Starting Items
Core Items
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LETHALITY BUILD: Ghostblade>IE>RFC. OR Ghostblade>RFC>IE. Then situational items SPECIAL NOTE: In the late game sell Ghostblade for better late game items like ER/Bloodthirster.
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CRIT BUILD: Essence reaver> RFC> IE > BT
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DO NOT BUILD THIS FIRST, IT IS A COMMON MISTAKE FROM MANY. Essence reaver provides a lot of mana regen, CDR, and has the same combat stats. It also has a better build path for the laning phase. You need to think IE as a rabadons. It gets more efficient the more Crit and AD you have. This is why people don't build rabadons first anymore. There are better early game choices. And IE should be treated the same way.
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Go Berserker's Greaves for the extra AD when the enemy doesn't have many slows. The 35% attack speed gets converted into AD with your passive. If the enemy has a ton of slows or you want to buy boots quickly and for a cheaper price go Swiftness.
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Never build this item. Shiv has a little bit more damage and waveclear but, RFC allows for so many possibilites in positioning to kite, chase, pick, catch, etc.. RFC makes each bullet count with it's long range. Go to the section on how to waveclear using Jhin's kit without the need of Shiv!
Situational Items
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If there is a troublesome tank stop what you're building and make a last whisper!!!!!!!! These items are extremely important to go when you're facing 1 or more hyper tank. A hyper tank is someone who will usually have between 150-250+ Armor. And a ton of HP. You'll need to get rid of them because most of the time they'll be the ones stopping you from entering the teamfight freely. Most of the time you'll be the only one on your team who has the potential to deal with them. I suggest going Lord Domink's 99% of the time because it increases your total damage by 15% with it's passive. While Mortal Reminder is the one you'd want to pick when against a heavy healer like Vlad/Mundo/Singed.
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These are the best MR items. If you want a CC cleanse + lifesteal go Scimitar. If you want a high amount of MR and a magic damage shield with some offensive stats go MAW. If you want some MR with a banshee-like active and lethality bonuses go Edge Of Night
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This is a viable 4th Crit item to replace Bloodthirster if you find yourself not needing the lifesteal. Or, if you don't need a last whisper you can combine PD with the BloodthirsterI usually take this when against a melee comp that has ranged champs who can't really hurt me. It gives you 100% Crit and a ton of MS mobility and a good amount of damage because of how it's stats convert to AD using your passive.
There are 2 builds to Jhin currently.
- Lethality build is much like the Armor pen build but, it's overall stats has been nerfed. However, it still provides more damage as a 2 core item set than the Crit build. So, if you have strong laning with Jhin and are able to snowball yourself often. Go Lethality to compliment and help your strong laning. Lethality does more damage than Crit build as a 2 core item set from the laning phase - early game.
- Crit build is for Jhins that can't guarantee themselves to win lane hard and often. I suggest going Crit build as it is not an all-in build unlike Lethality which is a high risk-high reward build. And will outscale the Lethality build once you get to 3 core items. Crit build does more damage than Lethality as a 3 core item set from the mid-late game.
So, what build should I go?
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Lethality?

If you're a lane focused player and know how to abuse laning with Jhin and reliably snowball most of the time. Going the Lethality build will amplify your damage and power everytime you snowball in lane. You want to see the Lethality build as an all-in type of build. If you're snowballing and know you can keep pushing that lead Lethality will give you the best stats to push that lead. However, if something goes wrong and the snowball slows down than Lethality will lose it's damage quickly because it doesn't scale well into the mid game unlike Crit build. Because if the snowball stops and the enemy catches up and starts building Armor you'll be a Jhin with 300~ AD, No Crits, No Last whisper. Unlike a Crit Jhin who would have more AD, Crits, and a Last Whisper to amplify it all. The idea behind Lethality is to get a big enough gold lead to if the mid-late game does come you're already building Crit items quickly. Small note: If after building Ghostblade and getting a lead you notice your team losing the lead do not build Duskblade and instead build IE. Then RFC, and whatever items you need in that given situation.
Build Order:
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-. Items after this are situational. Sell Duskblade then Ghostblade in that order in the super late game to buy better items. Make sure to buy Last Whisper at any point in this build if you need it.
Note: After getting your first "Crit" item. Prioritize Cloak of Agility over Pickaxe because it gives almost the same amount of AD but, gives Crit chance. Prioritize B.F over Cloack of Agility. .
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Crit?
There are different reasons to go Crit. If you're snowballing but, don't want to go all-in and risk throwing away gold. You go Crit. If you're playing a pretty tanky teamcomp ex: (Gnar/Zac/Alistar/Ezreal with iceborn/Aol Sol) where Lethality won't do much against. You go Crit with a last whisper. If you're playing against a very unfavorable match up and do not think you'll even get a chance to snowball. Go Crit. If you just want to farm gold and get a few kills and safely scale into the mid-late game. Go Crit. Crit Jhin is the safest and most reliable build you can go with Jhin. The only negative is that it doesn't provide as much damage in the laning-early game as Lethality but, provides a lot more damage after that.
VS
: The big debate
- The build path of Essence reaver is a lot better for laning. That's the first plus. Sometimes you'll be forced to back early and with Essence reaver you can buy 1 or 2 long swords. Which is really good for laning.
- Look at the stats. They're the same. Now, look at the passives. Essence reaver provides infinite mana. Very good for defending towers since you'll be able to spam
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to clear upcoming minions waves and stop pushes/seiges. And you can use the spam infinite mana advantage to constantly shove lanes or harass enemies using your abilities. Now onto the CDR. You start off with 10% CDR which is "ok" at best. Once you get RFC. You now have 30% CDR which helps your W and R a lot in terms of having them avaliable to make picks, plays, engages, and catchs. - Infinite Edge is exactly like Rabadons when it comes to Jhin. Rabadons gives more AP (damage) the more AP you have. Now. When you buy IE as a first item. You get the 50% increased critical damage so it brings your total Crits from 147.5% to 187.5%. That's nice and all. But, you only have a 20% Crit chance. So, it's not really reliable and will only be reliable with your 4th shot. Then you have to look at it. Is a IE Crit from a 136 AD Jhin really scary? Or is a IE Crit from a 800 AD Jhin scary? The IE passive doesn't give you that much extra damage as a first item. IE gives you 136 AD when you finish it. ER gives you 136 Ad when you finish it. ER Crits for 198 Damage. IE Crits for 255 Damage. That's 58 extra damage on Crits. And if we include the average armor the bot lane has by the time you finish IE. That 58 extra damage once it reaches the enemy will be 38-41 damage. So, trading CDR + Infinite mana for 38-41 damage on Crit is not worth it at all.
- This is why every high elo Jhin player goes ER first then gets IE as a 3rd item. The efficeny of IE is much better later in the game when you have a lot more AD and Crit to abuse the IE passive. The ER laning-early game benefits vastly outweight the IE 38-41 extra damage benefit
NOTE: The exception to getting IE first is if your entire team is behind and you know you won't be able to use W or R to kill people because they're too ahead and you know the mana regen won't help defend or push because they're so ahead. In this case you'd want to go IE RFC + Lord Dominik's. Because usually when a team is super ahead they'll be ramping up armor on their top+ jungler. This build is to increase your auto attack damage for the mid game since you're not in a position to take advantage of the ER early at all.
Build Order:
and/or

depends on your first back. --->
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. At this point start building situational. Make sure to buy Last Whisper at any point in this build if you need it.
Note: After getting your first "Crit" item. Prioritize Cloak of Agility over Pickaxe because it gives almost the same amount of AD but, gives Crit chance. Prioritize B.F over Cloack of Agility.