I am not even closely finished with this guide, I will update it every couple days with more information for Kha'Zix but for now it will be enough to already start your Kha'Zix Games

Hey guys, I'm ShadySceptile a Kha'Zix main since I started playing league in season 10. This season I reached Diamond for the first time while mostly playing Kha'Zix (currently sitting at a 63% win rate).

This guide is made for beginning Kha'Zix players in low elo (low emerald or below). It is not over complicated or fancy, just the basic stuff to get you trough the games.(P.S. Read the notes that I have placed in some parts of the setups/builds!) Later on in your own journey of mastering Kha'Zix you might want to create your own builds or style, but for now these builds will suffice for you to rank up and understand the champion.

The core builds are quite simple and you dont need much variety to play this champ in lower elos. Kha'Zix can be played in many different ways and styles, in this guide I will show the two standard ways on how to play Kha'Zix in Jungle.
The first, and best known build style, is the assassin build style. This style is used to kill enemy squishies/carries when they are caught out of position.
The second playstyle is the bruiser playstyle, where you can serve many functions in your team depending on what they need.

I recently started streaming on twitch: https://www.twitch.tv/shadysceptile88 so feel free to watch some vods on there and look how I play khazix. If you have any questions about Kha'Zix, you can always ask it when I am streaming. I did only reach Diamond rank, so I am not a perfect player, I just want to be a good example for newer Kha'Zix players and help them in their own journey of mastery. If you do not agree with these builds, let me know what I could change or why something isnt good. I always appreciate other peoples advice.

Feel free to upvote if you enjoy this guide, thanks! :)

NOTE!
Keep in mind that I am biased with some playstyles/builds/setups. I am giving some examples for the basic 'normal' Kha'Zix builds. I have seen and played almost every Rune setup with every item possible in every lane and have found the build(s) that I find powerfull and fun. So if you are experienced enough, and want to have more fun, feel free to dive deeper in changing your runes/items even more than that I will discuss here.

Potential:
Kha'Zix's potential is based mostly around the mistakes of the enemy. If the enemy is out of position, you can easily isolate them and kill them. This champion is known for his 1v9 potential. He is a good all around champion, he is a good dualist. If played well, he can also be really good in teamfights. His kit and combo's are quite easy to learn, but at the same time you can always find new ways to use your abilities in fights. Where Kha'Zix really shines is the potential to assassinate and quickly get out while the enemy is distracted.

Weaknesses:
Kha'Zix's biggest weakness is his vulnerability for crowd control(cc). If he gets caught in a stunn or knock-up, he is easily killed. Kha'Zix struggles in teamfight versus tank champions and champions with peel potential.
His ganking power comparaired to other champions is also very low due to his lack of cc. Other (tank)champions like Zac and Maokai can easily cc a target for their team to do damage. Even other assassin champions like Rengar, Elise or Evelynn have some form of hard cc, either with a root, stun or charm.
Kha'Zix as an assassin has no form of cc, the only thing this champ has is his Evolved W Void Spike slow and his Passive Unseen Threat auto attack slow.

Kha'Zix potential to punish mistakes is also met with his own counter, if he makes mistakes, he can also be easily punished. This is the reason why this champion is the definition of punishing mistakes, even at its own cost.

Here are the runes going to be discussed and what is best in general to go in your Kha'Zix games. Most of the rune setups are shown above in the beginning of the guide, this part is where i will further explain why you go certain runes.

First off, the most basic/used Rune setup is First Strike- Magical Footwear- Triple Tonic- Cosmic Insight paired with Sudden Impact- Relentless Hunter and Adaptive Force- Adaptive Force-Scaling Bonus Health
You can go this on almost every game as khazix and not really think much about what is better. For the assassin playstyle can Dark Harvest totally be neglected if you choose so.

The Dark Harvest rune page is meant for more experienced players and if you know that you will get an early lead with kills to stack the Dark Harvest, so if you are totally starting out on the champion or are not sure that you will be able to snowball, then it is not adviced to pick it.

The classic Dark Harvest Rune setup is Dark Harvest- Sudden Impact- Eyeball Collection- Relentless Hunter with Absolute Focus- Gathering Storm and Adaptive Force- Adaptive Force-Scaling Bonus Health
This is the hardest scaling Rune setup that you can have on assassin Kha'Zix.

There are also other variations of this Rune setup: some people like to be a little more agressive earlygame to snowball a bit harder. Usually they pair this rune with Magical Footwear and Future's Market. Another change that some assassin Kha'Zix players do is to change the Relentless Hunter to either Ultimate Hunter or Treasure Hunter. Personally I would advice you to just stick to Relentless Hunter as its the best all around rune. Ultimate Hunter is not necessary for assassins because of the item called Axiom Arc, so if you need a lower cooldown on your Ultimate, you can just go Axiom Arc during the game.

The scaling potential is way higher that First Strike, especially the Dark Harvest setup with Absolute Focus and Gathering Storm. Dark Harvest is significantly weaker in the earlygame compaired to First Strike so keep this in mind with choosing your assassin Kha'Zix runes.
So if you know that you will snowball and are experienced enough on this champion, then the Dark Harvest rune can be of really good use. Keep in minda that for the assassin playstyle Dark Harvest can totally be neglected if you choose so, it is a preferance rune, not the meta or anything.

Now on to the other playstyle runes, the bruiser playstyle.
The bruiser Kha'Zix playstyle only uses the Conqueror Rune setup. The most basic and most used setup looks like this: Conqueror- Triumph- Legend: Haste- Last Stand with Magical Footwear- Cosmic Insight and Adaptive Force- Adaptive Force-Scaling Bonus Health.
This rune setup can be used for most of your bruiser games. There are some modification options if necessary/wanted. You could change one Adaptive Force for Attack Speed, this gives you a little slower clear speed and damage in the earlygame, but gives you the ability to clear faster later on in the mid- to late-game. You can also change Legend: Haste with Legend: Alacrity agains comps if you are going Q evolve and/or dont need to much cdr anyways or if you want to increase your farmspeed even more. The rune Last Stand can be swapped out for Coup de Grace, this is mostly done if you go for the heavy damage bruiser/hybrid builds.
The second tree isnt usually swapped out'with something else, sometimes it could be swapped out for Transcendence- Gathering Storm or Absolute Focus- Gathering Storm. This change is used for games where you know that you will do a lot of damage, this is paired best with the full damage bruiser style. This is not a meta setup, its just an option for your own preferance, so i just suggest you to just try if out and see how it feels.

This chapter is all about the items, I will be going through the core items and some other pretty common items that you could run on assassin and/or bruiser Kha'Zix.

Assassin items
First off, the core assassin items: Youmuu's Ghostblade- Profane Hydra- Serylda's Grudge


Youmuu's Ghostblade is frequently used on a lot of assassin champions, this can be used for junglers like Rengar and Kayn but also for other lanes, Zed in the midlane and even adc champions like Senna and Varus in the botlane.
The stats on this item are good. The passive and active are vital for assassin junglers, the out of combat movement speed it really nice for moving around the map and the active is good to engage in a teamfight to quickly assassinate an enemy.

Profane Hydra is a good item on Kha'Zix because it can greatly enhance your clearspeed and has good stats to add. The active can also be used in combos to make your burst damage even better. You dont need to always buy this item if you really dont want to. If you think that you will have enough farm without this item you could spec into other assassin items. I would still recommend this item in almost every game purely for the farming potential. If you cant get kills you need to farm, powerfarming was meta for a while for a reason, it is way easier to farm than to get kills and thus you can just fullclear after fullclear into potential objectives or ganks. Powerfarming can be a go-to strat for low elo to get your gold and exp. It is still suggested to not overfarm and to also focus on the objectives of the game, you want to win the game, not win a pve fight vs Gromp.

The last core item is Serylda's Grudge, this item is the armor pen item for when squisies want to stack armor( Guardian Angel for adcs and Zhonya's Hourglass for mages). Usually the enemy will have an armor component in the midgame, so to counter that you can build this item. The slow on the item also makes your W poke stronger when the enemy is below half health.

Now we have the other assassin items. I will be going trough them briefly as they are really dependend on your preferance and what you need in a specific game.

First off, Edge of Night, this item is a great assassin item for its utility. Kha'Zix Gets countered by cc so if the enemy has very annoying/'point and click' cc, this item is great. It also has some hp so you will also be bit tankier. Some games its not needed to go Edge of Night due to the enemy having no cc, or too high cc. If the cc of an enemy team gets so big, it might not even be worth to buy this item, you might be better off with a pure damage item just to secure a kill. This item also gets countered by poke champions so keep in mind that you cant get hit with a tiny bit of poke in teamfights.

Opportunity is a new item added in Season 14, this item is really good if you need to assassinate only one target and quickly get out with the bonus movement speed after a takedown. The out of combat movementspeed is nice and the 5% movement speed as a stat is also good to have. You have to pair this item with Youmuu's Ghostblade for it to really be worth buying.

Axiom Arc is a good item for champions who are dependend on their ultimate ability. This item is not really a necessary item(again, this can be totally dependend on your playstyle). I would consider this item a good 1v9 item if you are fed. You already have good damage and with getting kills your ultimate ability gets refreshed. This item is really bad as a first item because you wont use your ultimate ability that much. The ulimate ability cdr scales with lethality so the later you but this item the better it is.

Hubris is kind of a coinflip item if you dont know what you are doing. The stats are pretty good on it but it is very expensive. The only reason you buy it is for stacking the items damage with takedowns/kills. Its kind of the same effect as dark harvest that if you dont stack it in the early/midgame, you might want to rethink this buy. You can totally dominate games without this item. So i would not recommend this item for newer players.

Serpent's Fang is a simple item, only take this item if the enemy has an enchanter like Janna and Lulu and if the kit of some other enemy champs has a shield, for instance Blast Shield, Pale Cascade and Indestructible. Also this item counters other shielding items like Sterak's Gage and Locket of the Iron Solari.

Umbral Glaive is a good utility item for vision control. Take this item only as a first item and if you have Zombie Ward in your runes. This item gives you a faster powerspike because of how cheap it is compaired to other assassin items. This item can be really good for playing from behind. But when ahead you can easily invade the enemy jungler with its passive. Would not recommend his item for gold players and below because you need the enemy team to ward(they do it way too less in lower elos) for you to stack the Zombie Ward and make good use of the item.

Voltaic Cyclosword is usually build if you need more burst damage. Personally I dont build this item because the utility on the other items is better. The slow that you get on the auto attack is not needed because you already have that in your passive Unseen Threat.

Lastly the defensive items Guardian Angel and Maw of Malmortius, they are build for when enemy team, or a single fed enemy, is heavily based on attack damage or magic damage respectfully. You could just skip these items if you think that you wont get hit, just like Edge of Night. If you have a big shutdown on you, you might want to stick to Guardian Angel so that you wont die. This wont save you if you get cauth, but in an important teamfight you have a smaller chance to die.


Bruiser items
Now the core bruiser items: Eclipse, Sundered Sky and Black Cleaver

First I want to start with Eclipse, this item can be used a lot in assassin builds as well as bruiser builds for its ability and raw damage. The use of this item for assassins is for its great utility to do damage to tanks and bruisers. It is also really good with the Red Smite that you get from Scorchclaw Pup. The extra shield you get is also a nice little extra to block some damage.
For bruisers its kind of the same, altough the time that you build this item might be different, bruiser Kha'Zix can build this item first and then spec into other more tankier builds, or if you want to play the more damage based bruiser you can build further into pure damage. This item is kind of a good hybrid item for both playstyles. It can be a good core item for some bruiser playstyles but is a bit more situational for assassins.

Next up is Sundered Sky, this item is THE core item if you want to play bruiser. It is simply a good item, The stats are what you need and the active makes you even more tanky.

Another item that could be considered as a core item is Spear of Shojin, it has similar stats to Sundered Sky but has less damage but a little more health and cdr. Lately I find that this item is not as necessary as Sundered Sky, the best playstyle with this item is the W evolution poke playsyle with Black Cleaver. So if you dont like the item, or dont play the particular playstyle of W poke, then dont buy this item.

Black Cleaver, the bread and butter of bruiser Kha'Zix. This item is build on bruiser 80% of the time. You need this item for multiple reasons lateron in the game. First off with Black Cleaver you help your team deal more damage with your stacks. The W evolution poke gives you a lot of oppertunity to stack the Black Cleaver on them. This item of course gives more raw damage for yourself as well.

Sterak's Gage is also a classic bruiser item. It is suggested to build this item as a 4-5th item due to its damage passive. This item is not that bad if you really need to be the only frontline. The lifeline ability of the item is the real reason why you buy this item so the goal of this item is just to survive some heavy burst.

Chempunk Chainsword is basicly only bought if you need to get the antiheal(so if your support or toplaner doesnt buy it). It is a cheap item with mediocre stats. You really need the W evolution to make this item work.

Serpent's Fang Is an item that you can buy with bruiser for ONE situation only. The situation is that you are the only one that could normally buy it and if the enemy is stacked with shielding from items/champion kits and enchanters and if you have W evolved. Is one of those factors are not checked of then dont buy it.

Now to the Hydra items: Ravenous Hydra, Titanic Hydra and Stridebreaker. These items are build for each a different bruiser playstyle but with the main goal to clear the jungle camps faster. All of the items are really not needed in the standard bruiser builds and are more a "for fun" category. It is suggested to have a little more attack speed in your runes with the Hydras to maximize its passive auto attacks. I will discuss them briefly just to explain when to buy what Hydra. First off the Ravenous Hydra, this item is build for the full damage bruiser build to maximize its healing. Titanic Hydra is build for the tankier bruiser builds where you want just some tankyness and damage. At last Stridebreaker is build to slow a champion that has high mobility and that is hard to catch.

Randuin's Omen and Frozen Heart are simple key items if the enemy has a lot of attack damage. Take Randuin's Omen if enemy has a lot of critical strike damage in their build. Take Frozen Heart if the enemy is more attackspead based. If the enemy has all 5 of the champions as pure attack damage based, it might be funny to build both items(jk jk, dont always listen to me) if you already have your core build set up.

Death's Dance is a very weak item this season, its build to survive attackdamage burst and if you just need that to collect a kill. If you cant finish someone before the passive runs out then dont but this item. This item is for the pure damage bruiser build.

Maw of Malmortius is an item to survive magic damage burst and are build for the pure damage bruiser. Again this item isn't that optimal on Kha'Zix

Another underrated item is Jak'Sho, The Protean. This item is really good for mixed damage. It has really good components to counter specific types of damage. For instance if you want to just focus on the magic resist part first, you can just buy the Negatron Cloak and even sit on that item before you finish the complete item. This item also boosts your other defensicve items later on in the game due to its passive.

Spirit Visage is a very niece item to buy, it was really good in previous seasons if you paired the item with Goredrinker and a Soraka on your team. Nowadays the item is in a weird spot and somehow has gotten even more niece. It is still a good item if it is paired with something like a Soraka and if you have some shielding as items( Eclipse and/or Sterak's Gage) and if the enemy is heavy AP. Like you see, there are a lot of things that need to be in place for this item to be good at best. Still worth to try it out, if you have that 1 in 100 game.

Now you have seen the items, runes and/or builds that you could go. This chapter is all about when to go the assassin or bruiser builds, and why I find them better than others.

First off I want to say that Kha'Zix is an assassin and should mostly be played as an assassin. Therefore if you dont know what to play at all, just go assassin. Below here I will show you some examples of when you can go bruiser and when you can go assassin.

If there are 2 tanks/bruisers and 3 squishies on enemy team, you can most deffinetly go assassin. It is simple, you have enough champions that you can actually kill with Kha'Zix's kit.

If you see 4 melee champions and one ranged(ADC probably), you can sometimes still go assassin. This is because you need to look at the enemy champions. Lets say the enemy has Aatrox, Diana, Yasuo, Samira and Nautilus. This team has 4 melee champs, but if you look at the actual champs you can see that they are still are going to be squishy(generally speaking). Diana is going full AP, Yasuo is going crit/damage for his first items, Aatrox is most likely going a more damage based build too( Eclipse + Profane Hydra maybe. But even if Aatrox builds more like a bruiser, the enemy team will technicly still have 3 squishies.

You typically go bruiser if the enemy is generally a bit too tanky, if they have a lot of cc(point and click cc especially) and if your team needs a frontline. Let's say that enemy has Irelia, Amumu, Azir, Varus and Nautilus and your team has Gwen, Kha'Zix(YOU), Akshan, Zeri and [Nami]]. This enemy team could be annoying for the assassin style, especially if you are not too comfortable with your champion. In this case your team has not really a good frontline, so you could opt in the bruiser build here.

NOTE Do keep in mind that if you choose the bruiser build, you are more dependant on your own team to carry you.