Talk:Xin Zhao/Strategy/@comment-20434720-20140311050034

Situation: you are a toplaner with weak early game and no escapes. You're playing against a Xin Zhao top, and because you're playing at a low level of play, your jungler will never punish him for staying pushed really far up in the lane. You cannot trade with him, and have no ranged abilities to CS with, and your abilities cost a lot of mana besides.

How do you survive lane? His Q provides him with an extra 30-35 on-hit damage at level 1 as well as a cc, and his level 2 and 3 are only stronger. The only thing I can think of is "sit under turret and hope he pushes it into you, otherwise letting yourself be completely zoned". The problem with this is that Xin Zhao's mid game is rather strong, his late game is average, but if you let yourself fall behind - even if only in farm - he will get a massive advantage.

I'm assuming that against Xin Zhao toplane you should treat him similarly to how you treat a tiger stance udyr (or pre-nerf riven) - with a cloth armor start and extreme caution.

I understand how to itemize against Xin, I simply cannot find a way to lane against him (other than admitting defeat and playing a different champion specifically to survive). Outside of jungle presence, how would one deal with him? His mana costs are virtually nonexistent, and he has low cooldowns that are extremely strong for trading - two rotations of abilities is usually enough to kill you. Heaven forbid HIS jungler is doing anything but farming.

Needless to say, I've had a rather painful experience going against Xin top. I'm not going to pretend I played the matchup well (a bit of a learning experience, tbh - never played the matchup before), but that's why I'm asking for advice.

And no, I can't just dodge the auto attacks or pink ward the dashes.

I would assume that you just kind of stand far away like against Riven pre-6, perhaps try to grab a cs here or there, hope they push hard and let you farm under turret. The problem is (never thought I'd say it) that xin's gapclosing is faster, more reliable, and longer ranged than Riven's and therefore his zoning range is massive. You can't come within 600 range of him, and he can simply stand on top of your minions.