Xin Zhao/Strategy

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Skill usage

• Battle Cry's passive heals Xin Zhao every three attacks, allowing him to sustain himself in lane for a while by autoattacking minion waves and turrets. Doing so for extended periods however will push your lane, so watch out for gank attempts.
• You can reduce Crescent Sweep's cooldown faster by spamming Three Talon Strike. However do take care of the mana cost early game, as you can easily run out of mana for a fight by continuously spamming Three Talon Strike too much.
• Three Talon Strike resets the attack timer, so getting one basic attack off, then using the ability will yield a greater DPS.
• The attack speed granted by Battle Cry is great for taking down turrets and minion waves, whilst also being extremely effective while jungling.
  • One should always have at least one point in Battle Cry early for the health restoration and attack speed.
• Audacious Charge does magic damage and slows enemies surrounding the target; you can use that to your advantage by charging a nearby enemy in order to slow another just outside its range. This ability will also pop Banshee's Veil (or similar spell shields) on any of the affected targets which is extremely useful if your team has an incoming area of effect disable.
  • Bear in mind that if you use this tactic to jump to a priority target with Banshee's Veil, you will want to auto-attack them at least once before using Crescent Sweep in order to apply the Challenge debuff so that they aren't knocked away from you.
• Try using Crescent Sweep where it will hit the most enemy champions. It will not only deal more damage, but greatly increase the armor and magic resistance bonus.
• Xin Zhao is a great initiator. Lunge at a target with Audacious Charge and use Crescent Sweep to do the most damage possible. If you can cast it while in the midst of the enemy team, it will also grant Xin Zhao a large amount of armor and magic resistance to survive in the fray.
  • To further increase the effectiveness of the initiation, try and aim your attacks specifically at a high value target such as the opposing carry before using Crescent Sweep as this will cause them to be Challenged, reducing their armor, separating them from their teammates and marking them for your allies.
• Xin Zhao is an formidable ambush ganker. Battle Cry and Three Talon Strike make it very hard to immediately escape from him and deals high initial damage, and Audacious Charge makes it so that even targets with escapes can be chased effectively.
• Xin Zhao is very good at tower diving enemy champions who are low on health, even at low levels; a combination of Crescent Sweep, Three Talon Strike and Battle Cry can grant you enough defense to survive the tower hits and damage to quickly slay your opponent.
• Audacious Charge slows the enemy enough to be able to land your Three Talon Strike with almost complete success if they have no blink or dash ability, guaranteeing the knock up.
• Xin Zhao is a good jungler with Battle Cry's passive effect and a great ganker with Audacious Charge and Three Talon Strike after finishing his jungle route.
  • The best time to gank is when the enemy champion has recently used all their escape summoner spells such as Ghost and Flash (or abilities such as Arcane Shift or Rocket Jump).
  • It is best not to use all your crowd control at once, time each of your crowd control abilities with your ally allowing an easy kill when your enemy gets out of melee range you can then Audacious Charge to ensure your kill.
  • Crescent Sweep can assist in ganks by knocking enemies back towards your allies, but be sure that you are both in front of them and do not currently have your target Challenged before you do so.
    • Using Audacious Charge on a minion near the target enemy champion will prevent them from being Challenged, so that using Crescent Sweep will knock them back.
• Audacious Charge can be used to escape ganks on some occasions by targeting a minion or a champion along your escape route. Combined with Flash, this can allow Xin Zhao to escape most unfavorable fights. Use it on an enemy across a wall for a clean escape (e.g.: throw ward across small golems wall, then dash to golems, when they flash in or come around, flash is still available for use)
• Crescent Sweep can be used to knock enemies away from you when trying to escape.
  • When attempting a retreat, ensure that your pursuer has not been Challenged first before using Crescent Sweep as otherwise it will have no effect on them.
• Battle Cry's and  Three Talon Strike can kill a tower very quickly in late game, as long as there are enough minions around to keep it from targeting  Xin Zhao. However, if building AP, Xin Zhao's heal lets him sustain from tower attacks even without minions around him.

Build usage

• Xin Zhao is a natural fighter with a strong reliance on autoattacks and an excellent attack speed steroid; consequently, items that grant attack damage, such as The Bloodthirster, work well with him.
• Attack speed items like Phantom Dancer allow Xin Zhao to heal from the passive on Battle Cry more often, increasing his survivability, and triggers the knock-up from Three Talon Strike more quickly.
  • If you're in need of some Magic Resistance, Wit's End is a very good item for him.
• Items that offer attack damage and attack speed together are excellent choices for Xin Zhao.
  • The Black Cleaver's passive armor reduction along with Challenge can grant Xin Zhao massive armor shredding power against squishy targets.
  • Last Whisper also works well with his innate if the enemy team has stacked a lot of armor. Note that armor reduction from his Challenge passive applies before armor penetration calculations are taken into account.
  • Trinity Force is an especially useful item to Xin Zhao. The attack damage of the item increases his overall DPS, the ability power increases the healing from Battle Cry's passive, and he benefits well from the attack speed, movement speed and Phage procs. His high base attack damage mean he can also proc Sheen for massive damage.
  • Purchasing BotRK, Trinity Force, andZephyr at the same time, along with  Battle Cry's active, will grant enough attack speed to almost reach the 2.5 cap.
• Randuin's Omen allows Xin Zhao to be more tanky. Using  Crescent Sweep at the start of a fight will increase your armor and magic resistance, which can increase the duration of Randuin's Omen's active.
• Frozen Mallet is an excellent health item for Xin Zhao, and the 40% slow is extremely helpful in preventing your target from kiting you.
  • Getting Atma's Impaler with Frozen Mallet will provide considerable additional attack damage and some critical strike chance which has excellent synergy with Xin Zhao's naturally high attack speed.
• Cooldown reduction and attack speed items are doubly effective on Xin Zhao due to the flat CDR on Three Talon Strike. This means that items like The Brutalizer and Zeal synergize well with him.
• Ravenous Hydra is a great item to increase survivability, as the damage and health steal can be enough to keep Xin Zhao alive during heated fights, especially if there are enough minions around for him to feed on.
• An AP build can also work on Xin Zhao, due to the AP ratio on his Battle Cry. With sufficient AP, Xin Zhao can heal itself for tons of HP on every third auto-attack. Nashor's Tooth works well with this build due to providing on-hit magic damage that also has synergy with Battle Cry.
  • Audacious Charge also scales with AP, allowing Xin Zhao to deal good burst, especially if he buys Lich Bane.
  • By going AP, Xin Zhao has excellent sustain and can often 1x1 even towers by late-game. But since he is melee, Xin Zhao may still have to build some tanky items, such as Randuin's Omen or Rod of Ages.

Recommended builds

Jungling

• Starting items: Boots of Speed, Health Potion x4 OR Hunter's Machete, Health Potion x5
• Skill progression:  Battle Cry→  Audacious Charge → Three Talon Strike →  Audacious Charge (You can start with W for Sustain/Attack speed or E for AoE Damage on the jungle.)
• Jungling order:  Ancient Golem (Leash) → Wolves → Wraiths → Double Golems → Lizard Elder (Smite) → Wraiths → Gank
• OR Lizard Elder (Leash) → Wraiths→ Double Golems → Wraiths → Wolves → Ancient Golem (Smite) → Gank
• Level 2 gank: Wraiths → Lizard Elder (Smite) → Gank (level up Three Talon Strike and Audacious Charge in this case)

Countering

• Xin Zhao is very vulnerable to kiting when his Audacious Charge is on cooldown.
• Try to CC Xin Zhao when he is attacking you or your ally, The crowd control effect can turn the tide of the battle to your allies favor.
• Build armor items to mitigate his damage as Xin Zhao mainly deals physical damage.
• When engaging Xin Zhao, Try to split with your allies to reduce the armor and magic resistance he will get from his Crescent Sweep.
  • Keep in mind, while Challenged you can not get knocked back from Crescent Sweep. This makes him less effective 1v1 after he used Three Talon Strike
• Frozen Heart is a great counter to Xin Zhao, since it reduces damage through armor,and reduces his attack speed, which is central to his damage output.
  • Thornmail is a great alternative, however do remember that he can heal himself through the damage if he has Life steal.
• Avoid stacking health without armor as Crescent Sweep deals physical damage based on your current health.
• Stay with your allies when fighting Xin Zhao, he can only knock up one target at a time.

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