Bear in mind this is going to be a fairly detailed explanation, but not an in-depth-theory-craft-filled build breakdown. Although I might do one of those at a later date.
So, my Lee Sin build. In light of the new power overwhelming spirit stone, my build has changed slightly for season 4.START: Machete, 5 health pots, Yellow trinket.
FIRST BACK level 4/5 (or 6 if doing really well): EITHER: Ancient Golem + Tier 1 Boots, or Spirit Stone + Mobility (Mobo) boots.
And of course, depending on how much spare gold you have, 1 or 2 green wards.
Picking up a Doran's Blade is not necessary, but I sometimes pick one up if I'm behind. I do not think the tactic of buying 2 or even 3 Doran's Blades as a way of snowballing is as effective as putting your gold lead into Mobos/Ancient Golem.
The Ancient Golem or Mobos rush is the most interesting choice in terms of building Lee right now.
I haven't played enough games to decide which I like more. In these 3 games I believe I rushed Mobos twice and rushed Golem the other game. (The tabi game had mobos originally)
Ancient Golem and Boots of Speed: Tankiness + Tenacity. Particularly good for ganking bot and for diving. 10% increased damage over spirit stone and can begin earning gold earlier from the passive.
Mobility boots and spirit stone: Mobility. Not much else to say.
As with most build decisions, it comes mainly up to 2 factors: the situation and personal preference. I'm not sure which I prefer and usually the situation is more important than personal preference anyway.
So what situations do you build each one in? Pretty self explanatory really.
Get mobos and spirit stone when: -It is an action-packed laning phase, and you feel you need to be ganking everywhere, or at least be a presence to scare the enemies a bit.
-When you think that the best way to carry your lead further is to keep ganking. Usually when the enemy team has champions that can be shut down early. For example if you get first blood on a Nasus top and you see him come back to lane without a ward, but your bot lane is being pressured to their tower. Get mobos.
- Your team comp requires you to snowball the early game.
Get tier 1 boots and ancient golem when: -The laning phase has been fairly quiet. Your allies are either winning or farming easily. This allows you to get tanky and start getting additional income by just clearing the jungle for the mid game when skirmishes start to begin.
-The lanes are proving very difficult to gank and you would be better off just clearing the jungle. (And counterjungling)
- You've fallen behind, and you just want to farm until mid game and get tanky. (This is not ideal Lee Sin play, but is not terrible, as Lee is still a force to be reckoned with in the mid game).
If you have enough gold for this on your first back, you're fed. Control the dragon and make everyone fear you.
I'm pretty tired right now but I'll quickly summarise the items that regularly feature in my build:
: If you really want to go madred's, then giants belt is a necessary purchase to replace the tankiness of golem. An alternative core build on lee is: Mobos, Madred's and Giants. I've tried it and it works, I just miss the tenacity. I'm generally not a fan of the madred's path, especially with the current strong state of spirit stone. When going spirit stone path, get this after finishing Golem and Mobos to head straight into your Randuin's Omen to become insanely tanky vs AD heavy comps. (Common with the rise of Yasuo mid)
: Amazing item. Expensive but the component parts are not to be underrated either. I buy this most games unless they are genuinely full AP. Don't forget that turrets do physical damage. Do not underestimate the item active. Keybind it so you can easily use the active. Landing this slow on 5 enemies, or even just a single target can win you a fight.
: Again, a fantastic tank item. If the enemy team has an AoE damage AP mid, who isn't 0/10, consider this item. The ingredients are cheap which is good for when you have just enough gold to pick up some comfy cloth armour in the early game. The cdr from the upgraded locket is great. I like to end up with 30/40% cdr by mid-late game so that I can Dragon's Rage every 36-40 seconds. Same applies for the item active on locket. Don't underestimate it. The shield may seem insignificant to you with a large hp pool, but it could save your adc from dieing to an ignite. Quick bit of maths: At level 18 this item shields 230 damage on each nearby champion. If all that damage is absorbed that's 1150 damage mitigated. Use it.
: A very tanky item, and a great healing increase that goes well with Lee's kit. If they have an AP mid and jungler, or AP mid and Annie support, get this. I wouldn't recommend rushing it, as the healing increase gets particularly potent when your Iron Will has reached high ranks. It also synchronises very well with Baron Buff.
: I haven't discussed Tanky vs. Damage Lee Sin. I will do so in a future post. For now just know that I think that Damage Lee Sin is suited to the top lane. I've tried Hydra/Cleaver in the jungle and I don't like it at all. That said, as you can see from my games today, I do sometimes build brutalizer on jungle Lee. It isn't necessary to carry, and I think that investing gold from snowballing into CDR and HP can be just as effective. In that particular game, I felt that I was tankier than I needed to be and our team lacked damage. So, brutalizer is a very solid pick-up on Lee early-mid game. It gives you great Lee stats: AD, Armour Pen and CDR. However, don't upgrade to Black Cleaver until you feel you are very tanky. Do upgrade it eventually though as Black Cleaver is a fantastic mid-late game item.
: Lastly Sightstone. I do not think this is core build on Lee Sin. The reason this item is commonly picked up in LCS is that Lee already has the requirements from his kit to stay fairly healthy with a machete, and thus he should invest gold into vision. It is not so that he can ward jump 4 times before going back to base. This is why we have seen sightstone being picked up on Nunu jungle before a machete upgrade. He can sustain himself without items. All this said I do regularly build sightstone. It is a great item in solo queue. You can ward for your mechanically phenomenal 10/0 riven in top lane who refuses to buy wards. You can gank more efficiently. You can tank more and then rely on sightstone as an escape.
: Consider picking up two of these rather than a sightstone. I think al lot of people have developed an aversion to buying green wards since the release of sightstone. But often a lot of gold gets wasted by buying a sightstone and then not making enough use of the wards. The hp amounts it gives are very inefficient.
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Well, this turned out to be a pretty lengthy post after all. I will talk about Lee's role in teamfights etc. in another post.
I realise I haven't included a skill order. This wasn't supposed to be an overall guide but it's so long I might as well. I max Q, then W, then E. Sometimes getting an extra point in E before maxing W. There are situations when maxing E first can be a good decision but I rarely do it. With the new sustain of spirit stone, maxing E second might be the way to go. Try it out and comment what you think.
I hope you enjoyed the read. I am absolutely knackered but have enjoyed writing this post. This is probably riddled with typos, feel free to point them out to me in the comments and I'll edit them out!
See you soon and glhf,
Raucous
P.S. I'll talk about Master Yi in the jungle in future. I think he may be hidden op. Yes those 2 games at the top are jungle games despite the lack of machete!
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