Talk:Xin Zhao/@comment-25296141-20140812152124/@comment-5266525-20140812163034

I feel like the loss of Spirit Stone for the Ancient Golem build path was a nerf to Xin more than anything else. He's not very fast if he doesn't get early damage and Quill Coat just makes it really hard to farm back up to strength if he takes a hit to his levels early. Flare was significantly worse off on him after its first nerf as 5 camps is a lot of extra time invested with a low clear speed.

I'd say it isn't worth rushing Spirit of the Ancient Golem straight after Quill Coat if you plan on building a damage item afterwards. I can agree that a Brutalizer is an excellent first damage item on him (although I prefer to build it into Youmuu's over Black Cleaver) but I feel like a Phage into Trinity can also work well if you want to snowball yourself ahead. It also gives the benefit of freeing up another 10% CDR so you can go both Visage and Heart on him at once, which is awesome.

Flare can still work fine on him but you need to be sure you won't get set behind somehow early. It also means you pretty much HAVE to have some other source of attack speed on his kit. BotRK is really good on him in this case although you won't have any CDR in your build going that route until you get a Kindlegem or a Shroud to build into whatever you need.