Lee Sin is one of the most iconic champions on the League of Legends roster, especially if you’re a jungler.
There’s a saying that any strong jungle player has a great Lee Sin in their arsenal. This is because the champion requires great mechanical prowess, as well as an understanding of how the jungle ecosystem works. At the highest levels of play, a good Lee Sin player can single-handedly take over the early-to-mid game.
That said, mastering the champion is not an easy feat. Lee Sin’s skill floor is much higher compared to other junglers to be an effective pick. Not only that, but there are a couple of item builds that can be played on Lee Sin: knowing which one to go for entails great game knowledge and a solid understanding of the enemy team composition.
If you’re trying to pick up Lee Sin, this guide should help you better comprehend what to build in-game. Here are the best builds for Lee Sin in League.
Runes
There are two common rune setups for Lee Sin: a balanced one and a more offensive option that is reliant on the early game.
Conqueror Lee Sin
Precision
Conqueror: This is the bread-and-butter rune for Lee Sin. It gives him everything he needs: additional adaptive force upon auto-attacking and healing at max stacks. The rune synergizes greatly with Lee Sin’s passive since the champion is designed to weave in attacks between spells, granting him better skirmishing ability throughout all stages of the game.
Triumph: It is the only viable rune that can be chosen in this row of the Precision tree. Presence of Mind is unnecessary since Lee Sin recovers energy with his auto attacks and the situations where Overheal can make a difference are slim. Triumph at least grants health regeneration upon takedowns and a little extra gold to push potential leads.
Legend: Alacrity: This is more of a preferential choice, rather than a mandatory one. Lee Sin’s auto attacks with Legend: Alacrity are easier to land, making his gameplay look smoother. Alternatively, you can also go for Legend: Tenacity when facing heavy crowd control, but you might see a substantial difference when you have to weave in attacks in trades. Get a feel for it yourself and pick the one you’re most comfortable with.
Last Stand: Similar to the previous rune, you can either opt for Coup de Grace or Last Stand here. The latter works best in the early trades where you will find yourself low on health after skirmishes or ganks, while Coup de Grace is better if you’re able to get ahead in terms of items and gold.
Inspiration
Magical Footwear: Getting takedowns on a champion like Lee Sin is quite easy since he has many tools to gap close and punish laners. Magical Footwear lets him get boots without spending any gold, allowing him to use those resources to rush his core items.
Cosmic Insight: There aren’t other strong runes in the Inspiration tree for Lee Sin, so Cosmic Insight is the only other option left. Remember that with this rune, the Smite cooldown to get stacks is lower, and it will also allow you to have Flash up sooner and attempt those sweet Insec plays more often.
Electrocute Lee Sin
Domination
Electrocute: Compared to Conqueror, Electrocute grants additional burst damage with a quick combo. The rune works best when you’re facing squishy targets that you can kill with a rotation of spells. That said, if you’re facing two or more tanks, never go for this rune since it won’t have much value.
Sudden Impact: Most junglers use this rune to increase their damage output during ganks. Lee Sin is no exception. He can also use it multiple times since he has two dashes: the second instance of his Sonic Wave (Q) and Safeguard (W).
Eyeball Collection: You can go with pretty much any rune in this row of the Domination tree, so choose depending on your preference. Eyeball collection, however, is the best one to initiate a snowball since it rewards you upon takedowns. Ghost Poro and Zombie Ward, on the other hand, require you to play around with vision control, which can be trickier to do and not as immediate.
Treasure Hunter: Getting ahead in gold and gaining more stats is a must with this rune setup. Treasure Hunter can give you up to 550 extra gold, allowing you to spike faster during the mid-game. Otherwise, go for Ultimate Hunter for a lower cooldown on your Dragon’s Rage.
Precision
Triumph: The runes in the Precision tree are chosen for the same reasons we saw in the Conqueror Lee Sin setup. With Electrocute as the main keystone rune, it should be a piece of cake getting takedowns. Triumph will allow you to get substantial amounts of extra gold during the game.
Legend: Alacrity: Attack speed in this rune setup is still valuable, but you can also go for Coup de Grace to increase your burst damage or Legend: Tenacity against heavy crowd control. Regardless, don’t opt for Last Stand since you won’t be able to take advantage of the extra damage when on low health.
Bonuses: +10 percent attack speed, +9 adaptive force, +6 Armor (+8 Magic Resist if against magic damage champions)
Items
Bruiser build (with Conqueror)
In the latest preseason, Riot introduced a revamped jungle with the introduction of pets. Getting monster kills will “feed” these eggs until they hatch and become your jungle companion, giving you an empowered Smite and additional effects on the summoner spell. For Lee Sin, the best pets are the Scorchclaw and Mosstomper. The first gives Lee Sin even more damage, while Mosstomper grants Tenacity, which is stronger in teamfights.
Based on the rune setups you have chosen, there are two build paths that you can go for. First, we will be taking a look at the one with Conqueror, which has Goredrinker as its main Mythic Item. Therefore, rushing its recipe items like Ironspike Whip and Caulfield’s Hammer will be the main goal in the early game.
Purchasing Goredrinker will give you a great spike in the early game thanks to its Omnivamp, the stats it grants, and the active. Take advantage of that window to pull off multiple ganks and get objectives on the map. For boots, get Plated Steelcaps or Mercury’s Treads based on what main damage source the enemy has (physical or magic damage). After that, buy Death Dance: it’s the best combination of damage and defensive stats.
If you’re ahead, these three core items will make Lee Sin a bruiser with great damage but also survivability. The following items in the build depend on the current game state.
Black Cleaver is best if you need armor penetration or additional movement speed to stick to your targets. Maw of Malmortius allows you to survive great magical damage bursts, while Guardian’s Angel gives you a revival passive that can be used to bait enemies or survive teamfights.
Since it’s a bruiser build, you can swap out the last three items for tank items if the enemies deal too much damage. Force of Nature, Randuin’s Omen, and Dead Man’s Plate are all great choices that give you more tankiness rather than damage.
Lethality build (with Electrocute)
Now, we’re going to be looking at the more offensive build, which is all about burst damage. Therefore, this Lee Sin build will be based on lethality items, which begins with the Serrated Dirk.
Compared to Ironspike Whip, the Serrated Dirk gives you greater damage early on since it gives armor penetration. In this case, however, remember to buy tier-one boots since you won’t have Magical Footwear, and the extra movement speed is valuable for early-game clearing and pathing.
The Mythic item for this Lee Sin build is Eclipse, which gives similar stats to Goredrinker but better damage output on short trades. Close out the tier-two boots and look to rush Ravenous Hydra for the AoE passive and faster jungle clearing. The two completed items combined grant a considerate amount of Omnivamp, allowing you to heal up from the damage dealt.
At this point in the game, you can either go for more lethality items if the enemies are not building armor or defensive items if you’re struggling to survive in fights. Among the options, Edge of Night’s passive shield is a great way to get the best of both worlds, while Umbral Glaive is a low-cost item that disables vision and traps. Youmuu’s Ghostblade, instead, gives the highest amount of armor penetration.
In regard to defensive items, the choices are similar to the ones in the Bruiser build. For additional armor, choose one between Guardian’s Angel and Death Dance. In most scenarios, however, go for Guardian’s Angel: the lethality items don’t give you much extra health and you would lose value on the Death Dance passive. If you need magic resistance, instead, build Maw of Malmortius.
Here is an example of a full lethality Lee Sin build:
