Xin - Four Words Is Plenty

Introduction

Hello and welcome to my guide to Xin, the Ember Spirit. I'm rather new at making guides, so this guide will be updated whenever I learn new tricks to make the guide look nicer and every time I manage to tweak the build a bit.

Xin is rather flexible to how he can be played, he benefits from both levels and items and at level 6 he's quite slippery, similar to Storm Spirit.
This means he can potentially be played mid lane, giving him absolute rune control at level 6 with his fire remnants, but his rune control is pretty decent against less mobile heroes like Tiny. Your spells are rather mana heavy, so rune control is recommended over bottle crowing.
He can also by played as a carry because of his Sleight of Fist, which benefits from orbs and passives, meaning it crits, bashes, slows, burns mana etc etc.
He can also potentially be played in offlane, his shackle giving him a way to disengage ganks, his W able to dish out rather low mana cost harass, his magic shield nullifying support nukes once leveled and once he hits 6 he is basically ungankable.

When playing in offlane and midlane, you're usually not the #1 position, so you should focus more on creating space for your hardest carry by ganking and farming with your free built-in radiance whenever you have time.

Pros / Cons

Pros

+ Built-in disable + Scaling AOE nuke + Flexible in role + Great escape and chase

Ember Spirit has great utility with his skills, can disable channeling spells while also doing damage with his shackle, his W gives him the possibility to scale in terms of damage output and he's incredibly hard to kill if you have fire remnants out

Cons

- Horrible in most lanes - Level-dependent - Item-dependent - Falls off in lategame - Disable unreliable when there are many units

While Ember Spirit is quite good at ganking, he does need some levels before he reaches his peak and needs some sort of damage item to actually do much, meaning he can't roam effectively early on. He is quite squishy and has low armor while also being melee, so harassment does quite a bit of damage to him in lane.

Skills

Q - Searing Chains

No Target / Magical

Xin unleashes up to 2 fire bolas that wrap around nearby enemies, anchoring them in place and dealing damage each second.
Range: 400
Duration: 2/2/3/3
Damage per second: 40/60/80/100
Total Damage: 80/120/240/300
Mana cost: 110
Cooldown: 14/12/10/8
Summary: This is a semi-reliable stun if you're up against 2 heroes with no units around. If there are more than 2 heroes/units around you, it will randomly pick two to disable.

Extra: Disables channeling, does not affect invisible or magic units

W - Sleight of Fist

Target Point / Physical

Xin dashes around with blazing speed, attacking all enemies in the targeted area and returns to where he was standing after. You deal 50% less damage to creeps. You are invulnerable during this process. Takes 0.2 seconds to attack per unit.
Range: 700
Bonus damage per hero: 30/60/90/120
Radius: 250/350/450/550
Mana cost: 50
Cooldown: 30/22/14/6
Summary: This is your lategame nuke, considering it scales with your damage items. Hits every single unit in the original radius, even if they move away. After casting you return to your original location. You can also use it like a damaging version of Puck's phase shift to dodge spells.

Extra: Any attack modifier that Ember Spirit has (critical strike, bash, cleave, Unique Attack Modifiers) will be applied normally to each target. Hits enemies in the fog, so can be used against juking enemies. You can use items and spells during the attack, meaning you can jump up to an out of range enemy and shackle him/stun/hex etc him. You are invulnerable during its duration

E - Flame Guard

No Target / Magical

Xin surrounds himself with a ring of fire that consumes incoming magic damage, leaving him unharmed. Deals damage per second in a 400 radius. If the shield is dispelled, the damage per second buff goes away.
Damage per second: 30/40/50/60
Total Damage: 240/480/800/1200
Damage absorbed: 50/200/350/500
Duration: 8/12/16/20
Radius: 400
Mana Cost: 80/90/100/110
Cooldown: 35
Summary: Early game it does a lot of damage and lets you soak up a nuke or two. Considering Xin's above-average MS, lets you chase down a lot of heroes.

Extra: Magic damage reduction is calculated before any reductions.

R - Fire Remnant

Target Point

Xin charges himself with the energy to create a Fire Remnant every 35 seconds, with a max of 3 charges. Releasing a charge, sends a Fire Remnant that runs to the targeted point at 2.5 times your speed. Xin can use his secondary ability to dash out to each remnant's location, detonating them for area of effect damage, and arriving at the one he targeted last. Remnants last 45 seconds or until you fuse with them. The remnant placing ability is limited by charges and not cooldown or manacost. The secondary ability lets you target a location closest to whichever Remnant you want to choose. Xin will then dash out going through each remnant, arriving at the selected remnant last. Each Remnant you go through causes it to detonate, dealing damage in the area around it.
Remnant Charges: 3
Remnant Charge Replenish Time: 35 seconds
Remnant Duration: 45 seconds
Remnant Cast Range: 1500
Summary: Let's you chase, do damage as a initiator or even initiate and then get out, depending on how you place your spirits and which one you target. You always go through all your spirits.

D - Fire Remnant sub

Target Point / Magical

Target the Fire Remnant to arrive at. You dash through all other Fire Remnants, and end up at the one you targeted, exploding them for area of effect damage.
Range: Global
Damage per Spirit: 100/150/200
Radius: 450
Total Potential Damage: 300/450/600

Extra: 150 mana per use, not per Fire Remnant. Breaks trees that Ember Spirit collides with while dashing.

Items - Mid/Ganker

Starting Items

Stout Shield: To negate Xin's lack of armour a bit.

Tango: The regen item that lets you sustain the horrible amounts of harass you'll take in lane.

Healing Salve: The regen item you need when you are low health. If the mid hero is melee, you might opt to skip this for a fast bottle if you plan on playing more passively and not trade hits.

Iron Branch: Gives you stats, which give you a bit more damage, hp and mana, standard.

Earlygame

Bottle: Let's you regen health and mana and with your above-average rune control until level 6, let's you be an annoying little twonk to the other mid hero, even getting a kill if they don't have a built-in escape.

Orb of Venom: Your W procs this, meaning it slows everyone you hit, meaning you can chase them down with your free built-in Radiance and shackles. Not necessary but it's very cheap (137 effective gold cost if you sell it later). Good optional pickup

Bracer: Gives you health and mana, both things Ember Spirit need.

Boots of Speed: Obvious pick-up, gives you mobility. This might save your *** if you get it before anyone else considering Ember's decent MS.

Helm of Iron Will: Solves your early armour problems as well as giving you regen that is independent from tangoes/salves

Core

Phase Boots: Gives your W more damage, gives you more chase and escape without having to resort to your (costly) ultimate.

Drum of Endurance: Very cost-effective stat item that let's you activate early, gives you even more MS to chase down people with.

Bottle: You'll need this bottle until you get some reliable mana and health sustain most likely, keep it filled, you can use your fire remnants on rune spots, they give you vision.

Armlet of Mordiggian: Gives you armor, which is a thing Xin needs early on, gives you toggleable health and the health drain does not drain during sleight of fist, very cost effective 40 damage if you can reliably toggle it on and off before and after sleight of fist, which gives you a strong earlygame presence which you'll need in a ganking role.

Lifesteal

You basically have two options because Mask of Madness isn't very useful on a squishy melee heroe like Xin.

Vladmir's Offering: More of a midgame choice considering you can't upgrade it, gives you armor, a bit of damage and extra mana regen and it lets you keep the Orb of Venom. It also benefits your entire team. If you go for this, a quick ring of Basilius somewhere is a good investment.

Helm of the Dominator: Gives you more or less equal armor and damage, but you can upgrade it to a Satanic. Does not give your team any benefits and also doesn't give you mana regen.

Core Extension

Basically your damage item, you can choose between lockdown and burst.

Skull Basher: Gives you some HP and an unreliable stun, it's not great but it's not terrible either, you'd mostly get this if you're going Abyssal Blade as the cooldown on the stun means you can't get lucky and bash the entire team.

Crystalys: Ups your average damage by 35%, but this is burst damage on one hero in general.

Maelstrom: Gives you some damage and also increases your AOE damage by adding chain lightning procs

Battle Fury: Battlefury isn't for ricing on Xin, you use the cleave and +66 damage to give your W more punch to it and the regen is quite decent. Against illusion heroes or 5-man deathballs a decent pickup, don't rely on the cleave in big creepwaves (even though it is an option) due to the 50% damage reduction (12.5% cleave damage isn't great).

Monkey King Bar: The most expensive item to have as a core extension, you'll mostly want this if the enemy carry is Phantom Assassin or if you notice they're rushing butterfly. The damage and the ministuns are good, but this is an expensive item to get quickly for a ganking Xin

Desolator: If you prefer going for vladimir's offering and don't want eye of skadi as your orb, desolator is a good pick-up, make sure you tell your team so nobody else gets Desolator considering your W applies the orb to everyone.

Lategame

Eye of Skadi: I personally love this item on Ember Spirit, gives you loads of stats, every one of which he needs, lets you anticarry with the attack speed slow and lets you chase with the movement speed slow. It procs it on every hero in your radius, meaning you have quite some crowd control going on.

Mjollnir: Good pickup against illusion heroes, for pushing, putting it on your tankiest hero, etc. Unfortunately the attack speed is a bit wasted considering most of your damage output lies in your W, but extra attack speed never hurt anyone I guess. I don't suggest rushing it, as the damage increase compared to Maelstrom is minimal.

Satanic: Considering every active works with your W, satanic basically lets you heal up yourself from 1% to 100% if there's enough heroes/creeps around.

Daedalus: Pumps up your average damage by 60%, giving you great burst potential with your W.

Abyssal Blade: Gives you a reliable stun as well as skillbashes, ups your reliable damage by a lot if you prefer not relying on critical hits. Also gives you a bit of extra (190) hp I guess.

Boots of Travel: By lategame your damage should come from other items and this item with your Fire Remnants give you great splitpush and global presence.

Monkey King Bar: Against butterfly carries that get it later, this is definitely a good pickup, the minibashes also give 100+ extra damage meaning a lucky minibash gives you free 220 damage when you use your W.

ohmygodsomanynukesandstuns

Black King Bar: In most match-ups this is probably going to be core. Gives you magic immunity, a bit of damage and hp. The reason I didn't put this in core is because it's not ALWAYS necessary.



if you have a free slot and maybe want to get rid of an item over another item here are your options.

Survivability options

Assault Cuirass: Works similarly to medaillon, except it doesn't give regen and you don't need to activate it. You also give your entire team +armor and the entire enemy team -armor. Always a good pickup if nobody else is getting it.

Linken's Sphere: If there aren't too many disables and they're mostly single-target it might always pay off to get a Linken's Sphere. It gives you stats and regen to make you tankier and less reliant on the bottle.

Blademail: Xin isn't very tanky, making this less effective, but on him it's mostly to make you of a less juicy target, meaning you can dish out your damage without being too scared. It also gives some regen which is always good.

Regen options

Scythe of Vyse: If mana is becoming an issue, scythe is a good pickup, it's a good item on any hero, but if you're not carrying and thus aren't the main damage dealer this is a good pick-up.

Heart of Tarrasque: If you want to be a tanky initiator this is the item you'll need, lets you tank 1000 extra damage and inbetween fights you'll basically heal up to full. Also lets you chase people under towers because you'll just regen it back.

Linken's Sphere: See survivability options

Battle Fury: See core extensions

How I generally build him

this is basically my personal ideal build in most cases.

Eye of Skadi: R.I.P. being able to move and attack and again tanking up.

Boots of Travel: the rat dota is eternal.

Satanic: Helps with my health and helps against not dying.

Assault Cuirass: I prefer going for more of a tanky initiator build.

Battle Fury: I get this for the damage and the cleave does more than you'd think, I also like getting a ring of healing in lane.

Linken's Sphere/ Black King Bar: Either way both help me tank up, it depends mostly if there's heroes like Batrider/Doom etc around.

Items - Offlane/Initiator

Starting Items

Stout Shield: To negate Xin's lack of armour a bit, you will get harassed in offlane.

Tango: The regen item that lets you sustain the horrible amounts of harass you'll take in lane.

Healing Salve: The regen item you need when you are low health.

Iron Branch: Gives you stats, which give you a bit more damage, hp and mana, standard.

Earlygame

Boots of Speed: Mobility is important.

Ring of Health: To counteract the almost constant harass you'll receive, builds into Vanguard.

Orb of Venom: Not required if you don't want to, but it's nice to have and ups your killing potential.

Ring of Basilius: If you want to go Vlad's this is a very good item, lets you spam your W harass more.

Bracer: Let's you tank up and builds into Drums.

Core

Vanguard: Makes you tanky, which you'll need considering you'll need to pop all your spirits and ult into the enemy team to do loads of damage to them.

Drums of Endurance: Gives you a bit of speed, making your ult faster and harder to dodge.

Phase Boots: Gives your W more damage and once activated makes your remnants faster and harder to dodge.

Core - Nukes

Black King Bar: Gives you 10 seconds of dealing damage and lets you safely initiate without a worry in the world. Makes you tankier and you do a little bit more damage.

Linken's Sphere: Let's you block one single-target stun, if they don't have too much crowd control or they have scary single target spells (that maybe go through BKB), you might want to opt for this instead, it is more expensive though, but it does everything you need.

Time to tank

Assault Cuirass: Gives your entire team more armor and makes them tankier, also reduces the enemy team's armor and gives you attack speed, making this a semi-damage item as well.

Shiva's Guard: Gives you a lot of armor and enemy right click heroes get a big attack speed reduction, in combination with your flame guard it means you're suddenly a lot tankier. The intelligence also helps your rather poor int gain.

Heart of Tarrasque: This item is excellent on any hero, it makes Ember Spirit very tanky and almost unkillable unless they enemy mass chainstuns you, meaning you die but the enemy has nothing left to deal with your team.

Vladmir's Offering: Let's you lifesteal with your W, gives armor and gives mana, does a little bit of everything but does nothing great. Good midgame item.

Damage items

Monkey King Bar: The minibash combined with your W potentially does 220 extra magical damage, also does 88 damage, which you need because you need to get as much damage as possible in one item as initiator.

Desolator: The armor debuff gets applied to every target in your W radius, making your team's life easier.

Utility

Force Staff: Let's you bail out of a failed triple remnant initiation or save a stunned teammate.

Scythe of Vyse: Hex an enemy, letting you ignore evasion, dropping their speed and giving you an excellent manapool and regeneration.

Eul's Scepter: Makes you and your remnants faster, as well as letting you save allies or yourself with the active. The regeneration lets you spam your spells too.

Eye of Skadi: Excellent orb that slows and ruins carries' attack speed for crowd control, tankiness with health and armor, a bit of damage and mana and mana regen.

Rod of Atos: Lets you tank up, gives you good intelligence to make up for your poor int gain. The active also lets you chase and gank.

Sange and Yasha: Gives you damage, tankiness and makes you faster meaning your ult becomes more difficult to dodge.

Items - Safelane/Carry (wip)

Starting Items

Stout Shield: To negate Xin's lack of armour a bit, you will get harassed in offlane.

Tango: The regen item that lets you sustain the horrible amounts of harass you'll take in lane.

Healing Salve: The regen item you need when you are low health. If the mid hero is melee, you might opt to skip this for a fast bottle if you plan on playing more passively and not trade hits.

Iron Branch: Gives you stats, which give you a bit more damage, hp and mana, standard.

Earlygame

Boots of Speed: Mobility is important.

Ring of Health: To counteract the almost constant harass you'll receive, builds into Battlefury

Orb of Venom: Not required if you don't want to, but it's nice to have and ups your killing potential.

Ring of Basilius: lets you spam your W harass more and gives you armour.

Core

Battle Fury: Unlike other carries, this is less for farming (although it will come in useful for farming) and more for the scaling damage it provides. Two creeps or one hero will provide an additional 35% AoE damage with SoF and this goes up with every hero/two creeps you hit with Sleight of Fist. Does surprising amounts of damage. The regen and damage are also pretty nice.

Vladmir's Offering: You can exchange this for a Helm of the Dominator, but in general you'll want an orb to apply with your SoF.

Phase Boots: The damage is good to up your SoF damage and to chase enemies down, you can also activate Phase and then throw out a spirit to let it travel to it's location faster, but be aware that this removes your Phase buff and will only speed up your spirit.

Lifesteal

Desolator: Reduces the armour of the enemy and thus makes you hit hard. Get it when there are a lot of above-average armour heroes like Dragon Knight that are very hard to kill otherwise, although the cleave from battlefury generally takes care of them. Gives the most DPS out of all the orb options.

Eye of Skadi: Ruins the enemy's MS and AS, which is very useful when dealing with high DPS heroes like Alchemist.

Satanic: Basically a free Aegis if you pop it and use SoF, will instantly heal you to max health.

Diffusal Blade: Not the best option, but it adds 62 damage if you account for mana burn and agility damage. Over long engagements it can prevent the enemy from casting more spells once they're burned out but generally you'll use this for the slow. Also doesn't synergize with battlefury superwell considering feedback damage is a seperate instance.

Tank up

Black King Bar: Blocks all magic damage and most crowd control except for some ultimates. Get this if they have mostly magic damage.

Linken's Sphere: Blocks one single-target spell, get this if they have scary single-target spells like Doom, Fiend's Grip, Burning Lasso, etc.

Assault Cuirass: Gives you a decent chunk of armour and let's you auto-attack faster inbetween Sleight of Fist spam.

Heart of Tarrasque: If you SoF a big creepwave, you will be invulnerable long enough that the Heart of Tarrasque regen kicks in again, making it very hard to kill you.

Damage options

Divine Rapier: If you're feeling manly, this and Battlefury basically guarantees teamwipes if you can get enough heroes together. Given Ember Spirit's slipperiness and Puck-like evasive skills using SoF, it's not a downright ******ed idea if you want to cement your lead or when trying to comeback.

Monkey King Bar: The minibash combined with your W potentially does 220 extra magical damage, also gives 88 reliable damage on top and ignores evasion if there's evasion carries or a Butterfly in the game.

Daedalus: Gives 81 reliable damage and some lucky procs during SoF combined with Battlefury can give some amusing results.

Abyssal Blade: Gives the most reliable damage out of any item (+100dmg) and has a bash, but because it has a cooldown this means you might waste a bash on a creep instead of a hero. Generally you'll get this for the 2s stun that goes through BKB.

Butterfly: Gives you evasion, 60 damage and a lot of attackspeed, meaning you hit harder and more often inbetween SoF spam. The 35% evasion means you have a lot of survivability as long as nobody gets a MKB

Friends/Foes

Friends

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Crystal Maiden's aura basically gives you the mana you need to spam your spells effectively early on. She's also an excellent lane babysitter if you are in safelane.

Magnus' Empower basically gives you a free Battlefury, you can still opt to get one to stack the cleave, but usually you can just go straight for a damage item/tank item with a Magnus on your team.

Foes

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Silencers

Heroes with this as a core item

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Summary

In general, Xin is a good pick if you have the hang of your skillset and basically unkillable as long as there is a fire remnant somewhere, which there should considering their duration is longer than their recharge speed. Just drop one every time you're at 3 charges and you're one slippery dude.