This is my build for Xin Zhao, I Wouldnt go so far as to say its perfect, But i've never needed to alter or change it in over 85 games as Xin Zhao as carry mid or carry solo top.

I enjoy Xin Zhao because he is so very strong throughout the entire game, but especially so from levels 2-5, he is my first pick solo mid champion hands down, i say this because he farms on par with some of the highest "teir" champions in the game, he has a very good attack animation, can leap strike an enemy champion, and can break towers quickly, with no backup from the team.

what compriases Xin Zhaos strength early you ask? the ability to do massive amounts of damage in a short time while simaltaniously disabling his opponent.

Senario one, you're Solo mid Vs. an ashe, For this lane i would pick up Because i know that ashe has a very very limited burst early game, and if i press her she wont be able to keep up to my damage and will either be forced out of lane, OR i will kill her, because xin has massive damage output. For midding against champions like ashe, who have bursts, but few and far between, i would recommend trying this style of opener, generally trying for first blood from levels 2-5.

Senario two, You're solo mid Vs. a Kassadin, or someone like him, with a very strong ultimate. now the tricky part to this kind of fighting is that you let them push/last hit as they please, taking any oppourtunity that presents itself for an obvious kill, but when you're both level 5 and nearing 6, you *MUST* get level 6 first, and the moment you hit level 6(provided you've planned for this) you spend your point in your ultimate, Dash to them, use your ultimate and and Q, and proceed to win the fight. This method is tryed and true and i can tell you if you plan carefully you WILL beat 90% of people doing this.

Ghost is for disengaging to the outskirts of a teamfight so you can rengage or just to chase your target which should almost always be the ap carry.

using ignite is a little tricky, since you can completely fumble it, not get your kill waste your summoner and be a lot less threatining without it, so a good rule is to either hold it until theres no possible way for them to get away with their life, or make them use their evasive summoners first, and then use ignite early in the fight so you can kill them quickly.

Now that you've asserted your lane dominance, you will want to blue pill home so you can buy and possibly i HIGHLY suggest you pick up the vampiric septer soon after merc treds, Because is not very good at all, With your new merc treds, you should easily be able to engage, defeat and escape 90% of situations involving solo mid, 2v1 mid, solo top, 2v1 top, and roaming the jungle.

Some of the more complex situations dealing with junglers CAN WIN YOU THE ENTIRE GAME If preformed correctly, Such as

• Ganking the enemy jungler his first or second time at red buff,
• Stealing the enemy redbuff and leaving a single minion so it takes a long time to respawn.
• "Invading" the enemy jungle at level 1 and killing the jungler and then killing their blue buff.
• Warding the enemy jungle so he can not gank you, making him waste time when he could be leveling.

If you succed at any 2 of these things, you have given yourself, in essence, a 4v5 match (Provided your jungler has better luck than theirs.)

Moving on the 6-10 level range of the game, you'll knowtice team ganking start to occur, the jungler will make key appearance and it IS NOT your job, as the solo mid carry, to help in all these teamfights. Thats not to say that you do not help the team, but your primary concern should be dominating your lane and breaking your first turret. Once the turret in your lane is broken, we enter what some call the roaming ganker phase, This is a time when (Because you dominated in the early laning phase) you get your jungler or someone who is confident that they can get the solo experiance while fighting your earlier opponent in mid without giving him free gold with their deaths, to fill your spot while you go looking for ways to assure your teams victory, By applying your spear to the enemy champions faces. In this phase you will want to buy and preferably in that order, Black cleaver because it will take around 65% of champions below 30 armor(which makes you hit like a beast) And blood thirster because it is an amazing lifesteal item, allowing you to stay in fights longer so you can be an effective carry.

Now we're down to the end of the game, levels 11-18
I typically assoiciate this time of the game with my highest level of farming, i am quoting Reginald here, but it is absolutely essential that you maximize your farm it is the sepereating difference between a good player and a player who dominates the other team with relative ease.

but how do i maximize my farm? you say. One way is to never wait around for a gank. this is foolishness, at this point in the game you should have a measure of how much it will take to kill the enemy champion in question, waiting around for pokes/timely stuns is NOT how you carry. you farm and farm and farm and if you have a good understanding of the charactor, you should be able to walk up from the bush and immediately win or lose a given situation, Waiting around for a chance stun or poke is a great way for you to lose out on much needed time in farming. gold is everything and the longer you wait in bushes at top lane waiting for that sion to come out just a little farther is time you're just GIVING away to the enemy team.

But how do i gank then? Simple, you confuse, infuriate, and deny. Confuse, doing things with no set order, or making it seem like you are running away from someone only to have a teammate waiting to help you. Infuriate, constantly poking or foiling the enemy champions plans, which brings us to Deny, if you deny the enemy champion long enough, he will become desperate for experiance, and try either ganking with a teammate too early(if you are warding your lane this will be laughable,) or try to poke and prod you out of the lane, the easiest way to deal with this is to continually gank this person by letting his minions push out far enough to where he cant run back to tower, and then killing him.

Items for this part of the game are varying, but i generally am getting focused heavily so i get and start building and usually before i finish trinity force the game is over.

Xin Zhao is not an initiator
This is among the most common mistakes made on Xin Zhao, they assume that because his rushes toward a target, the he should initiate. This is the opposite of the truth. If you are playing Xin Zhao to his best, you will wait for the teamfight to start, and then when you can engage without being instantly focused you dash in, use on a group of 3+ enemy champions and then proceed to hunt the enemy AP Carry. This is essential, without the enemy AP carry they will lose a huge amount of damage, and more than likely a decent amount of crowd control aswell. After the AP carry is gone, you then move immediately to the support. It is not reccomended that you try to fight the AD carry first, seeing as he will take a longer amount of time to kill, the support whom you will murder quite quickly, will put your team in a more advantagous position for the remainder of the timefight.

Special teamfights include Dragon, who wards or counterwards will play 90% of the deciding factor in those fights, and Baron, who you can bait, steal, and scare people off of.

Baiting and stealing dragon and baron are extremely difficult, If you're playing a smart team, you can forget about baiting, which leaves you with stealing them, On Xin Zhao it is extremely difficult because his is relavitvely low damage at the end of the game, and is more used for the slow and rush. the answer to this is that you will 99% of the time dont even think about trying to steal baron on your own.

Dragon is an altogether different story, one of the best way to win the game is to control dragon throughout the match, wards, global ultimates such as karthus or lux also help in these situations, and teaming up for each dragon will assure victory if the enemy team is not as coordinated.

I Do not jungle with Xin Zhao, mainly because he is outdone by almost every other jungler and serves a much better role as a solo carry.