Hello and welcome to my AP Xin Zhao Jungle Guide.
The name of the guide, A$AP Xin Zhao, is chosen in reference to the attributes this build focusses on, Attack Speed and Ability Power. Considering the fact that this is my first guide, feel free to give some feedback on how to improve the content and the clarity to make it a useful guide for everyone who wants to try something new.

AP Xin Zhao in general became quite popular through the famous Youtuber SivHD, who even dedicated a song to him. With the release of the new jungle items, I tried him out in the jungle and achieved surprisingly good results. Devourer, the new damage stacking AS Jungle Item, fits perfect for him and he will most likely get a kill out of being invaded or counterjungled. Playing AP Xin Zhao is a lot of fun and a unique experience. He is more often played in lane than in the jungle, but I feel like he's even a better jungler than AD Xin. His sustain is ridiculous and his damage - especially in late game - melts enemies while healing all the damage taken with ease. I guess there's noone who can beat you in a 1vs1 as soon as you get your core items. If healing back to full health in about 3 seconds sounds interesting to you, you should definitely read on.
Have fun!

Patch 5.13 Update: Now this patch is a crazy one. With the new update to the Devourer jungle enchantment comes the possibility to transform that one into a "Sated Devourer". It's upgraded automatically after earning thirty stacks on your Devourer. The crazy part comes with its new passive effect, where every second auto attack triggers all on-hit effects twice. This. Is. Madness. Alongside with this, Riot tried to keep Xin Zhao balanced by scaling down the AP ratio of his Battle Cry to .5 from .7 but to be honest, I don't think this helped a lot. Well then, try it out and have fun.

Pros

+ Insane sustain overall + Fast jungle clear + Early jungle sustain + Unbeatable in duels + Deals mixed damage + Can take objectives solo + Early ganking potential + Late game monster

The incredible healing done by his Battle Cry allows Xin Zhao to secure objectives early, take down towers within seconds without losing health at all in late game, stay in the jungle farming like forever without having to go back and more. His ganking potential is quite good, even before he hits level 6, due to his crowd control effects on Three Talon Strike and his gap closer Audacious Charge and with every stack his jungle item gets, with every minute that ticks away, he gets more and more beast. Sounds fun? Oh, it is!

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Cons

- AA dependant - Medium mid-game damage - Vulnerable to CC - Very item dependant - Low AoE damage

On the other hand, AP Xin Zhao is likely the most auto attack dependant champion in the whole game. His sustain is insane as long as he can AA. Due to that, he is very vulnerable to crowd control effects and pretty much a glass cannon if stunned. Before getting some devourer stacks and being able to afford Nashor's Tooth and Rabadon's Deathcap his damage output is quite low.

Considerable Choices

Marks:

• Greater Mark of Magic Penetration: You really want magic penetration. Believe me.
• greater mark of hybrid penetration: Good choice, especially more damage in early and mid-game.

I don't recommend Attack Speed Marks because if you have your core items and your Battle Cry maxed out you can reach maximum attack speed without any runes. They are more like a waste of rune page space if you have maximum AS anyway.
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Seals:

• Greater Seal of Armor: Everyone loves armor. You need armor. Get armor.
• Greater Seal of Health: If you don't love armor, at least get those to survive longer.

Those two are actually the most viable seals in general currently. Just choose the ones you prefer, both are helpful. Armor seals may be the better choice because of the increased durability against jungle monsters even though you have good jungle sustain anyway, so it doesn't really matter.
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Glyphs:

• Greater Glyph of Magic Resist: More magic resist, good for early ganks.
• Greater Glyph of Scaling Magic Resist: More mid to late game persistance.
• Greater Glyph of Ability Power: I wouldn't recommend offensive glyphs because you're squishy enough, but you have to try out what works best for you.

I personally prefer having MR glyphs than AP glyphs because it gives you some defense stats that you are missing because of the offensive mastery tree. Maybe pick AP glyphs against strong AD teams.
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Quintessences:

• Greater Quintessence of Ability Power: More AP means more heal and damage.

For quintessences you can finally pick up some AP without having to give your durability a miss. These are a great choice and they massively increase your early game heal.

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Challenge: Xin Zhao's passive shreds armor, which is especially useful in early and mid-game, when you are dealing more mixed damage, but gets less important the more items you can afford and the more magic damage you deal.

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Three Talon Strike: Your Q-Skill reduces the cooldown of your other skills, buffs your auto attacks and knock-ups enemies. Awesome skill, but not necessary to max out first because it doesn't scale with AP and the non-damage effects are already useful with only one point on it. Nevertheless, I max it right after Battle Cry. A lot of AP Xin Zhao players tend to max Audacious Charge as first or at least second ability because it's (quite obviously) the only damaging skill that scales with AP. However, the cooldown of Three Talon Strike decreases rapidly if you put some points in it. This allows you to spam it, while reducing the cooldown of your other abilities even faster. Over all, points in this skill reduce the cooldown of your whole skill set rapidly. I already tried a lot of skill sequences but maxing Three Talon Strike second feels the most worthwhile as your main damage source is your auto attacks and not your skill burst.

• Use this skill when focussing enemies to knock them up and secure a kill
• Use to reset the cooldown of Battle Cry to get the attack speed buff faster
• Due to its low cooldown, great in combination with Lich Bane

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Battle Cry: This skill is the main reason to play AP Xin Zhao. You get a heal every three AAs that scales quite well with AP. The active effect supports that with a massive attack speed buff. Just spam whenever you can in combination with Three Talon Strike to get maximum heal and maximum damage. I max it first for easy and comfortable jungle farming and early overpowered attack speed buff.

• No real tips for this skill, just make use of massive AS buff whenever you are in a fighting situation; easy to spam due to the cooldown reduction of Three Talon Strike

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Audacious Charge: This skill is great for ganking and escaping. On top of closing gaps, it scales with AP and can - like all of Xin's skills - be spammed quite a lot in fights, especially in late game. The slow helps to secure kills and provides quite a lot of CC in combination with Three Talon Strike. I feel like the utility of this ability is more interesting than the actual damage, this is why I max it last.

• Use to focus and to close gaps between you and enemies while ganking
• Great engaging skill, use to focus and shut down carries in team fights
• Can be used (f.e. in the jungle) to escape over walls (f.e. by charging to jungle monsters)

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Crescent Sweep: The AoE knock-back of this skill ruins the enemies' positioning and grants a lot of armor and magic resist in team fights.

• Use after starting team fights with Audacious Charge for maximum chaos and durability buffs.
• Enemies focussed by Audacious Charge won't get knocked back, charge at enemy carries and use Crescent Sweep to easily shut them down
• Use when in trouble or being chased to create distance between you and enemies

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Stalker's Blade - Devourer: Get Stalker's Blade - Devourer as early as possible to be able to start getting stacks as early as possible. A lot of AP Xin Zhao players use Stalker's Blade - Magus instead, which offers more AP but little extra damage and no attack speed, without realizing that the attack speed is perfect for Xin Zhao and the stacking bonus magic damage of Stalker's Blade - Devourer will be insane in combination with the other items like Lich Bane. Even your heal get's increased more, as you have more auto attacks to trigger your Battle Cry.

Patch 5.13 Update: As already mentioned above, the new Sated Devourer will trigger your on-hit effects (f.e. the Battle Cry heal) twice every other auto atack which is just insane as this means that every second attack applies your Battle Cry. Have fun with that one.
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Berserker's Greaves: Provide movement speed and attack speed. The attack speed is important for Xin Zhao to reach the maximum attack speed (or at least almost). If you have money left, sell for Zephyr.

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Nashor's Tooth: You want to play ASAP Xin Zhao without the item that provides both AS and AP? Forget it. And by the way, did you ever mind the tooth's passive effect? Basic attacks deal bonus magic damage scaling with AP? Wait, what? Is there even a better fitting item for this build? I don't think so.

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Rabadon's Deathcap: I guess I don't even have to talk about the Deathcap, as it pretty much embodies Ability Power itself. Massive power spike, at the point of the game you can afford this you are a somewhat rough enemy, no matter how the other circumstances are.

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Zhonya's Hourglass: Pick this one if you have to deal with hard CC, hard focus or heavy AD teams.

Abyssal Scepter: Pick this one if the enemies are quite tanky, your team mates deal a lot of magic damage or the enemies deal a lot of magic damage.

Lich Bane: Pick this if you are ahead or if you need a damage spike without having to care about being focussed too hard.

Wit's End: Can be a cool option because its stats and its passive effect synergize well with the build. However, usually you have around 2.4 AS anyway, so you might think of another boot choice if you pick this one.

Deathfire Grasp: Rest in peace, Deathfire Grasp. You won't be forgotten.

Guinsoo's Rageblade: Pick this one if you're ahead against a low CC team and feel like you are doing well and you need to carry your team.

: Pick one of these if you get focussed a lot and need more health and sustain or if you are behind. The slow also helps chasing people to death, you can try it if you feel like you're playing against too fast or too mobile champs.

Farming in the jungle is quite easy for AP Xin Zhao as he heals huge amounts with Battle Cry. Just choose the jungle route you prefer, Xin shouldn't have any problems surviving. Make use of Three Talon Strike and Battle Cry for a faster and health bar-protecting jungle clear. You should avoid overusing Audacious Charge for jungle clear if you run out of mana fast as it may cost too much mana to perform a good gank. Make sure to smite the Krugs if you want to profit from the stun bonus it provides, the Raptors to gain true vision or the wolves if you get counter jungled a lot. Never smite the Rift Scuttler, as it doesn't grant a smite bonus. Nevertheless, the rift scuttler can be a quite useful objective that grants vision and map control. Just, please, you know... Don't smite it if you could smite something else.

You shouldn't try to counter jungle if you can't make sure you won't get interrupted. Xin Zhao lacks escape skills and if he get's caught in the enemy jungle, he will have problems surviving it.

Make sure to profit from your team composition. It's quite hard for Xin Zhao to gank lanes when your allied laner has no CC or the enemy laner has good escaping skills. Try to focus on lanes with high CC first - the bot lane can be a good choice if the support can hook for example - and try to secure a drake after a successful gank. Otherwise, you should try to get the top laner being able to snowball and afterwards concentrate on the other lanes. Make sure your team has enough map control, buying vision wards can not just save lives but also secure kills and objectives and turn around games overall.

Summarizing, AP Xin Zhao is a different kind of AP jungler that does not only provide great objective control and pushing power, but also high sustain and huge dps. In my opinion, he is very underrated and playing him is a lot of fun. It often makes me smile to see team mates that were angry after having a look at my stats apologize twenty minutes later when they see that Xin Zhao works really well played on AP. Hope you enjoy trying him out!

That's pretty much all you need to know about AP Xin Zhao before trying him out yourself. I hope you enjoyed reading my guide and that the effort I put into writing was worth while. Hopefully the guide helped you and maybe even made you a little curious. As already mentioned above, this is my first guide ever and I would love to get some feedback on how to improve it. Feel free to tell me what you like, what you'd recommend to keep working on and what you think about the build itself.

Sincere regards,

rayqzah

I want to give credits to jhoijhoi, whose guide on writing a guide helped me out a lot due to the fact that I have never done something like this before.