So what does everyone think about the new xin update overall?

just finished playing it

W feels terrible, it's out of place on Xin Zhao and I hate playing an agile champ who has to freeze himself in place to do an animation. I don't see how this enhances his 'identity' as either an all-in fighter or a guy who's supposed to jump in 1v5 and be able to win; it's just kind of a 'meh' poke spell. If the animation scaled down with level or attack speed I might feel differently about it. I don't understand the fascination with the swipe-then-thrust mechanic they put on Rengar, Sej and now XZ. It's not that interesting, and I certainly don't think it adds anything to the game.

Everything else feels pretty superb, R is a neat spell now and nothing else really changed otherwise (because XZ was already great).

I don't like it, and I will explain why.

1. The new innate - I don't like sustain being tied to innates because it limits options. Even though he doesn't rank up W first now, a properly balanced kit would allow such a thing if sustain is something he severely needed for a given matchup. With it tied to an innate, it goes up by a fixed amount per game time no matter what. I think someone having to recognize that either sustain or damage is better and being able to choose the proper is an exciting/interesting choice and rewards skill and knowledge of the game.

2. The new W - it's fine in terms of flavor and mechanics, but it's literally a copy paste of Sejuani's new W and a souped up version of Rengar's Q. I understand that there is a limit on how many unique abilities can be made, but that's literally all the ability does. There's absolutely nothing else to it.

3. The new W with old Q - unless the W hits count toward his Q, that is a massive anti-synergy. Sure, the W slows his target to allow him to auto-attack, but that's what his E already does. Instead (again, assuming W does not count toward Q), he has to either cast W and potentially lose his ability to Q or he has to wait until after his Q to use his W, at which point he is losing DPS. And that's with assuming he can move while casting his W (which I do think is a safe assumption). I'm OK with choices having to be made, especially CC vs damage, but I don't like when it comes from having to not use abilities or from not being able to use them. Using abilities is fun. Brand is a mostly good example of such a choice being done right.

4. The new ult - I don't think this fits Xin thematically. While Xin singling someone out is fine, putting himself and a target in a bubble does not feel like Xin to me. That feels more like Nocturne and even Fiora. I also don't like the design of the ability. Unless the radius is really big or "block damage" doesn't mean 100% and is a small percentage, it's going to be an extremely powerful ability when it works, and he's going to be designed around the idea of it working. Riot does not like champions hard countering other champions, and this could allow Xin to hard counter entire compositions. I think this ult is going to cause him to be slightly above average against certain comps and shit against the rest.

Ultimate is interesting I guess. I like his new attack animations. W is stupid, it's literally Sejuani's W...

It's a shame that he lost his resist reduction mechanic. Now it's only only 7 out of 138 champions have that ability.

i haven't played it, but i like what they've done with it a lot. i was hoping that they'd make him feel a little more spear-y (more range on his q or something like that) but all in all it looks good. i've seen some complaints about his w being kinda lacking in damage and one idea i had was potentially letting the spear thrust portion of it apply on-hit effects?