Hello, hello and welcome to another jungle guide by yours truly. Flavor of the day today: Xayah, The Rebel. And before you ask, no this is not a guide based on one day of gameplay. I played Xayah and Rakan in a few different roles for the stretch of time in which they were on PBE. I found jungling with Xayah to be extremely fun, despite her flaws in the role, but we'll get to those later.

You'll notice as you look over the 2 builds above, there is no champion matchup section. I did not add a champion matchup section for a few reasons.

That said, here's a general synopsis of types of champions she's good/bad against.
Using these builds, Xayah is strong against most tanks and bruisers.
The bruiser build is strong against burst mages and most assassins.
The full damage build is strong against other marksman junglers and most non tanks.

In general, Xayah is bad against Master Yi, Xin Zhao, and other auto attack based assassin/fighters with built in sustain. She doesn't have the CC to lock them down and with this build she doesn't have the burst to kill them quickly.

This rune page designed to give you the most bang for your buck, particularly in the early game, while giving you lots of defensive stats for the late game. You have 11.3% bonus Attack Speed at level 1, just over 120 bonus HP at level 18, 12 Bonus Armor at level 18, and 26 Bonus Magic Resist at level 18, as well as 7 bonus AD at level 1.

REDS

Greater Mark of Attack Damage
You run 5 of these on this build for the benefit of 4.75 bonus AD starting at level 1.

Greater Mark of Attack Speed
You run 4 of these for a benefit of 6.8% bonus Attack Speed

YELLOWS

Greater Seal of Scaling Armor
You run 4 of these, for a bonus of 12 armor at level 18.


Greater Seal of Scaling Health
You run 5 of these, for a bonus of 120 bonus max HP at level 18.

BLUES

Greater Glyph of Scaling Magic Resist
You run 9 of these, for a bonus of 26 magic resist at level 18.

QUINTS

Greater Quintessence of Life Steal
You run 1 of these, for a bonus of 1.5% Life steal at level 1.

Greater Quintessence of Attack Damage
You run 1 of these for a bonus of 2.25 Attack Damage at level 1, combining with the bonus Attack Damage from your Marks for a total of 7 bonus Attack Damage at level 1.

Greater Quintessence of Attack Speed
You run 1 of these for a bonus of 4.5% Attack Speed at level 1, combining with the bonus Attack Speed from your Marks for a total of 11.3% bonus Attack Speed at level 1.

These are the masteries I recommend. You can also run Thunderlord's Decree instead if you want to go full damage and play more like an assassin. I just found this to be a bigger benefit in late game team fights.

Pros + Very High Damage Output + Can Go Untargetable + Effective in Quick Skirmishes and Prolonged Fights. + Decent Clears/Clear Speed + Strong 1v1 Power. Xayah is a fun jungle pick. She can shred tanks easily and hold her own with high damage carries as well. She is able to win small, fast 1v1 skirmishes and transitions well into the late game team fights. For a marksman she has an impressive early clear, able to take quite a few camps and not run too low on health. Thanks to her ultimate Featherstorm, she has some decent outplay potential because of the frames when she's untargetable, as well as her ability to adjust her positioning while casting it. Featherstorm can negate several deadly abilities like Zed's Death Mark as well.

Cons - Susceptible to CC - Squishy - High Learning Curve - Mechanically complex and complicated. - Can be bursted down As with all champions, Xayah has her weaknesses as well. She is squishy when using the Full Damage Build so she is very easily bursted down. She is faily complex mechanically, and requires several games to adjust from playing her like an ADC to playing her in the jungle, as well as just learning how to position and combo her abilities in general. If you're caught by CC, you're probably dead if no one is around to help you. But all of these are fair trades in exchange for the satisfaction of walking out of the jungle, activating your Blade of the Ruined King to slow the enemy, and then watching their health bar disappear.

Xayah actually has a pretty decent first clear of the jungle regardless of your route, despite being so squishy. You can experiment and find your own path if you'd like, but I particularly use this path unless I see reason to change my route based on the enemy champions. Just follow the numbers and then recall after number 4 to spend your gold.

Counter jungling is largely based on your own self confidence as a jungler and as the champ you're playing, in this case Xayah. Some keys to counter jungling are vision control, map awareness, communication, and knowing the jungle timers. I'll go ahead and address each of these.

Vision Control

Counter jungling is always best done when you can ensure your safety in the enemy jungle. The best way to do that is to ward, usually with a Control Ward or with a Farsight Alteration charge, and sweep with Sweeping Lens/ Oracle Lens to eliminate enemy vision. If you see the enemy jungler at his Blue buff and you're near his Red side jungle, then you can safely assume you'll get away with taking a camp or 2 from his Red side. Likewise, if you see the enemy jungler at his Blue buff and notice he's low HP, you can typically get a kill and take the buff if you're nearby. So anytime you venture into the enemy jungle, try to put out some sort of vision.

Map Awareness

So how do you know it's safe if you don't have vision in the enemy jungle yet? Part of it is knowing the typical route of the enemy jungle champ, but if you don't know that, then you can wait for them to show on the map. If they show bot lane for a gank, you can assume safely that his top side is open for invasion and vice-versa. If you see the enemy jungler gank mid from the top side, you can assume he's going to head to his bot side after the gank and you can then ward his top side to gain vision control. You can also counter gank if you're nearby the lane the enemy is ganking, and then if you kill the enemy jungler, his entire jungle is open for business until about 12 seconds after his respawn timer. You can also get a good look at the enemy jungler's HP if they show on the map, and if they're low you can likely invade them for a kill and a free camp.

Communication

If you want to invade and you're unsure about it, but you have a laner who could use a buff, especially if their enemy laner is dead, communicate for them to come with you and try for an invade on the buff of choice. This will give you a 2v1 advantage if you encounter the enemy jungler and even if you don't get the buff or a kill/assist, you can at least get some vision down so you can keep an eye on that spot. You can also communicate with your team to learn the location of the enemy laners. For example, if you notice the Orianna mid went missing, find out if she backed and what her HP/Mana was like. If she had a good amount of either and she didn't recall, she's likely getting Blue from her jungler, meaning red side is free.

Know Your Jungle Timers

Knowing jungle timers is very important when you're thinking about counter jungling, especially since it can play into the other tips I've talked about. First buff will usually respawn around the 7 minute mark. If you know what buff they took first, you can use that knowledge to your advantage. Example: The enemy Master Yi took Red buff first. It's 6:53 on the timer and he's ganking bot lane by his Blue buff. This means in about 7 seconds, his Red buff is gonna be yours for the taking. Likewise, if it's 6:53 on the game clock and you don't see Master Yi, it's safe to assume he's on his red side, so you can probably take Gromp or a non-buff camp from his blue side. If you're super sneaky and already have vision of his Red, you can move to it as it's about to spawn and cheese him out of his red buff.

Ganking with Xayah is a little tricky as she has no gap closer other than Flash and relies on strong positioning to root with her Bladecaller. She is limited to her gank routes due to an inability to get through or over walls. That said, he ganks are SUPER strong due to her sheer damage output with the full damage build, and due to Frozen Mallet combined with the movement speed boost from her Deadly Plumage. Your best tactics for variation are lane ganking from the brush in top/bottom lane and ganking from behind the enemy laner in any lane. Chart below shows your best routes for early ganks:

"Counter Ganking" is when you gank the same lane as the enemy jungler to even out the odds, making the fight a 2v2 or a 3v3 depending on the lane. This is used to stop an enemy laner or jungler from snowballing and boosts the morale of your teammates because they know you are watching out for them and that you have their backs. You should always counter gank when you see the opportunity. Using the "Vision Control" section's chart, you will be able to have eyes on the enemy jungler at most times in the game, so you'll be able to easily see/predict the jungler's intended actions. Best times to counter gank are when you are stronger than the enemy jungler and will render his gank completely useless, your laner(s) has a distinct advantage over the enemy laner(s) and will be able to make up for the ground you can't cover on your own, or when your laner is higher HP than their enemy laner and the enemy jungler is ganking to try turning the tables because this will almost always end up with at least one of you killing one of them.

Overview

This is true for all of League of Legends, not just junglers: Vision control is important. Having good vision and good vision denial can win games. It allows you and your team to know what is happening on more of the map and takes away the enemy's ability to do so. The more you can see, the more you know what you can and can't do. Particularly in low ELO games, the difference in victory and defeat is the black-and-white screen that happens when that one teammate is split pushing and cannot see any of the enemy team. Here is a chart to show you where, as a jungler, to place wards and where to look for wards to be placed.

This has been a short jungle guide to Xayah The Rebel. I hope it helps you out and as always feel free to leave a vote or a comment. I will always reply to any questions you may have. Thanks a lot for checking this out and happy jungling! :)