Talk:Xin Zhao/@comment-24191440-20141029170518/@comment-15244341-20141102234842

His issue (in higher elos) is that he is straightforward in a duel. You either can all-in to kill the other guy or you can't. If you can't, then you get all-inned/zoned. You can't really poke or farm from a distance. He has no "trick" in his kit. He runs at you, autoattacks you, and if that doesn't work... that's it for Xin. Since his late isn't too great, he can't really just passively farm.

His threat range is also fairly predictable, so staying outside it as a ranged champion and just safely farming is quite possible (specially as Ryze, which is the number one ranged top laner right now in higher elos). This is in contrast to Irelia, which is a similar champion (autoattack bruiser with some CC), that can double jump with the right setup.

As Riotsucks said, his all in at lower levels is really strong. A good (at lower elos, mostly) strategy is going jungle, doing your red then running to the enemy's red buff. Outside of Pantheon or maybe Lee Sin, if you jump on them while they are doing it with red buff on you, it will probably be first blood plus an extra buff.

That said, he can be played top. He is certainly good to start learning how to play bruisers, since he is fairly straightforward and while he can't initiate he does have some level ong engaging potential. He however is outclassed top lane (I believe Shaw was speaking about jungle Xin, mostly) by Pantheon (he can actually initiate with ult plus some defensive items) and Irelia (pretty much better damage and CC overall, even if Xin's ult is probably better than Irelia's late game).

Also, don't worry too much about what to play at bronze. If Xin looks good to you, pick him. He is definitely strong enough to win games at most elos.