Xin Zhao Full Clear Guide – 2:47 Blue Start

Blue Buff

Gromp

Wolves

Raptors

Red Buff

Krugs

Smite Uses: 1

Finish time: 2:47

Difficulty: Hard

Season: 16

Patch: 26.6

Can Xin Zhao full clear before Scuttle Crab spawn?

Most Xin Zhaos barely finish the clear before 3:00 and then it takes them additional 10-15s to walk towards the crab. Some of them even use two Smites! In this guide I will teach you how to clear fast enough, to be on time for Scuttle Crab spawn, while using only one Smite. The clear itself is hard, but with some work in Practice Tool you can get the clear down to 2:50 at the very least, which is good enough to walk into river while the enemy is doing the crab, catching him in action, taking his precious Scuttle Crab and maybe even killing him!

Which Runes are BEST for Xin Zhao?

First, lets talk about which runes are required to replicate this clear. Small shard runes, are the only ones that matter and best ones for Xin Zhao are Attack Speed in the first row, Adaptive Force in the second row. For the third row, overall Health Scaling or Tenacity and Slow Resist vs high-CC teamcomps are best for the game, even though Health Flat is faster clear wise. Thats simply because they outscale, and jungle is a very scaling role.

Now, we can talk about the entire rune page. Xin Zhao has two main Keystones, Conqueror and Hail Of Blades. I personally like Conqueror and if you want to see my entire runepage set up, check out my Xin Zhao Build Guide!

What spell is best to start?

Xin Zhao can start two spells in the jungle. After a lot of testing, Audacious Charge start proved to be better for blue side clear, and Wind Becomes Lightning start for red side clear. This is truly one of the rare cases where a champion starts different spell depending on which buff they start. 

Audacious Charge start is simply good because it allows us to deal a tiny amount of damage while also giving us an attack speed steroid buff! After finishing your Blue Buff and hitting level 2, put a point in your Wind Becomes Lightning, as it is your main damage spell. Once you finish clearing Wolves, look to put a point in your Three Talon Strike because even though it doesn’t deal much bonus damage, it is an Auto Attack reset and it also reduces the cooldown of your Wind Becomes Lightning which is your main damage spell. After that, follow the standard Xin Zhao skill maxing order - -> -> -> which can also be found in here.

Doing Red Buff before Krugs?

This guide focuses on speed rather then efficiency - but not because we don’t like efficiency, on the contrary I’m a big advocate for efficient clears, but unfortunately Xin Zhao doesn’t have that luxury because of how slowly he clears the jungle. That is why on your first clear you always do Red Buff before Krugs. The downside of this is that on your second clear, after finishing Raptors, you will have to wait about 30s before your Krugs spawn, but as long as you don’t let that time go to waste, it’s not a big problem. What I usually do:

1. Ward (either Dragon or a defensive ward for my laners to stop the enemy from ganking)
2. Recall, buy items and abuse homeguards to be in time for Krugs spawning - esentially using the Smite upgrade trick
3. Gank a lane
4. Invade enemy on his Gromp - if you have prio in your closest lanes, if you kill Raptors as they spawn, you can walk into enemy jungle as Gromp is spawning

Important mechanics & Tips:

• Learn to kite camps - for most junglers, but especially this clear, its essential to kite camps towards the end of the range indicator - and pulling them out of it once they are 2-3 attacks from dying.
• Abuse the jungle pet - after dealing damage to a camp, jungle pet will hit for two ticks, abuse this and don’t waste attacks when you don’t need to ( Raptors for example)
• Using smite at the very last second is optimal, in case you’re getting invaded.