax who is one of those champs who needs to fight to stay alive can jump to his team-mates. If Xin could dash to his own team-mates/creeps, it would make him perfect, not OP.
My point was the definition of "escapes" being used is too broad. Escapes generally refer to abilities which put distance between you and your opponent. Lumping CC abilities into the same category is confusing.
That said, there are plenty of champions who do well without a distance creating ability. Xin could easily be one of them, as his problems have little to do with escaping and everything to do with his late-game scaling.
You can talk about whether or not he needs an escape and all that but the fact is that unless you change *something* about his kit Riot will never buff him for fear of newbies dying left and right. He's so one dimensional sometimes you might as well have 2 skills, QWE and then R for team fights. His ganks and dueling power make playing him super easy for any aggressive newbie too.
This is Riot's position anyway and as far as I can tell they are right. Sure late game needs a buff but is it safe to do that given how faceroll he is?
On April 13 2012 02:04 Seuss wrote: If you're going to count Irelia's E as an escape, why doesn't Xin's Q count?
The difference is E is a direct cast but his Q needs 3 autoattacks, by which time it'll most likely be too late. The most common scenario when you need to escape is you have multiple enemies chasing you with one of them who has cc close to you. At this instance, Irelia just has to E that one enemy and run. Xin will most likely not get time to pull off his knock up and survive.
But yes, Xin is definitely one of those few champs without escape. Even Jax who is one of those champs who needs to fight to stay alive can jump to his team-mates. If Xin could dash to his own team-mates/creeps, it would make him perfect, not OP.
My point was the definition of "escapes" being used is too broad. Escapes generally refer to abilities which put distance between you and your opponent. Lumping CC abilities into the same category is confusing.
That said, there are plenty of champions who do well without a distance creating ability. Xin could easily be one of them, as his problems have little to do with escaping and everything to do with his late-game scaling.
If a CC stuns an enemy champ chasing you, why wouldn't that count as an escape skill? "Ability to escape" does not just count for movement modifiers, dashes, or blinks. It could freeze an enemy champ chasing you, so that counts as an escape skill.
If you ever played Xin even once, you would know that his charge (especially with the loud scream lol) gets the attention of nearby enemy teammates and he becomes the immediate focus, especially because his Q wreaks so much havoc on their team. Late game scaling could use some work but it's not as urgent as his escape, especially because his W gives him a good AS steroid and his Q becomes more powerful/frequent as his AS goes up.
Xin, on release, was considered one of the most overpowered champions when he was first released. His kit+ ratios were insanely good back then but since then he was nerfed constantly because he was too much of a "pubstomper."
I wouldn't say giving Xin an escape ability would make him viable again, like Irelia's Q, Xin can use his E to dash to a minion and summoner Flash if he wants to escape. Mainly his ult needs to be buffed back up again, the numbers it gives now is so low compared to before and the scaling on his Q(higher AD ratio) or E is fine, like most other bruisers, not all skills have to be physical
Xin needs buffs/changes. But what he doesn't need is an escape. The lack of escape is not even remotely the reason why he's underplayed/underpowered. It's mostly because he doesn't scale very well into late game and he's a very all-in champion similar to Amumu; ie. You go in, do your shit and hope to do a ton of damage/disruption before you die.
There's no problem with having different champs with different roles different playstyles and different strengths and weaknesses. Riot absolutely should not give every champ a "balanced" kit that can do everything. Homogeneity makes for boring games.
On April 13 2012 12:03 Ryuu314 wrote: Xin needs buffs/changes. But what he doesn't need is an escape. The lack of escape is not even remotely the reason why he's underplayed/underpowered. It's mostly because he doesn't scale very well into late game and he's a very all-in champion similar to Amumu; ie. You go in, do your shit and hope to do a ton of damage/disruption before you die.
There's no problem with having different champs with different roles different playstyles and different strengths and weaknesses. Riot absolutely should not give every champ a "balanced" kit that can do everything. Homogeneity makes for boring games.
The reason he's all-in champion like you said, is because he goes in, hopes to do a lot of damage, and can't get out due to lack of escape skill.
Amumu is a tank that is supposed to absorb hits. Therefore he doesn't need an escape skill. Xin is not a tank. You can build him tanky dps, but he is still not a tank.
It is a big reason why he's slightly UP right now, but yes I agree he needs better scaling.
I agree that not all champs should do everything. But for Xin's role as someone who goes into heart of enemy team and uses global ult at beginning of team fight, he should have some way to preserve himself and not get focused down and killed within a few seconds.
TLDR? He's designed to get focused down so either make him tanky enough to survive the hits or give him a way to escape
TLDR? He's designed to get focused down so either make him tanky enough to survive the hits or give him a way to escape
This is what I was referring to earlier. Xin's Ult is an initiation move that require tank items to use effectively. Xin's Q and W are dps abilities that require damage/crit/attack speed to use effectively. Hence, he like half a champion until you are so fed that you can get all those things.
This build nets you 100+ armor / 100 + magic resist, 3k+ life, optimal AS, active escape skill, around 120 AD, decent crit, and good MS
Especially because he lacks an escape skill, I tend to take both ghost + flash on him.
Yeah, nice build. Here is the problem. If you rush ghostblade or trinity, you simply aren't tanky enough. Xin has absolutely no damage mitigation outside of a little armor/mr from his ult. if you rush warmogs/wits end you have terrible dps and are basically an initiaton ult with a knockup after three attacks. The game will almost always be over before you can complete a build that allows you to be tanky enough to utilize his ult and still do dps.
I am not saying he is a terrible champ just that his ult has absolutely no synergy with the rest of his kit.
On April 13 2012 12:03 Ryuu314 wrote: Xin needs buffs/changes. But what he doesn't need is an escape. The lack of escape is not even remotely the reason why he's underplayed/underpowered. It's mostly because he doesn't scale very well into late game and he's a very all-in champion similar to Amumu; ie. You go in, do your shit and hope to do a ton of damage/disruption before you die.
There's no problem with having different champs with different roles different playstyles and different strengths and weaknesses. Riot absolutely should not give every champ a "balanced" kit that can do everything. Homogeneity makes for boring games.
The problem is Riot has already made it too homogenous. Practically every champ you see has some sort of escape AND gap closer that the ones without it are underplayed. While I feel that Xin is not so much underpowered that outplayed by other champions, if you buff his base stats anymore your run the risk of making him overpowered. I still think the perfect change to his kit would be to make his dash usable on team mates. That way you can decide whether you want the quick engage or the quick escape, as you'll never have both. That way he'll not become op as most other champs have both but he'll be on even ground.
On March 21 2012 15:13 Mogwai wrote: wtf are you talking about? Xin bashes Yorick's face in super hard for the first 5 levels. I dunno, I can show you if you want, but it's mad easy.
I've gotten curious to how exactly xin will counter a 21 def cloth5 yorick. Can you elaborate, maybe on runes/masteries aswell?
On March 21 2012 15:13 Mogwai wrote: wtf are you talking about? Xin bashes Yorick's face in super hard for the first 5 levels. I dunno, I can show you if you want, but it's mad easy.
I've gotten curious to how exactly xin will counter a 21 def cloth5 yorick. Can you elaborate, maybe on runes/masteries aswell?
Open Cloth + 5 and get up in his face with Q at every possibility. Wear down his mana pool and keep him focused on hitting you and not dying rather than CSing. You beat him just by attacking him, so you get to dictate the fights and you should be making him work really hard to get CS, whereas you can just sit in the creep wave and CS with impunity. Quickly rush Wriggle's + Wit's and just stay up in his face for all of laning. When you hit 6, E -> R -> Q on him at every opportunity. After Wriggle's + Wit's, shoot for Mercs, Phage, Glacial Shroud and either Ghostblade or Zeke's depending on your team.
Also, I'd like to point out that builds being suggested recently in this thread are missing CDR. Xin's strongest scaling comes from Attack Speed and Cooldown Reduction in combination with his W. Every final item build on Xin should feature a Frozen Heart and either a Zeke's or a Ghostblade with enough points in the defensive tree to get Enlightenment so that you reach the 40% CDR cap. These builds end up being extremely potent late game when you can chain Es and Qs all over fights via your W and strong attack speed.
Xin Zhao Stats Base armor decreased to 16 from 16.2 Armor per level decreased to 3.5 from 3.7 Base mana increased to 215 from 213 Mana per level increased to 35 from 31 AD per level decreased to 3 from 3.1 Challenge (New Passive) Xin Zhao challenges his target with his basic attacks and Audacious Charge, reducing its armor by 15% for 3 seconds. Three Talon Strike Cooldown changed to 9/8/7/6/5 from 10/10/10/10/10 Effect changed to Xin Zhao's next 3 basic attacks deal 15/30/45/60/75 (+) physical damage and reduce his other abilities' cooldowns by 1 second. The final strike also knocks the target into the air. Battle Cry Cooldown changed to 16/15/14/13/12 from 24/22/20/18/16 Cost changed to 40/40/40/40/40 Mana from 35/35/35/35/35 Mana Effect changed to Passive: Xin Zhao heals himself for 26/32/38/44/50 (+0.7) every third basic attack. Active: Xin Zhao unleashes a battle cry, increasing his attack speed by 40/50/60/70/80% for 5/5/5/5/5 seconds. Audacious Charge Cooldown changed to 13/12/11/10/9 from 16/15/14/13/12 Cost changed to 60/60/60/60/60 Mana from 70/70/70/70/70 Mana Effect changed to Xin Zhao charges and challenges an enemy. The charge deals 70/115/160/205/250 (+0.6) magic damage to all nearby enemies and slows them by 25/30/35/40/45% for 2 seconds. Crescent Sweep Effect changed to Xin Zhao unleashes a sweep around him that deals 125/225/325 (+) plus 15% of target's current health in physical damage and knocks enemies back. Xin Zhao gains 15/20/25 Armor and Magic Resistance for 6 seconds for each champion hit. Challenge: If a challenged target is hit by the sweep, it is unaffected by the knockback.
What do you guys think? I feel bruta/GB/BC will be much better since it synergizes with the 15% armor reduction that applies first. Also may swap out AS reds for ArP reds.
AS seems to scale less since the cdr no longer applies more than thrice off of Q from my knowledge. His ult seems pretty good too. Loss of the health regen passive feels bad though, so the jungle won't be as forgiving unless you take points in W.
Edit: btw you guys say that xin needs an escape skill for some reason. He tells me a Demacian does not retreat.
(ps mogwai a great but overlooked xin item is the stinger, it's basically a recurve bow that gives you 10% cdr for an extra 40 gold, also builds into nashors, and now that xin has .6 ap scaling...)
ugh. every time someone advocates nashors my desk gets a new indentation.
imo new xin should just go frozen heart/randuins for cdr. ghostblade for some damage + more cdr. then just build situationally. you could probably get away with 1-2 damage items on top of ghostblade since his ulti gives a ton of tank stats if you land it well.
On July 14 2012 23:41 GARO wrote: Lol they keep ap scaling on xin even when its archaic and the only thing you might get with it is triforce.
tbh I hate the fact that Riot's making champs that have only AD ratios. What's wrong with having skills that don't scale with items (unless you play some trolly build)? the original concept behind ad/ap was that you build AD to do damage w/ autos and build AP to do damage with abilities. I understand that moving away from that concept gives you some really unique and cool champion concepts, but homogenizing ratios also makes for kinda boring (lack of) variety.
I wish stinger built into some actual decent item for AD bruisers. I love the new ult. Being able to isolate their AD in a lategame teamfight is really powerful.
Hey guys how do you feel about support xin? He has bad scaling anyways, a decent knockup and gap closer, support items are fine on him (starks/omen/aegis/shurelyas), and they will be giving him a knockback on him ult and 15% armor reduction. Janna 2.0?
On July 15 2012 10:36 101toss wrote: Hey guys how do you feel about support xin? He has bad scaling anyways, a decent knockup and gap closer, support items are fine on him (starks/omen/aegis/shurelyas), and they will be giving him a knockback on him ult and 15% armor reduction. Janna 2.0?
Support Xin is amazing as is. I think the rework will actually hurt support Xin. If you open cloth+ward+pots, at lvl 2 and 3 you're even manlier than support garen/j4/pantheon. 2 dorans shield+merc+aegis. Wriggles if you're into that kind of thing.
On July 15 2012 10:36 101toss wrote: Hey guys how do you feel about support xin? He has bad scaling anyways, a decent knockup and gap closer, support items are fine on him (starks/omen/aegis/shurelyas), and they will be giving him a knockback on him ult and 15% armor reduction. Janna 2.0?
Because he can safely knock people up without getting near them, gives your AD a free BF sword from level 9 onwards and is able to heal your whole team in clutch situations? A support character is a champion who does great without farm, not one who is good with auras. Support Xin is garbage.
nah support xin is beast you just gotta steal some cs and stack dem dblades. 4 dblades ninja tabi into mallet or if you're fed wits/phage-->trinity. works on support wukongtoo. I only do it in ranked 5's and normals thoughbecause I don't want to troll peole in solo queue so I can't seriously vouch for it but I usually do suprisingly well.
On July 21 2012 01:50 RogerX wrote: Who counters Xin? Olaf? Riven ? Teemo?
Hes so flipping strong, he is true terror.
Rumble for sure, and then Irelia might or the guy I played just wasn't good at xin. I just played safe on Irelia till 9 and phage and started winning every trade
Why would rumble be good against xin? If wukongs good against rumble then xin should be too. Darius seems slightly stronger I played against him. I got fucked by the shen though but I still managed to get decent farm but I lost the trades.
On July 15 2012 10:36 101toss wrote: Hey guys how do you feel about support xin? He has bad scaling anyways, a decent knockup and gap closer, support items are fine on him (starks/omen/aegis/shurelyas), and they will be giving him a knockback on him ult and 15% armor reduction. Janna 2.0?
I tried support-ish xin yesterday (also thinking it would be some taric-janna hybrid) and i found that - janna counters xin in lane pretty hard, its hard to even get your knockup off - xin ult is not a janna ult and is weaker if you try to use it the same way (lower range and knockback) - but otherwise he has pretty good kill potential and can also help other lanes - once i built some cdr and tank items i functioned pretty well as an initiator and had pretty good cc
On July 21 2012 02:36 Slayer91 wrote: Why would rumble be good against xin? If wukongs good against rumble then xin should be too. Darius seems slightly stronger I played against him. I got fucked by the shen though but I still managed to get decent farm but I lost the trades.
Because rumble just gives up CS and tries to CS with E until 3 or 4 then poops on him. You just run armor runes cloth 5 and rush tabi. after the first time you both go back there's nothing xin can do to win trades. Rumble controls when engagements end
On July 15 2012 10:36 101toss wrote: Hey guys how do you feel about support xin? He has bad scaling anyways, a decent knockup and gap closer, support items are fine on him (starks/omen/aegis/shurelyas), and they will be giving him a knockback on him ult and 15% armor reduction. Janna 2.0?
interesting... I must try this. Imho, any sort of reliable ranged stun makes someone viable for support, tho I dont see xin being an effective utility lategame without dieing, which is a problem.
On July 21 2012 02:49 Slayer91 wrote: Have you tested this? In real games where even when you start winning trades you become vulnerable?
yeah I have. Xin is similar to Darius in that they both die to ganks very easily. Without any mobility they have flash and that's about it. Xin naturally pushes the lane when rumble gives up CS in the first few levels, so he has to play really conservatively or die to jungle ganks.
He's not able to press his advantage early, so rumble just backs and gets ninja tabi, a ward, maybe a couple potions, and wins the rest of the lane. Even if we weren't considering jungle pressure on xin early on, I still think rumble wins
On July 21 2012 02:49 Slayer91 wrote: Have you tested this? In real games where even when you start winning trades you become vulnerable?
yeah I have. Xin is similar to Darius in that they both die to ganks very easily. Without any mobility they have flash and that's about it. Xin naturally pushes the lane when rumble gives up CS in the first few levels, so he has to play really conservatively or die to jungle ganks.
He's not able to press his advantage early, so rumble just backs and gets ninja tabi, a ward, maybe a couple potions, and wins the rest of the lane. Even if we weren't considering jungle pressure on xin early on, I still think rumble wins
How? He has 2 slows and a movement speed buff. I'd rate him at least B in escaping ganks, with xin and darius being D (they are both fairly good at doublekilling instead, though) meh B-
Yeah but he has to push pretty far as well as spam skills to "win" lane. Xin and darius can one combo people at least even if their escape is weaker in theory.
On July 21 2012 02:49 Slayer91 wrote: Have you tested this? In real games where even when you start winning trades you become vulnerable?
yeah I have. Xin is similar to Darius in that they both die to ganks very easily. Xin naturally pushes the lane when rumble gives up CS in the first few levels, so he has to play really conservatively or die to jungle ganks.
He's not able to press his advantage early, so rumble just backs and gets ninja tabi, a ward, maybe a couple potions, and wins the rest of the lane. Even if we weren't considering jungle pressure on xin early on, I still think rumble wins
Rumble dies to ganks easily too.
Xin naturally pushes the lane when rumble gives up CS in the first few levels, so he has to play really conservatively or die to jungle ganks.
On July 21 2012 05:13 Slayer91 wrote: You said rumble wins the lane after the early game. You seem to be assuming jungle ganks massively disappear and you win the lane?
I'm assuming you can buy wards from the shop after going back for the first time. Xin is also much worse at escaping from ganks than rumble is, so your argument has no basis whatsoever. If both junglers are ganking evenly Xin will be even worse off.
On July 21 2012 08:50 Slayer91 wrote: Top lane is the lane where jungle interference in completely integral to the lane.
Yes and Xin is at a big disadvantage in this matchup when it comes to ganks. So if we know Xin loses when both junglers camp the lane, and rumble were to also beat him 1v1, then it would show pretty definitively that Rumble wins the matchup overall correct?
No, I'm saying that when rumble starts to get an advantage he has to push to exert it meaning he's just as vulnerable as xin is if he tries to exert an advantage.
So how is everyone jungling him? I see the top discussion going on, but no jangles.
Been going arp red/ad quint 21-9 cooldown/mpen. Q>W>E>E. R>E>Q>W. Boots3>2 Doran>brutalizer>phage>zeal>trinity>tank This is just the build I like most so far.
@iceman Haven't tried the new Xin out yet myself but Saint has been going Boots+3-> Hog and Avarice-> Phage -> Boots 2 -> Ghostblade -> whatever tanky (Randuins, finish Mallet, Maw) and he seems pretty sold on it. It seems odd at first glance that he gets Avarice early rather than getting Brutalizer and straight up finishing Ghostblade when he can. Avarice Blade seems like a very meh item to hold on to.
On July 21 2012 12:41 Hyren wrote: @iceman Haven't tried the new Xin out yet myself but Saint has been going Boots+3-> Hog and Avarice-> Phage -> Boots 2 -> Ghostblade -> whatever tanky (Randuins, finish Mallet, Maw) and he seems pretty sold on it. It seems odd at first glance that he gets Avarice early rather than getting Brutalizer and straight up finishing Ghostblade when he can. Avarice Blade seems like a very meh item to hold on to.
On July 21 2012 12:41 Hyren wrote: @iceman Haven't tried the new Xin out yet myself but Saint has been going Boots+3-> Hog and Avarice-> Phage -> Boots 2 -> Ghostblade -> whatever tanky (Randuins, finish Mallet, Maw) and he seems pretty sold on it. It seems odd at first glance that he gets Avarice early rather than getting Brutalizer and straight up finishing Ghostblade when he can. Avarice Blade seems like a very meh item to hold on to.
SV too heavy
Yea... Gman is like 20-1 so far with new xin rushing trinity/ghostblade/ga and now it seems BT after GA.
It's hard too take saint serious going avarice early and then phage.
On July 21 2012 12:41 Hyren wrote: @iceman Haven't tried the new Xin out yet myself but Saint has been going Boots+3-> Hog and Avarice-> Phage -> Boots 2 -> Ghostblade -> whatever tanky (Randuins, finish Mallet, Maw) and he seems pretty sold on it. It seems odd at first glance that he gets Avarice early rather than getting Brutalizer and straight up finishing Ghostblade when he can. Avarice Blade seems like a very meh item to hold on to.
SV too heavy
Yea... Gman is like 20-1 so far with new xin rushing trinity/ghostblade/ga and now it seems BT after GA.
It's hard too take saint serious going avarice early and then phage.
Gman does it on toplane though... At least the games i've seen.
So, have been thinking about adding a new jungler to my list, and Xin seems like a nice choice. But how would u build him?
boots + 3 into HoG seems like an obvious route, but after that? Should i get wriggle? couple of dorans? Or just get an early bruta? argh,
Xin is pretty tricky to itemize. Imo, kindlegem far outshines HoG. You can also turn it into SV, Zekes, or Reverie, all of which are boss on him thanks to his scaling with CDR.
CDR gives xin more damage, more utility, and more cc. So that's an obvious major point to itemize. Since he's melee, with no real escape, he needs some solid survivability. Frozen Heart also seems like a strong choice. I guess Randuins sorta accomplishes this, I'm just a big antifan of HoG in general.
Trinity is really good on Xin imo since he makes good use of every stat, early phage is boss, and surprisingly, the sheen adds a lot of damage and sustain.
IMO CDR on xin is okay, but shouldn't be prioritized over attack damage and health.
CDR is good for bruisers/junglers when it hits a breakpoint, or they have a lot of static damage (or low ratios).
Olaf is an excellent example of this. His E does a fixed amount of true damage, so the only way to improve his E is to get CDR. In addition, hitting 40% CDR on olaf takes the cooldown on his Q down to 0.3 seconds if you throw it directly in front of you, and essentially resets the cd when you pick it up in any other situation.
Trundle is another good example, since getting 40% CDR on him gives him 100% uptime on contaminate and pillar.
As far as I can tell, Xin doesn't hit any kind of breakpoint like this, even with 40% cdr. Even if you EWQ in, you still have a dead period of 1-2 seconds where you can't use any abilities. it does significantly help the CD on your ult as long as you're constantly spamming Q every time it's up. But since his Q and ult both scale very well with AD, and since he has a massive AS boost, and a (potentially) massive armor/MR boost from his ult, it's best to build AD for damage, and build health for tankiness.
I agree that trinity is extremely good on him, since he literally can use every stat on it.
On July 31 2012 03:26 BlasiuS wrote: IMO CDR on xin is okay, but shouldn't be prioritized over attack damage and health.
CDR is good for bruisers/junglers when it hits a breakpoint, or they have a lot of static damage (or low ratios).
Olaf is an excellent example of this. His E does a fixed amount of true damage, so the only way to improve his E is to get CDR. In addition, hitting 40% CDR on olaf takes the cooldown on his Q down to 0.3 seconds if you throw it directly in front of you, and essentially resets the cd when you pick it up in any other situation.
Trundle is another good example, since getting 40% CDR on him gives him 100% uptime on contaminate and pillar.
As far as I can tell, Xin doesn't hit any kind of breakpoint like this, even with 40% cdr. Even if you EWQ in, you still have a dead period of 1-2 seconds where you can't use any abilities. it does significantly help the CD on your ult as long as you're constantly spamming Q every time it's up. But since his Q and ult both scale very well with AD, and since he has a massive AS boost, and a (potentially) massive armor/MR boost from his ult, it's best to build AD for damage, and build health for tankiness.
I agree that trinity is extremely good on him, since he literally can use every stat on it.
Each hit of Q brings your CDs down by 1 second, so not only do you get 100% uptime on your W AS steroid, but you also have only 3-4 seconds in between a popup that lasts 1.5 seconds. It's not as retarded as old xin giving you permenant popup with enough AS, but it's still impressive.
You can also think of xin's Q as a weird kind of AD steroid (it does end up mathing out to being very similar to one.)
On July 31 2012 03:31 TheYango wrote: 40% CDR gives you 100% W uptime.
EDIT: Well, technically 33% CDR.
didn't notice that, I still think it's not worth prioritizing over the other stats. Haven't tried to theorycraft a good CDR build for him though.
FH is a big chunk of the CDR you want, and makes a lot of sense for someone who needs a lot of survivability to sit around in the middle of a fight. Top it off with any kindlegem item (Zeke's and shurelias come to mind) - at cap if you have enlightenment or 39% if you have cdr in offense. Kindlegem items also all give HP, which is particularly nice for someone who gets free resists. (from ult)
On July 31 2012 03:31 TheYango wrote: 40% CDR gives you 100% W uptime.
EDIT: Well, technically 33% CDR.
didn't notice that, I still think it's not worth prioritizing over the other stats. Haven't tried to theorycraft a good CDR build for him though.
FH is a big chunk of the CDR you want, and makes a lot of sense for someone who needs a lot of survivability to sit around in the middle of a fight. + Any other cdr item puts you very close to cap - at cap if you have enlightenment or 39% if you have cdr in offense.
I thought FH was a bit lower priority, since you get free resists off of R so Health was better as a defensive stat? Then again I really only play him in normals when I want a fun/random jungler, so I'm not an authority on the matter.
On July 31 2012 03:31 TheYango wrote: 40% CDR gives you 100% W uptime.
EDIT: Well, technically 33% CDR.
didn't notice that, I still think it's not worth prioritizing over the other stats. Haven't tried to theorycraft a good CDR build for him though.
FH is a big chunk of the CDR you want, and makes a lot of sense for someone who needs a lot of survivability to sit around in the middle of a fight. + Any other cdr item puts you very close to cap - at cap if you have enlightenment or 39% if you have cdr in offense.
I thought FH was a bit lower priority, since you get free resists off of R so Health was better as a defensive stat? Then again I really only play him in normals when I want a fun/random jungler, so I'm not an authority on the matter.
Well, I suppose you're right. The kindlegem item maybe should come before the FH (Phage > kindlegem > glacial shroud?)
Also brutalizer is super good if you're itching for more damage (Flat armor pen synergizes VERY well with % armor shred.) instead of a tankier setup. And the ghostblade upgrade actually makes more sense for him than a lot of champs who like brutalizer too, but don't care so much about the ghostblade.
Kindle seems pretty legit on him, and Zeke's is not all too bad of an item. Gives a bit of sustain, AS (which he's all over), and the aura is decent for your team. Maybe after Kindle/Glacial/Phage? I think those three plus boots seem to be a decent core on him.
Randuin's seems like it'd make more sense than Glacial/Frozen. With Bruta/Zeke's on the list of items to buy, you really don't need an item that provides CDR as aggressively as Glacial/FH.
If you consider Bruta core on him (which makes sense, given the stats), and are going to go for Ghostblade, do you think Avarice is anything to consider early on for the GP10? Or is it like HoG/Randuin's, where it's better just to buy it when you can and not worry about the gold component?
On July 31 2012 03:31 TheYango wrote: 40% CDR gives you 100% W uptime.
EDIT: Well, technically 33% CDR.
didn't notice that, I still think it's not worth prioritizing over the other stats. Haven't tried to theorycraft a good CDR build for him though.
FH is a big chunk of the CDR you want, and makes a lot of sense for someone who needs a lot of survivability to sit around in the middle of a fight. + Any other cdr item puts you very close to cap - at cap if you have enlightenment or 39% if you have cdr in offense.
as a CDR item it's good, but I don't like any of the other stats. You shouldn't need to stack such absurd amounts of armor unless the enemy team has stacked/fed AD. He doesn't have mana problems in my experience, so the mana isn't needed. Also, no AD, and no health. Ouch.
Seems situational to me, only if you need to stack massive armor, or if there's a non-AD carry auto-attacker on the other team (e.g. Tryndamere, Jax, Yi).
If you need defensive items that give armor, randuin's is a better choice most of the time; it gives +health, and has a great teamfight active that's not as situational as frozen heart's passive. Oh and the active has awesome synergy with your ult.
Really though if you need armor, I think fratma's is fine for defensive items, the other items can be pure offenseive (tri-force, bloodthrister, black cleaver, last whisper, youmuu's, etc.) The rest is just making sure you initiate by ulting as many people as possible
edit: aegis is another great pure defense item, and if you really want CDR, shurelya's is probably the best item since it gives health and health regen, both great for a champ that gets free armor/MR from their kit.
edit2: and how can I forget zeke's, another amazing item for Xin. health, CDR, and ridiculous sustain + excellent teamfight aura if you have another AD champ.
On August 01 2012 06:58 Vaporized wrote: anyone jungling him atm? really strong atm imo.
Yeah, been doing it when we don't need someone super tanky. Pretty good, nice ganks, good teamfights, etc. He's got some drawbacks (using E ever makes oom fastly, no hard CC outside of Q), but his build isn't bad for jungle, and he can clear decently fast with just QW. In fact, his counter-jungling is pretty good considering how fast you can just murder something with WQ-Smite and get out, stealing Red is pretty easy.
Eh, I find (like most melee AD carries) his late game is somewhat in line or weaker than others, comparatively. You get to be God if you E the carry and get off a great R, and you have good sticking power once FMallet and CDR, but I'd not call it OP by any stretch. You're still all in with no escape, and no AoE damage to speak of. Makes you a really damned good focus diver, but not overpowered.
His early and mid game might be OP as fuck though.
ive been going philo, avarice, merc treads, phage, bruta, finish triforce, frozen mallet, finish ghostblade. GA if the game is still going. i guess thats saintvicious build, it works really well.
On August 01 2012 07:40 Vaporized wrote: what do you build? im curious.
ive been going philo, avarice, merc treads, phage, bruta, finish triforce, frozen mallet, finish ghostblade. GA if the game is still going. i guess thats saintvicious build, it works really well.
Talked about it on the last page a bit. I forgo gp10s on him and grab midgame power items like Kindlegem, Bruta, and Phage, then shoot for Ghostblade and Frozen Mallet as my first big ticket items, grabbing Zeke's at some point as well. Triforce is another great option if I get ahead, but you generally don't get that fed in the jungle.
It's probably not optimized at all, but it's a good amount of CDR, Health and AD, which I feel are his best stats.
I'm really questioning the effectiveness of Brutalizer on Xin. I mean on paper it seems like it's perfect for him but getting it before any solid defense makes him pretty squishy midgame. Any sort of hard focus and he's done. I feel like a more useless version of master yi. Plus, Zekes/FH and 9-21-0 easily puts him at CDR cap making the cdr rather useless.
I've been going dblade (sometimes shield)/merc/kindle/phage. Sometimes a chain vest or Null mantle thrown in. I feel like with those items, you achieve the most important role of Xin which is
Force your target to back out of the fight Force the enemy team to peel since no one can really 1v1 you. Be tanky enough that you can't be gibbed by midgame burst Stick to your target regardless of whatever gets thrown at you.
I feel like to get a brutalizer in there, you have to sacrifice either Tenacity, health, or the slow just for the sake of doing more damage which I feel isnt needed. So I would have to get brutalizer after the above core but I really want the sheen or Glacial since you really benefit from the larger mana pool and you get so much more utility
Glacial allows you to tower dive better, chase better, disable better, and do/take more damage. Sheen gives you really solid burst damage with a E-Q combo. I figure realistically, no one is going to sit around 1v1ing you anyway so I prefer the burst damage of sheen over the sustained damage of Brutalizer.
With Trinity Force, any ad carry or non-tanky AP/support is going to melt since your E-QR combo will literally do half their health. Afterwards, getting Zeke's/FH allows you to permaslow/knockup/knockback any threat to your ad carry (along with the auras of Zeke's/FH). Or if the enemy adcarry is a problem, you can still be a serious threat to them with just TF/Zekes/FH. Probably finish the build with Raduins/FoN/Warmogs/Bloodrazor as needed.
It does basically ignore his adscaling completely but the ult is almost always going to be used for utility or bursting a squishy down which you don't need more damage to do. So that just leaves the Q which, with max CDR, basically acts as a natural damage steroid and doubles as a massive disable. If you're trying to protect your ad carry from someone like shyvanna/jax/udyr/etc and you build enough damage to be a significant threat to them, you're just going to get bursted down early in the fight. But if you get the TF slow+auras+max CDR, you can pretty much completely shutdown a bruiser of your choice.
TLDR: I feel that getting a brutalizer early makes you a shitter version of BT-rush leesin, Master Yi, akali, or any other melee burst-assasin type. Getting a brutalizer later just wastes a slot better used up by Tanky/CDR/utility items.
Hm, I actually agree with your assessment. I really like the concept of Bruta on him, but as a melee dps, he needs the defenses more, probably. I usually play him jungle, and generally go Phage-Kindle before Bruta, but I may just cut it out altogether and get Merc's faster.
I'm always at a loss as to what to build Phage into, though. TF and FMallet are both godmode on him (TF for killing, FMallet to be unkillable once you ult), I suppose it's just something to play by ear.
Realistically, you don't actually need the Phage slow until after the point where you're passing red buff off to your AD carry, because the diminishing returns on slows makes the actual effect of Phage after Red Buff + E is applied fairly minimal. Brutalizer is definitely going to have a much more noticeable effect in midgame fights.
Practically speaking, I don't necessarily see the effectiveness of Brutalizer + a cost-effective pure defensive item like Aegis being worse than half-offense, half-defense items like Phage and Zeke's, especially since Bruta/Aegis have higher innate cost-effectiveness to begin with.
However, would you say Bruta-Aegis helps you get to the later game better? It's probably very strong early/mid, but Aegis is a mid game defensive item (for the most part), and Phage's build paths are stronger than Ghostblade, at least in my opinion. Zeke's is also a mid game item, admittedly, but you can sit on Kindle for a stupid long time, and there's a pretty good chance someone else on your team will get Aegis anyway.
On August 01 2012 07:40 Vaporized wrote: what do you build? im curious.
ive been going philo, avarice, merc treads, phage, bruta, finish triforce, frozen mallet, finish ghostblade. GA if the game is still going. i guess thats saintvicious build, it works really well.
frozen mallet and triforce have a really large overlap in function. I'd recommend replacing one or the other. Prob either replace mallet with aegis, omen or frozen heart (i guess it depends on how much cdr you have in your runes and whatnot), or triforce with maybe something like wits end.
On August 02 2012 01:02 Requizen wrote: However, would you say Bruta-Aegis helps you get to the later game better? It's probably very strong early/mid, but Aegis is a mid game defensive item (for the most part), and Phage's build paths are stronger than Ghostblade, at least in my opinion.
Aegis is strong the whole game. The only downside is that it's weak when you hit 6 items, but junglers usually don't bump up against that limitation. Ghostblade is fine late game.
On August 02 2012 01:02 Requizen wrote: Zeke's is also a mid game item, admittedly, but you can sit on Kindle for a stupid long time, and there's a pretty good chance someone else on your team will get Aegis anyway.
lol who else is going to get Aegis. Top laners never do, and 15-20 minute Aegis on a jungler is monumentally more game-changing than 35 minute Aegis on a support.
On August 02 2012 01:02 Requizen wrote: However, would you say Bruta-Aegis helps you get to the later game better? It's probably very strong early/mid, but Aegis is a mid game defensive item (for the most part), and Phage's build paths are stronger than Ghostblade, at least in my opinion.
Aegis is strong the whole game. The only downside is that it's weak when you hit 6 items, but junglers usually don't bump up against that limitation. Ghostblade is fine late game.
On August 02 2012 01:02 Requizen wrote: Zeke's is also a mid game item, admittedly, but you can sit on Kindle for a stupid long time, and there's a pretty good chance someone else on your team will get Aegis anyway.
lol who else is going to get Aegis. Top laners never do, and 15-20 minute Aegis on a jungler is monumentally more game-changing than 35 minute Aegis on a support.
/shrug. I get it on a handful of top laners (not all), and it's usually my first buy after gold items on support (unless we really need Shurelya). Then again, I'm kinda mediocre at support.
ive been playing xin A LOT the last week or so in the jungle. for those looking to carry their games it doesnt get much better then this. i thought the nerf in the new patch might set him back but nah, he is fine, his damage is still absurd. his ganks, especially at early lvls, are just beastly.
Should you be looking to get close to the CDR cap with FH and ghostblade? On paper it sounds really good but I feel like you'd be lacking too much health unless you could also afford a mallet and aegis or something
CDR Cap is great but I'm not convinced about ghostblade even though brutalizer is so tempting. What about Zeke's + Aegis + Ghostblade (built in no particular order) If you have enlightenment that's 35%+ in the mid/late game - enough to keep your steroid always up and get really short CDs on Q / E without being silly squishy (Health scales particularly well on him, aegis makes sure your resists aren't too low just because you haven't pressed R yet.)
On August 02 2012 01:02 Requizen wrote: However, would you say Bruta-Aegis helps you get to the later game better? It's probably very strong early/mid, but Aegis is a mid game defensive item (for the most part), and Phage's build paths are stronger than Ghostblade, at least in my opinion.
Aegis is strong the whole game. The only downside is that it's weak when you hit 6 items, but junglers usually don't bump up against that limitation. Ghostblade is fine late game.
On August 02 2012 01:02 Requizen wrote: Zeke's is also a mid game item, admittedly, but you can sit on Kindle for a stupid long time, and there's a pretty good chance someone else on your team will get Aegis anyway.
lol who else is going to get Aegis. Top laners never do, and 15-20 minute Aegis on a jungler is monumentally more game-changing than 35 minute Aegis on a support.
/shrug. I get it on a handful of top laners (not all), and it's usually my first buy after gold items on support (unless we really need Shurelya). Then again, I'm kinda mediocre at support.
Alright, I've played him a few times, mostly as jungle. (Went top once against a Yorick, didn't end well. Xin may not be a counter to him anymore.) I've been maxing W first, and the attack speed you get is pretty crazy. You don't specifically need to build attack speed items to get the most out of Xin's kit any more. I'm going to start editing the OP, but I will need some criticism because I am playing a bunch of champs now and can't focus on just one.
For jungle is anyone else going wriggles into triforce into tank items? I've been doing that consistently and it definitely feels OP. If you start blue you pretty much never have to recall early on unless you took a lot of damage on a gank. His clear speed is really good, and as others are saying the ganks really surprise people early on. I tried playing him a bunch at top lane but had a lot of problems because he has no escapes and I was consistently targeted for level 2 and 3 ganks. But as a jungler I think you really emphasize his strengths and hide his weaknesses. It seems like the only times I don't go tri force oriented is when I get really behind and just have to build pretty much pure tank to even stay in fights. But I usually go for sunfire or warmogs after tri force and it usually seems to be great timing on it. And as others have mentioned I feel like his counter jungling may be one of the best if not the best because QW + smite is a really fast red/blue buff kill and I've found his R is really really good for avoiding getting caught in enemy jungle.
On August 12 2012 07:40 101toss wrote: Protip: When playing support xin, take a point in Q and camp top bush at level 1. Pick up first blood and top lane win
So, I'm just wondering, what do you guys recommend building on Xin? There were a lot of new ideas coming out after the changes and I was curious about what you guys thought works?
he gets free armor and MR from his ult, so he scales extremely well with health. I usually get FM to cover his health needs. At first glance, his AD scaling is just meh, but he also gets a huge AS steroid, an auto-enhancer, and his passive gives 15% AR. Building pure damage on him probably isn't great, but doing damage/crit/armor shred works out great due to his insane attack speed. Once you get level 5 W and youmuu's you have over 2.0 AS (with youmuu's active).
He can be built tanky or assassin-y.
Offense items: trinity force youmuu's for low armor/LW for high armor black cleaver
bruiser items: early wriggle's (only if you're behind against melee champ) frozen mallet atma's maw zeke's
Ok so here's what I do on jungle xin: Runes are aspd red, armor yellow, flat cdr blue, aspd quints Masteries are 21/9/0 taking 4% cdr and all the other hitting things ones Ghost Smite, though Flash or Exhaust is ok. Skills QWE Q>W>E, though if you're going to lv 2 gank and are SURE it'll work, you can take E at level 2.
Boots or Cloth first, depending on enemy jungle; usually boots. Against a gank-oriented, blue-first jungler, steal wraiths-red. From there, lv2 gank if I see a good opportunity; else wolves blue (check for gank opportunity) -> standard jungle clear. Against a red-first jungler, steal blue -> clear red side jungle, gank, clear blue
Item build is madred's (no wriggles, you don't need it) -> phage sv (sv first if you need the mr) -> tabi or mercs. After that you ahve a few choices: Get Warden's Mail -> Randuins if you're the main initiator on your team and you're getting focused down. Get Bruta -> Ghostblade if you're initiating but you're not the main target of focus. Get Frozen Mallet if you're trying to peel someone like Singed off your carries. Get Trinity Force if you're stomping super hard or split pushing. Ghostblade/Randuins should be your first two big items 90% of the time, and usually the game will be over before you finish both. Once you have both, you'll be at 40% cdr (6% runes, 4% masteries, 10% spirit visage, 15% ghostblade, 5% randuins), with piles of armor, mr and health and a reasonable amount of deeps stats.
You have nasty early ganks, and they get even nastier once you hit 6. Here are some ganking tips (and some general tips): If you're ganking without E, or ganking someone with mad escapes, Ghost up to them and Q them up into the air. Once you're 6, E to a minion BEHIND them, then ult. (Make sure they can't flash over you!) If your bot lane is behind and you're ganking, try to ult so that it separates them. If you're trying to clear jungle without blue, use only W on small camps. If you're fast, you can ult, then activate Randuins and slow everyone with the bonus armor/MR from ult.
After learning that his Q has a .6 AD ratio I'm not sure if xin is just weak right now or if I really don't know how to play him. He's definitely playable and I've been gibbed by xin's under tower but I can say that about any champ.
Has anyone tried Nashor's Tooth on xin? It gives 25% CDR and the AP alone nearly doubles the sustain he gets from W, plus a good AS boost. I'm thinking of trying a 40% CDR build on him, but was curious if anyone else has tried it.
I was thinking something like:
Youmuu's Nashor's Trinity Force
as core, then get tanky items or more damage items as needed. You could open something like brutalizer + phage + stinger early game, seems strong.
On November 07 2012 07:15 BlasiuS wrote: Has anyone tried Nashor's Tooth on xin? It gives 25% CDR and the AP alone nearly doubles the sustain he gets from W, plus a good AS boost. I'm thinking of trying a 40% CDR build on him, but was curious if anyone else has tried it.
I was thinking something like:
Youmuu's Nashor's Trinity Force
as core, then get tanky items or more damage items as needed. You could open something like brutalizer + phage + stinger early game, seems strong.
it's like skarner all over again. tooth is real good at 1v1ing and looks awesome on paper, FH is better for working towards CDR cap in practice in basically every conceivable scenario. that being said, I enjoy building tooth on Xin, but FH is just too imba to ever take tooth very seriously.
On November 07 2012 07:15 BlasiuS wrote: Has anyone tried Nashor's Tooth on xin? It gives 25% CDR and the AP alone nearly doubles the sustain he gets from W, plus a good AS boost. I'm thinking of trying a 40% CDR build on him, but was curious if anyone else has tried it.
I was thinking something like:
Youmuu's Nashor's Trinity Force
as core, then get tanky items or more damage items as needed. You could open something like brutalizer + phage + stinger early game, seems strong.
it's like skarner all over again. tooth is real good at 1v1ing and looks awesome on paper, FH is better for working towards CDR cap in practice in basically every conceivable scenario. that being said, I enjoy building tooth on Xin, but FH is just too imba to ever take tooth very seriously.
I feel like Xin values the non-CDR stats on nashor's way more than the ones on FH. Skarner's different because he's way more mana-hungry than xin, and because xin already gets a bunch of free armor from his ult. But then again I've never tried FH on Xin.
On November 07 2012 07:15 BlasiuS wrote: Has anyone tried Nashor's Tooth on xin? It gives 25% CDR and the AP alone nearly doubles the sustain he gets from W, plus a good AS boost. I'm thinking of trying a 40% CDR build on him, but was curious if anyone else has tried it.
I was thinking something like:
Youmuu's Nashor's Trinity Force
as core, then get tanky items or more damage items as needed. You could open something like brutalizer + phage + stinger early game, seems strong.
it's like skarner all over again. tooth is real good at 1v1ing and looks awesome on paper, FH is better for working towards CDR cap in practice in basically every conceivable scenario. that being said, I enjoy building tooth on Xin, but FH is just too imba to ever take tooth very seriously.
I feel like Xin values the non-CDR stats on nashor's way more than the ones on FH. Skarner's different because he's way more mana-hungry than xin, and because xin already gets a bunch of free armor from his ult. But then again I've never tried FH on Xin.
Zeke's or Ghostblade + FH is a very good CDR core on Xin. Outside of that, grab spark + phage and some other HP items and you're golden.
As for Xin valuing the non CDR stats more than Skarner... uhhh, no. Current Xin doesn't scale nearly as well with AS as old Xin and definitely scales worse than Scarner with it. Xin's special AS scaling right now is basically the speed at which his knockup comes out and the frequency of his W passive triggers. Skarner's AS is an integral part of his ability spamming engine because every attack flat reduces his abilities CDs. Xin is frankly getting enough AS just off of W + either Zeke's or Ghostblade active to suit his needs in at least 7 out of 10 games. Xin looks at 2 good AP ratios, Skarner looks at 4 GREAT AP ratios (seriously, for their effective CDRs, Skarner's AP ratios are nutty). Mana regen is w/e, it benefits both equally and for both of them is less relevant than FH because of how quickly they can spam all their skills when they get the full ability spam engine rolling.
I do have to say that Nashor's/Rageblade Xin is hilarious on dominion though. Frozen Heart is great because it increases the survivability of everyone on your team, as long as you're near their carry, as well as allowing you to basically ignore anyone without significant magic damage or LW.
One question I have is how do people usually use their ults? Just dive into the middle and scatter everyone?
On November 07 2012 07:15 BlasiuS wrote: Has anyone tried Nashor's Tooth on xin? It gives 25% CDR and the AP alone nearly doubles the sustain he gets from W, plus a good AS boost. I'm thinking of trying a 40% CDR build on him, but was curious if anyone else has tried it.
I was thinking something like:
Youmuu's Nashor's Trinity Force
as core, then get tanky items or more damage items as needed. You could open something like brutalizer + phage + stinger early game, seems strong.
it's like skarner all over again. tooth is real good at 1v1ing and looks awesome on paper, FH is better for working towards CDR cap in practice in basically every conceivable scenario. that being said, I enjoy building tooth on Xin, but FH is just too imba to ever take tooth very seriously.
I feel like Xin values the non-CDR stats on nashor's way more than the ones on FH. Skarner's different because he's way more mana-hungry than xin, and because xin already gets a bunch of free armor from his ult. But then again I've never tried FH on Xin.
Zeke's or Ghostblade + FH is a very good CDR core on Xin. Outside of that, grab spark + phage and some other HP items and you're golden.
As for Xin valuing the non CDR stats more than Skarner... uhhh, no. Current Xin doesn't scale nearly as well with AS as old Xin and definitely scales worse than Scarner with it. Xin's special AS scaling right now is basically the speed at which his knockup comes out and the frequency of his W passive triggers. Skarner's AS is an integral part of his ability spamming engine because every attack flat reduces his abilities CDs. Xin is frankly getting enough AS just off of W + either Zeke's or Ghostblade active to suit his needs in at least 7 out of 10 games. Xin looks at 2 good AP ratios, Skarner looks at 4 GREAT AP ratios (seriously, for their effective CDRs, Skarner's AP ratios are nutty). Mana regen is w/e, it benefits both equally and for both of them is less relevant than FH because of how quickly they can spam all their skills when they get the full ability spam engine rolling.
I don't think Xin values AS/AP more than skarner does...just that Xin makes more use of Nashor's than he does FH, unlike Skarner, who makes great use of FH (and therefore is the better choice for skarner).
On November 07 2012 07:15 BlasiuS wrote: Has anyone tried Nashor's Tooth on xin? It gives 25% CDR and the AP alone nearly doubles the sustain he gets from W, plus a good AS boost. I'm thinking of trying a 40% CDR build on him, but was curious if anyone else has tried it.
I was thinking something like:
Youmuu's Nashor's Trinity Force
as core, then get tanky items or more damage items as needed. You could open something like brutalizer + phage + stinger early game, seems strong.
it's like skarner all over again. tooth is real good at 1v1ing and looks awesome on paper, FH is better for working towards CDR cap in practice in basically every conceivable scenario. that being said, I enjoy building tooth on Xin, but FH is just too imba to ever take tooth very seriously.
I feel like Xin values the non-CDR stats on nashor's way more than the ones on FH. Skarner's different because he's way more mana-hungry than xin, and because xin already gets a bunch of free armor from his ult. But then again I've never tried FH on Xin.
Zeke's or Ghostblade + FH is a very good CDR core on Xin. Outside of that, grab spark + phage and some other HP items and you're golden.
As for Xin valuing the non CDR stats more than Skarner... uhhh, no. Current Xin doesn't scale nearly as well with AS as old Xin and definitely scales worse than Scarner with it. Xin's special AS scaling right now is basically the speed at which his knockup comes out and the frequency of his W passive triggers. Skarner's AS is an integral part of his ability spamming engine because every attack flat reduces his abilities CDs. Xin is frankly getting enough AS just off of W + either Zeke's or Ghostblade active to suit his needs in at least 7 out of 10 games. Xin looks at 2 good AP ratios, Skarner looks at 4 GREAT AP ratios (seriously, for their effective CDRs, Skarner's AP ratios are nutty). Mana regen is w/e, it benefits both equally and for both of them is less relevant than FH because of how quickly they can spam all their skills when they get the full ability spam engine rolling.
I don't think Xin values AS/AP more than skarner does...just that Xin makes more use of Nashor's than he does FH, unlike Skarner, who makes great use of FH (and therefore is the better choice for skarner).
what? how so? Xin's a melee with no way to get out of a fight and the ability to rattle off tons of abilities over a short duration due to his Qs CDR refreshing mechanics. How would he ever not value armor/mana/AS Slow Aura as much as AS/AP/Mp5?
For anybody: What runes do you use on him (TOP LANE)? I'm not sure how the armor penetration from Challenge works but it seems like maybe I should get flat AD marks/flat armor penetration quints or vice versa or something, but im not sure (edit: just red what runes mogwai uses in his stream thread, nvm).
21/9 or 9/21 masteries?
Also, when you E to somebody for your combo is there a pause before you AA, then you press Q to refresh, or does it insta AA? (if you feel like answering this I don't actually know how it works on Jax either with his Q )
you don't overcap cdr with cleaver instead of ghostblade and you get your defensive items faster with this build because you stay on the allready highly costeffective brutalizer for a longer time.
purely offensive&expensive items like ghostblade/cleaver etc. are very luxury no?
you don't overcap cdr with cleaver instead of ghostblade and you get your defensive items faster with this build because you stay on the allready highly costeffective brutalizer for a longer time.
purely offensive&expensive items like ghostblade/cleaver etc. are very luxury no?
please confirm
GB/IG/SV = 15 + 15 + 10 = 40% CDR Ghostblade also adds a lot more sticking power to Xin than Cleaver does. He's only going to be hitting one person at a time with most of his stuff.
you don't overcap cdr with cleaver instead of ghostblade and you get your defensive items faster with this build because you stay on the allready highly costeffective brutalizer for a longer time.
purely offensive&expensive items like ghostblade/cleaver etc. are very luxury no?
please confirm
GB/IG/SV = 15 + 15 + 10 = 40% CDR Ghostblade also adds a lot more sticking power to Xin than Cleaver does. He's only going to be hitting one person at a time with most of his stuff.
killing things = survivability (FACTS)
you also get damage, cc, 60 armor, and 50 MR. This seems like the most solid 3 items Xin can get. Do you go straight for completed items or piece it out?
you don't overcap cdr with cleaver instead of ghostblade and you get your defensive items faster with this build because you stay on the allready highly costeffective brutalizer for a longer time.
purely offensive&expensive items like ghostblade/cleaver etc. are very luxury no?
please confirm
you don't get overlap as tooplark pointed out.
also, bruta -> ghostblade >>>>>>>>>>> bruta -> sheen. ghostblade is insanely good on Xin and sheen proc vs. ghostblade active isn't even a competition in terms of early offensive output, especially with ghostblade's new CD.
flow can be altered as the game dictates, but I'd generally say the most you should do is add in chain/negatron and boots 2 to counter your lane opponent before getting back on the order I'm saying.
On December 06 2012 07:49 Shelke14 wrote: I'm guessing Boots 3 into bruta? How exactly do you start the build? Any dorans or any other life steal to start?
whatever you need for laning. I usually start boots + 3, but dblade/dshield have their places and you can follow up boots with doran's items if you need earlier power spikes than bruta. dshield with 21 defensive is really great vs. stuff like nid/teemo that attack you a ton for early lane pressure.
Ghostblade CD went from 60 seconds to 45 and it now always gives you 6 seconds of the buff which is very useful in practice for when you're getting kited.
Is the passive (unique t_t) of dshield applied before or after the armor reduction? If the masteries are any indication I'd say it's after, but just wanna make sure.
On December 06 2012 11:50 101toss wrote: What about zephyr?
also mogwai i have taken over the nunu thread
edit: also new sv is broken and has 15% cdr
...it's supposed to give 15% cdr. ghostblade's the one with 10% cdr.
anywho, sub out iceborn gauntlet for cleaver. it's league of true damage right now and so I actually feel better with the HP from cleaver over the armor from gauntlet sadly and cleaver is cheaper and trucks people harder.
On December 08 2012 08:13 clickrush wrote: sv + gb + gauntlet îs 45% cdr not 40. sv + cleaver + gauntlet is 40% cdr. just to make that clear. sv 15% cdr
no, sv = 15, gauntlet = 15, gb = 10, add em all up, you get 40
Tried Smash's build, I was surprised how tanky you can get once you used your ult on several people (went ghostblade -> bc -> tabi -> SV). Also was frustrated how cc can screw you over, everytime I tried to charge on somebody to pop them up, Fiddle, or Draven's E, or even the slow on Vlad's pool. I missed mercs that game. :<
Since Xin doesn't scale too well off of AD and you can only stack so much ArPen, warmogs seems like a good defensive option on top of your ult's resistances, but I'm kind of at a loss regarding the offensive options. I definitely felt the fall down late game once my base damage wasn't doing that much, and W + ghostblade won't last you a full teamfight if there are tanky targets. So should I turn over to zephyr, wit's, or another source of AS once I'm tanky enough?
If you have max CDR I see NO way you can fall off lategame, wtf, you one combo squishies every 3 seconds or whatever it is when E + 3 talon strike is up. God knows how mcuh damage you do with ult and ignite and ghostblade as well.
Well I couldn't chain it because of the amount of cc they had (I think less than half my Es connected during teamfight, there was always some hard cc thrown at me mid air) so maybe that was just an annoying comp and I didn't get to see Xin's "usual" power.
If you're getting CC'd a lot you might be going in too deep/early what's your damage doing? they're probably just DPSing tanks when you're getting focused.
On December 21 2012 06:24 zulu_nation8 wrote: How do people skill Xin jungle and what runes/masteries/summoners?
what do you mean how? He has rather been buffed in S3 since his main dps is his Q which is single target.
Anyway I jungle xin like this:
10 points in def (bladed armor and veteran scars. 1 point in summoner's resolve for the smite. All other points in AD or UT, personally i take AD). Runes I run pretty standard AD runes for jungle (arpen red, armor yellow, scaling MRes blue, quints MS as jungle).
Summoners, well flash and smite... not sure if there is any other option beside flash
Level 2 gank: QE, twingols -> red Level 3 gank: QWE, wolves -> smiteless blue -> red Level 4 gank: QWQE, standard route After that, max either E against a team with lots of escapes, or W otherwise.
I go aspd reds & quints, armor yellows and blues. Armor pen is good, mr blues are good. 9/21/0, ghost smite. I feel like Xin benefits more from ghost, since you already have a way to get in and you sometimes need to stay close to get that third hit off. It also helps you keep up with a carry with PD or triforce.
On December 21 2012 09:02 Tooplark wrote: After that, max either E against a team with lots of escapes, or W otherwise.
This actually makes a lot of sense.
Most people I asked said to max Q then W. Like half said to start W lv1 and other half said Q. Not really sure what's better. I've been getting 3pts in Q then maxing E and starting W lv1 per Smash's advice.
The only difference between starting W and Q is that you clear maybe 2-3 seconds faster with Q and that W leaves you with more health. The difference without a leash is about 3-4 seconds, so with a leash it should be pretty negligible.
Personally, I'm not a fan of W, since you need to be able to burst and get the fuck out since you're coming from the jungle and you're underfarmed in comparison to a top XZ. I like a mixture of Q and E, Q helps the jungle clear and reducing E's CD is pretty critical in a extended teamfight.
On December 21 2012 09:02 Tooplark wrote: Level 2 gank: QE, twingols -> red Level 3 gank: QWE, wolves -> smiteless blue -> red Level 4 gank: QWQE, standard route After that, max either E against a team with lots of escapes, or W otherwise.
I go aspd reds & quints, armor yellows and blues. Armor pen is good, mr blues are good. 9/21/0, ghost smite. I feel like Xin benefits more from ghost, since you already have a way to get in and you sometimes need to stay close to get that third hit off. It also helps you keep up with a carry with PD or triforce.
I should have specified that I always max Q first, then E or W depending. Getting Q's cooldown low is really important imo, since it effectively reduces the cooldown on all your skills. The heal from W isn't a very big deal.
In other news I watched someone play AP Xin (Stinger -> Nashors, GRB). He 1v2ed a fed Warwick and a Janna and came out with more health than he went in with. It was pretty amazing.
Q CD: 9/8/7/6/5 Damage/hit: 15/30/45/60/75 Total Damage: 45/90/135/180/225
E CD: 13/12/11/10/9 Damage: 70/110/150/190/230 Slow: 25/30/35/40/45%
ok, so pretty straight forward right? Q's lower CD, higher damage/level, so max Q over E, right? this is the obvious answer and what 80% of Xin players are doing without any further thought. however, it's a shallow analysis that misses out on optimizing Xin's damage over realistic engagement times. here's where the simple analysis falls apart:
1. Q does more damage than E. irrefutably true, however, E's damage is point & click at 600 range, instantaneous, AoE and magic on an otherwise physical kit, all of which are useful attributes. in a single burst cycle of 1 E and all three hits of Q, Q realistically only slightly outperforms E on average due to armor/mres differential and in scenarios where it's optimal to prime Q to the 3rd hit before Eing in, E actually does significantly higher damage.
2. Q's CD is lower than E, ergo, putting your damage on Q nets you more dps in the long run than E. swing and a miss due to how Xin's CD mechanics actually work. Q goes on CD after the third hit, meaning that even if you have a 1.5 attack speed, you're going to have a 1.3-2.0 second delay between the cast on your Q and when it's cooldown starts ticking, regardless of any other stats. this delay accounts for part of the bridged gap between effective CDs on Q and E, and the other part is pretty simply coming from E's CD being effectively reduced by 3 from the Q hits. Even if you're at a high pre level 13 attack speed and have no CDR, a leveled E's effective CD is lower than the effective CD on a leveled Q. Not to mention that as you build CDR, the effective CD gap only widens in favor of E (since E's base CD is higher, it scales down faster with CDR).
So bam, end of discussion right? Again, wrong, this doesn't even finish off my argument as to why leveling E is better, despite the fact that this should be enough to convince you. The rest of the argument in favor of E has to do with ability flow over realistic scenarios and stickiness. let's look at a level 9 Xin with 1.0 AS and 0% CDR, note that this is absolute worst case with the E maxing Xin, as his cycles improve faster with CDR. In cases like this, regardless of skill leveling, the burst opening looks like this:
0.00 E 0.25 auto attack 0.50 Q1 1.50 Q2 2.50 Q3 3.50 auto attack
now, if you've maxed Q, at this point, E has 5.5 seconds left on it's CD, Q has 4 seconds left on it's CD and we've dealt 335 + 5.6 AD damage. if instead you've maxed E, at this point, E has 2.5 seconds left on it's CD, Q has 7 seconds left on it's CD and we've dealt 320 + 5.6 AD damage. By maxing E, we've drastically increased the damage we do in a 6-8 second burst because in the course of our standard combo, we've added in another full ability (and it's the one who's damage we've been leveling no less). It's also allowed us to double dash and guarantee our damage better via a much stronger slow %. This might look like I'm weighting this comparison in favor of E by taking such a short window after the initial burst, but in realistic scenarios, this is all you have with Xin. In a Q maxing scenario, your opponent has 4 seconds to put auto-attack range between you and him before you can Q him again, and 5.5 seconds to put E range between you and him. In an E maxing scenario, he only has 2.5 seconds to put a full E range between you two before you re-engage with a 45% slow.
So yea, max E on Xin. 3 levels of Q for opening up in the jungle is good just because of the mana efficiency of the damage, but maxing that E drastically increases your ability to chase down and butcher people after that point.
builds for top should be different than jungle. If you're a solo who's taking a lot of gold you need to build damage items, if you're a jungle who needs to build efficiently, you mostly like would have to go straight tank. I only jungle xin but I usually just build straight tank but rush a BC if i'm really ahead, always wriggles first though.
You max Q top lane because of E's mana costs and because you should be running full armor pen. You can trade with Q up every 5 seconds very well and dont have to waste precious mana on E.
On December 26 2012 11:12 VayneAuthority wrote: You max Q top lane because of E's mana costs and because you should be running full armor pen. You can trade with Q up every 5 seconds very well and dont have to waste precious mana on E.
max E looks way better in jungle though
My thinking is the opposite. You activate Q in lane, your opponent is not going to let you land all 3 hits of Q on them if they're even remotely competent. Leveling E increases to slow and the likelihood of you landing your Q as a follow up.
In Jungle, make use of the AD ratio of Q against inanimate creeps. I'd only use QW in Jungle, not E. Use E as gapcloser for ganks and hope the lane you're ganking for has additional CC so you can make use of your max'd Q.
On December 26 2012 11:12 VayneAuthority wrote: You max Q top lane because of E's mana costs and because you should be running full armor pen. You can trade with Q up every 5 seconds very well and dont have to waste precious mana on E.
max E looks way better in jungle though
personally i put my first point into E at level 4 when jungling (QWQEEREEQE basically) because you do need 2 points in Q and one in W to jungle efficiently. For ganks the lower CD and higher slow on E is pretty mandatory. You'll seldom get off more than one Q when ganking the solo lanes, but sometimes when they flash the cooldown of E is just short enough to run them down.
In Top lane on the other hand I always max Q simply because it is more mana efficient to trade with Q every few seconds.
Curiously, does anyone buy hybrid items on xin to use his AP ratio on E and W? Personally I experimented with rageblade, but even as top lane I don't feel I have the money to afford it. Straight up tank items with a smattering of damage (phage and ghostblade basically) seem to pay off far more.
edit: Neo, it obviously depends on the matchup, but some top laners have almost no choice. They either move into Q range to last hit when you activate it, or they back off for nearly 10 seconds while you can easily use the first two hits to last hit normally. I wouldn't put any points except the first in Q against Teemo, Nidalee or Jayce, mostly because i know they will not let me hit them for the full combo unless I go full bore all in, but others like malphite, darius or even Zed really don't have much choice. They can either move into my range, or let themselves be zoned from level 3 onwards.
On December 26 2012 11:12 VayneAuthority wrote: You max Q top lane because of E's mana costs and because you should be running full armor pen. You can trade with Q up every 5 seconds very well and dont have to waste precious mana on E.
max E looks way better in jungle though
personally i put my first point into E at level 4 when jungling (QWQEEREEQE basically) because you do need 2 points in Q and one in W to jungle efficiently. For ganks the lower CD and higher slow on E is pretty mandatory. You'll seldom get off more than one Q when ganking the solo lanes, but sometimes when they flash the cooldown of E is just short enough to run them down.
In Top lane on the other hand I always max Q simply because it is more mana efficient to trade with Q every few seconds.
Curiously, does anyone buy hybrid items on xin to use his AP ratio on E and W? Personally I experimented with rageblade, but even as top lane I don't feel I have the money to afford it. Straight up tank items with a smattering of damage (phage and ghostblade basically) seem to pay off far more.
I read someone who posted earlier in this Xin thread about an AP Xin stomping people but I can't imagine a proper item path that wouldn't turn Xin into an AP glass cannon @_@
On December 26 2012 11:12 VayneAuthority wrote: You max Q top lane because of E's mana costs and because you should be running full armor pen. You can trade with Q up every 5 seconds very well and dont have to waste precious mana on E.
max E looks way better in jungle though
personally i put my first point into E at level 4 when jungling (QWQEEREEQE basically) because you do need 2 points in Q and one in W to jungle efficiently. For ganks the lower CD and higher slow on E is pretty mandatory. You'll seldom get off more than one Q when ganking the solo lanes, but sometimes when they flash the cooldown of E is just short enough to run them down.
In Top lane on the other hand I always max Q simply because it is more mana efficient to trade with Q every few seconds.
Curiously, does anyone buy hybrid items on xin to use his AP ratio on E and W? Personally I experimented with rageblade, but even as top lane I don't feel I have the money to afford it. Straight up tank items with a smattering of damage (phage and ghostblade basically) seem to pay off far more.
I read someone who posted earlier in this Xin thread about an AP Xin stomping people but I can't imagine a proper item path that wouldn't turn Xin into an AP glass cannon @_@
Xin already has fairly atrocious base stats.
Nashor's, Rageblade, Spirit visage, and something like Locket to cap you on CDR/get more armor?
On December 26 2012 11:12 VayneAuthority wrote: You max Q top lane because of E's mana costs and because you should be running full armor pen. You can trade with Q up every 5 seconds very well and dont have to waste precious mana on E.
max E looks way better in jungle though
My thinking is the opposite. You activate Q in lane, your opponent is not going to let you land all 3 hits of Q on them if they're even remotely competent. Leveling E increases to slow and the likelihood of you landing your Q as a follow up.
In Jungle, make use of the AD ratio of Q against inanimate creeps. I'd only use QW in Jungle, not E. Use E as gapcloser for ganks and hope the lane you're ganking for has additional CC so you can make use of your max'd Q.
the secret to xin is learning to auto move with his Q so that you land all 3 hits without having to use E. My account is Bin just so I have credentials when speaking about Xin, he is my most played by far lately with a 70+ winrate
On December 26 2012 11:12 VayneAuthority wrote: You max Q top lane because of E's mana costs and because you should be running full armor pen. You can trade with Q up every 5 seconds very well and dont have to waste precious mana on E.
max E looks way better in jungle though
personally i put my first point into E at level 4 when jungling (QWQEEREEQE basically) because you do need 2 points in Q and one in W to jungle efficiently. For ganks the lower CD and higher slow on E is pretty mandatory. You'll seldom get off more than one Q when ganking the solo lanes, but sometimes when they flash the cooldown of E is just short enough to run them down.
In Top lane on the other hand I always max Q simply because it is more mana efficient to trade with Q every few seconds.
Curiously, does anyone buy hybrid items on xin to use his AP ratio on E and W? Personally I experimented with rageblade, but even as top lane I don't feel I have the money to afford it. Straight up tank items with a smattering of damage (phage and ghostblade basically) seem to pay off far more.
I read someone who posted earlier in this Xin thread about an AP Xin stomping people but I can't imagine a proper item path that wouldn't turn Xin into an AP glass cannon @_@
Xin already has fairly atrocious base stats.
He wasn't "stomping people", but he was absurdly strong at dueling. (This was queuing with some scrubby friends.) He engaged Warwick + Soraka with like 300 health and came out with twice that much and a double kill. However, he was very glass cannon and just died in teamfights. His build was Nashor's, Rageblade, and I don't remember what else. I think FMallet and GA?
well that's not really an AP build, but those items are indeed strong on xin although unpractical. If you wanna build for damage those are what you would get.
On December 27 2012 05:19 gtrsrs wrote: 0 reason to get nashor's when zephyr is in the game, zephyr gives everything good that nashor's gives without the AP, + more goodies
20 vs. 10 CDR is a pretty big difference. I agree with you for the most part, but nashor's gets you to the magic 40% CDR much quicker than zephyr, which is relevant. It's just that there is enough good CDR itemization in the game right now that you can adapt the build path to get your 40% CDR anyway.
yeah, with FH and BC you don't need nashor, and i feel like getting at least 1 of those is core on xin (and i hog blue buff because my mid is bad, always, regardless of who it is)
On December 29 2012 14:51 SixSongs wrote: Can u give a newbie advice on this hero? What items to buy or what spells to use. Or maybe I should switch to another hero? Thanks in advance :D
On December 29 2012 14:51 SixSongs wrote: Can u give a newbie advice on this hero? What items to buy or what spells to use. Or maybe I should switch to another hero? Thanks in advance :D
On December 29 2012 14:51 SixSongs wrote: Can u give a newbie advice on this hero? What items to buy or what spells to use. Or maybe I should switch to another hero? Thanks in advance :D
Sorry but this is not easy to understand for me. Can u explain? What items to buy when?
It all depends on how the game is going. It'd be dumb going the same build in the same order every game, cause every game differs. Learn to think and get a feel for what you need to get in order for you to be useful every game. Plus whats hard to understand? He lists like 4 items in a one liner...
does anyone think spirit stone is better on xin jungle if you're maxing E? That and you can get a nice damage item for 1600 whenever you feel like, compared to not having any damage items when going wriggles.
yeah madreds and especially wriggles have terrible cost efficiency nowadays.
spirit of the ancient golem+cdr boots+brutalizer+spirit visage is 40% cdr and good hp/damage/mr/armour and tenacity
I see a lot of wriggles sunfire stuff but it doesnt make sense really. Spirit of the ancient golem is probably better than sunfire on xin for jungling and it's cheaper and gives tenacity letting you go for cdr later.
On December 29 2012 21:03 Roffles wrote: Where the fuck does a D come from in Xins name???????
From the chinese sound for "Zh"
I was under the impression that the Chinese sound for Zh was closer to a J sound. I guess there is a soft d sound just before the J, but usually I find it easier to describe as a J.
On December 05 2012 19:54 Mogwai wrote: keep it on the dl, but
ghostblade -> iceborn gauntlet -> spirit visage is the perfect core on Xin right now.
I tried it but its so hard to get. And it takes forever. I can get ghotsblade at earlierst 15 min mark. Is that normal?
pretty much. you'll also notice if you read more of the thread, I updated that core to replace iceborn with Black Cleaver, and while we're on that subject, you can do either cleaver for blowing people up or locket for surviving. I was embarrassingly unaware of locket up until like 3 weeks ago.
On December 30 2012 22:20 Slayer91 wrote: yeah madreds and especially wriggles have terrible cost efficiency nowadays.
spirit of the ancient golem+cdr boots+brutalizer+spirit visage is 40% cdr and good hp/damage/mr/armour and tenacity
I see a lot of wriggles sunfire stuff but it doesnt make sense really. Spirit of the ancient golem is probably better than sunfire on xin for jungling and it's cheaper and gives tenacity letting you go for cdr later.
the wriggle's upgrade is 100 gold for 5 Armor, 5 AD, +200 damage to your procs (50 damage/attack on creeps), and a ward every 3 minutes. I dunno how you can say that wriggle's is worse cost efficiency than madreds. I dunno man, I can get the distaste for madred's items from a theorycrafting level, but in practice, it feels like an incredibly drastic increase in jungling speed on single target junglers and post madred's, wriggle's is very efficient. Even though I'm maxing E during levels 7-10, I still don't use it much in the jungle, as using E to clear camps typically leaves you struggling on mana, which makes ganking much more difficult.
yeah iceborn isn't that great on xin, BC or ghostblade with locket for armour is pretty much better, you can get the 4% cdr from offensive for the extra 5% missing and be happy with 39% or get the 1% from runes(1 cdr/lvl blue).
I dont much like spirit visage, it's not amazingly efficient but since you use all the stats it's decent.
Ghostblade->BC->SV is also very awkward because it leaves you with figuratively 0 armor unless you built tabi, so past the skirmishes point where you just blow up anyone that shows and group for a free 5v4 objective, you really can't initiate fights or dive before cc has been spent/the main physical source on their team is clearly available for you to burst. Locket gives as much CDR, the shield is pretty good with your ult and the cost is so low compared to BC, with a very smooth build path. Nothing stops you from getting BC later if you need it or to stack more armor with randuin's.
It just makes me sad to buy wriggles after how much it's nerfed, but I guess its probably easier to go wriggles mercs than going for the spirit of the ancient golem. Lifesteal saves on pots in general. I just see the nerfs from the old 19% lifesteal 23 ad 30 armor wriggles
The only reason I like spirit stone because spirit of the ancient golem is like 30 armour and tenacity for very cheap.
On January 02 2013 06:30 Slayer91 wrote: It just makes me sad to buy wriggles after how much it's nerfed, but I guess its probably easier to go wriggles mercs than going for the spirit of the ancient golem. Lifesteal saves on pots in general. I just see the nerfs from the old 19% lifesteal 23 ad 30 armor wriggles
The only reason I like spirit stone because spirit of the ancient golem is like 30 armour and tenacity for very cheap.
right, well, wriggle's isn't apeshit OP anymore, but if madred's makes sense on your character, wriggle's is still an efficient upgrade. I still like ancient golem, but I just don't find that xin has the base damage/mana necessary to still clear camps efficiently if he goes spirit stone.
On January 02 2013 06:40 zulu_nation8 wrote: i get madreds for early dragon control then emblem of valor, then either locket or aegis.
The more I've been thinking, the more I'm wondering about just going double kindlegem after bruta in lane and madred's/wriggle's in jungle. have you tried builds like this? with his ult, Xin's strongest defensive stat is HP, and CDR is beast mode on him, so a build that just gets a bunch of HP/CDR early and transitions to locket/zeke's/visage as necessary seems pretty darn strong.
I still feel divided on getting madreds at all - it seems like you could probably skip it entirely (run with machete only) if you're buying other offensive items, doesn't it? I guess it does provide a significant amount of dragon / jungle control for someone like Xin who doesn't automatically have a ridiculous clear speed.
Kindlegems don't stack, you know. Brutalizer+locket works in most top lanes, you can get another kindlegem afterwards.
Wriggles seemed good on riven,and probably xin for jungle. Shaco and lee are the other guys who kinda want it. Not sure if anyone else aside from niche junglers do though.
Has anyone tried a glass cannon SotD build for xin? I've tried it a few times in dominion, it blows up people so fast. The bonus damage from Q can crit, and both Q and SotD last for 3 attacks, how's that for synergy? I've never tried it on summoner's rift, and wondering if anyone has had any success with it.
How do you play against this guy top lane? Was playing AP yi vs him and he just outright CRUSHED me (although i think he got 1st blood or something since he came to lane with longsword, boots, 3pot) Anyway, are there any timings I should be aware of that he just crushes other people during apart from the level 2 (found that one out the hard way )?
On January 08 2013 15:16 LazyFailKid wrote: How do you play against this guy top lane? Was playing AP yi vs him and he just outright CRUSHED me (although i think he got 1st blood or something since he came to lane with longsword, boots, 3pot) Anyway, are there any timings I should be aware of that he just crushes other people during apart from the level 2 (found that one out the hard way )?
Well, after the level 2, there's the level 3, the level 4, the level 5, and level 6. What happens after 6? No one knows.
He has no escapes so if he falls behind you'll eat him alive or at the very least zone him. He's also vulnerable to ganks because of that, especially if you can bait him onto you beforehand.
if xin E's he has no chance of getting away, that's why junglers like olaf are really good vs him as olaf is as strong 1v1 and has perma slow for counterganks.
Xins clearing is really bad but his ganks are strong kinda a bad version of jungle riven which is actually legit
except he ganks even better than riven but I've played so many games when jungle xin gets 3-4 kills and is still useless, you need so many kills to make up for lack of farm and xp
I've never really thought of Xin as worse than Riven in the jungle, honestly. Riven really needs more gold because she's worthless without AD, while Xin can get some semi-tank items and still 1v1 non-fed carries pretty easily. I can see the clear speed difference, though.
xin's clearing is awesome, don't go for spirit stone, go for razer/wriggles machete + 5, get first blood 100% of games either invading or ganking, razer immediately and then just clear every camp in 3 hits and gank every lane with maxed E
jungle xin gives me a chubby
obviously much better than my ahri and elise :3
but yeah invade every single game, fight everyone you come across, never EVER back down, gank every lane repeatedly, get hella fed, build purely offensive, kamikaze bomber into a fight like diamondprox does with xin, win every game. my kda is terrible but my win% is so high that i'm relatively sure i'm playing him right
I don't really play him anything like that, and my win rate is nearly as high. >_> I usually just aim for 40% cdr while building tanky.
The more I jungle Xin, the less I like wriggles. Razor is enough, but making wriggles really slows down the huge tanky items, and while the lifesteal is nice, it isn't exactly necessary.
On January 09 2013 01:44 zer0das wrote: I don't really play him anything like that, and my win rate is nearly as high. >_> I usually just aim for 40% cdr while building tanky.
The more I jungle Xin, the less I like wriggles. Razor is enough, but making wriggles really slows down the huge tanky items, and while the lifesteal is nice, it isn't exactly necessary.
I tried out to build xin with: spirit stone, cdr boots, bruta, kindlegem, golem, visage in varying order. It maxes cdr brutally fast and has all the stats xin needs in a very cheap set of items. It also builds up cheap and easy for more damage and gives a minimum set resistances so you can adapt to the teamcomp. Being tanky enough and having enough cdr to use his abilities a couple times in a fight is all xin can ask for to be a very strong initator.
xin's clearing is awesome, don't go for spirit stone, go for razer/wriggles machete + 5, get first blood 100% of games either invading or ganking, razer immediately and then just clear every camp in 3 hits and gank every lane with maxed E
jungle xin gives me a chubby
obviously much better than my ahri and elise :3
but yeah invade every single game, fight everyone you come across, never EVER back down, gank every lane repeatedly, get hella fed, build purely offensive, kamikaze bomber into a fight like diamondprox does with xin, win every game. my kda is terrible but my win% is so high that i'm relatively sure i'm playing him right
On January 09 2013 01:01 HOOG wrote: The most important part to playing Xin is to play this song on repeat: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZSS5dEeMX64 and make a man out of everyone who crosses your path!
edit: wow, just posting the link makes the youtube video embedded? You are fantastic TL :D
Dunno dood. It's hard for me to take a Donny Osmond song seriously.
On January 09 2013 01:44 zer0das wrote: I don't really play him anything like that, and my win rate is nearly as high. >_> I usually just aim for 40% cdr while building tanky.
The more I jungle Xin, the less I like wriggles. Razor is enough, but making wriggles really slows down the huge tanky items, and while the lifesteal is nice, it isn't exactly necessary.
I tried out to build xin with: spirit stone, cdr boots, bruta, kindlegem, golem, visage in varying order. It maxes cdr brutally fast and has all the stats xin needs in a very cheap set of items. It also builds up cheap and easy for more damage and gives a minimum set resistances so you can adapt to the teamcomp. Being tanky enough and having enough cdr to use his abilities a couple times in a fight is all xin can ask for to be a very strong initator.
I second a) getting razor and b) not upgrading razor to Wriggles. Xin's attackspeed makes razor super good at jungledunking and the stats on spiritstone aren't any more useful than those on razor. As to b, Xin doesn't need the survivability from wriggles to jungle, and he really wants some tankiness or damage as soon as possible. If you really miss the ward, just buy Sightstone.
I think everyone agrees that maxing E is the best, the only debate is whether to max w or q after, KT jungler maxes w, everyone else maxes Q second. Apen reds and aspd quints should be the standard. This is for jungle xin.
I think VayneAuthority was advocating Q max with good success. Personally, I think E max is better/easier to pull off, but Q max can be really strong if you can consistently land all 3 Q hits on your lane opponent.
Regardless, you'll almost always want to level W last, cause the cd reduction on leveling Q/E is just too strong to pass up.
Level 1--5 q +180 damage -4 s cd Level 1-5 e +160 damage -4 s cd
now considering E is a gap closer, a slow, is your only magic damage spell and is aoe for farming creep the only possible argument for maxing q is you can spam it more because it costs less mana
On January 28 2013 01:41 zulu_nation8 wrote: I think everyone agrees that maxing E is the best, the only debate is whether to max w or q after, KT jungler maxes w, everyone else maxes Q second. Apen reds and aspd quints should be the standard. This is for jungle xin.
I max W second cause AS is too good on xin. Idk the math on if it gives more burst or not but either way you're still going to want to be getting your knockup as quickly as possible when ganking.
Getting your knock up a bit faster isn't a huge deal since if they have flash you probably won't get it anyway and if you don't the slow is often enough it's very niche cases where you need that extra attack speed.
Xins attack speed scaling was when W made every auto attack reduce cd by 1 second, now that it's just flat 3 hits AS is easily his worst damage stat. (ignoring ap becuase lol)
On January 28 2013 06:27 ArchAngelSC wrote: AS is better for clearing camps/doing drag than maxing Q. More hits == more wriggle procs.
I'm pretty much positive that Q gives you more damage output from the reduced CD (which effectively reduces all your CDs) and increased damage on Q. I don't feel like running the math, but I'm roughly 99% sure that even with wriggle's, Q max over W will do more DPS to jungle mobs.
On January 09 2013 01:01 HOOG wrote: The most important part to playing Xin is to play this song on repeat: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZSS5dEeMX64 and make a man out of everyone who crosses your path!
edit: wow, just posting the link makes the youtube video embedded? You are fantastic TL :D
something ive realized or maybe its only me but, I think in solo queue, you have to build xin as a carry jungler with wriggles sunfire or warmogs, without wriggles you clear too slow because in solo queue you get a lot less time to farm. You have to build carry items and sometimes damage or else you'll be useless later, no one actually plays support junglers like supports in solo queue except for nunu. I can't seem to win when i build locket/aegis and stuff.
wriggles kinda sucks, better get madreds, mobility boots and then locket and bruatalizer and shit. Just do a standard xin build from top lane but make it a bit tankier because you're a jungle.
the whole "support" and "carry" jungle thing is just a load of non sense that I only see around TL. A tank can force a win in a teamfight just like a dps can, being farmed is being farmed, doesn't matter too much what items you buy. Sunfire doesn't make much sense anyway. The erason aegis doesn't work that well for you is that xin mostly wants hp and cdr and a bit of damage, you're investing way too much for an underfarmed jungle to spend over 3k on an aegis which nearly a spirit visage and a brutalizer.
xin is a gank dependent jungle but mobility boots can be so crazy on him, the other day I killed a cass mid twice after she killed our mid because she was in mid lane and i just run up and e her and she cant react in time.
That's because in higher-level play, you can rely on your team actually having damage from the carries. If you can't rely on your team having damage, it means you need to rely on the enemy team not having damage, and the best way to do that is to kill their damage whenever it appears. That means building slightly more assassin-like than the pros do.
Heck, if the enemy is farming as poorly as your team, their carry will probably also lack damage, and your lack of tankyness will only be a problem in towerdives.
but he's not even advocating that, hes advocating going sunfire and lantern and i don't really understand it
Ghostblade locket black cleaver last whisper is a really good "carry" xin build if you want. But in any case it's not about your time doing damage. If you can kill their ad and ap carry it doesn't matter if you're mostly tank items because they don't have any damage either
wriggles kinda sucks, better get madreds, mobility boots and then locket and bruatalizer and shit. Just do a standard xin build from top lane but make it a bit tankier because you're a jungle.
I'm advocating wriggles/sunfire for faster clear in mid game. I find it extremely hard to not fall behind with Xin even if you're doing a lot of work. You need to be able to shove those sidelanes well or else you're gonna fall more and more behind vs. a carry jungler a game goes on.
Your E Q combo can kill the ranged creeps, and you just finish the melee ones then. You shouldn't excessively build to farm because you should be fairly active as xin in fights around the map and often you get the money you need from assists and kills.
Its really not that excessive, wriggles helps you a lot more with early dragons too. I just think sunfire is the ultimate solo queue jungler item because of the tank/damage and pushing power. Obv don't get it vs AP damage. After experimenting and losing games I truly believe that running madreds + like 9/21 or pure aspd no damage runes or 21/9 and pure aspd runes make you clear way too slow. Most of the games where I get behind are basically, I overroam early, get some work done, meanwhile the other jungler whos usually has faster clear holds lanes and afk jungles, then suddenly he's two levels ahead of me and I can't do anything. I shove lanes, tax correctly etc. This is only in solo queue. In 5's I rarely lv3 gank and almost always jungle until at least the first wave of wards expire.
Usually if you get enough work done with the ganks the lane advantages should be enough to offset an jungle xp disadvantage. As long as you don't die too much it shouldn't be a huge deal. I had these types of games too where I have a bad start and never come back, but also had games where I came back really fast even though their jungle got real fed and I started 0/2/0 or something.
wriggles sunfire is 3.5k gold or something that you spend and so far has 0 cdr and 0 bonus arm pen and only 1k worth of bonus health which are the 3 of your best stats.
locket brualizer is cheaper, more damage, more health, 20% cdr and gives an aura to boot.
On January 29 2013 02:46 h3r1n6 wrote: Now that I see this thread, I want to be a man again. Wouldn't Spirit of the Elder Lizard be pretty good?
To me it seems that Xin really wants CDR, due to the way Q reduces the other cooldowns, which is similar to the way Ryze passive works.
Wiggles just gives too good, plus it gives him good clearing speed and drag control early on. The difference in Razer vs Spirit Stone is immense on Xin. You can get Kindlegem + Wiggles for the same price as Elder Lizard without sacrificing the early game with worthless stats such as mana/health regen.
I usually don't see health and mana regen as a worthless stat, but I have no idea how sustained Xins clear is currently. Well and you are right, the spirit stone 20% extra damage doesn't compare at all to the razor procs on an autoattack heavy champ.
On January 29 2013 03:39 h3r1n6 wrote: I usually don't see health and mana regen as a worthless stat, but I have no idea how sustained Xins clear is currently. Well and you are right, the spirit stone 20% extra damage doesn't compare at all to the razor procs on an autoattack heavy champ.
with madreds his health is fine for clearing. Mana regen is useful but not enough to make it worth it.
wow just played Xin jungle with E max for the first time, it's really like a different world compared to Q max thx for the advices guys :D I actually only ever considered E for the gapclose and completely neglected its dmg and cdr scaling with levels.
stuff like Xin and Vi really makes me wanna jungle although ihate jungling normally.
The problem with xins R is that it's an OKAY escape but if you already E'd into the other guy then you can't do much against the jungler. Most top laners have a large amount of escape skills at their arsenal. Riven has 3 hops, jax ignores autos for god knows how long, aoe stuns AND can jump around. Irelia has a stun/jump. Elise is ranged has her stun and her spider hop can troll people.
Darius has his speed boost and he's also considered really easy to gank but he's one of those guys that can get a kill our of it so he doesn't mind.
If you are suspicious of the gank you can save yourself but it's so easy to just want to murder the lane guy at any chance you get because of how strong he is it can fuck you because you don't recover too well from a setback. (in terms of laning phase, at least)
On January 30 2013 07:30 Slayer91 wrote: The problem with xins R is that it's an OKAY escape but if you already E'd into the other guy then you can't do much against the jungler. Most top laners have a large amount of escape skills at their arsenal. Riven has 3 hops, jax ignores autos for god knows how long, aoe stuns AND can jump around. Irelia has a stun/jump. Elise is ranged has her stun and her spider hop can troll people.
Darius has his speed boost and he's also considered really easy to gank but he's one of those guys that can get a kill our of it so he doesn't mind.
If you are suspicious of the gank you can save yourself but it's so easy to just want to murder the lane guy at any chance you get because of how strong he is it can fuck you because you don't recover too well from a setback. (in terms of laning phase, at least)
Another thing to add, is that if you want to burst as hard as possible, you E+R immediately, meaning you use up your escape as soon as you engage. Because of this, I usually wait and use R as a finisher when I play Xin top lane.
I've also done this move multiple times:
E in -> jungler jumps out of the bush -> wait until jungler gets next to me -> R the jungler away -> finish the kill
That only works if you're already ahead enough that you don't need R to win trades. R gives you resists as well as scaling off current hp meaning you're crippling yourself if you save it. It's usually cheaper to ward or wait.
I mean wait to go in until their jungler shows up somewhere.
If you can kill him pretty much without your ult then you're already in good shape but I think its poor practice to adopt this in general. Using it to last hit is a good idea if you ARE worried the jungler is around but are seconds away from a kill sure.
If I don't see the jungler but my ult is up, I'm not gonna open with my ult, because then I don't have an escape. But at the same time if there's an opportunity for an EQ combo I'm not just gonna sit there and do nothing.
On January 30 2013 08:44 BlasiuS wrote: If I don't see the jungler but my ult is up, I'm not gonna open with my ult, because then I don't have an escape. But at the same time if there's an opportunity for an EQ combo I'm not just gonna sit there and do nothing.
well, tough shit, you should just sit there and do nothing or go balls to the walls. halfassing the engage is how Xins lose lanes.
Imagine a situation where you lose a trade if you don't open with ult but win a trade if you open with ult, you have no idea of where the jungler is. This is what happens all the time when the lane is even and you don't have a ward up or it isn't useful (if you've been pushed for a long time so he could be in the brush, or you're close to his tower and the jungler is lee sin who can jump to creeps or even just anyone who can gap close fast with mobility boots)
Besides its a VERY good exercise to imagine yourself as the enemy jungler and what routes you'd take to gank you and how plausible they are. If it's plausible he's been in that lane brush as soon as it pushed expecting to go to aggro then you wait until he shows up somewhere else. The thing is unless you watch every replay you have NO idea how many times a jungler has camped your lane and you didn't take the bait but felt like an idiot because you thought you were too cautious.
The only guy who really gives me insane amounts of trouble is jax. Because he seems made to counter you. E blocks your Q, he has better sustained damage, and is nearly impossible to gank. However I generally feel like I outperform jax in teamfights if I don't get too far behind. This is because Xin can initiate a fight well and disrupt the whole team with his E R combo, meanwhile if a jax goes in he can be focused by the team, giving you a slight edge there, and if you both get focused xin tends to recover better because he bursts harder once his big cds are down, and you have to back out and go in later. You still have a slow and a knockup and good burs. Meanwhile jax wants to get his passive and R passive rolling and if you used your E and R already you have to deal with mostly abusing W and Q for damage, which is going to be less than a xin spamming E W and Q for 3 hits and running out because he's nearly dead.
I'm finally starting to update the OP with both my findings and what has been discussed in the thread. I also plan on adding a jungle matchup section for how Xin matches up with other junglers (With included replay examples)
i think vi is really good vs xin, otherwise as far as jungler matchups are concerned, I counterjungle more often vs weaker early game junglers, and show more presence vs stronger early game junglers. Pretty straight forward.
strong against: weak early game junglers like cho'gath, amumu, skarner, nautilus weak against: olaf, post lv6 dr.mundo,
description:
Xin Zhao is a high pressure jungler who has incredible base damage without items. He is effective all game long and can act as the peeler or initiator in team fights.
Your standard jungling path should be to get both of your buffs ASAP, then either look for opportunites to gank or farm until lv4 and exert pressure. In games where the enemy team wards early, it is generally better to farm until the first wave of wards wear out, then pressure all lanes as much as possible.
The decision of when to gank and where relies primarily on the lane matchup, whether the enemy laner has escapes, whether your laner has CC, how strong your laner is at which level, etc. You should also watch out for enemy ward placement, creep wave, and the health of your laners vs theirs.
Xin has a non-skillshot gap closer with a knockup, the combination of which makes him one of the best gankers in the game. At level 3 or 4 with double buffs he is often the strongest champion in the game, able to burst anyone down and win 2v2 or 3v3 vs. counterganks.
When playing vs. carry junglers who are weak pre lv6, your mindset should be to pressure lanes as much as possible through ganks, counterjungling and showing general presence. This forces the enemy jungler to stop farming and in doing so, stunts his early game growth which is more important to carry junglers than to Xin.
When playing vs. similar early game pressure junglers like Shaco and Lee sin, try to predict their ganking paths and countergank as much as possible, as both of you would generally lose a fight when counterganked but win when counterganking. Xin is as strong of a dueler if not stronger than Shaco, and about equal to Lee sin.
The most important thing to remember about early game jungling is to not fall behind vs. the other jungler. Xin has one of the slower early game clears, and cannot shove lanes as fast as most other carry junglers such as amumu and nocturne, hence if you find yourself pressuring ineffectively early make sure you do not waste anymore time roaming.
In team fights, Xin's ultimate is his most important ability. You can use your ult to disengage, such as when an amumu bandages and ults your team, and using your ult to knock the enemy team back so they can't follow up, or you can use your ults to engage and single out targets, such as charging in to an enemy carry, ulting the rest of his team away then dealing more damage to the marked carry.
Xin is often forced to charge head first into the enemy team in fights, hence he should be built as tanky as possible with as little damage items as needed. He has tremendous damage with his abilites alone and thus do not need to be built damage to be effective later. Madreds is generally all you need for clearing jungle. Locket is the most cost effective defensive item in the game. Every tanky item works on him, as with every damage item since Xin scales well off of ad, aspd, and cdr.
With Xin's early pressure, your team should head into mid game with an advantage from most of your lanes. Pay attention to objectives such as enemy buffs and dragon, Xin with madreds can do dragon very early. In mid to late game, you can choose to initiate team fights or let your teammates do so, be clear about whether peeling or diving is the best for your team. Remember that you can still 1v1 squishy carries without any damage items.
Xin Zhao is one of the strongest jungler picks for solo queue and 5s, he is currently still underplayed at least in the NA region, he fits with a variety of team comps, and can be first picked safely. Use him to your advantage and wtach the wins pile up!
On February 05 2013 08:59 zulu_nation8 wrote: I wrote a brief Xin guide for another site, covers the basics.
Thanks for this little guide, your extra portion the main guide doesn't have helped a lot. Right now I can play every role comfortably except for jungle, so when I get stuck with jungle it feels very foreign. Practicing the past few days with Xin Zhao has already started feeling normal and with your guide it helps a lot, thank you.
bly, AS marks, AD quints, you need to switch them up. It's just straight up efficiency loss to ever do AD marks and AS quints instead of the other way around.
yea someone told me that, the only set i run now is aspd reds and ad quints, forgot to change it in the guide. I was experimenting with the other set because I felt like I didn't need that much aspd to clear and ad damage is better for fights.
If you think you only need 10% AS, that's totally fine, so then just run 6 AS Reds and then 3 AD/ArPen/whatever Reds, I'm just saying that AD Quint Efficiency:AS Quint Efficiency > AD Mark Efficiency:AS Mark Efficiency, so it's just strictly wrong to favor AD on Marks and AS on Quints when those are the two stats you're looking to get.
On January 30 2013 08:14 Slayer91 wrote: That only works if you're already ahead enough that you don't need R to win trades. R gives you resists as well as scaling off current hp meaning you're crippling yourself if you save it. It's usually cheaper to ward or wait.
Depending on R to escape by itself is bad plan. An escape mechanism being an ultimate means its too long/shouldn't actually count as escape mechanism
I almost feel like building a bit of AP on xin now is just plain solid. Nashors is just such a stupidly fun item to get on him early and allows a lot of strange tactics. Mix in a spirit visage and randuins (which was largely untouched by the belt nerfs) and you have a super durable core that synergises really well. the big CDR and chunk of AP makes darting around fights and chasing with your E pretty stupid, when you get to midgame you end up having 3 seconds or so between E>Q abilities and carries literally cannot do squat.
On February 05 2013 14:23 zulu_nation8 wrote: I see, what do you think of ad vs apen? AD is more damage earlier? Chauster runs apen reds, IWDominate runs AD and Crumbz runs aspd.
I like to do full AS Reds on Jungle Xin with AD Quints, though that's a layover from the season 2 jungle, I haven't really studied how ArPen impacts your clear times in season 3. ArPen synergizes very well with his passive and the base damages on his Q and Ult though, so for killing squishy champions in particular, it is quite good on paper.
On January 30 2013 08:14 Slayer91 wrote: That only works if you're already ahead enough that you don't need R to win trades. R gives you resists as well as scaling off current hp meaning you're crippling yourself if you save it. It's usually cheaper to ward or wait.
Depending on R to escape by itself is bad plan. An escape mechanism being an ultimate means its too long/shouldn't actually count as escape mechanism
You haven't played much malphite I take it? LOL
Also I was running armpen/ad or ad/ad on xin since I figured that damn attack speed steriod is up a lot of the time anyway but then again as is more efficient gold wise I just assumed it wasn't worth it for jungling but I havent tested it yet.
He was mostly a top laner for until I realized how fucking op he is everywhere so I just pick him for all the things jungle xin can't farm that fast without blue but he has ridiculous ganks so it makes up for it.
I'd just like to mention that at the end of preseason 3, on the NA server, I held by far the highest win rate on Xin at 65% with by far the most games played with close to 200 out of anyone above 2100. I started playing him when Dylan/Vayneauthority showed how OP he was top lane near the end of season 2. I'm posting this for posterity so that I will be remembered as a true hipster and not someone who jumped on the Xin jungle bandwagon after LCS. Thanks.
true hipsters don't need to flex their e-peen IMHO, but w/e floats your boat I guess. Xin's already been trending upwards in popularity too, I sincerely doubt that it will spike further rather than just continuing to trend upwards (he's just been showing up again and again in tournaments that are gradually getting more NA exposure).
Thanks for the build zulu, shit is wrecking people in norms lol.
Loving the new skin, Saint inspired me so much with his Xin manmodeness in LCS that I'm considering maining him jung, since I don't really have one besides Shaco.
On February 05 2013 18:49 Mogwai wrote: I just think Vi is all round a stronger jungler.
vi doesnt compare past the early game though nobody else can fuck up a whole team by just going balls deep
she does. they bring different things to the table... Xin's AoE initiate is stronger, but Vi can train down and destroy a single target much better and cleans up tanks at the end of fights much better. basically I think that Xin's probably slightly stronger as a competitive jungler and that Vi is slightly stronger as a solo queue jungler, but they're both undoubtably ahead of the curve across the board.
On February 08 2013 17:01 zulu_nation8 wrote: I'd just like to mention that at the end of preseason 3, on the NA server, I held by far the highest win rate on Xin at 65% with by far the most games played with close to 200 out of anyone above 2100. I started playing him when Dylan/Vayneauthority showed how OP he was top lane near the end of season 2. I'm posting this for posterity so that I will be remembered as a true hipster and not someone who jumped on the Xin jungle bandwagon after LCS. Thanks.
I had 66% win rate using jungle xin with 170 games at 1400 elo if that counts for anything :$
from my experience vi usually gets fed early game and then pretty much sucks later and we end up losing. Her ult is nice but her E seems pretty shitty, her Q is alright but awkward and her denting blows is good for cleaning up a fight but its hard to train targets without CC. I dont see how you can say she trains targets better than xin because xin has a slow and a knockup on like 4 second cooldowns effectively has higher base damages a similar steroid. (15% armor reduce 80% as vs 3.33% + 1% per 100 ad max hp phys damage per hit +50% as)
xin also has a much better tank steriod for teamfights.
Have you ever been an ADC against a lategame Vi? If they're smart, there's not an awful lot you can do. She ults you, you have no recourse but to get knocked up for 1.25 seconds, then if you try to get away after that, she still has vault breaker to catch up. 1.25 seconds is an eternity when you're an ADC, chances are you're already dead from whatever followup the enemy team has. It's pretty similar to Malphite ult, only you cannot get away from it (unless you're Fizz).
Xin has to get 100 range closer to use his charge, and if you have a blink he's pretty easy to get away from after he uses it. And unlike Vi he can be cced at any point.
I'd much rather have to deal with a Xin Zhao as an ADC, at least in solo que.
On February 09 2013 22:05 Slayer91 wrote: from my experience vi usually gets fed early game and then pretty much sucks later and we end up losing. Her ult is nice but her E seems pretty shitty, her Q is alright but awkward and her denting blows is good for cleaning up a fight but its hard to train targets without CC. I dont see how you can say she trains targets better than xin because xin has a slow and a knockup on like 4 second cooldowns effectively has higher base damages a similar steroid. (15% armor reduce 80% as vs 3.33% + 1% per 100 ad max hp phys damage per hit +50% as)
xin also has a much better tank steriod for teamfights.
Her E is a double attack reset, her Q is far from awkward after you've played her like 3 games and is a directional dash on a super short CD that does 350 base damage (my bad for releasing this btw, I swear it was harder to hit before the initial bug fix pass), and her passive is pretty bullshit come lategame in terms of tanking (it's like a Malphite passive that will proc between 2 and 5 times over the course of a fight, rather than just being up once).
I don't really need to go into why she trains down targets better as it was already touched on a couple posts up. Vi will stay on you through 1-2 flashes no problem, but Xin can be foiled with 1 flash + a slow. I don't know what the Vis in your games are building if they're dying before they can ult a carry, but they're doing it wrong, she can essentially itemize 2-3 half offensive items (mallet, wit's, wriggle's) and perform her role optimally while being super beefy.
I think you should try to play some games as Vi dude, she's pretty crazy and if you're perception of her is that negative, I'm guessing Eu's sleeping on her a bit and you can probably ride the freelo train a bit. Plus she's fun cause she Falcon Punches people.
On February 09 2013 17:29 Mogwai wrote: warring kingdoms Xin is Zhao Yun btw. my only regret is that we don't have a character who's model lends itself to a Guan Yu skin.
They should've done Lu Bu Hecarim so we can have Guan Yu Jarvan ... or Nasus
I've been running jungle Xin with 10% AS reds and rest AD marks + quints. No AS was a tad too slow but 15% AS is unnecessary. Maybe someone could mathcraft it or test it at 4-6% AS but that much optimization isn't really worth it.
On February 09 2013 17:29 Mogwai wrote: warring kingdoms Xin is Zhao Yun btw. my only regret is that we don't have a character who's model lends itself to a Guan Yu skin.
They should've done Lu Bu Hecarim so we can have Guan Yu Jarvan ... or Nasus
I've been running jungle Xin with 10% AS reds and rest AD marks + quints. No AS was a tad too slow but 15% AS is unnecessary. Maybe someone could mathcraft it or test it at 4-6% AS but that much optimization isn't really worth it.
You like AD over Armor Pen? I usually do 10% AS and the rest armor pen, seems to be pretty good as with 12 ArPen you fully penetrate creep armor (I think).
On February 09 2013 17:29 Mogwai wrote: warring kingdoms Xin is Zhao Yun btw. my only regret is that we don't have a character who's model lends itself to a Guan Yu skin.
They should've done Lu Bu Hecarim so we can have Guan Yu Jarvan ... or Nasus
I've been running jungle Xin with 10% AS reds and rest AD marks + quints. No AS was a tad too slow but 15% AS is unnecessary. Maybe someone could mathcraft it or test it at 4-6% AS but that much optimization isn't really worth it.
Maybe when they update Garen to make him look less silly, he might fit. I would love Wukong the most though
Btw, it's confirmed that Zhao Yun is actually invincible :/
On February 10 2013 01:13 Slayer91 wrote: the enemy team always kills her way before she can ult an ad carry or at least hurts her enough that she cant do it safely.
myabe i just have a curse when vis on my team i always lose and its just a big cooincidence
If they build glass cannon Xj9 style yeah, they'll suck late game. But that's more because of the players than the champ, Xj9 builds with winning the game early in mind and will alter his item path is something screws up, the Vi players I've seen (she's pretty popular EUW from what I've seen Smash, at least since Xj9 became popular; not as much as Xin/Lee/etc. but I see her pretty often) just mimic him and build full damage then don't understand why if I can survive the burst I'll truck them.
It really depends, some of the higher elo soloQ warriors, Farfain comes to mind (hope I am not missspelling his name) but also a few others build Vi almost purely tanky, something like brutalizer into warmogs randuins or something like that. And yeah, she's pretty strong that way, she faces competition from the likes of Xin and Jarvan though, hard to tell whether she is an universally awesome pick or not.
She is awesome, she falcon punches and dunks people, what more do you need? Then again, Xin is awesome too... and this is the Xin thread, so I won't derail any further.
I think its important to note that ever since the spirit of the elder lizard buff happened Xj9 has been building Vi very differently, with his usual item progression changed to brutalizer -> elder lizard -> warmog instead of brutalizer -> bloodthirster -> moar damage.
On February 11 2013 07:15 koreasilver wrote: I think its important to note that ever since the spirit of the elder lizard buff happened Xj9 has been building Vi very differently, with his usual item progression changed to brutalizer -> elder lizard -> warmog instead of brutalizer -> bloodthirster -> moar damage.
Last post on the subject from me since this is the Xin thread and not the Vi thread, but the net result is that he's still spending 4k on offensive stats before investing in anything that actually makes him useful instead of spending like 6+K. In other words, it's still really dumb IMO. Just follow her rec items, I wrote them, gg.
On February 09 2013 17:29 Mogwai wrote: warring kingdoms Xin is Zhao Yun btw. my only regret is that we don't have a character who's model lends itself to a Guan Yu skin.
They should've done Lu Bu Hecarim so we can have Guan Yu Jarvan ... or Nasus
I've been running jungle Xin with 10% AS reds and rest AD marks + quints. No AS was a tad too slow but 15% AS is unnecessary. Maybe someone could mathcraft it or test it at 4-6% AS but that much optimization isn't really worth it.
You like AD over Armor Pen? I usually do 10% AS and the rest armor pen, seems to be pretty good as with 12 ArPen you fully penetrate creep armor (I think).
Most creeps are 6-8 armor. Big wolf is 15 and buffs are 20 but w/ Xin passive you really only need 5 arpen and rest AD if you're trying to maximize damage vs jungle creeps.
Full ArPen is for better scaling damage vs champions though someone mathcrafted it and it doesn't really break even with AD until later in the game
Xin passive and 21 offensive should be fine, just run ad quints and reds. armpen is better later sure but early jungling speed is the kind of shit that snowballs and in the early game AD trucks people with your Q at level 1. Once you get level 5 Q and your R then armpen is a lot better but that's something you can worry about more with top lane xin.
On February 09 2013 17:29 Mogwai wrote: warring kingdoms Xin is Zhao Yun btw. my only regret is that we don't have a character who's model lends itself to a Guan Yu skin.
They should've done Lu Bu Hecarim so we can have Guan Yu Jarvan ... or Nasus
I've been running jungle Xin with 10% AS reds and rest AD marks + quints. No AS was a tad too slow but 15% AS is unnecessary. Maybe someone could mathcraft it or test it at 4-6% AS but that much optimization isn't really worth it.
You like AD over Armor Pen? I usually do 10% AS and the rest armor pen, seems to be pretty good as with 12 ArPen you fully penetrate creep armor (I think).
I mathed out the armor pen needed for max jungle damage in a previous GD thread.
No matter what you have 15% reduction from passive, 8% penetration from Weapon Expertise mastery (unless you don't put at least 9 points in offense, which I'm going to ignore).
Then your options are:
5 additional armor pen from Sunder mastery if you go 21/x/x (technically 19/x/x but w/e)
up to 19.2 additional armor pen from running full armor pen marks/quints
I've seen many jungle Xin's get an early Brutalizer, giving you an additional 10 armor pen (but of course this won't be available on your first few jungle clears)
non-buff jungle monsters have anywhere between 5-15 armor. Both buffs have 20 armor. Dragon and Baron are N/A, since they are immune to resist-shredding effects. So 20 armor pen is what we're shooting for to max jungle damage
20 * .85 (15% from passive) = 17 17 * .92 (8% from Weapon Expertise mastery) = 15.64, that's how much armor pen you need from runes/masteries/items. 3 points in Sunder + Brutalizer is 15, so that's pretty damn close to true damage. This means you can go 21/9/0 and full AD marks/quints, and still basically do true damage in the jungle as soon as you finish your Brutalizer.
Or, what I do is go 9/21/0 and run almost full armor pen marks/quints. This lets me do true damage in the jungle on my first clear, and helps me scale very well into late-game for when I need to dive and kill carries. They're both good, it depends on whether you want to build Xin for tanking or being an assassin.
As for AS runes, I don't recommend it. Level 1 W gives you 40% AS, an extra 10-15% from runes/masteries just won't help much comparatively.
most of the jungle phase is over after you get a brutalizer
and all mobs dont have 20 armour most of your clearing wont be buffs since you smite them anyway wasting armpen isnt that good an idea and AD is better early so I just rune full ad
doing "true damage" and acting like you're amazing isn't a good way to think. Think about the damage % increase and compare to the % increase you get from more AD. Q gets bonus from AD and early on you have low AD so the % increase for getting ad is higher while later on when you have high base damage on Q and R and base ad suddenly armpen is much better.
most of the jungle phase is over after you get a brutalizer
and all mobs dont have 20 armour most of your clearing wont be buffs since you smite them anyway wasting armpen isnt that good an idea and AD is better early so I just rune full ad
doing "true damage" and acting like you're amazing isn't a good way to think. Think about the damage % increase and compare to the % increase you get from more AD. Q gets bonus from AD and early on you have low AD so the % increase for getting ad is higher while later on when you have high base damage on Q and R and base ad suddenly armpen is much better.
I'm not sure exactly what you're trying to argue here. The only thing I get out of this is you think armor pen runes are a waste, which they're not.
He's arguing that "this way I deal true damage to the jungle monsters" doesn't amount to much if you don't know what the alternative is. Dropping buffs from 15.64 armour to 0 is a 15.64% damage increase; getting 15+ AD from runes, however, is more than 15% more damage because you have less than 100 base AD early on, and because it also works off Xin's Q (total bonus AD ratio is 0.75, 3.75 if you count the three autos in it, your ArPen runes won't work on it at all if you have 0 bonus AD). So if your goal is to blaze through the jungle on your first clear, full AD runes probably work better.
Since once you get your madred's+boots+bruta laning phase should be nearly over (I guess it's truer the higher you are, in Silver II it still wasn't exactly true for me ) then the speed at which you can clear the jungle suddenly matters a lot less, hence discounting the "with bruta I deal true damage to monsters".
So Teut's argument is that ArPen runes are better late, but since you want an early advantage, esp. relatively to clear speed, you should run AD runes with Xin.
But you don't need to run Armor Pen for both Reds and Quints to have 15 Armor Pen. You can just run it on reds, so you're getting 12 flat armor pen, 15% reduction (challenge) and 8% armor pen (9 offense) along with 6.75 AD. 6.75 AD + 12 ArPen gives you the same 15% damage increase, but you're only losing 8.5 AD, which is a total DPS increase on jungle creeps even at level 1 - provided that they have 15 armor.
Little creeps have 8 armor, wolf has 9, golems have 12 buffs have 20, and wraith has 15. YMMV. I like armor pen considering his kit has armor reduction and so pen is useful at all stages of the game, including when I don't buy a brutalizer (I prefer locket first much of the time)
Anything past 8 armour pen is always somewhere wasted in the jungle, despite already being slightly worse than AD for jungling. Since you get 5 armour pen and have ~22% build in armour pen from passive/offensive tree if you get 21/9 masteries it seems easier to just have a full ad page and have optimal clearing with no stats wasted at any point of the game. Armourpen becomes better later but you can invest in it in the form of brutalizer and ghostblade (which most people dont seem to be getting and just rushing full tank)
also I have tried full tank builds on xin or BC builds instead of max cdr ghostblade/tanky builds and my experience is that the higher cds offset any damage increase from getting more ad easily and the lack of mobility and tank dps limits your options greatly. (if you dive carries you take way more damage because they can stand and fight more often and you wait longer to get away, if you don't you dont do as much damage to their tanks and aren't an immediate threat afterwards to their ad if your ult is down compared to a 40% cdr ghostblade xin who can jump you every 3 seconds and can chase down a kill if you're not fed)
i mention this because bly infiltrated eu and was saying he always feels like he just needs more tank stats on xin while I always stuck to 2.5-khp with 140ish resists and then would over get more damage like IE instead of warmogs and never felt too squishy.
most of the jungle phase is over after you get a brutalizer
and all mobs dont have 20 armour most of your clearing wont be buffs since you smite them anyway wasting armpen isnt that good an idea and AD is better early so I just rune full ad
doing "true damage" and acting like you're amazing isn't a good way to think. Think about the damage % increase and compare to the % increase you get from more AD. Q gets bonus from AD and early on you have low AD so the % increase for getting ad is higher while later on when you have high base damage on Q and R and base ad suddenly armpen is much better.
I'm not sure exactly what you're trying to argue here. The only thing I get out of this is you think armor pen runes are a waste, which they're not.
Good argument. I explained how armourpen is partially wasted at least at the levels youre investing (diamond gets 8 armour pen on his xin page and gets 0/21/9 i think, you only need 2-3 for 21/9) and then you're like "lol no wat r u saying?"
you can say its worth running armourpen reds since the clear difference isn't large enough to justify being weaker later but its hard to measure this kind of thing, but definitely armour pen is weaker for early clearing. also the difference for getting more armour pen is from 10.64 armour to zero any more is definitely useless in the jungle whichs means you probably want to get at least a few ad reds.
so like, I still have no idea how to fucking level xin jungle.
is w/e quickest start? do I max Q or E if I'm giving blue away? If I'm keeping blue do I max E?
everybody has conflicting thoughts, like I thought mogwai advocated maxing e a few pages back but i watched a recent game of his maxing Q. I confuzzled.
also, is elder lizard acceptable or should you always get wriggles? i just did a random dry run custom and maxing E seemed pretty damn quick without wriggles, but then again i wasn't managing mana
On December 22 2012 07:14 Mogwai wrote: quick Q vs. E leveling lesson time.
Q CD: 9/8/7/6/5 Damage/hit: 15/30/45/60/75 Total Damage: 45/90/135/180/225
E CD: 13/12/11/10/9 Damage: 70/110/150/190/230 Slow: 25/30/35/40/45%
ok, so pretty straight forward right? Q's lower CD, higher damage/level, so max Q over E, right? this is the obvious answer and what 80% of Xin players are doing without any further thought. however, it's a shallow analysis that misses out on optimizing Xin's damage over realistic engagement times. here's where the simple analysis falls apart:
1. Q does more damage than E. irrefutably true, however, E's damage is point & click at 600 range, instantaneous, AoE and magic on an otherwise physical kit, all of which are useful attributes. in a single burst cycle of 1 E and all three hits of Q, Q realistically only slightly outperforms E on average due to armor/mres differential and in scenarios where it's optimal to prime Q to the 3rd hit before Eing in, E actually does significantly higher damage.
2. Q's CD is lower than E, ergo, putting your damage on Q nets you more dps in the long run than E. swing and a miss due to how Xin's CD mechanics actually work. Q goes on CD after the third hit, meaning that even if you have a 1.5 attack speed, you're going to have a 1.3-2.0 second delay between the cast on your Q and when it's cooldown starts ticking, regardless of any other stats. this delay accounts for part of the bridged gap between effective CDs on Q and E, and the other part is pretty simply coming from E's CD being effectively reduced by 3 from the Q hits. Even if you're at a high pre level 13 attack speed and have no CDR, a leveled E's effective CD is lower than the effective CD on a leveled Q. Not to mention that as you build CDR, the effective CD gap only widens in favor of E (since E's base CD is higher, it scales down faster with CDR).
So bam, end of discussion right? Again, wrong, this doesn't even finish off my argument as to why leveling E is better, despite the fact that this should be enough to convince you. The rest of the argument in favor of E has to do with ability flow over realistic scenarios and stickiness. let's look at a level 9 Xin with 1.0 AS and 0% CDR, note that this is absolute worst case with the E maxing Xin, as his cycles improve faster with CDR. In cases like this, regardless of skill leveling, the burst opening looks like this:
0.00 E 0.25 auto attack 0.50 Q1 1.50 Q2 2.50 Q3 3.50 auto attack
now, if you've maxed Q, at this point, E has 5.5 seconds left on it's CD, Q has 4 seconds left on it's CD and we've dealt 335 + 5.6 AD damage. if instead you've maxed E, at this point, E has 2.5 seconds left on it's CD, Q has 7 seconds left on it's CD and we've dealt 320 + 5.6 AD damage. By maxing E, we've drastically increased the damage we do in a 6-8 second burst because in the course of our standard combo, we've added in another full ability (and it's the one who's damage we've been leveling no less). It's also allowed us to double dash and guarantee our damage better via a much stronger slow %. This might look like I'm weighting this comparison in favor of E by taking such a short window after the initial burst, but in realistic scenarios, this is all you have with Xin. In a Q maxing scenario, your opponent has 4 seconds to put auto-attack range between you and him before you can Q him again, and 5.5 seconds to put E range between you and him. In an E maxing scenario, he only has 2.5 seconds to put a full E range between you two before you re-engage with a 45% slow.
So yea, max E on Xin. 3 levels of Q for opening up in the jungle is good just because of the mana efficiency of the damage, but maxing that E drastically increases your ability to chase down and butcher people after that point.
Last point in this post is that early levels in Q are efficient for your damage in the jungle because using E on camps drains your mana too fast, so I'm going 3 early points in Q, then favoring E over Q from there.
if you're getting blues e is better for clearing if you're ganking a lot e is a bit better but its not hugely significant without blue until you get hide cdr smashes 3 points in q seems smart since you get max e by level 10
tbh unless you max W there isn't much you can do wrong while leveling xin :p Depending on your style you might profit from 3 points in Q (heavy emphasis on farming until 6, personally I consider that a waste, Xin is one of, if not the strongest, gankers at level 3-5.
I consider 2 points in Q enough to clear the jungle, but taking E at level 3 and rushing for a fast gank works as well, just look at your lanes and see what you can do. If everything is pushed out and hard to gank just go for the second point in Q and continue clearing.
For midgame fights you should definitly have at least 3 levels in E, but unless the game is very rushed you should reach level 10 by then so you could have it maxed.
Far more important is that you invest your early gold well into fast items that pay off. In SoloQ what i have found the most annoying about common Xin builds is that they absolutely ignore the Kindlegem. I've had 3 games in a row where people picked Xin and then built up to 6k worth of damage before they bought a sliver of health... Yes you can get the same CDR and more damage from the brutaliser, but that item costs nearly 500g more. Which means your item timing (and yes at those early levels against people who might not have backed even once so far I consider a Kindlegem a timing) is most likely delayed for 2 ganks.
Kindlegem after boots 1 and madreds seems so logical to me that I cannot quite figure out what they are thinking...
You overstate the power of CDR and health. The huge damage increase from Brutalizer will do far more for your early ganks than the 200 health from Kindlegem.
On February 27 2013 05:25 Tooplark wrote: You overstate the power of CDR and health. The huge damage increase from Brutalizer will do far more for your early ganks than the 200 health from Kindlegem.
Sorry but I cannot express how much I disagree with you, without sounding like a full out flame. I'll try to keep my tone civil.
There are 3 limiting factors to early game ganks: 1) room to move within before he reaches the turret. 2) CC available (both coming from yourselve and from the enemy), 3) damage needed to kill him.
Considering we are talking about early game item timings at most you are level 5-7 for the ganks we are talking about. Base damage of abilities is still king, mostly because no one has afforded any defensive items yet. The Kindlegem gives you the same cdr than brutaliser (again, I repeat it gives you the same CDR nearly 2 minutes earlier than your bruta would). Neither item gives you movespeed.
Basically my calculation is: can I kill him without him reaching the turret at all? Only if his flash is down in most cases. With the Kindlegem I can almost certainly tank up to 2 shots more of the turret than you can. Meaning, it increases the room available for a gank by at least a full tower hit.
Again you are most likely going to rush the brutaliser (otherwise the discussion makes little sense at all). Meaning your locket (my next item timing) is increased by 1337 gold for a increase in damage. Personally (and frankly that has remained true in quite a few Xin games by now) I don't need to do more damage early on. The base abilities do enough as long as you can stick to the enemy. With CDR you can stick better (though the chance of getting 2 Es off at level 3-5 is still low, unless the enemy is massively overextended).
The only case where I buy a brutaliser is if an invade of theirs blows up in their face and I get a triple kill to start the game off (happens rarely at best). Otherwise straight up rushing the locket gives me far more of what I need in the early game (health, armor, cdr + kickass active).
I'll buy the brutaliser after the locket if I can afford it (game going well) to increase my cdr even further and to add some arpen to my build. At that point I feel the item pays off. Before that? Some health to actually deliver the damage you might be able to do is far more important.
On February 27 2013 05:25 Tooplark wrote: You overstate the power of CDR and health. The huge damage increase from Brutalizer will do far more for your early ganks than the 200 health from Kindlegem.
wat cdr and hp are xins best stats without a doubt i like brutalizer as much as the next guy but i wont do the dps and ehp calculations for you but HP is by far the best stat for ehp for pretty much anyone with good scaling mr/armour and runes for them, up to around 2-2.5k hp and cdr functions as mobility as well as damage which is also worth a lot offensively and defensively. i get brutalizer often though because its cost effective as hell because armpen is the 3rd best stat on xin and AD is still very good on him.
Yes, hp and cdr are the most important stats on Xin, but when you're strictly discussing ganking, brutalizer does a lot more for your early ganks than kindlegem does.
by the time you have madreds and brutalizer a: ganking phase is over/nearly over b: any counter gank or whatever you get screwed because hp is far more effective than a bit of ad early on especially if their mid can 1 combo you you could have madreds and locket for only 700 more and be far better in fights and in duels and slightly weaker in ganks but who cares you're xin
For snowballing, brut vs locket. This is assuming you got 600+gold pre-6 from kills/assists/objectives and some lane tax as well. This means you can get razor+brut+boots with a ruby on its way in sub 10m. Otherwise there's not really an option between locket and brut.
Gank phase isn't over yet, so being able to essentially 100-0 any champion on the map is still useful.
As for survivability, at this point you'll probably be either equal or a level lower than mid/top. With some exceptions, you should generally not get bursted before killing somebody through ult resists and runes/masteries in 2v1 and 2v2.
If you can force objectives by killing the laners over and over, then brutalizer will be a better option, in addition to giving you control of the game. It's not a good buy unless you are already ahead, but it will keep the advantage as well as locket does, and gives a chance to completely go out of control, and singlehandedly carry games from the jungle.
you're still at a pretty big risk of having your momentum taken away with a quick shutdown if your 1k hp champ dies while locket minimizes risk and its not like people are surviving ganks if they let you E them without having an escape ready brutalizer or not
and once teamfights happen if you do get shut down and you're stuck with madreds ruby and boots instead of locket you're much weaker in something like an early dragon fight where you want to get in to ult 3-4 people to get a lot of resists without being insta gibbed on the way on
Anyone ever heard of or seen AP Xin before? A guy in one of my games did it a couple nights ago, we all thought he was troll but he ended up owning/carrying, went 16/2. He said he was healing for about 600hp at the end off his W passive, not to mention insane E damage. I think he rushed a malady and then went straight AP (dcap, zhonyas).
AP xin is a mixed bag. If the enemy team doesn't have a lot of burst or cc, or you catch them split so they can't focus him, he's pretty much ridiculous. loads of sustained damage when you get him built up a bit, heals for about 2-300 health a second, stupid amounts of CC and fight control.
Pick him against a comp with good sustained damage but low CC and burst and you'll have a good time
Pretty much what you said. Locket + randuins or locket + bulwark. Get brut or phage if you want a bit of damage. You only just need madreds usually, unless you plan on soloing dragon with wriggles.
I do like Triforce on Xin if I am really ahead and getting alot of kills, the speed boost pretty much does not allow the enemy to escape.
If you decide on spirit stone, you could go for ancient golem with boots of mobility.
On May 03 2013 08:02 Djin)ftw( wrote: Hm, so what do you pick now-a-days with jungle xin?
i usually went machete + 5, then madreds, boots, ward/pot, then locket; midgame:: locket, mercury treads, madreds/wriggles, giants belt.
For dmg I'd usually get a black cleaver, thats it. So the dmg mid/late game was pretty underwhelming.
So, anyone getting any spirit stone items? Jungle speed suffers massively, but spirit of the elder lizard is a nice item imho.
then get madreds and spirit stone
into locket/elder lizard into giants belt brutalizer or something ghostblade is better than BC just from my experience.
I like getting max cdr so i usually rune for 6% cdr on blues to hit 40% with that kind of build.
you can get away with less defensive items on xin if you can nearly one combo their ad and your E cd is a lot shorter if you get focused and need to E on someone out
getting trinity force doesn't make too much sense anymore when armpen is too good on him
On May 03 2013 08:02 Djin)ftw( wrote: Hm, so what do you pick now-a-days with jungle xin?
i usually went machete + 5, then madreds, boots, ward/pot, then locket; midgame:: locket, mercury treads, madreds/wriggles, giants belt.
For dmg I'd usually get a black cleaver, thats it. So the dmg mid/late game was pretty underwhelming.
So, anyone getting any spirit stone items? Jungle speed suffers massively, but spirit of the elder lizard is a nice item imho.
then get madreds and spirit stone
into locket/elder lizard into giants belt brutalizer or something ghostblade is better than BC just from my experience.
I like getting max cdr so i usually rune for 6% cdr on blues to hit 40% with that kind of build.
you can get away with less defensive items on xin if you can nearly one combo their ad and your E cd is a lot shorter if you get focused and need to E on someone out
getting trinity force doesn't make too much sense anymore when armpen is too good on him
wow, ghostblade. That might actually be a very good pick. I only build it once or twice on noc, but with xin it will prolly solve a lot of problems I have with xin. You go in, Q and E and then you get kited and cant get off the third Q and knockup. With the ms buff I can gank much better. Armor pen, 10% CDR, a bit of dmg and crit chance. Seems pretty good, I'll try that thanks. ^^
And yeah, I too think Triforce is not good on jungle xin. Too expensive. On top lane it rocks though, played as jayce vs a triforce xin, seemed pretty solid. Lots of burst
Yeah I had a discussion a while back with bly (zulu nation) when he played a ton of xin. He always said he felt like he needed to be tanky all the time while my previous experience was as xin you didn't because you were pretty mobile and a damage threat. Like I used to stop at around 2.6k hp and 40% cdr and get more damage against some comps. Once I was fed, and I had IE as well as ghostblade (think I had a warmogs so like 3k hp) and the enemy AD just finished warmogs, there was someone getting caught top and I went in behind their AD and killed him in like 4 seconds even though he just finished warmogs
Of course, in a team comp that is more about protecting their carry you want to build tankier, but often I find mobility and damage can be a decent substitute for tank stats in a lot of situations.
On April 20 2014 12:14 chalice wrote: if you have enough gold to buy a triforce on jungle xin is zeal or sheen better as the second part?
I'm tempted to go with zeal. On any gank where you open with charge, you'd only be getting 1 sheen proc usually because you open with WEQ all on CD, and R ASAP because it's %current HP damage. Gives you that extra bit of movement speed and attack speed to maybe get off that critical 3rd auto attack and the chance at a crit isn't too bad either.
If you have enough money to do that out of the jungle though, I'd honestly rather go for ghostblade for the even faster power timing.
yeah i've been getting sheen last, it just feels weird when you're used to only building tf on corki and lucian.
when i first started playing xin i was building ghostblade, but then i tried out triforce one game and it felt really nice. phage as a second item has some advantages over brutalizer in that you can really use the extra HP at that point in the game and the movement speed bonus does not hurt at all when you're trying to attack move with your Q active.
it's not rare to get 2 sheen procs in a gank and the extra mana is pretty helpful imo. it's close, but I prefer sheen over zeal when triforcing on Xin. the real truth is that I prefer just going ghostblade on him if I want a post FF offensive item.
I've had more success buying tanky items as my second/third item after Feral Flare than with buying further offensive boosts. Xin isn't very durable and he tends to get right in the middle of the action, and all that health regen from his W and FF isn't going to do much for you if you get burst down easily. I was pretty happy with Wits End on my latest against an AP-heavy team.
On April 25 2014 11:05 Black Paper Moon wrote: I've had more success buying tanky items as my second/third item after Feral Flare than with buying further offensive boosts. Xin isn't very durable and he tends to get right in the middle of the action, and all that health regen from his W and FF isn't going to do much for you if you get burst down easily. I was pretty happy with Wits End on my latest against an AP-heavy team.
That just depends on the game. If everyone is winning you can go attack item first, if one lane is losing and needs your babysitting you might want to go something like randuins first.
That nerf to 30 stacks for feral flare is really annoying though. 25 is the sweet spot but those lost 5 tend to be annoying to get because at this point there might be a lot of teamfights going on, and the team needs your support then.
On April 20 2014 20:29 Mogwai wrote: it's not rare to get 2 sheen procs in a gank and the extra mana is pretty helpful imo. it's close, but I prefer sheen over zeal when triforcing on Xin. the real truth is that I prefer just going ghostblade on him if I want a post FF offensive item.
Why? Is it for sticking power? If so, why not Blade?
On April 20 2014 20:29 Mogwai wrote: it's not rare to get 2 sheen procs in a gank and the extra mana is pretty helpful imo. it's close, but I prefer sheen over zeal when triforcing on Xin. the real truth is that I prefer just going ghostblade on him if I want a post FF offensive item.
Why? Is it for sticking power? If so, why not Blade?
cheaper, arpen, active for ganking power.
Yes blade helps you stick as well, but a ghostblade gank is almost as strong and it is cheaper, now if only the damn crit was a usefull stat it would be a great item.
If I'm snowballing heavily from a midgame fight I'll buy the brutaliser in addition to my flare before I build the 2 tank items (Banshee and Randuins, unless full AD team then its sunfire+randuins), so if the game goes long enough at some point I have to either sell my brutaliser or build it into an item, and ghostblade fits xin better than BC.
Personally I think he does enough damage that a blade second item simply delays his tank stats too much. I had a few games where I sat on a cutlass for a while, but I still think ghostblade is the more gold efficient choice.
Regarding triforce, obviously it might be a great second offensive item, but it simply is too expensive just like Botrk. By 20 minutes you need at least 1 tank item finished, ideally 1.5 (BV + wardens or Randuin + cowl), I haven't felt as if I could justify a Triforce except for the rare game where I go legendary before teamfights even start. Still even in that case I prefer buying tankstats and becomming unkillable.
On April 30 2014 03:48 DiracMonopole wrote: How do you feel about sword of the divine on xin? Autocrit on all q attacks.
Not sure if that was an honest question, but i'll answer it anyway. Personally I feel sword of the divine is always a waste. Yes 3 crits in a row sound nice, but first off Xin doesn't build IE so those 3 crits might not even be enough to oneshot someone.
In general there is no reason to build crit on Xin. I'll accept it as a byproduct of the Triforce simply because all other stats are great, but trying to play Xin as a tryndamere (meaning meele carry) is a recipe for disaster instead of a winning build.
Just as any other bruiser the question should be "how much offense can i build before I need to be tanky", there is no truly correct answer because it varies from game to game, but Sword of the Divine needs at least an IE as well to be halfway decent (and frankly if you want to go that route, build a phantom dancer instead). 3 Items offense is always too much. Better aim for a decent two item build (meaning synergy between your two items). So with flare as a given first item, you have 3 decent choices on Xin. Triforce and Botrk for the rich, ghostblade for the slightly cheaper option.
Unless I have a Lulu, Morg or Soraka, I feel very unsafe building a Feral Flare into Bork. Most of the time, I don't even get the FF'd upgraded till the game's practically over. Xin just doesn't strike me as a farming jungler compared to Noc/Shyvanna.
On April 30 2014 06:27 chalice wrote: with xin you're supposed to stack your flare on champions.
yeah but until the next patch arrives (where it becomes weaker) only big monsters count for the initial transformation. Generally I try to finish my flare around 18-19 minutes, that might be 5 minutes slower than udyr or shyvana, but my impact on ganks and lanes is much higher in the meantime.
Still at best I'll do 3 seperate ganks before my flare is done (with exceptions, if the enemy laner overextends a lot after he already burned his summoners, I might decide to forget flare and camp that lane for 3 minutes straight, such stupidity deserves to be punished).
I just picked up Xin and omfg he's stupidly fun. Well i'm pretty meh jungler (Plat 1/it's my worst role), but i think i found the jungler for me. I think im pretty good early game and i don't think i've ever played a stronger early game jungler before. I really wanna stick with him and learn more.
I currently use my generic jungle runes MS/Aspd/Armor/Scaling MR. Seems to me 21/9/0 is the way to go. I go Lizard/Bruta(ghostblade when it seems right)/Tanky
I guess im mostly asking for a rune setup and any Xin specific stuff,
On July 15 2014 14:18 Ethelis wrote: I just picked up Xin and omfg he's stupidly fun. Well i'm pretty meh jungler (Plat 1/it's my worst role), but i think i found the jungler for me. I think im pretty good early game and i don't think i've ever played a stronger early game jungler before. I really wanna stick with him and learn more.
I currently use my generic jungle runes MS/Aspd/Armor/Scaling MR. Seems to me 21/9/0 is the way to go. I go Lizard/Bruta(ghostblade when it seems right)/Tanky
I guess im mostly asking for a rune setup and any Xin specific stuff,
AS quints, AD red, armor yellows, MR/Scaling blues all fine, never even bothered to buy MS runes ever so no comment on those.
Xin is an all-in jungler, and known as "mini-pantheon" Very good at early map control, can carry with right itemization, terrible when behind, but not as bad as some since he can farm the jungler no sweat.
Lizard + bruta is amazing mid game, but probably even better if have lots of points into Q already - more burst, less sustained damage. Feral Flare does it job, and scales hard if you're thinking of carrying. Its decent when dueling opponent jungler if hes also AD
TF is better than Botrk in terms of carrying potential, but high stacked FF + botrk is annoying as fark.
Obviously Randuin banshee and w/e tank item you can dump on - turn him into Jax. Max Q vs Max E - Max E is lane gank heavy, max Q is better for dueling. Both reduce cooldowns but having Q faster can also mean your other skills are up faster, but other than that its really just personal pref. I like getting a couple points into Q pre 6 since I normally run into Lee Sin - yeah you want to out duel that blind dude otherwise your jungle wont be safe.
So which is better on jungle Xin: Feral Flare or Ancient Lizard?
Does Xin need the mana sustain from the SS?
Is it ever worth it to just sit on Madreds and go for early combat stats from brutalizer? (Upgrade it later since it still counts for FF stacks). I was thinking in terms of if Xin doesn't need the mana sustain from SS then he could get Madreds early but then go for a fast bruta so he can keep up the gank pressure. Instead of rushing FF I'm thinking about waiting until mid-game to upgrade it since you won't be power farming much but you'll still have it for mid-game dragon/baron. Something like Madreds>Boots>Bruta>FF instead of straight FF rush.
Each point in Q: -1 s CD, at most +45 damage. Each point in E: -1 s CD, +35 damage, 5% slow.
Considering lower CD on E is much more important (second E to re gap close) and you're more likely to get 2 E's than 2 Q's (70 dmg vs 45, you often need the second E to land the 3rd hit of Q anyway, and the Cd only starts after the 3rd hit) E is always superior.
Xin should usually be played aiming for max CDR, so you can E-Q every 3 seconds (+perma W 40-80% attack speed) giving you a lot of flexibility. Trinity is good though. I rune 10% CDR. I usually go lizard/brualizer or lizard/CDR boots for 35%/40% CDR and then go hexdrinker for mr and then randuins or warmogs. For more damage you finish ghostblade, get trinity, or go LW. For tank you want randuins/warmogs maybe atmas or something.
As top lane you can get spirit visage and frozen heart for options for items to replace the loss of lizard CDR and for laning phase.
BoTRK is pretty meh, you can't All-in that well in teamfights realistically, you can do a lot more by like, E Q knock up a tank, run back, run in on a squishy, he flashes out you escape to E back on some tank or E to chase him and get further away from their team the lifesteal is useless on it anyway Trinity at least provides burst damage and consistent movement speed, both are really strong.
On July 16 2014 02:08 Slayer91 wrote: Each point in Q: -1 s CD, at most +45 damage. Each point in E: -1 s CD, +35 damage, 5% slow.
Considering lower CD on E is much more important (second E to re gap close) and you're more likely to get 2 E's than 2 Q's (70 dmg vs 45, you often need the second E to land the 3rd hit of Q anyway, and the Cd only starts after the 3rd hit) E is always superior.
Xin should usually be played aiming for max CDR, so you can E-Q every 3 seconds (+perma W 40-80% attack speed) giving you a lot of flexibility. Trinity is good though. I rune 10% CDR. I usually go lizard/brualizer or lizard/CDR boots for 35%/40% CDR and then go hexdrinker for mr and then randuins or warmogs. For more damage you finish ghostblade, get trinity, or go LW. For tank you want randuins/warmogs maybe atmas or something.
As top lane you can get spirit visage and frozen heart for options for items to replace the loss of lizard CDR and for laning phase.
BoTRK is pretty meh, you can't All-in that well in teamfights realistically, you can do a lot more by like, E Q knock up a tank, run back, run in on a squishy, he flashes out you escape to E back on some tank or E to chase him and get further away from their team the lifesteal is useless on it anyway Trinity at least provides burst damage and consistent movement speed, both are really strong.
That's interesting. In what situation would you get CDR boots? In my few games i've gone bruta first because i've happened to recall with just enough gold to buy it outright (would get lizard otherwise). Would i get CDR boots if i can't get a quick bruta after lizard?
I wanna get this out of the way as well, when you go in to fight do you EWQ or WEQ? I've been doing EWQ and it feels weird.
If you don't need mercs that badly, going CDR boots into something like phage/hexdrinker/randuins-->is probably better. You have 40% cdr straight away and can focus on whatever other stats you need most then. I like brualizer and ghostblade too though, so I'm not totally sure when its worth getting tabi over CDR boots
I go EWQ or EQW going W before E isn't great because at best you lose some time on it and at worst you waste it and don't quite get the range for E. Normally you use W before Q for the cd reduce but if you are trying to make sure you get the Q off instantly I guess its okay to use it just after.
Hmm, okay. I'll play around with him more and try different stuff like Trinity.
I've never tried runeing for CDR, with Xin im guessing you'd be real terror with the CDR and 2nd blue. Would that be "optimal" in general? Would you run that even vs an Elise?
I don't really see what their jungler has got much to do with it, its unlikely you're going to meet that much early on and even then like slightly more MR vs slightly more damage probably won't make much of a difference.
If they have a lot of AP you can go lizard-->hexdrinker+mercs-->spirit visage or something.
On July 16 2014 02:59 Ethelis wrote: Hmm, okay. I'll play around with him more and try different stuff like Trinity.
I've never tried runeing for CDR, with Xin im guessing you'd be real terror with the CDR and 2nd blue. Would that be "optimal" in general? Would you run that even vs an Elise?
Unless Elise is behind/skills down/low hp Im not sure you want to fight her - its either a waste of time or potentially suicidal. Her itemization ranges from insta-gib combo to "so fucking tanky just ignore fuck that frozen heart oh god stop shooting cumshots at me"
Cdr runes 5%, mastery 5%, 14% AS from quints..well why the fuck not just try it Ive tried messing around with Iceborn gaunt on him too - its pretty fucking annoying Time to try out max CDR xin I guess.
Both flare and lizard are nice, sitll havent really chose either. Flare does allow you to solo that dragon faster tho A_A
I don't rune AS I go armpen/ad mix AS is pretty meh later you get so much for free and I don't think its that much better in jungle I get 10% from rune 5% from mastery so its 25% with lizard, 35% with blue//brutalizer and 40% with cdr boots
its obviously really bad if you're behind, because you won't survive enough to make ti worth anything, but xin kinda sucks from behind anyway
On July 16 2014 02:08 Slayer91 wrote: Each point in Q: -1 s CD, at most +45 damage. Each point in E: -1 s CD, +35 damage, 5% slow.
Considering lower CD on E is much more important (second E to re gap close) and you're more likely to get 2 E's than 2 Q's (70 dmg vs 45, you often need the second E to land the 3rd hit of Q anyway, and the Cd only starts after the 3rd hit) E is always superior.
Xin should usually be played aiming for max CDR, so you can E-Q every 3 seconds (+perma W 40-80% attack speed) giving you a lot of flexibility. Trinity is good though. I rune 10% CDR. I usually go lizard/brualizer or lizard/CDR boots for 35%/40% CDR and then go hexdrinker for mr and then randuins or warmogs. For more damage you finish ghostblade, get trinity, or go LW. For tank you want randuins/warmogs maybe atmas or something.
As top lane you can get spirit visage and frozen heart for options for items to replace the loss of lizard CDR and for laning phase.
BoTRK is pretty meh, you can't All-in that well in teamfights realistically, you can do a lot more by like, E Q knock up a tank, run back, run in on a squishy, he flashes out you escape to E back on some tank or E to chase him and get further away from their team the lifesteal is useless on it anyway Trinity at least provides burst damage and consistent movement speed, both are really strong.
Dayum exactly what i do. Tried feral flare and botrk out but CDR is simply better than an aspd oriented xin. Never understood why people wanted to play xin like a poor mans yi with feral flare/botrk. He just gets kited and he is way to squishy for that without items. Yi atleast gains survivability through his high damage and Q
I always felt like madreds leaves you a bit mana starved if you want to jungle fast and in between ganks.
On July 16 2014 02:08 Slayer91 wrote: Each point in Q: -1 s CD, at most +45 damage. Each point in E: -1 s CD, +35 damage, 5% slow.
Considering lower CD on E is much more important (second E to re gap close) and you're more likely to get 2 E's than 2 Q's (70 dmg vs 45, you often need the second E to land the 3rd hit of Q anyway, and the Cd only starts after the 3rd hit) E is always superior.
Xin should usually be played aiming for max CDR, so you can E-Q every 3 seconds (+perma W 40-80% attack speed) giving you a lot of flexibility. Trinity is good though. I rune 10% CDR. I usually go lizard/brualizer or lizard/CDR boots for 35%/40% CDR and then go hexdrinker for mr and then randuins or warmogs. For more damage you finish ghostblade, get trinity, or go LW. For tank you want randuins/warmogs maybe atmas or something.
As top lane you can get spirit visage and frozen heart for options for items to replace the loss of lizard CDR and for laning phase.
BoTRK is pretty meh, you can't All-in that well in teamfights realistically, you can do a lot more by like, E Q knock up a tank, run back, run in on a squishy, he flashes out you escape to E back on some tank or E to chase him and get further away from their team the lifesteal is useless on it anyway Trinity at least provides burst damage and consistent movement speed, both are really strong.
Dayum exactly what i do. Tried feral flare and botrk out but CDR is simply better than an aspd oriented xin. Never understood why people wanted to play xin like a poor mans yi with feral flare/botrk. He just gets kited and he is way to squishy for that without items. Yi atleast gains survivability through his high damage and Q
I always felt like madreds leaves you a bit mana starved if you want to jungle fast and in between ganks.
1-2 mana pots each time you back and don't use E to farm. Should solve any mana problems you're having.
you should be maxing E and using it to farm. It's by far the best clearing spell you have. With CDR runes and masteries and Q cdr its super short by level 7 or so. His early clear before that is pretty slow but I guess at least you have decent ganks.
Im starting to hate FF. Sure, its crazy strong mid-late game, but pre 20th minute mark (usually when it finishes) its fucking weak as hell. You lose duels vs opponent junglers who go lizard elder and the damage just feels super lack luster, which in turn, makes you feel like you arent really controlling the map as a Xin Zhao should be doing early game. I recognize the sudden boost in damage once it switches to FF right at the 20th minute mark, and it serves as its own mini Sword of the Occult and becomes a crazy snowball item, but Lizard-Brut-TF Xin is scary enough, and Lizard just gives so much more early game.
I have mained Xin for two seasons and I am excited to see that some other people actually play him! I want to plead with you, however, to not ever build feral flare on Xin. I sigh in relief whenever I see an opposing Xin build Wriggle's because I know he will be meaningless for a long time. Even at FF's peak of being super imba, Xin wasn't the man for the job. He farms the jungle too slow to get fast stacks and it gimps his incredible dueling power. You were just better off building flare on faster clearing junglers like Nocturne and Master Yi. I also think you need the mana sustain and the cdr from sotel.
I'm curious how people feel about tank Xin. To me, it usually feels awful. I've tried all sorts of builds on him, but nothing compares to a Trinity Force rush. I go back and forth about Brutalizer before Trinity Force. But I often find myself needing to go tank because top is a squishy or the other team has too much burst and cc for me to do anything in fights. I find myself usually losing these games. Lacking the ability to delete carries turns me into a decent peel machine but it doesn't do enough. Maybe it has something to do with stronger ADCs and weaker Randuin's...but it just feels like tank Xin is a bad move overall. Like I should communicate in champ select and make sure top will be tanky enough, avoid 5v5s until i can finish enough items, but always go tri force for the kill potential. I'm curious if anyone else has been going tank and how it is working out, and any useful observations.
On the whole I don't know why Xin doesn't see more play. He fights all these strong early game junglers quite well, he can delete squishy carries very quickly, and with max cdr he has excellent cc for peeling or catches. And I realy appreciate the sustain from W while in the jungle. Staying healthy is a big deal against these aggro junglers these days.
Sooo is anyone else getting this bug where you "challenge" a target, then use your ult and it still knocks them back? It's happening every time for me right now.
On July 23 2014 11:10 Senorcuidado wrote: I have mained Xin for two seasons and I am excited to see that some other people actually play him! I want to plead with you, however, to not ever build feral flare on Xin. I sigh in relief whenever I see an opposing Xin build Wriggle's because I know he will be meaningless for a long time. Even at FF's peak of being super imba, Xin wasn't the man for the job. He farms the jungle too slow to get fast stacks and it gimps his incredible dueling power. You were just better off building flare on faster clearing junglers like Nocturne and Master Yi. I also think you need the mana sustain and the cdr from sotel.
I'm curious how people feel about tank Xin. To me, it usually feels awful. I've tried all sorts of builds on him, but nothing compares to a Trinity Force rush. I go back and forth about Brutalizer before Trinity Force. But I often find myself needing to go tank because top is a squishy or the other team has too much burst and cc for me to do anything in fights. I find myself usually losing these games. Lacking the ability to delete carries turns me into a decent peel machine but it doesn't do enough. Maybe it has something to do with stronger ADCs and weaker Randuin's...but it just feels like tank Xin is a bad move overall. Like I should communicate in champ select and make sure top will be tanky enough, avoid 5v5s until i can finish enough items, but always go tri force for the kill potential. I'm curious if anyone else has been going tank and how it is working out, and any useful observations.
On the whole I don't know why Xin doesn't see more play. He fights all these strong early game junglers quite well, he can delete squishy carries very quickly, and with max cdr he has excellent cc for peeling or catches. And I realy appreciate the sustain from W while in the jungle. Staying healthy is a big deal against these aggro junglers these days.
To the arena! :D
actually, I recently played xin AND his jungle clear is actually very good once he gets madred's. He's much faster than the likes of amumu, warwick, udyr and his clearing is not much slower than yi at all. The only thing that makes me hesitate on buying it on him is that Xin feels much more like a ganking champ that only clears a creep camp on the way to another lane or while he waits for the wave push on the lane. But getting an assist or a kill now gives FF stacks. once he gets the FF he gets a significant damage boost, but IMO he still needs to be in lane more than in jungle, and if he can do that and still get FF by around 15min, FF is still a good item on him IMO
Lol, last time I tested thoroughly (before machete nerfs) Udyr was the fastest jungler in the game, faster than pre-nerf Evelynn. Don't think the machete nerfs changed it either. Xin is silly slow in the jungle regardless of what he builds compared to all good junglers.
On July 23 2014 11:10 Senorcuidado wrote: I have mained Xin for two seasons and I am excited to see that some other people actually play him! I want to plead with you, however, to not ever build feral flare on Xin. I sigh in relief whenever I see an opposing Xin build Wriggle's because I know he will be meaningless for a long time. Even at FF's peak of being super imba, Xin wasn't the man for the job. He farms the jungle too slow to get fast stacks and it gimps his incredible dueling power. You were just better off building flare on faster clearing junglers like Nocturne and Master Yi. I also think you need the mana sustain and the cdr from sotel.
I'm curious how people feel about tank Xin. To me, it usually feels awful. I've tried all sorts of builds on him, but nothing compares to a Trinity Force rush. I go back and forth about Brutalizer before Trinity Force. But I often find myself needing to go tank because top is a squishy or the other team has too much burst and cc for me to do anything in fights. I find myself usually losing these games. Lacking the ability to delete carries turns me into a decent peel machine but it doesn't do enough. Maybe it has something to do with stronger ADCs and weaker Randuin's...but it just feels like tank Xin is a bad move overall. Like I should communicate in champ select and make sure top will be tanky enough, avoid 5v5s until i can finish enough items, but always go tri force for the kill potential. I'm curious if anyone else has been going tank and how it is working out, and any useful observations.
On the whole I don't know why Xin doesn't see more play. He fights all these strong early game junglers quite well, he can delete squishy carries very quickly, and with max cdr he has excellent cc for peeling or catches. And I realy appreciate the sustain from W while in the jungle. Staying healthy is a big deal against these aggro junglers these days.
To the arena! :D
actually, I recently played xin AND his jungle clear is actually very good once he gets madred's. He's much faster than the likes of amumu, warwick, udyr and his clearing is not much slower than yi at all. The only thing that makes me hesitate on buying it on him is that Xin feels much more like a ganking champ that only clears a creep camp on the way to another lane or while he waits for the wave push on the lane. But getting an assist or a kill now gives FF stacks. once he gets the FF he gets a significant damage boost, but IMO he still needs to be in lane more than in jungle, and if he can do that and still get FF by around 15min, FF is still a good item on him IMO
You must have played udyr wrong. There is no way he could beat udyr clear speed. I highly doubt he can even compete with amumu but it could be possible. You can't compare him to the likes of yi and udyr at all
So not gonna lie, I like Feral Flare a lot better on Xin than Lizard. You actually hit a lot harder in ganks during the Wriggles build up than the Spirit Lizard, farm faster, and sustain better. I dunno, its not like Xin is a weak early game character anyway. You can afford to hit that power spike a touch later, especially since the likes of Lee and Elise have been nerfed.
Maybe its because I am just a greedy juingler in general, but I find I play a lot better on Xin with Feral Flare. My winrate on Xin in high plat is 62.2% in a solid 250 games, but over about 35 games of buying Lizard my winrate is a staggeringly low 45%, especially in comparison to the overall winrate on Xin. Its just such a huuge difference.
Maybe I just feel the need to make plays more when I build Lizard, and proceed to do stupid shit. I dunno. Maybe it is just a sample size thing. I just feel useless late game with Lizard
On August 18 2014 03:48 iCanada wrote: So not gonna lie, I like Feral Flare a lot better on Xin than Lizard. You actually hit a lot harder in ganks during the Wriggles build up than the Spirit Lizard, farm faster, and sustain better. I dunno, its not like Xin is a weak early game character anyway. You can afford to hit that power spike a touch later, especially since the likes of Lee and Elise have been nerfed.
Maybe its because I am just a greedy juingler in general, but I find I play a lot better on Xin with Feral Flare. My winrate on Xin in high plat is 62.2% in a solid 250 games, but over about 35 games of buying Lizard my winrate is a staggeringly low 45%, especially in comparison to the overall winrate on Xin. Its just such a huuge difference.
Maybe I just feel the need to make plays more when I build Lizard, and proceed to do stupid shit. I dunno. Maybe it is just a sample size thing. I just feel useless late game with Lizard
/shrug.
That is certainly a lot of games and a solid win rate to back it up. I think i hover around 59% the way I build, which is sotel > trinity (sometimes bruta in there) > tank. But I hate my late game irrelevance in team fights.
How do you build after feral flare? Straight tank, or trinity, or bork, or ghostblade, etc.? You could make arguments for any of those paths. I would be interested in giving it a shot.
On August 18 2014 03:48 iCanada wrote: So not gonna lie, I like Feral Flare a lot better on Xin than Lizard. You actually hit a lot harder in ganks during the Wriggles build up than the Spirit Lizard, farm faster, and sustain better. I dunno, its not like Xin is a weak early game character anyway. You can afford to hit that power spike a touch later, especially since the likes of Lee and Elise have been nerfed.
Maybe its because I am just a greedy juingler in general, but I find I play a lot better on Xin with Feral Flare. My winrate on Xin in high plat is 62.2% in a solid 250 games, but over about 35 games of buying Lizard my winrate is a staggeringly low 45%, especially in comparison to the overall winrate on Xin. Its just such a huuge difference.
Maybe I just feel the need to make plays more when I build Lizard, and proceed to do stupid shit. I dunno. Maybe it is just a sample size thing. I just feel useless late game with Lizard
/shrug.
That is certainly a lot of games and a solid win rate to back it up. I think i hover around 59% the way I build, which is sotel > trinity (sometimes bruta in there) > tank. But I hate my late game irrelevance in team fights.
How do you build after feral flare? Straight tank, or trinity, or bork, or ghostblade, etc.? You could make arguments for any of those paths. I would be interested in giving it a shot.
Usually straight tank afterwards, unless I absolutely huge, in which case I get a trinity force. It should be noted I typically buy a dblade before I complete Wriggles Lantern.
I find other team gets really excited when I buy madreds, play ballsier because they think I'm not going to gank.
no they literally dont pay attention and they dont expect ganks because they're bad also madreds doens't mean you wont gank it just means you jungle faster but have less stats until feral flare is finished
Runes: Health / Armor Quints, Ignite and Flash / or Ghost
Playstyle: Pick Xin only if your ADC is strong enough early game. I would not pair him up with Trist, Ezrael. He does great with Draven, Cait.
Basically, your burst and CC is strong enough, if paired with strong early game ADC, to wreck your opponent's lane.
If, unlikely, you do end up losing lane, then keep Xin tanky and use him as a warder. His E-dash is really a strong attention-grabber for enemy team so you will be focused hard if you initiate. Only initiate if their member is slightly off-position. Remember his R gives you bonus MR / Armor.
Xin scales hard with attack speed, but with this build, you will hardly be doing much damage. I think a 6th item like bloodthirster would complement him well with Static Shiv, and he will do enough damage for teamfights.
On January 06 2015 13:03 parkufarku wrote: Played a couple of support Xin. It's actually one of the most powerful kill-lanes, and he doesn't become useless late game.
Runes: Health / Armor Quints, Ignite and Flash / or Ghost
Playstyle: Pick Xin only if your ADC is strong enough early game. I would not pair him up with Trist, Ezrael. He does great with Draven, Cait.
Basically, your burst and CC is strong enough, if paired with strong early game ADC, to wreck your opponent's lane.
If, unlikely, you do end up losing lane, then keep Xin tanky and use him as a warder. His E-dash is really a strong attention-grabber for enemy team so you will be focused hard if you initiate. Only initiate if their member is slightly off-position. Remember his R gives you bonus MR / Armor.
Xin scales hard with attack speed, but with this build, you will hardly be doing much damage. I think a 6th item like bloodthirster would complement him well with Static Shiv, and he will do enough damage for teamfights.
I've done this with Kalista as my ADC. Their respective skills have near perfect synergy for dishing out a surprising amount of damage starting at level 2 and continuing the entire game; in fact, of the supports I've tried with Kalista, Xin Zhao is far and away the best. I opted for a fast brutalizer, eventually into Black Cleaver, instead of Shiv, though I admit I haven't tried the latter. Other than that, similar builds. Randuin's and Righteous Glory are great options as well over Sunfire.
Is there a bug with Xin's W, where if you have Q active but W is on CD, then while Q is still active W comes up, you press W but the W doesn't activate? I've had this happen like 5 times and it's really annoying. I usually just press W again. I don't know any way around this other than to spam W.
Which one's stronger? Probably 2nd one if you can actually get autos off. But the second one also costs a fuckton more than the first and takes some time to ramp up. But you do get 20% CDR with the first build that's also really beneficial for having your E cooldown really low.
EPT![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/OZBAM.jpg)
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+ 5x ![[image loading]](http://images1.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20130319090425/leagueoflegends/images/1/13/Health_Potion_item.png)
OR ![[image loading]](http://images4.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20130319090636/leagueoflegends/images/6/64/Long_Sword_item.png)
+ 2x![[image loading]](http://images2.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20130319091033/leagueoflegends/images/3/35/Ninja_Tabi_item.png)
OR ![[image loading]](http://images1.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20130319090760/leagueoflegends/images/9/96/Mercury%27s_Treads_item.png)
OR ![[image loading]](http://images4.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20130116005957/leagueoflegends/images/b/bd/Berserker%27s_Greaves_item.png)
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OR ![[image loading]](http://images1.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20130710102451/leagueoflegends/images/9/93/Spirit_of_the_Ancient_Golem_item.png)
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OR ![[image loading]](http://images3.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20130319091650/leagueoflegends/images/1/16/Wit%27s_End_item.png)
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![[image loading]](http://images2.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20130319090446/leagueoflegends/images/c/c4/Iceborn_Gauntlet_item.png)
![[image loading]](http://images2.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20130319091557/leagueoflegends/images/9/98/The_Black_Cleaver_item.png)
![[image loading]](http://images2.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20130116010245/leagueoflegends/images/2/2f/Blade_of_the_Ruined_King_item.png)
![[image loading]](http://images4.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20130710102759/leagueoflegends/images/f/f8/Statikk_Shiv_item.png)
![[image loading]](http://images2.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20130319090341/leagueoflegends/images/a/ac/Frozen_Mallet_item.png)
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/1oyI0.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://cdn1.knowyourmeme.com/i/000/063/491/original/my_trap_card.jpg?1280732063)
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![[image loading]](http://i47.tinypic.com/4h2gyb.jpg)
