Overview
Xayah is a late game carry that has flown in and out of the pro meta over the years, but as a Solo Queue pick, she is a reliable pick for when you absolutely need to do damage late game. Classically comboed with Rakan in the bot lane, she is a champion with tons of damage and surprising utility. Click here for the latest data on her best builds, including Runes, Items, Summoner Spells, and more.
Keys to Remember About Xayah
Xayah pulls back all of her feathers including the ones from her ultimate, which means she's great when enemies are funneling into her at a choke. You can turn around a lot of fights this way.
You're a late game carry, which means you don't need to take unnecessary risks before you scale unless your team is losing elsewhere. If you're behind, you can look to be more aggressive with your feathers by trying to root someone with your E.
Strengths
Featherstorm is a “get out of jail free” card that’s one of the best abilities in the game at saving you from a sticky situation. It grants a bit of mobility alongside being able to dodge, well, anything, which is a very good ability for a late game hyper carry to have. But it doesn’t have to be used defensively -- it’s also a potent offensive ability thanks to Bladecaller giving you a chance to land a big root onto the enemy team. This means even if you fall behind early, you can still add a lot of impact to fights with a big root for your allies to follow up on.
Weaknesses
Prior to gaining her ultimate, she is very susceptible to being locked down and killed. In general she is fairly weak early on and should focus more on farming to be able to scale into the late game. If your team is losing elsewhere on the map, it can be important to play more aggressively once you get your ultimate online, as you will then have a lot more kill pressure on your opponents.
Game Plan
Early Game: Focus mostly on farming, but you can find good trades or even kills if you’re able to land your Q into a good root. The goal either way is to scale.
Mid Game: Continue to scale up but you have some good team fight potential once you hit power spikes on item completions -- your goal in the mid game should be to land good ultimates.
Late Game: At this point your ultimate should be used more defensively as your damage will primarily come from auto-attacks. Position safely and look for a front-to-back fight unless you can land a big root on their backline.
