Xin's struggle with jungle

Xin's not really made for jungle. The poke heal every three strikes doesn't negate the overall damage you take and his CDs are high compared to others. I wouldn't use him to jungle. He's still a viable top with a good gank from any jungle though. Or on ARAM or DOM. But his usefulness is limited now with better stronger champs out. He's still an excellent teamfighter and can isolate people if played right - thing is most people don't, or can't jungle. Also, Mobafire is out of date. Use LoLNexus or some other decent site.

 

He is still pretty good, he can build devourer once you get good at it, if you have troubles staying alive going cinderhulk and having the proper runes/masteries should make it so you survive. If you have issues with dying to much then maybe rush a vamp scepter (that builds into bork). To be fair Xin's strength comes from his super strong ganks, so stay out of the jungle if you keep dying and apply pressure.

 

Xin has a really good early game and you should pressure lanes from level 3 on, but if he doesn't get the levels he needs early then he's going to be pretty useless in the late game. Devourer helps a little bit with that.

 

It does help a bit, but not enough to make him place over another jungler at the same point in the game with the same items. He literally needs to be top feeding off minions all game, or in the jungle barely coming out for ganks to keep up with an enemy jungler who can simply gank easier. I don't hate my Xin; I love Winged Hussar Xin Zhao. But he's just not a jungle anymore.

 

You really need a lot of potions with Xin and your ganking game has to be really good to say you're a Xin master. Early game is gonna be really hard so get a leash and make it count. Gank bot early if you can they usually don't see it coming level and you can stun early or late depends on your flash.

 

If you're good with priming your knockup for a flash+knockup, his ganks are stupid strong still. But the problem is, unlike most Alistairs or Flash-Ulting/skilling gankers, it all relies on bandwidth, connection, pinging your team-mate - so many variables. So usually I'll just ping once, jump out, damage them if not kill them, then back into the jungle. Even if you don't win ganks early on, don't feel bad - just keep helping lanes, getting them ahead. You might fall behind but all other 4 people probably are getting farmed.

 

Probably in early seasons he wouldn't have been quite of a good pick, I thoroughly agree with y'all. Though in this season, he's been showing some really good sign of improvement and potential. I actually played him and quite like how it feels playing.