Hey there, I’m Chaeha. I’m a season 9 challenger, season 10 grandmaster and current grandmaster ADC main and Xayah is one of my favorite champs as I particularly enjoyed the Kai'Sa/ Xayah meta. Compared to the other ADCs in the roster, Xayah provides lots of carry potential and self peel for herself in the form of her Bladecaller and Featherstorm which are disengaging tools. I pick Xayah when the enemy team has a lot of diving champions and typically want to get on the ADC. As an ADC with self peel she's a great pick to learn and utilize in solo queue against certain team compositions where you feel you have no idea what you want to pick. If you have any questions or simply want to talk, I'm most active on my discord, so come join the community https://discord.gg/Y6DsS65QbW You can also check me out on https://www.twitch.tv/chaeha_lol where I will try and stream informative ADC gameplay and hopefully grow my stream to something worthwhile.

Like I said earlier, Xayah is probably the best disengage champion with incredible self peel in the form of her ultimate Featherstorm as it causes her to be untargetable which is very nice. Against champions like Malphite that simply want to engage on you, it allows you to build full damage while having the utility and survivability through your kit.

Not only this but Xayah is a hypercarry ADC that scales incredibly well with her Deadly Plumage as it increases her auto attack damage by 20% which scales incredibly with the multiplicative nature of Crit ADCs. Xayah is also versatile in the laning phase as she can look to engage with tanky engage supports like Nautilus, Rakan, Rell, and Thresh. But on the other hand because she scales so well into the mid game she works great with enchanter supports as well like Lulu, Nami, and Janna. As long as you switch your playstyle a bit when playing with enchanter supports you should scale somewhat harder.

Although you need your support to surviving the laning phase, Xayah is one of those champs that have lots of tools for themselves. Xayah is able to push waves extremely quickly and rotate around the map much more quickly than the enemy ADC. Besides that she has CC in the form of a root while most other ADC's don't have any other form of CC. This is not to mention her self peel untargetability with her ultimate. Even when Xayah's weak in solo queue she will always be at the very worst decent to broken as it allows you to not have to rely on your teammates as hard.

---

Clean Cuts (Passive) Effect Radius: 900

INNATE: After casting an ability, Xayah's next 3 basic attacks on-attack penetrate through all enemies in a line in the direction of the target, dealing the attack's damage to the primary target and 30 / 40 / 50% (based on level) AD physical damage to secondary targets. At the end of their path, a Feather will be left on the ground for 6 seconds. Xayah can store up to 5 empowered attacks for 8 seconds, refreshed with further ability use or upon attacking structures. LOVER'S LEAP: If either Xayah or Rakan is channeling Recall, the other may move nearby and channel their own to join alongside them. Both reach base at the time of which the initiator's Recall completes.

Xayah passive allows her to play lanes where she gets massively outranged in terms of attack range to stand on even footing. It's important to align yourself with a minion inbetween the ADC and Xayah in order to get the passive damage everytime they try and go for minion kills. Besides that, if you have a Rakan support and he's queueing up his Recall it's important to fend off any enemies or minions before tagging along with him at the last second.

---

Double Daggers (Q) RANGE: 1100 COST: 50 mana COOLDOWN: 10 / 9 / 8 / 7 / 6

ACTIVE: Xayah throws two feather-blades in the target direction in quick succession, dealing physical damage to all enemies hit and each leaving a Feather on the ground. Targets hit after the first take 50% damage.

Double Daggers is a skillshot ability that is typically used to push waves or poke the enemies or mainly used to set up your CC and root on Bladecaller. To use this ability in lane, you look to throw out double daggers when the enemy duo isn't hiding behind minions to get max damage or look to aim for the ADC when they're going for minion kills.

---

Deadly Plumage (W) COST: 60 / 55 / 50 / 45 / 40 mana COOLDOWN: 20 / 19 / 18 / 17 / 16

ACTIVE: Xayah creates a storm of blades for 4 seconds that grants her bonus attack speed and causes her basic attacks to strike the target an additional time for 20% damage. If Deadly Plumage strikes an enemy champion, Xayah gains 30% bonus movement speed for 1.5 seconds. If Rakan is nearby he will also gain the effects of Deadly Plumage, while also gaining the bonus movement speed when Xayah strikes an enemy champion.

Deadly Plumage is an incredible skill as it provides you with a 20% damage increase and also movement speed when you hit enemy champions. You always want to use this when beginning trades as it allows you to weave in and out with the bonus movement speed while doing 20% more damage than the enemy ADC. If possible you want to proc Lethal Tempo with either Double Daggers or Clean Cuts then look to walk in and engage with Deadly Plumage.

---

Bladecaller (E) COST: 30 mana COOLDOWN: 10 / 9.5 / 9 / 8.5 / 8

ACTIVE: Xayah calls all Feathers back to her, dealing physical damage to enemies they pass through, increased by 0% - 50% (based on critical strick chance). Minions take 50% damage. Bladecaller can only hit enemies once per Feather. Enemies take 100% - 10% (based on previous feather hit) damage from a Feather. Enemies hit by at least 3 Feathers are rooted for 1.25 seconds.

Bladecaller is Xayah's most prized ability when looking to catch enemies with the root or just in terms of poking. However it's important that you set yourself up with Double Daggers and actually hit the enemies with the damage of Double Daggers or Clean Cuts in order to proc Presence of Mind and make sure that your mana pool is topped up. To poke with bladecaller, it's important to place your feathers in the same general area and then position yourself between the feathers and champions and recall the feathers to get an easy 100-200 damage in the laning phase.

However, when following up on tanky engage supports and when you want a quick root, the easiest method is as stated. You first proc Deadly Plumage, one auto attack, Double Daggers, into Bladecaller and then you continuously auto attack them as they're rooted and Lethal Tempo is active. Try this combo in the practice tool for maximum results.

---

Featherstorm (R) RANGE: 1100 COST: 100 mana COOLDOWN: 160 / 145 / 130

ACTIVE: Xayah leaps into the air, becoming untargetable and ghosted for 1.5 seconds. Afterwards, she rains down daggers in a cone in the target direction which deal physical damage to enemies hit and leave behind a line of 5 feathers. Xayah is unable to basic attack and cast her abilities during Featherstorm, but she can still move.

Featherstorm is a great ultimate as it can be used both defensively and offensively. Featherstorm grants untargetability which is great against most champs and their abilities as it allows you to basically dodge all abilities besides champions with tethers like Karma, Fiddlesticks, and LeBlanc. It's important to use it death saving scenarios but also when your tanky engage support engages sometimes it can be used aggressively combined with a quick Bladecaller for a very easy root into kill.

Precision

Lethal Tempo is the best keystone rune on Xayah as it allows Xayah to put out the most amount of feathers in the extended fights she likes to take and it also synergizes very well with her Deadly Plumage. Mainly used as it scales well into the late game as well.

Presence of Mind is great for mana sustain until you complete your Essence Reaver as it synergizes with your passive Clean Cuts because you can hit enemies from 700 units away and then regen your mana and look to poke with your abilities more and it's basically a positive feedback loop.

Legend: Bloodline is probably the best bloodline rune for Xayah as we don't really spec into any lifesteal in our build so when combined with Ravenous Hunter it allows us to have really good sustain.

Cut Down for the most part is great in the current meta due to the amount of bruisers and tanks currently in the meta and it allows for us to do much needed bonus damage to these champs. When the enemy is all squishy however, don't be afraid to not run Cut Down but rather Coup de Grace. Be flexible.

Domination

Taste of Blood is a great way to sustain in lane and you should only be looking for lane trades when it's up. Double Daggers and Clean Cuts is a quick and easy way to proc this rune during the laning phase.

Ravenous Hunter provides Xayah with omnivamp in the later stages of the game which is great when you're clearing waves of minions with Clean Cuts, Double Daggers, and Bladecaller as you can easily regen hundreds of HP.

You will always go the offensive runes attack speed and adaptive force to maximize your damage per second but the defensive rune is quite fluid. Most times than not, you will go armor, but in terms of double Ability Power bot lane champions, then you can run magic resist.

SUMMONER SPELLS - FLASH: Flash is mandatory to take as the game has exclusively been balanced around Flash for the past 8 years. Flash can be used both offensively and defensively in the bot lane 2v2 and it’s important to track flash cooldowns to force plays onto players that don’t currently have flash up. Offensively though, Xayah specifically has some cool bladecaller flash mechanics that we’ll take a deeper look at later. HEAL: Heal is the most frequently taken secondary summoner spell as it heals both you and your support and it also provides a small movement speed buff which can aid you in evading ganks and saving your Flash for other plays. It’s important to remember to heal before the enemy support ignites you because the grievous wounds on Ignite reduces all incoming healing by 60%. CLEANSE: Cleanse is a situational summoner spell depending on the enemy team composition, is necessary to take, if they have lots of crowd control effects and if you don’t dodge a single crowd control ability where you would be dead. Some champions you’d take Cleanse against are Ashe and her Enchanted Crystal Arrow with a Leona support, or Caitlyn Yordle Snap Trap and Morgana Dark Binding EXHAUST: Exhaust is also a situational summoner spell when the enemy has very telegraphed damage and once they use their rotation are very vulnerable to dying. Some examples of ADCs in the bot lane are Tristana and her Explosive Charge combo and Samira and her Inferno Trigger. It’s also good against teams of assassins as exhaust reduces incoming damage from a single target by 40%.

I believe it's pretty self explanatory that we take Doran's Blade Health Potion as our starting item as it gives good AD, omnivamp, and HP to start the game with.

We do have choices for what mythic item we want to run. Against a full squishy team comp or a team comp where you need mobility against them I recommend first item Galeforce however if they have tanks or a beefy team comp then the extra damage from Kraken Slayer is well worth it. However I believe late game that Xayah does more than enough damage to shred these tanks, so late game against tanks it's possible for us to sell our Kraken Slayer and opt for Galeforce.

Berserker's Greaves are always preferred on any ADC you play as they're super gold efficient for how much attack speed they give. However if you're against full AD teams, then Plated Steelcaps is fine but if you're against full AP teams, then Mercury's Treads are also okay. Just be flexible while playing the game.

Our 2nd main item will be Essence Reaver. This item is great as it has a sheen proc which allows us to push turrets much more quickly but also allows us to regen mana after using a spell and auto attacking. This allows us to use our abilities off cooldown and never go out of mana. I believe with the macrocentric playstyle that Xayah has, it's necessary to always go this as the second item as you can make many more macro plays as you never run out of resources.

Infinity Edge is next which I believe is also pretty self explanatory because of the increased critical damage after reaching 60% critical strike chance. This scales well with the 20% increased bonus damage amplifier on Deadly Plumage, so this is a great buy. Also, we don't need to spec into attack speed because of the attack speed buff from Deadly Plumage and Lethal Tempo if you're worried about the lack of attack speed in this build.

The 4th item is now quite situational. It's either Rapid Firecannon or Lord Dominik's Regards. Rapid Firecannon is great as it extends the range of our quick CC combo which is Deadly Plumage, auto attack, Double Daggers, Bladecaller. It also helps with one of our weaknesses which is our short range. Lord Dominik's Regards however is great for tank busting as it gives both armor penetration but also increased damage against those with a greater max health than you.

The last item is also much more situational. This will depend on the enemy team composition, so understand what you need to most optimally play against the enemy team. If the enemy team as tons of CC, then go Mercurial Scimitar. If they have unavoidable AP burst damage, then go Maw of Malmortius. If they have one shot potential through your ultimate then go Guardian Angel. If they have too much healing then Mortal Reminder is a great item. So be flexible against the enemy team.

It’s necessary to understand how the laning phase will pan out during the draft phase of the game to incorporate a game plan into our early levels. It’s important that we not only look at the ADC matchup but also the support matchup as the support matchup is what dictates the lane state.

Depending on the support pick, if Xayah is paired with an aggressive tanky engage support she has much more kill potential than if she’s paired with an enchanter which offers a much safer laning phase into stronger mid to late game scaling when even.

However, this does not deter us from having the same game plan in the early game. Look to poke with primarily Double Daggers and then our passive Clean Cuts once we get the 3 feathers from using our q. We want to make sure that we continuously get our passive feathers to hit both the minions and the enemy so we can then proc Presence of Mind for the extra mana regen and keep spamming our abilities. We want to ensure we hit level 2 before the enemy duo which is the first 6 melee minions and 3 caster minions.

With a tanky engage support, like Nautilus, after getting a level 2 advantage (getting level 2 before the enemy), it’s necessary to posture up against the duo and exert our kill pressure. If the enemy duo missteps and doesn't respect the level 2 advantage, then Nautilus can engage and we can quickly follow up with a Double Daggers, auto attack, and Bladecaller and auto them to death with [[lethal tempo.

With an enchanter support, like Lulu, in the same situation after getting a level 2 advantage, we still posture up against the duo however we pressure them off the wave and get in some chip damage. Xayah can look for optimal damage with getting in a Double Daggers instant Bladecaller for an easy 200 damage in the early game. Then we continuously look for poke damage until the adc and support are confident they can all in the enemies.

Besides this, we look to continue scaling in these lanes but then should prepare to pressure enemies at level 3 and 6 also due to the powerspikes Xayah has at these levels.

TLDR: Look for quick trades with double dagger, bladecaller. Follow up on engage with double dagger, auto attack, bladecaller. Level 2 advantage into posture up into kill or poke damage. Keep poking until you can eventually kill them. Level 3 and level 6 advantage. Combo becomes deadly plumage, auto attack, double dagger, bladecaller into the CC.

If Xayah and her duo take down the first turret before the enemy duo, then the next priority should be dragon or the solo lane turret depending on which enemy solo laner has less waveclear (the ability to quickly clear a minion wave without putting oneself in danger) if the dragon is down.

If the enemy duo takes the first turret however, Xayah should send the support player to roam and make plays around the map and look to set up a freeze in the bot lane under the tier 2 inner turret if there are no objectives that the team is looking to fight for on the map. To set up a freeze, always make sure that there are 4 - 5 more enemy minions than allied minions, and make sure to simply last hit the minions and don’t let it exceed or go below 4 - 5 more enemy minions.

You should look to keep farming until you hit your power spike which is at least your mythic item. The thing with Xayah in the midgame is that you're allowed to shove tons of waves and then look for macro rotational type plays as you can quickly shove out these waves. So look to set up two waves and then quickly shove them and then because the fights should be 5v4 or 5v5 while the enemy loses multiple waves, you should come out ahead.

TLDR: After getting first turret, look to take dragon if up or if down take the outer turret in solo lanes against champions with low wave clear. If enemy duo bot takes first turret, look to contest objectives if up or freeze enemy minion waves under tier 2 turret. Quickly shove out waves in the mid game and then rotate to fights/objectives and don't be afraid to use number advantage.

How do we play these fights late game and how do we close out these games?

The most simple method to playing Xayah and closing out games is through macro rotations. You look to, like I said in the midgame, to shove out waves, force an enemy to respond to that push and then rotate to dragon, baron, or teamfights. Then you use your numbers advantage to create winning situations for yourself. This basically pressures the enemy into taking 5v4's and sending someone to that lane respectively or going 5v5 and losing resources on the map.

Besides that, Xayah plays teamfights typically as a disengager/front to back style. If the enemy picks a dive comp, then Xayah is great because she can quickly self peel the dive and then pump out lots of DPS in these fights.

In teamfights you will target the ones closest to you and then weave in abilities with autos to maximize the amount of feathers on the ground and then recall them all at once with Bladecaller. You can also bait out these enemies with Featherstorm to basically let themselves int.

Another method of closing out games is to impact the game and create a winning 5v4 situation however, we can buy a Control Ward and choose a certain bush to place this control ward in that the enemy is most likely going to facecheck. With your team we can burst this individual with our quick CC combo which is Deadly Plumage, auto attack, double dagger, and Bladecaller. Then we would convert this lead into largers objectives like baron, dragon soul, and inhibitors.

After getting larger objectives like baron, dragons and inhibitors, we should try to shove out waves and then look for rotations and macro plays with the team. Xayah's whole strategy revolves around shoving out waves quickly, rotating before the enemy does and then fighting in this window. In this aspect she's quite similar to Sivir, but she is much better at self-peeling instead of team disengaging.

TLDR: Look for fights you are 90-100% certain you will win. Shove out waves first, then when enemy is reacting to that shoved wave it means, look for 5v4 situations or look for picks. Picks are easiest when you have control wards and can catch the enemy or 5v4's are easiest when an enemy is catching a wave on the other side of the map. Then convert these leads to baron, dragon soul, inhibitors and rinse and repeat until nexus.