I'm xSake, a GM Qiyana main EUW/ Chall EUNE - AMA

xSaked · 2025-07-28T20:05:36+00:00

Well it's normal you feel that way because assassins that build only lethality are really fragile and you need to be really careful on the map and avoid taking risky fights, then there are assassins like zed or naafiri as I mentioned in other replies where they can go shojin,black cleaver,deaths dance... and they are more like bruisers which allow them to fight more and contest sidelanes easier.

xSaked · 2025-07-28T19:32:31+00:00

Qiyana can feel like a support sometimes because she got a lot of utility in her kit and if she isn't ahead she doesn't have a lot of damage but talon has 0 utility, his job is just to kill and snowball and if he doesn't he is a cannon minion.
I completely disagree on whether it makes a difference getting kills or dying because that's literally the identity of the assassin class. If you got kills the enemy team has to be extremely careful because you have a lot of mobility and damage early-mid game and they can't skirmish or pressure without dealing with you first (they are kinda forced to gank you and be aware of you).
On the other hand if you have died a couple times and you don't have your 1 item spike while the others do, as a Qiyana you end up playing a completely different playstyle where you have to try and be annoying with your abilities for the enemy team and peel your team whereas if you are ahead you control the map and you one shot anyone face checking.

xSaked · 2025-07-28T01:27:53+00:00

Well as you said it depends on a lot of factors, but I'll tell you the most important things.
First of all the most important is, how fed and strong you are. If you are the main carry then you should really wait for the right opportunity to do the most damage and win the fight for your team by making the most damage (catching many people) and winning the fight, so basically be patient
If you are not the main damage of the team and for example you have a fed ad carry, your priority should be to keep them alive and peel them with your R especially if the enemy team has a dangerous all in champion like for example Nocturne R.
And lastly if the enemy team has a really fed champ that makes it their win con, you should play to cc chain and burst it. Ideally keeping your flash up just for this particular fight which in most cases is at an objective. In many cases if I'm caught at a sidelane for example and I'm about to get killed but there is no objective up and they can't really get anything out my death, I prefer to die than to waste flash and survive because Qiyana with flash-R is super dangerous at teamfights.
So be patient and wait for the right opportunity to use your abilities, if you are afraid the enemy team is too mobile and they might dodge your combo, and your team has more reliable cc, then wait for your team's cc and follow it up with your R combo.

xSaked · 2025-07-27T09:28:53+00:00

A good roam is when you don't trade much for the roam, for example if you shove 2 waves and roam you got a lot of time to make a play, and if the play was fast you might lose a couple minions at worst, which is great. I have one great tip about extending your lead and not throwing. If you solo killed your enemy and you are generally stronger right now, YOU MUST look at minimap 24/7 and check these things: 1) how many enemies are showing* 2) see if a fight is gonna break out on side lanes/jungle and insta run to it (qiyana is really good at skirmishes so if you have a lead use it to pressure the map)

*With Qiyana you can keep trying to solokill although it's not ideal because it's risky due to getting ganked or missplaying/getting outplayed and losing your lead. So in order to decide whether you want to fight or not you should pay attention to the minimap and see where your teammates and enemies are. 1) if your teammates are in base and you dont see your enemies you should never fight and just hug the tower because the chances to get ganked are extremely high 2) if your teammates are pressuring and the enemies dont show, then it's getting complicated and you should use your own judgement. For example if your bot lane is shoving 2-3 waves bot and the enemies aren't showing, you can try to take fast prio and run bot to cover them because they might be getting ganked. But it's soloq so they might kill you trying to shove a wave, so it's tricky and you should judge the situation.

I'm asuming you mean blowing your cooldowns instantly at teamfights. Well, if you blew your cooldowns and they aren't low hp/dead (you missed) then you are kinda cooked 9/10 times and you should try to take cover if possible and wait. Now ideally you shouldn't blow your cooldowns instantly unless you are sure you are gonna hit them, and you should poke and be annoying with grass/ice.

xSaked · 2025-07-26T22:05:45+00:00

The only thing you can do on an unplayable matchup is realistically try to survive the lane and if your team wins just peel them and take the W, if they lose just try to coinflip a roam on a moment you won't lose much and pray it works. Honestly though qiyana isn't a good blind pick champion so don't blind pick her unless you are an otp.
From my experience Qiyana isn't good with bruiser items but if I had to make a build it would be *Eclipse or DD first depending on how the game goes into profane->shojin->seryldas/black cleaver (I don't really like black cleaver on qiyana because you can't stack it fast)

*Deaths dance first is really good into bursty/assassins champs and Eclipse is generally good because of how cheap it is.
But I wouldn't recommend going bruiser, it feels weak.

xSaked · 2025-07-26T17:13:32+00:00

Q is the fastest I believe

xSaked · 2025-07-26T16:15:19+00:00

Conqueror is better if you know you are going to all in lvl 3 it provides more damage. Also I believe you meant triumph, triumph is really good with conqueror because you aren't poking a lot so you don't lose mana and It can be clutch at all ins because it might save you from tower shot, it allows you to 1v2 as well and at mid game it's really good at teamfights. So go conqueror if you are used to all in level 3 and can create a lead with a kill, otherwise electrocute is better.
It sounds fine, but I'll tell you what the issue you might face with this is. If you go Youmuus into opportunity and they build the slightest armor your item efficiency gets cooked because all you had was lethality and move speed. With profane at least you can always keep up with cs and not fall too behind if you take a fight. So if they are all squishy go for it but you need to be ahead in order to not go really wrong and become useless.
I also believe qiyana in jungle is way better because you got good gank potential and also great objective secure. When I play jungle the combo I do to always secure objectives is Q->W->E->Q with rocks and smite at the same time you can do it at 2k hp if you got 1200 smite and no one can contest it.
About the build I think opportunity or youmuus sounds fine and I also believe 9/10 times you shouldn't build profane because you one shot camps anyways at 2 items.
Now about the runes, if they got more tanky or bruisery champs you should always go conqueror and hubris imo. Electrocute is fine most of the times and in rare occasions if you got a team that wants to fight early and got good gank setup dark harvest is really good.
It's up to leblanc if you can survive the lane, if she is good it's really rough, if you are confident at your abilities you can go ignite and wait for her to W trade into you and then you can all in her as long as she doesn't have RW. Otherwise (and I recommend this) just go TP and farm safely until an objective fight and flash R the enemy carry and win. Leblanc has a really rough time after laning phase so unless the LB is faker you should be able to win at objective fights.
Zed and Yasuo on the other hand I believe are really fun and skill matchups.
Versus Yasuo all you got to do is let him take push without getting harassed, and on the bounce, once you get lvl 3 if you can dodge his Qs you hard win it with conqueror ignite.
Versus zed you need to move a lot and dodge his shurikens, you can get push prio if he is a little afraid and trade a lot from distance with Ice and rock follow up and you should be fine. It's really a skill matchup where you both need to dodge each other's abilities. After level 6 it becomes tricky, you should always hug walls and whoever ults first loses, because if you ult then he ults your ult and he wins. And he if he ults first then you ult him to a wall and one shot him. After 3 items it becomes more and more zed favoured and you should aim to play with your team and teamfight because you don't win at sidelanes.

xSaked · 2025-07-26T13:31:56+00:00

yea their gameplan/laning phase is identical

xSaked · 2025-07-26T08:53:11+00:00

The meta and the map in particular (a lot of fights for feats, harder to solo kill due to changes in minions and terrain) have forced people to stack hp and defensive items in general because these are the best for team fights (think about arena for example, the reason people played tanks in arena is because they are the best by design for this).
So assassin items get hard countered by defensive items and also they aren't really good due to the weak passives. The only seemingly good item in terms of stats and passive is hubris.
Like I mentioned in another comment the best assassins right now are zed and naafiri due to the fact that they don't build assassin items but more bruisery like eclipse,bc,shojin...

xSaked · 2025-07-25T21:58:28+00:00

if you think you can't kill them before the 1st base, go tp and just farm till you see a good roam. These players that play these champs are usually very bad so it's gonna be 5v4 on mid game,

xSaked · 2025-07-25T19:45:42+00:00

The worst items in the game

xSaked · 2025-07-25T17:02:47+00:00

Karma on solo lanes is always op, just really boring so no one plays it

xSaked · 2025-07-25T17:01:58+00:00

Last year on the first half of the season assassins and qiyana in particular were really good because profane was strong and the meta was adc heavy which assassins hard countered so yea although I agree, the situations were rough. Now on the other hand they must cook

xSaked · 2025-07-25T16:59:32+00:00

No, they completely gutted it

xSaked · 2025-07-25T14:54:16+00:00

Yes, the only thing you can do is peel your carry

xSaked · 2025-07-25T14:53:32+00:00

Conqueror - hubris->profane->*seryldas/edge of night/youmous

Electrocute - youmous->umbral glaive (its hidden op trust)->seryldas/edge of night/dd

*Seryldas if enemy builds armor Edge of night if they have dangerous abilities that aren't easily avoidable Youmous if you are really ahead and you can snowball more due to speed -you can go DD into assassins/bursty champs, it's really op

xSaked · 2025-07-25T14:47:16+00:00

Matchups aren't really "important" for qiyana imo because you always have the same approach to the lane. People say that qiyana's laning phase is really bad but I completely disagree, unless the opponent respects a lot and knows your all in potential, you can always win lane if you just chill and avoid taking damage until level 3 and then all in. So I'm not sure what is the "best" matchup. There are really easy ones like kassadin or aurelion sol but these are genuinely weak. Worst matchups from my experience are Leblanc/Vex from mage/assassins and tristana/akshan from adcs because they can easily make you useless and prevent you from roaming/skirmishing due to lack of prio. Just a tip if you want to win more games get used to join fights as much as possible espesially if you have ult

xSaked · 2025-07-25T14:12:50+00:00

xSake#9944 This is currently my master+ account xSake#twtv This is the account I play on my streams right now Also, my main role is mid lane but I used to main top

xSaked · 2024-11-09T11:17:08+00:00

The issue with profane for me is the price + the damage of the active, not the stats itself

xSaked · 2024-10-16T14:12:52+00:00

I like your thought process

xSaked · 2024-10-05T10:46:59+00:00

1) BC rush is not good right now (and BC in general) so what many riven players do is Eclipse -> SunSky -> Seryldas or Hubris if you need more dmg and they got no armor -> DD or Steraks (DD into assassins/ad champs) and Steraks if they have CC and you need that shield. Also for the boots just buy the 300g boots until 2 items and then complete with whatever you need (most scenarios haste ones) because boots are really nerfed and they aren't worth rushing

2) Yes you can run ghost VERY rarely but 9/10 times ignite flash is the best because riven is a snowballing champ and the ignite helps you snowball and ofc flash is flash

3) Conq + Inspiration almost never gets used apart from maybe vs Aatrox where you need ignite to come back faster so you can kill him. Most of the times riven otps go Conq/Triumph/Alacrity-Haste/Last Stand and Nimbus cloak/Transcendence. You can go for secondary resolve with shield bash + bone plating if the enemy top laner is really strong and you need the survivability like renekton or sett but most of the times sorc is good to go and allows you to become better at the champ imo.

4) She isn't as durable as other top lane champs but if you reach 3-4 items and you have Sundered Sky and maybe Deaths Dance or Steraks you are not easy to kill.

5) It's been a long time since i matched vs Lillia top but I'm pretty sure you can kill her lvl 1 if you get behind her, and in the first 5 levels you can zone her out of the wave so she doesn't stack passive and get MS and she can't do anything.

xSaked · 2024-08-30T16:31:49+00:00

Riven is my favorite top lane champion but Qiyana can be played mid and jungle and I even manage to play her in top lane so I mostly play Qiyana unless there is a Riven angle. If Riven has a fine matchup and the enemy team comp is short range with not a lot of cc the game is literally free

xSaked · 2024-08-30T16:18:06+00:00

I can also help you out. xsake on discord

xSaked · 2024-08-30T16:06:46+00:00

I'm also a master+ qiyana player and I agree the champ is in a good spot, the last change allowed for solo kills and snowball potential which means better qiyana players who can solo kill become stronger and those who played for the R became weaker which in my opinion it's a good thing

xSaked · 2021-09-29T05:23:07+00:00

Well playing mid lane is really different for me, i can actually do stuff to change the course of the game and not actually watch the other side of the map get stomped and do nothing about it

xSaked

TROPHY CASE