Hi, I'm Denonomous (or Deno in-game), a Diamond Lee Sin main, and welcome to my Lee Sin guide.


Lee Sin can be a devastating champion in the right hands. His high skill cap is what keeps many players from playing him well. While he can be played viably in both the top and mid lanes, his most proficient position is in the jungle, which is what this guide will cover.


I'll go over things from the general jungle route and tactics as Lee Sin to very specific things, like combos and small tips that will increase your jungle speed.


Hopefully, I'll be able to make changes to this guide every now and then to adapt to the current meta. Feedback is appreciated!

Pros

+ Good sustain + Amazing early game + High mobility + Can knock up multiple opponents with Dragon's Rage + Highly versatile

Lee Sin is one of the strongest junglers in the game. He has very good clearing speed and sustain, and his ganks early are godlike. He can build both as a carry and as a tank. With his ultimate, Dragon's Rage, he can pick off opponents. He is also able to use Safeguard to jump to allies and wards to move around the map very quickly.

Cons

- Scales down - Not much AoE - Runs out of energy quickly - Hard to learn

Like any other champion in League of Legends, Lee Sin has his flaws. For one, you need to gank early, otherwise you will most likely get outscaled by other junglers. His lack of AoE makes his teamfighting lackluster, and he can run out of energy quickly if not managed properly. This, along with the fact that Sonic Wave is a skillshot makes him a hard champion to learn.

Strength of the Ages will help keep you tanky into the mid-late game while still allowing you to build damage. Thunderlord's Decree is also an option for more early game damage builds.

Since Strength of the Ages was removed, Thunderlord's Decree is now the best mastery for Lee Sin because it makes his early game ganks so much stronger.

I run three flat AD quintessences, 9 armor seals, 9 flat ad marks, 3 flat magic resist glyphs, and 6 flat cooldown reduction glyphs. The AD and CDR help Lee Sin's early game damage and the flat resistances make him tankier early game.

For summoner spells, I wouldn't recommend taking anything beside Smite and Flash. Smite is essential for jungling and securing buffs/objectives. Flash is too good to give up on Lee Sin. Despite his awesome mobility even without it, when you don't have a ward on hand, or Safeguard is on cooldown, Flash is essential for getting some of your combos off.

Tracker's Knife

Stalker's Blade

Skirmisher's Sabre

This is the standard smite for Lee Sin. It allows you to ward jump when Stealth Ward is on cooldown, as well as get more vision for your team all over the map. Also it saves you some gold because you don't have to buy Sightstone.

Build Sightstone for wards. The slow and damage from chilling smite makes ganking much easier. The slow in particular helps you to land Sonic Wave and get behind enemies for Dragon's Rage. Get this item when ganking is your number one priority.

Build Sightstone for wards. When you plan to invade the enemy jungler, or simply end up in 1v1 duels a lot, this item can make the difference between a kill and a death. The 20% damage reduction means that you will want to use this at the start of a fight.

Boots of Mobility

Mercury's Treads

Ninja Tabi

Boots of Swiftness

Most games, these will be the boots of choice. They provide so much movement speed when going from base to camp to lane, and greatly increase the amount of things Lee Sin can do.

Build these for the tenacity, which help against enemy champions with lots of hard crowd control, such as Leona, Twisted Fate, Braum, etc.

When the enemy AD carry or if another auto-attack based champ such as Tryndamere or Yasuo is fed, buy these boots. The 12% damage reduction on auto attacks negates a lot of damage.

An alternative to Mobility Boots when the enemy team has a lot of slows, but not a lot of hard crowd control.

An honorable mention are the Ionian Boots of Lucidity, which are more offensive than the rest of the choices, but lack any defensive stats or increased movement speed.

Flurry:

After using an ability, Lee Sin's next 2 basic attacks within 3 seconds gain 40% attack speed and return 15 energy each.

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Sonic Wave:

Lee Sin shoots a wave of sound in a line, dealing physical damage to the first enemy it hits and granting true sight of it for 3 seconds. If Sonic Wave hits, Lee Sin can cast Resonating Strike within the next 3 seconds.

Resonating Strike:

Lee Sin dashes to the enemy marked by Sonic Wave, dealing physical damage including 8% of the target's missing health. Minions and monsters take a maximum of 400 damage.

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Safeguard:

Lee Sin dashes to a target ally. If the ally is a champion, they and Lee Sin receive a shield that lasts 4 seconds and Safeguard's cooldown is halved. Lee Sin can activate Safeguard on himself to receive the shield, and can cast Iron Will within 3 seconds.

Iron Will:

For 4 seconds, Lee Sin gains bonus life steal and spell vamp.

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Tempest:

Lee Sin smashes the ground, dealing magic damage to all nearby enemies and granting true sight of them for 4 seconds. If Tempest hits an enemy, Lee Sin can cast Cripple within the next 3 seconds.

Cripple:

Lee Sin cripples all enemies within range that are marked by Tempest, reducing their movement speed for 4 seconds, decaying over the duration.

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Dragon's Rage:

Lee Sin launches a powerful roundhouse kick, dealing physical damage to a target champion and knocking it back 1200 units over 1 second. Enemies the target collides with take the same damage and are knocked airborne for 1 second.

Maxing Sonic Wave first is standard on Lee Sin. It increases his ganking potential more than maxing any of his other skills because of the great early damage of Resonating Strike. Maxing Safeguard second is suggested, but not essential. The slow from Cripple is great, so you could max Tempest second. However, after the nerfs to Cripples attack speed slow, your dueling potential is a lot worse.

Blue Side: When I'm playing on blue side, I start at golems because bot lane can give the best leash. Use smite on golems and make your way to red buff, remembering to space out your spells with your auto attacks. Start chugging a pot or two if needed and go to the wall at blue buff. Use Sonic Wave in order to get over the wall and increase your clear speed. Use smite to execute the blue buff.

Red Side: When I'm playing on red side, I start at gromp because bot lane can give the best leash. Use smite on gromp and make your way to blue buff, remembering to space out your spells with your auto attacks. Start chugging a pot or two if needed and go to the wall at red buff. I don't like using Sonic Wave over the wall to red buff because this clear tends to be harder than blue side's clear, so go around to save some extra health.

Ward Hotkey:

Setting your ward to a key like 'T' or 'C' makes ward jumping a lot easier. Make sure your item is in slot 6 and change your Item 6 Quickcast hotkey to something like this:


Ward Jump: -
Use this technique to get closer to land an important Sonic Wave, escape over a wall, or to position yourself for Dragon's Rage. Tap the ward and Safeguard in quick succession.

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Q-Smite: - -
When an enemy is hiding behind minions, first make sure smite will do enough damage to kill the minion, then catch the enemy off guard with Sonic Wave.

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"Insec": - - - -
This is one of the most important combos you can pull off as Lee Sin. It allows him to pick off enemies while siegeing. You often want to do this to high priority enemy targets (such as the marksman), kicking them into your team.

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Flash "Insec": - - -
Insec with Flash instead of a ward jump. Can also be used in conjunction with a ward jump for a longer range Insec.

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"Insec" Flash Prediction: - - - - -
Basically a guaranteed Insec. This is very situational and you should only really use it in game-winning situations where you want to guarantee that your team will kill the target even if they flash/blink away.

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The early game is the most crucial part for Lee Sin, as this is when he is the strongest. The high base damages of Sonic Wave and Resonating Strike give him strong ganking and 1v1 potential.


After your first clear, look for a gank in the top lane if the enemy top laner is pushed towards your tower. If the enemy top laner is pushed back to their tower, it is likely that the enemy jungler is looking to gank your top laner. With a good leash from bot lane, Lee Sin's clear should be faster than most other junglers, so the enemy jungler likely is still finishing up their clear. You can try hiding in the river bush if the enemy is coming from blue buff or the tri-bush if the enemy is coming from red buff. If all else fails, take the Rift Scuttler for some vision then clear and recall or look for a gank mid lane.

Two positions for counter ganking against a slow jungler.

Even if you don't manage to snag first blood, you can probably waste the enemy top laner's Flash or Ghost. Keep these cooldowns in mind when choosing your next gank target. Ganking an enemy is 10x easier when they don't have escape summoner spells.


If you kill an enemy laner or force them to recall without Teleport, you should push the lane or freeze it in a way that it denies gold and experience to the enemy laner. Some players may ping you back if you try to tax minions, so you may want to just leave them alone. The reverse also applies if one of your laners is killed/forced to recall. Cover empty lanes for your laners so that your tower doesn't die and minion exp/gold isn't wasted.


After your initial clear, gank, and recall, you should buy Long Swords and Boots before Tracker's Knife to maximize your ganking potential. Look over all of your lanes and see which ones are easiest to gank. Try to gank lanes that have crowd control, as it makes for easy kills. Remind your teammates to chat enemy summoner spell cooldowns so that you can punish them. You can buy a Vision Ward or two to deny vision where you want to gank. You can also use these for wardjumping when you have no other wards. Don't forget to clear your jungle camps in-between ganks, as they provide valuable exp and gold.


After a good gank in mid or bot lane, you can try to take the dragon. I tend to prioritize Infernal Drake and Mountain Drake over the other two dragons, as these give arguably the best passive buffs, shown below.




Always keep tabs on the enemy jungler. Warding the enemy jungle will help a lot with this. If the enemy jungler is trying to gank bot lane and you spot them, either go for a counter gank by waiting in the lane bush or look for a play on the other side of the map. For example, if the enemy shows top lane around 7 or 8 minutes in the game, ping your mid laner to come steal the enemy buff on the opposite side of the map.

By the time one lane wins/loses so hard that the turret is destroyed and they start roaming to other lanes, you should adapt your play style to match the mid game. At this point in the game, there will often be full team pushes in mid lane. Whether or not your team can fight is up to you to judge, but if you have been pushing your advantage in the early game, Lee Sin should still be pretty strong at this point. Look for Insec picks that won't get your team killed if you think your team is strong enough, or just direct your team to defend/give up a tower for objectives on the other side of the map, such as dragon/other towers.


Remember to keep wards up around the map. Always keep vision on crucial objectives, such as Baron Nashor and Dragon. Always try to capitalize on kills/bad rotations by the enemy team. For example, if your team kills the enemy jungler or some of the enemy team shows across the map without Teleport, you can try to force a Baron or Elder Dragon fight.

Late game is like mid game without the early game, if that makes any sense. It is purely teamfighting and rotations, and possibly some split pushing. The advice for mid game applies here as well.


Sadly, this is when Lee Sin falls off, and if the game drags on too long, it is hard to win team fights. Try to stay relevant by peeling for your carries with Dragon's Rage. More often than not, kicking tanks, bruisers, and assassins off of your carries is a better option than trying to go for an Insec. Still, don't be afraid to make plays if you know that they will work and you will win the fight. At this point in the game, it is a smart idea to have a Guardian Angel as it will let you dive in to make big plays.


Again, look for objective opportunities such as Baron and Elder Dragon, and don't be afraid to trade Baron for Elder Dragon or vice-versa with the enemy team if you can't force a fight and the dragon buffs are in your favor.