Xin Zhao is one of those champions who is all in no outs, this means he has no real escape potential, so thus leaves him very vulnerable to enemy counter ganks, counter jungle and in general just being outplayed.

The general idea is to make him team focused, he doesn't need to go in by himself to find his own kills, the team is there to his advantage, not the other way around either. By this I mean he almost uses his own team to bait and tunnel vision else where while he jumps in and melts the opponents who he picks off at random. The build consists of making his auto attacks count every hit rather than opposed to chasing for a few seconds to get those auto attacks to count because he has no penetration or to say no real potential damage from his Q alone, my build helps secure kills, make plays and potentially chains of kills because of his passive and the Blade of the Ruined King. Not to mention that it's built around every item as opposed to one item doing good for this and another for a completely different reason.

Likewise if you manage to get Dead Man's Plate to 100 stack and you engage with a full build onto a tank, you will just slice and dice him good, it won't necessarily be a kill but it's very possible to do half HP in just one combo due to the Armor Penetration you already have through runes, The Blade of the Ruined King and the Last Whisper just eating away at any armour thats been built against you.

Engaging onto a squishy ADC or Support, and even a Mid Laner is a different story all together. It will be even more fun as you have potential to just about defeat any squishy opponent in one combo because of the Dead Man's Plate stack. Not to mention if you end up in a skirmish against the ADC or Mid Laner, your potential Sustain from Maw shield and Bork Lifesteal and W skill passive will keep you alive long enough to really powerhouse carry your team into fights and not be afraid.