Is Xin Zhao still viable?
Any tips?(and spears behind them?)
Basically, what are good comps to pick him into, and what champs should he avoid fighting, does he still work at low level elos if not higher?
7 Comments
Tl;dr: Yes.
He is still very effective at low elos. Once you hit around gold he becomes meh but still usable. Pick him into low CC comps and avoid wombo combo comps (on either side, you don't like them and you mess them up for your team)
If you see aggressive enemy laners and you have laners who can bring decent early damage to the table he excels by ganking when they push. If the enemy team is a bunch of stuff like Ahri and Ezreal though I would avoid picking him since you only have one gap closer and they tend to play safe.
Xin is pretty much broken OP, way more than viable. He is basically Master Yi with hard CC and MUCH better teamfight.
Personally I feel like Xin Zhao is not really that viable, especially in the higher elos, as the issue with him right now is that he's the only non-tanky champion with no form of a good disengage, defense and long-range ability in the game. Because of that he's very one-dimensional: once you go in, you have to win, otherwise you die. It becomes a matter of whether you can kill something/someone or not, you have not much in terms of outplaying your opponent or changing your playstyle to more passive/defensive, and before teamfights that break out later in the game you usually just stand there, do nothing and avoid poke, as you can't really engage, you can't trade, you just charge in and hope that they won't focus and CC you to the point where you can't sustain yourself with autoattacks. His ganks are not that good, either, as he suffers from what I can only call "set-up CC", where he unleashes his knockup that's necessary to pin an enemy in place ONLY after he's hit them 3 times already, similarly to Darius's damage relying on having to apply 5 bleed stacks. With Xin, though, it usually doesn't work very well, as you preferably want to use your CC during a gank immediately you get a chance to maximize your damage with your lane teammate, and unless the enemy will be blind enough for you to R him before you attack him, then you can't do it reliably TBH.
That being said, Xin has some potential to work out nicely, and from my experience the worst situation you can generally find yourself in is when your whole team dies every 2 minutes towerdiving and blames you for not ganking when they overextend and you only just finished your first jungle clear and it's 0/7 in 4 minutes.
ITEMIZATION
For Xin Zhao to work nicely, you should realize that you are not really a tank for your team, especially in the early game. You're a basic-attack oriented damage dealer for the most part, with tankiness factor striking in only in the late game. So it's more or less a transition from Master Yi-type of playstyle from your first 2 purchases to more of a Jax/Irelia/Olaf/Shyvana the more tank items you manage to build. You usually want to go for either a Stalker's Blade in most match-ups for increased mobility and pinning down immobile squishies more reliably, or for Skirmisher's Sabre if you're facing another duelist jungler, like Elise/Jax/Shyvana/Olaf/Evelynn , generally someone that wants to build up their damage over a longer period of time by standing in your face for the duration. I'd rather not use it on the likes of Rengar, Lee Sin or Graves, that either rely too much on their range to take you down, or can burst you with their full skill combo/use hit'n'run tactics where you don't even get a chance to hit them much. Bloodrazor is usually the way to go, although if you're tempted and have a chance for dozens of ganks, then I would assume warrior would work just fine. I personally would stick to Bloodrazor because of higher attack speed giving you a chance to proc your Q faster. From then you usually want to go and build a TriForce, as it amplifies your damage nicely, and it also increases your stats in general, which you can benefit from fairly well. A new, and even the old BotRK works on him fine as well, especially when you're facing multiple tanky champs in the enemy team. Lethality would work great on him too if he could afford to build full damage, but he's just too fragile. The best Korean Xin Zhao player has a tendency to build Black Cleaver on him, as well, which I can definitely see could work quite nicely, especially with its increased health right now, something that Xin can't really go wrong with. I haven't really tried, nor heard of building Titanic Hydra and Frozen Mallet on him, although I guess they could work on him if you really want to. Then you should usually go for some tank items, because you don't want to get popped too easily in a teamfight. Randuin's Omen and Spirit Visage are two high priority items vs AD and AP respectively, with Randuin's being a well rounded item in generall that also gives you an additional slow from its active, and Spirit Visage increasing your heal from your W. From then I usually go for GA for some increased stats and a revive, but the likes of Deadman's Plate for better close-up, or ZZ'Rot for close-up near structures and potential objective pressure are also decent choices. As far as boots go, it's up to you. Current meta would suggest Tabi, as there's much more focus on mitigating damage from all the lethality, which is usually built on champions that really on their basic attacks at least to some extent. My go-to boots are Mercury's Treads, because if you get pinned down by CC as Xin, you're generally done for. Swiftness or Mobi's are fine too if you need some quicker map presence.
TEAM COMPS
As I mentioned before, Xin has a problem with not being able to instantly CC an enemy during a gank, compared to other junglers. He also is not much for a tank, especially in early game, but even late game (if you manage to get to it these days) you could benefit from a Tanky top laner or Support. For his ganks to be somewhat effective, you might want to take him mostly in a situation where your laners can CC their opponents themselves until you proc your Q. That means you should probably avoid picking Xin Zhao when you have a Katarina/Zed/Fizz midlane and Fiora/Gangplank/Jayce and such top lane. The kinds of team comps that would work well with Xin have some sort of sustainability support and movement speed buffs, so the likes of Karma/Zilean/Janna support work quite fine, as not only you can chase the enemy down much easier because of a massive speed buff or enemy slow, you're also protected with shields/heals and possible revives and you can go full ham. A good Thresh is always a bliss, too, as his lantern gives you an additional gapcloser, and he can CC an enemy well enough for you to proc your own CC afterwards. For ADC's there is not much in terms of preference, as they mostly don't rely on much CC and buffs in the first place, but it's much easier to gank for Varus that can slow an enemy and snare them with ult, or for Sivir with a speed buff than it is for, for example, Lucian or Ezreal. Oftentimes you'd want to go in a teamfight on one enemy balls-deep and then activate your ultimate, as every enemy hit gives you bonus resistances that help you survive much easier(also some nice initiation damage), so you're basically a Gragas/Janna ultimate in these terms. You might probably want to avoid picking Xin into a teamcomp that relies heavily on your enemies staying close to eachother, specifically Malphite/Lux/Katarina/Lissandra and Orianna, especially Orianna. Unless you feel confident you can survive long enough without using your ultimate, then you are a decent ball-carrier for her and you can combo nicely. But if you are playing Xin with such champions, make sure you either burn your ultimate before they use theirs, or wait out their abilities before you go in and ult the enemies yourself. Last, but not least, Xin zhao has alot of problems when he gets focused down by the entire enemy team, so it is always nice to have a tank, but an off-tank will do just fine. Xin benefits greatly from an additional full-ham offtank champion in your team composition, as the enemies have a much harder time to pick off multiple offtanks charging in on them compared to a single, fragile Xin. So Tryndamere/Olaf/Shyvana/Jax/Irelia all work out fairly well. I personally have seen the most success with Kled, however, as he is the definition of going ham AND he gives you a nice movement speed boost too.
COUNTERS
Xin Zhao does fairly well against most junglers that rely on their basic attacks to deal damage. As long as he manages to sustain himself through his W's passive, he should be fine with 1v1 trades. The problem comes from the champions that would rather burst you instantly rathen than exchange hits in the face, or the ones that keep their distance all the time, as you only have one gap closer in your kit. Rengar/Kha'Zix are the ones you would probably want to avoid most of the time, and Graves can dash and blind you so much you will probably have a bad time against him too. The worst of all is Lee Sin, as you cannot really pin him down if he wishes not to fight you, with his ultimate being a knockback, his Q giving him a dash to jungle camps, and his E being a slow, together with his W ward hops, but at the same time if he gets ahead he can easily burst you down in a full combo. That might be one of the reasons Xin is not played much currently, as literally all of his counters are what's currently in the meta. You might want to dodge some essential skills of some enemies, including Elise's stun, Nidalee's spear, Lee's Q, Jax's stun, Jarvan's E+Q combo, although when push comes to shove you might be able to win these trades regardless. But it's generally better if you don't take them in the face, either. As you only have one gap-closer, and your Q needs preparation for a knockup to trigger, you might want to save your dash until the enemy dashes when ganking. Make sure the enemies burn their essential skills to keep you at bay, that includes all of their dashes and slows/stuns/snares/knockbacks.
Xin Zhao might be one of the simplest champions in the game in terms of his one-dimensional gameplay, but that doesn't mean it's easy free elo to play him. He is so reliant on being able to burst down an enemy in an instant that for the last couple of years he was only played during the times he was broken. No wonder, as he is so simplistic in terms of his gameplay that he can either kill someone fast and be too OP, or be unable to kill someone and be useless. During a time like this, when he's not a top-tier pick, you need to rely heavily on your good positioning and decision making to go in on enemies only when you can kill them for him to be viable. In teamfights you might want to either chase down an enemy squishy and hope for the best, or you can stay close to your carries and peel for them. Until a fight breaks out, though, stay far enough to not get hit by poke and let some actually useful champions do the work lol.
Unless you are playing at a very high elo, whether a champion is considered "viable" or not is completely irrelevant.
Not at all, He's the epitome of cc cuckbounded