Xin Zhao en LoL Classic: Jungla: Tres golpes

Xin Zhao arrives in League Classic on September 10 with patch 26.18, as part of a five champion Demacian wave alongside Fiora, Galio, Poppy, and Shyvana.

He is not live yet, so everything below is built on the PBE tooltips rather than games I have played. The numbers could still move before release. What will not move is the shape of the kit, and the shape of this kit is a jungler who solves his own cooldowns, heals himself for free, and has an ultimate that removes everybody from a fight except the one person he wants to kill.

Planned approach: max Q, then W, then E, with R at 6, 11, and 16. Rush the reworked Wriggle's Lantern into Feral Flare, then build attack speed and bruiser statistics.

The Kit

The Three Interactions That Matter

Q and W are built for each other. Three Talon Strike grants exactly three empowered attacks. Battle Cry passively heals on every third attack. Those two numbers are not a coincidence. Pressing Q means the third strike lands your heal, which means your Q rotation and your sustain rotation are the same rotation.

Q reduces your other cooldowns by 1 second per strike. Three strikes is three seconds shaved off Battle Cry and Audacious Charge. Now add Battle Cry's active, which grants up to 80% Attack Speed, so those three strikes land faster, so the cooldown reduction arrives faster. This kit is a loop that feeds itself, and it is the reason attack speed matters more on him than raw Attack Damage.

Crescent Sweep knocks back all non challenged enemies. Read that again, because it is the single best line of text on this champion.

You challenge the enemy carry. You ultimate. Everybody else gets thrown away from you, and the carry stays exactly where they were. It is a knockback and a peel and an isolation tool at the same time, and you also gain 15 to 25 Armor and Magic Resist per champion hit, so throwing three people away from you leaves you with up to 75 of each resistance for six seconds.

That is a jungler who dives the backline, removes the front line from the equation, and becomes tankier for having done it.

Why the Reworked Wriggle's Fits

Patch 2 changed Wriggle's Lantern and Feral Flare from an Attack Damage item into an Attack Speed item, dropping 25 Attack Damage and adding 30% Attack Speed, with the build path moving to Recurve Bow.

That change was arguably made for Warwick, but Xin Zhao benefits almost as directly. Everything in his kit is measured in basic attacks: three per Q, every third attack for the heal, one per Challenge application. Attack speed is not a damage stat on him, it is a cooldown stat and a sustain stat.

Feral Flare's on hit magic damage that grows permanently with stacks then rides on top of an already attack heavy champion.

The Planned Build

Start. Hunter's Machete and five Health Potions. Smite is mandatory.

1. Wriggle's Lantern into Feral Flare. Attack speed, the monster damage proc, the free ward, and an item that scales forever. Start the stacks early.

2. Boots. Mercury's Treads if the enemy has crowd control worth respecting, Ninja Tabi into a physical lobby.

3. Blade of the Ruined King. Attack speed, life steal, current health damage on hit, and an active that steals movement speed. Every one of those does something specific for a champion whose damage runs through attacks and whose ultimate scales off current Health.

4. The Black Cleaver. Health, cooldown reduction, and stacking Armor shred that layers directly on top of Challenge's 15%. Between the two, whoever you touch stops having Armor, and so does everyone your Attack Damage carry is shooting.

5. Randuin's Omen or Spirit Visage. Randuin's against attack speed, Spirit Visage against magic damage, and Spirit Visage also amplifies the Battle Cry heal.

6. Frozen Mallet or Guardian Angel. Mallet if targets keep escaping, Guardian Angel if dying is what ends your fights.

Skill order: Q, then W, then E.

Q first because it is your damage, your knockup, and your cooldown engine all on the same button. W second for the heal, which is your entire jungle sustain, and the attack speed. E last, though take one point early for the gap closer and the slow, because ranks in it buy damage you are not building around.

Runes and Masteries

These are proposals, not a settled page. Nothing about this champion is established in Classic yet.

Marks of Attack Speed or Attack Damage. Attack speed is the more interesting argument for the reasons above, and it speeds up your clear from level 1. Attack Damage is the safer pick because your ultimate carries a 100% bonus Attack Damage ratio.

Seals of Armor. Camps and ganks.

Glyphs of Magic Resist. You dive, and diving means eating whatever the enemy mid laner has.

Quintessences of Movement Speed. Xin has a gap closer but no escape, so arriving on your terms matters.

Masteries: 21 offense, 0 defense, 9 utility. Offense for the attack speed and cooldown reduction, utility for the standard jungler package of movement, buff duration, and summoner spells. Your defensive layer is Crescent Sweep and Battle Cry, not a mastery page.

How It Should Play

The clear should be healthy. Battle Cry heals every third attack, Q supplies three attacks on demand, and Wriggle's supplies the damage. Expect to leave the jungle at full health more often than not.

Ganks are strong and simple. Audacious Charge in, which applies Challenge and a slow, then Q for the knockup. That is a dash, a slow, and a knockup on a champion arriving at level 3. You do not need the lane to set anything up for you.

The ultimate has two completely different uses. Offensively, challenge the carry and throw their front line away so you get an uninterrupted window. Defensively, ultimate into a group diving your own backline and everybody who is not challenged goes flying. Same button, opposite purpose, and picking correctly is most of the skill.

Watch the current Health scaling. Crescent Sweep deals 15% of the target's current Health, not missing or maximum. That means it hits hardest as an opener against a healthy target, which is unusual and worth building your instincts around.

What Beats You

Being kited. One dash, no escape, and a slow that runs out.

Grievous Wounds. Battle Cry is a large part of your durability.

Ultimate timing. Crescent Sweep on a cooldown of 100 seconds at best is a long time to be wrong.

What Changed From Modern Xin Zhao

• Challenge is a straightforward 15% Armor reduction on one target. The modern version is folded into a much more complex passive structure.

• Three Talon Strike reduces his other cooldowns by a full second per strike, which is the mechanical heart of this version.

• Crescent Sweep knocks back non challenged enemies and grants resistances per champion hit. Modern Xin's ultimate works on a very different principle.

• Battle Cry's heal is passive on every third attack. No conditions, no activation.
  

The Honest Caveat

He is not out yet. When patch 26.18 lands on September 10 the numbers may have moved, and a week of real games will teach everybody things no tooltip reading can. Treat this as a plan rather than a verdict, and check back once he has been live long enough to be tested.

Want to be ready the day he unlocks? Read our guides on climbing the Summoner's Journey and how our LoL boosting works.