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The Sixth Sense ~ A focus on laning Lee Sin

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By: EvilDice on 2011-06-11 :: Viewed 430970 times

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LoL Champion: Lee Sin

 

Health	3380
Health Per 5 Sec	103
Mana	0
Mana Per 5 Sec	0
Armor	140
Magic Resist	166.91
Attack Damage	138
Crit Chance	18%
Crit Damage	0%
Attack Range	125

Movement Speed	424
Ability Power	0
Attack Speed	0%
Life Steal	0%
Armor Penetration	33.27
Magic Penetration	0
Cooldown Reduction	10.0%
Dodge	0.0%
Gold Per 10 Sec	0
Reduced Death Time	0%

Greater Mark of Desolation
9

Greater Seal of Resilience
9

Greater Glyph of Warding
9

Greater Quint of Desolation
1

Greater Quint of Fortitude
2

Ability Sequence

Ability	Level	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12	13	14	15	16	17	18
	Flurry
	Sonic Wave / Resonating Strike
	Safeguard / Iron Will
	Tempest / Cripple
	Dragon's Rage

Purchase Order

Boots of Speed
350

Health Potion
35

Health Potion
35

Health Potion
35

The Brutalizer
1337

Warmog's Armor
3000

Mercury's Treads
850

Atma's Impaler
2355

Force of Nature
2610

Mastery Trees

3/3

1/3

 

 

 

 

 

3/4

4/4

 

 

 

 

 

3/3

 

 

 

 

 

3/3

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

3/3

 

 

 

 

 

 

1/1

 

 

Offense: 18

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Defense: 0

3/3

1/3

 

 

 

 

 

4/4

 

 

 

 

 

1/2

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Utility: 9

The Sixth Sense ~ A focus on laning Lee Sin

By: EvilDice

TABLE OF CONTENTS

1. Welcome!
2. Introduction to Lee Sin
3. Lane or Jungle?
4. Runes
5. Masteries
6. Summoner Spells
7. Abilities
8. Items
9. Tips & Playstyle
10. Jungling
11. Want to learn more?

Welcome!

Introduction to Lee Sin

So you've decided to try your hand at the blind monk, have you? Well, you simply do not realize what you are getting yourself into. The truth is, Lee Sin is a high skillcap champion who requires the summoner to make smart, educated split second decisions. For me, playing the monk seems very natural, I don't think too much about what just happened till I'm dead. When I started playing Lee Sin, I was aweful with him and just had no idea how to play him. Then I just kept playing more games with him, and eventually, I found my inner blind monk and I now rape face with him. The key to getting better with him is practice, practice, and more practice. Oh, and you can read this guide, that would help too. Step into my dojo.

Lane or Jungle?

I want to get this out of the way up front. You should be laning with Lee Sin. Because Lee Sin is best with an atmog's (atma's impaler + warmog's armor). He needs to sit top and farm like a maniac. You just can't achieve that level in farm as a jungler. Additionally, jungling requires him to buy a wriggle's lantern, which doesn't really do much for him and will just set back your laning build.

Lee Sin is an absolute BEAST in both the lane and jungle, but if you want to make an impact late game, you belong soloing top.

And no, going bottom lane is not an option. You need your CS badly, and bottom lane won't let you CS as well nor will it allow you to completely fucking dominate your opponent, which you can do in top lane. Mid is usually a harder matchup due to how short the lane is, but if you have to go mid, go mid. This guide is going to be almost completely centered around laning solo top with Lee Sin, so this is not going to be an in depth jungle guide. I'll just share my path and playstyle with you.

Runes

    

 Greater Mark of Desolation is the obvious choice for red and the best mark in the game.
 Greater Seal of Resilience is going to help you deal with your solo top opponent who will either be an offtank or a ranged dps.
 Greater Glyph of Warding is another early game rune that will be especially useful if you are laning top against a caster.
 Greater Quintessence of Desolation - You are going to take one of these for a nice boost in early armor pen and damage.
 Greater Quintessence of Fortitude - You are going to take two of these for a nice boost in early game survivability.

Masteries

With the new buff to Havoc, 21/0/9 has become a strong mastery build for Lee Sin and is going to really help his damage output for both early and lategame. The 9 points into utility are mainly for the exp mastery so you don't fall behind your opponent in exp.

Summoner Spells

 Flash +  Ignite - This combination is just.. Money. Flash opens up an amazing combo opportunity with your ultimate, while ignite finishes the job on pesky enemy champions. Combine these spells and you get some pretty awesome synergy that should be used together as much as possible.

Alternatives

 Exhaust - This is your alternative to ignite, if you feel that you need more fighting prowess instead of burst damage.

 Ghost - Ghost is just a really good summoner spell. Go ahead and use it if you don't like flash, or ignite, or exhaust :P.

 Smite - Only if you are jungling, combine this with flash.

Abilities

    

 Flurry(passive)

Your passive is worth remembering because of the extra AS you can get and energy you can regen back. It DOES NOT stack so for farming/jungling, you are not going to want to spam your abilities all at once or you will not make the most out of this passive.

 Sonic Wave / Resonating Strike

Your bread and butter ability. Your Q is your best friend. It serves as your distance closer, your main damage dealer, your bush checker, and your finisher. This allows you to finish off enemies very well because of the fact that it does more damage the more health your target is missing, much like garen's ult. You are going to use this in lane for quick, easy harassment and in teamfights to stick to your target like glue.

 Safeguard / Iron Will

Your shield is going to help with your sustainability in lane because of the extra lifesteal, as well as allow you to get off cheap, easy harassment(even at their tower) by just dashing up to them with Q and retreating back to your minions with W. You should use your shield to help allies but you are mainly using it as a defensive dash.

Please know that you can shield yourself, so if you are fighting someone and don't want to dash away, hold alt+w for a self shield :).

*** You can dash to wards with this!!! I usually always carry 1-2 wards in my inventory(that I don't put down) so that I can place a ward over a wall and dash to it. This can serve for some very nifty escapes without having to waste your flash summoner spell.

 Tempest / Cripple

Since you can no longer proc the bug on it, this ability is next to useless and is only going to be used for the slow utility it gives you. For this reason I do take one level of it at level 4 but refrain on taking it for the rest of the game.

 Dragon's Rage

Your ultimate is very underestimated and very misunderstood. It is a hefty knockback that deals very nice damage. In lane, I generally use it as my finishing combo(ult+ignite). In jungle, I flash behind who I am ganking and then ult them, knocking them into my ally.

When you are teamfighting, consider both of these methods. The target of your ult is generally going to be a squishy carry on the other team that you can knock into your team. If you spot an enemy out of position, flash ult that bitch and get a quick, easy kill.

Also, don't be afraid to use this defensively! It's on a short cooldown and can save your life when you are getting chased.

Items

Lee Sin has a pretty standard item build that isn't very situational. I'm going to give it to you here.

Starting Items
 

Your starting items are boots+3 health pots. The extra move speed is going to allow you to chase and establish lane dominance against your opponent and give you a nice amount of survivability with the 3 pots. I like this start because it also is an item that will go directly into your build later, unlike a Doran's Shield or cloth armor.

The Brutalizer This is just a great item on every AD champion and Lee Sin is no exception. Will give you strong early game armor pen, a nice damage boost and some CDR. This is just the straight up best item on any AD carry that does most of his damage from spells.   Atma's Impaler Because of the high health you have by now farmed up from your Warmog's you are going to grab an atma's now for a HUGE boost in damage output. This item also gives armor, which your build so far is lacking, so it will now make you extremely hard to kill and do a lot of damage. Atmog's on Lee Sin is not an option.

Warmog's Armor You know that one item that everyone calls you a noob for buying? Yeah, Warmog's. This item is amazing for our blind monk, providing him a ton of health for tankyness and allowing him to later be stacked up for an Atma's impaler for a huge increase in late game damage.   Force of Nature So right now, your build has a bunch of armor, a bunch of health, but not a bunch of magic resist. Bam. Problem solved. Your FoN is going to give you a ton of MR, as well as allow you to move faster to chase down those pesky carries. Additionally, its passive works great with your high amount of health.

Mercury's Treads Your only choice for boots on Lee Sin, the CC reduction they give will help you immensely, as will the small amount of magic resist that you've been lacking. Merc's are the best pair of boots you can get on any tanky dps champion, and our blind monk is no exception.      Last item: Situational  Your final item is going to build towards your own playstyle and how the enemy team looks. Need a little bit of magic damage and health? Triforce. Need some more damage on your spells? BT. Is their CC getting ridiculous? Banshee's Veil. Are they all getting armor? Last Whisper.

Tips & Playstyle

Lane Phase

So you are now top lane. Early on, you want to make sure to last hit as much as possible. You aren't going to want to enter a straight up brawl right away, however you do want to start to poke your enemy by dashing to them with Q and dashing back to your minions. Your goal here is to do as much damage as possible while taking minimal damage in return.

Eventually, the more you poke them, the more aggressive you are going to want to get. Keep harassing, and sometimes, stay a little longer and autoattack them a bit. Scare them. Once you hit 6 and you think you can get the kill, flash behind your target, ult him, and the ignite and autoattack. This is a way to secure a kill that your opponent won't be expecting at all, and believe it or not has a ton of burst. I would say you can execute this combo when your enemy is around half health or lower. Make sure you keep your lane always warded so you don't get ganked, however you can deal with ganks pretty well and throw down some nifty jukes.

Gank Juking

If you are getting ganked and are out of position, you will want to run into the bush nearest to the enemy tower. The ganker is going to make a wide loop to facecheck, so at this time, you hit them with sonic wave, dash to them, and then safeguard to your minions. This requires a lot of patience and calm but won't work all the time, so just try to be in a good position ;)

Post Lane Phase

Once you have pushed down the top tower, you can either elect to continue to push top and farm, start helping other lanes with ganks, or try to steal some of the enemy jungle. Remember that your goal is to get your Warmog's up and don't neglect your farm, however it is generally harder to push a lane now that you've taken down the turret.

Ward jumping

I mentioned this earlier in the guide but in case you didn't read it, I usually always carry 1-2 wards in my inventory(that I don't put down) so that I can place a ward over a wall and dash to it. This can serve for some very nifty escapes without having to waste your flash summoner spell.

Teamfighting

Your target in teamfights is the enemy ranged carry, so you are going to want to come in shortly after the teamfight has been initiated, dash to them, and stick on their ass until they are dead. If you are able to catch someone out of position, flash behind him and ult him into your team for a free kill. If you can ult the enemy ranged carry into the middle of the teamfight as well as knock a few enemies up, do so. Lee Sin is very hard to run from(especially with red buff) so take advantage of that and stay on that carry!

Using your abilities properly

This is basically going to come with experience. Lee Sin can run out of energy so you want to make sure you use the appropriate abilities first so you don't go out of energy and not be able to use them. For chasing, you want to use Q+E. For 1v1, you want to use Q+W. For escaping, you want to use W+E. These are simple things that novice Blind Monks will mess up. Not on my watch!

Jungling

Credit goes to tinolas for making this graphic :)

Video of the route above. The only thing I do differently than stonewall here, is I use my skills at different timings, so that I am always going to have the AS boost of my passive. So, I do Safeguard(autoattack twice), Iron Will(autoattack twice), Tempest(autoattack twice), Cripple(autoattack twice).

Basically, Lee Sin's ganks aren't very strong. You can try some ganks but until level 6 they won't work out. However, since Lee Sin is such a great 1v1 champion, I prefer to go invade the other jungle, steal some creeps, and hopefully make the other jungler's life difficult until some good ganking opportunities present themselves.

Want to learn more?

http://www.leagueoflegends.com/board/showthread.php?t=699559

Coobie, one of the best Blind Monks in the game, has provided a large thread with lots of replays of his games. Download LoL replay and see how the master monk does it :)

Also, I would like to add here that if anyone wants to know how I made the items section work in columns, please check outSearz's guide template. Get a cool banner like mine by going to Spoon's Kissing Booth! Thanks and hope the guide helped.