Xayah Build Path Analysis
The Question:
Last week, IraqiZorro (EU Challenger player) reached out to me with what might sound like a fairly simple question: what’s the best (3 item) build for Xayah? In this case, he had two builds in mind that he was curious about: IE > RFC > Statikk Shiv and BoRK > IE > RFC. In a similar vein, he was wondering whether Blade of the Ruined King or Infinity Edge was the better first item. What follows are the results of my analysis, as well as insight into my approach in calculating and interpreting the numbers.
Items
Each item here is hyperlinked to the Wild Rift Wiki. Feel free to brush up if needed.
- Blade of the Ruined King (BoRK)
- Infinity Edge (IE)
- Mortal Reminder
- Rapid Firecannon (RFC)
- Statikk Shiv (Shiv)
Parameters
The rules of the analysis
Fortunately for me, Iraqi was fairly specific in the desired parameters.
- Each build would be checked against a squishy defender and a tanky defender.
- For the best first item, both Xayah and the defender would be level 6. For the best 3 item path, both Xayah and the defender would be level 12.
- Xayah is running Conqueror and Champion, with both stacks of Champion.
- Xayah is maxing W > E > Q. I believe the official Wild Rift lingo is (2) > (3) > (1). Note that her W, or (2) ability is called Deadly Plumage, and provides her an attack speed increase for 4 seconds.
- The squishy defender has Loyalty and would also be benefiting from the stats an allied champion with Loyalty provides.
- The tanky defender would be running Backbone.
- The tanky defender would itemize more-or-less generic defensive items.
Assumptions
Based on the above, these are other rules or baselines that I will consistently use throughout
- The squishy champion will be Kai’Sa (her defensive values are about close to the ADC averages, but for reasons beyond the scope of this analysis I currently do not have the ADC averages for levels 2–14).
- The tanky champion will be Garen, as his stats versus physical damage are basically the highest in the game.
- The tanky champion will have Sunfire Cape at level 6, and then Sunfire Cape > Deadman’s Plate > Sterak’s Gage at level 12.
- The damage from BoRK’s Drain Passive will be subtracted from the defender’s HP before running calculations.
- For builds that have Energized Procs (RFC, Shiv), the first autoattack will proc the energized damage.
- Energized Stacks will only be gained via autoattacks (to remove the variable of movement).
- As Statikk Shiv’s Energized Proc can crit, in the analysis the average proc damage (factoring in crit damage and crit rate) will be used.
- The barrier Sterak’s Gage provides will not be considered.
Methodology
DPS isn’t everything: how we will be checking the combat power each build provides using TtK
For most basic build checks, DPS is often the first place people look. It definitely is not a bad metric, however, Time to Kill (TtK) is almost always better when you have a specific defender in mind. In this case, instead of running a DPS calculation, I will be running a “simulation” for each build. This allows us to factor in things like Conqueror stacking and Energized procs. Doing so will show us how many attacks it takes for the defender’s HP to hit zero, which we can use in tandem with attack speed to find how long it takes to kill the defender. This process is tedious but will guarantee more accurate results.
This utility of this method is enhanced by us needing to run numbers on BoRK, as the Ruined Strikes passive deals damage based on the defender’s current HP on the autoattack. There is a formula that can find the number of autoattacks for a BoRK user to kill a defender (courtesy of Vyzeox), but again without running an autoattack simulation, you will lose out on things such as Conqueror stacking. Finally, for every build simulation, I will consider one case where Xayah only autoattacks without using W, and one case where she begins the sequence with W (thus providing her a 4-second attack speed increase).
Example Simulation
This simulation will be for a level 12 Xayah with BoRK > IE > RFC, against a level 12 Kai’Sa. Kai’Sa has an HP = 1760, but BoRK’s Drain deals ~64 magic damage to her, so she will start with around 1696 HP. RFC will deal ~79 magic damage per proc.
At attack 0, Xayah has no Conqueror stacks. Xayah’s AD ramps as the stacks increase, and she gains 25.71 bonus AD by the time she hits 5 stacks. Additionally, once max stacks of Conqueror are reached, it deals bonus “proc” damage per auto, which I have also factored into the average autoattack damage. This is why there is such a jump in autoattack damage dealt when comparing attacks 4 and 5. This “proc” damage also benefits from BoRK’s Ruined Strikes passive, hence BoRK Conq. Bonus.
On attack 8, Kai’Sa’s HP drops below 0, thus it takes 8 autoattacks to kill. With this build, Xayah has an attack speed (AS) = 1.33, so 8/1.33 gives ~6.02 seconds to kill.
If Xayah activates her W at the beginning of this simulation, she will have AS = 1.64 for 4 seconds. In those 4 seconds, she can fire off 6.56 autoattacks, but you need to round down to 6 as it isn’t possible to do only part of an autoattack. Using the same math as before, the remaining 2 attacks with normal AS will take her ~1.5 seconds. Adding things up, if Xayah engages with her W, she kills Kai’Sa in about 5.5 seconds. This type of simulation was performed on every build path tested.
Results
The numbers
I decided to check the numbers for two other builds I thought might have good results as well, and then I later checked builds with Mortal Reminder. Remember, Time to Kill (TtK) is in seconds, and the lower the value is, the better.
Discussion
IE outdated? Mortal Reminder overrated? BoRK activated? My thoughts, interpretations, and other considerations
For the first item to build at level 6, BoRK is the clear winner. Not only does it have a better TtK, but I would argue the Physical Vamp and the movement speed gained from the Drain passive further tilt this in BoRK’s favor. The only thing IE really has going for it here is that it provides more AD than BoRK, which will allow passives and abilities with AD ratios to deal greater damage (IE provides 55 AD and BoRK provides 20 AD).
For the best 3 item build, BoRK > IE > RFC yields the best results for the non Mortal Reminder builds. Interestingly, both this build and IE > RFC > Shiv kill Kai’Sa in the same number of autoattacks and provide the same AS to Xayah, so they also have the same TtK. For the Mortal Reminder builds, BoRK > RFC > Mortal Reminder stands out. If you look at the table overall though, we find that BoRK > IE > RFC has the same TtK values as BoRK > RFC > Mortal Reminder. However, the former costs 9300 gold, while the latter costs 8550. The difference is almost the value of a QuickSilver Sash. In that sense, the Mortal Reminder build path is superior.
It isn’t that simple though. There are still some other considerations, one being in terms of crit rates; going the Mortal Reminder build leaves only two slots left in your item build for more crit items, one if you buy a defensive item such as Guardian Angel. Thus at the very end game, you might only have a 50% crit rate, but the IE path allows you to get to 75% along with a defensive item. With that being said, the gold saved by opting into the Mortal Reminder build will provide you greater advantages at the moment of purchase.
Another way to approach this is to consider the best item to build after BoRK (using level 8 champions):
Here we can see that building IE after BoRK is substantially better than the alternatives, although it also costs much more than the other two item builds. If you have the gold to purchase IE, it might be the better option if you want to leverage an advantage immediately or try to gain an advantage in the near future (i.e. snowball and/or secure an objective). At the same time, if you do not have enough gold for IE and/or if you want to powerspike at three items, it may be better to opt into RFC or Mortal Reminder instead.
Finally, as Iraqi pointed out, one should remember that Xayah’s pass-through feathers via her passive Clean Cuts do not benefit from BoRK’s passives, but they can crit. Hence in clustered teamfights, critting more often may enable you to kill the enemy team more quickly, but you will experience a trade-off(s) elsewhere (i.e. more expensive). This logic becomes a little hairier when you factor in that Clean Cuts does benefit from the armor penetration % Mortal Reminder provides. Since you’re building BoRK first anyways, I find the Clean Cuts angle to be a moot point — but I welcome other thoughts on this.
There are other considerations as well, but at the end of the day, the point is the “best” build is not as cut-and-dry as you might think. The high value build in one game might not be the high value in another game. It is up to you as the player to constantly be assessing what factors are at play in-game and, using the data, make an informed decision.
I’m keeping a conscious mind towards all the things each build offers outside of those numbers — IraqiZorro
tl;dr (Conclusion)
On Xayah, BoRK is the best first item. The two 3 item build paths to consider after that are BoRK > IE > RFC and BoRK > RFC > Mortal Reminder. The Mortal Reminder build is cheaper by 750 gold, however, IE provides better numbers as a second item compared to RFC and Mortal Reminder. Choosing which build to go depends on a variety of factors that are up to the player to judge.
Thanks for reading. These kinds of analyses often take quite a bit of time to put together — I hope you’ve found this helpful or insightful. If so, I’d appreciate any shares or interactions so I might get this piece in the hands of more players.
Thanks to apo11o and Halinator for their help in proofreading this article. If you’d like to see more of this sort of content, I am most active on my Twitter.
