Welcome, I have played Pantheon pretty much since I started the game, was my first champion I bought, because it was so damn menacing. In season 2 I could play pantheon at every lane, only exluding the position of AD carry. Support pantheon has the bad habit of stealing kills though :)

This build is built to be usable for the whole game, including being a formidable champion in the late game aswell. At the moment, a high HP amount is great to have. Snowballing with this build is not mandatory, it can hold itself together even in tough times. Its meant to give you a gradual increase in AD and survivability to make sure you will not be useless at any point of the game, instead of relying in snowballing your AD (sure you can do that if you will get someone like Master Yi against you). Your 300-339 AD(or 370-409 with Infinity Edge) will be more than enough to make people fear you, on top of that almost 4000hp with 144 armor and 109 magic resist with great movement speed will make you a sturdy burster with great survivability. This pantheon will secure that the enemy carry wont stand a chance.

I think pantheon used to be the most undervaluated characters there is because people really couldnt play him as he should, as a heavy AD caster. I myself sometimes veered off to play him as a bruiser, or built him too glassy. After the changes in Season 3, his jungle got a little bit harder. But overall playing pantheon got a lot easier, thanks to the Black Cleaver change.

Summoners are Flash+ Ignite. Yup. 99,9% of the time, these are the summoner spells you will need. Exhaust is a possibility if your team needs it.

Masteries, I usually go with 21/9/0 because the starting items really give you as much mana as you need in early game. Therefore, you dont need to go 21/0/9 to save your earlygame. You dont really go through mana so fast lategame.

Runes are as usual, Armor pen with armor/magic resists.

First off, start off with Faerie Charm, a sight ward,4x Health Potion and 2x Mana Potion. This will give you amazing sustain, and you will be able to poke your enemy out of your lane. Early Pantheon might have mana problems, but buying a Faerie Charm really makes a huge difference.

When you have a chance to go to base, for example you have killed the enemy and pushed your minions to die at his tower, go back and try to buy a The Brutalizer. You dont usually need to buy boots the first time you go back. If your against something like Nidalee or Yorick, meaby a pair of boots will be nice for running/dodging, but usually your base speed is enough until you have built your brutalizer. If against skillshot champions, buying those Boots of Swiftness earlier might be nice.

When your against heavy AP hitters you might want to build a Hexdrinker before Brutalizer to negate some damage. Usually though all AP characters will build Seeker's Armguard when they go against Pantheon. To negate that armor your better off with Brutalizer as your first item. If so, build the Brutalizer and then Hexdrinker before making Black Cleaver.

Buy 2nd lvl boots when you think you need them or when you think you can get an advantage out of them. Frozen Mallet is great for getting that slow, extra cc, along with a lot of health. Next up, go for armor and magic resists with Atma's Impaler and Hexdrinker. Atmas is great since now every hp you get, will make your attack damage greater, therefore getting a Warmog's Armor will not gimp your damage.

Now your pretty beefy, and in a lot of games this is as far as I go with defensive items, skipping the Maw of Malmortius and Warmog's Armor to go for damage.

What does the enemy team look like? Do they have a lot of armor? Are they more of a sustained damage team or do they just burst? How squishy are they?

Answer these questions when you have bought your Hexdrinker, then think do you need more magic resists, beef or just more burst potential?

You can skip the last items to just go for more damage and faster stacking of Armor Piercing with another Black Cleaver and pure damage with Infinity Edge. If you think you can stay alive and have good cc / initiators, this is very acceptable. But in most of the games I like the extra beef.

If the match goes on so long that you will get your full build, you have amazing amounts of survivability and will be the enemy carries nightmare, stunning, gap closing like a beast and bursting them down very fast. Your chasing is VERY effective, and once you get yourself positioned next to them, they will die. Teamfights with the enemy carry missing will be much nicer.

In the end you are a HEAVY AD Caster Assassin, a real Mantheon.

To really play an AD caster, you have to accept that you cannot play him as a melee carry nor a bruiser.

Why cant I play pantheon as a bruiser, look at all this tank I GOT! He looks like a bruiser right?

1. If you initiate, you will die. Only in late game you might initiate, but still you will be much more useless since the enemy CC wil bog you down and you cant get to the carries as effectively.
2. Your damage is very skillbased
3. You are a BURST champion.

Why not build attack speed? Why not Lifesteal? I want to be a Tryndamere!

1. Your damage will mainly come from your abilities.
2. Building attack speed instead of more ad or tank will nerf you in what you do.
3. Lifesteal would need attack speed, you have no reason EVER to build lifesteal WITHOUT a lot of attack speed, really. No. Once again, your a burst champion. If you want to play Tryndamere, go instalock Tryndamere.


Why not build a Bloodthirster?

(Actually, I sometimes do, when Im TOTALLY dominating and instead of building any hp, just build more AD. Practically carry the game, though you can do it with the normal build too, its just not that funny :P )

1. As Pantheon, you usually need to go all in, your ulti, and your stun jump makes escaping a bit hard, therefore your more than likely to die at some point and lose stacks. Sometimes you will need to go anticarry, and just dive behind the enemy lines to make your team win the fight. You might die a few times if this goes bad.
2. As you are building this, you are building lifesteal, for no real reason. :P
3. Heres the real reason. Synergize your skillset with the Infinity Edge. It makes your crits deal even more damage and has all the AD you will need, if you want more AD build that instead of Bloodthirster.


OMG Boots of Swiftness?!

Never ever buy boots without thinking what you will need. Most of the time these boots will secure you the kill. You will catch them. Then again against heavy CC/heavy AP go with Mercury's Treads and if the enemy team consists of heavy AD go Ninja Tabi. Berserker's Greaves? No.

How about building a Warmog's Armor right at the start?

1. Building it would take a lot of money, and now there is better items to go for HP at start.
2. You would gimp yourself because you wouldnt get ad in time for ganks.
3. Jumping in with your ulti, just to survive is not really that much fun.

If you are going mid with pants, build the Hexdrinker faster. Sometimes you can benefit from building it as the first item. You can dominate most mid laners with pantheon..

Ok thats enough of the questions! I play every computer game with the same motto, "Excell in the role you are given." It means to really push the limits of your niche to the full. Therefore, play pantheon as pantheon, dont try to play/build him into anything else.

Harassing with Spear Shot all the time while waiting for lvl 2 will almost quarantee you a kill when you level up. If you think spear shot is the way to go, really read this build:Son of Ares mid and solo top

At level 3 your burst is really really strong. Poke, throw dem spears. Remember to use your burst wisely, for example if someone is walking towards you, use Heartseeker Strike and when they are at you, just stun and walk away, meaby throw a spear at their face on your way back. If they manage to turn away its no worries, you got some damage to him and remind them of it, by sending a pointy gift towards their back! Heartseeker Strike is excellent when you position yourself right at the edge of a bush and wait for your enemies to walk in, he will take the full 4 strikes easily and you can still disengage with your stun.

Stun can also be used to hold them still while you use your Heartseeker Strike

You need to try to bully your enemies out of the lane, make them paranoic about your spears. Once they think they have a chance, burst them down and finish them off with an ignite and a critting spear to the back.

Your main damage comes from abilities, not auto-attacks. Burst, walk away, wait for cooldowns and burst again. Only when the enemy is low on health go all in, pantheon usually wins low hp engagements with his stun and crits. Pantheons critting abilities are sometimes forgotten, people go against pantheon at low health thinking they got a chance when you will just crit them down every time.

There are some very good points on the passive block skill on other builds and I will not go there with this.

Pantheons ulti. Grand Skyfall

1. Makes a lot of damage at center.
Think what the enemy does when he sees the ulti circle, where will he run? Adjust your ultis position accordingly. Its very possible to hit this spot on, at least burn their flash while at it.
Quite often in teamfights its difficult to see this ulti going down, so you can get pretty nice hits with it. Paired with stun-heartseeker strike-spear combo you can take down enemies in one burst.

2. Is a teleport.
Your turret is under attack? Your friend is running and about to be killed? jump away.

3. Is an AoE fear spell.
This, THIS! THIS is what this spell is! Even more than the last 2 points, think of this. One can separate enemy teams from their carry with this. When people see the circle, they will run, always! Therefore you can direct the enemies where you like them. So that they have 2 options, to run towards your friends, or deal with the damage of the ulti.

3. Is the ultimate baron stealer.
Been there, done that, quadrakill with it.

4. Is AP Pantheons favorite skill.
MAN.

5. Is mid players favorite friend.
Try to feed your mid with this, synergize your junglers ganks to mid with this. 3vs1 will make most characters pop ;P

Just a quick note, dont farm with Heartseeker Strike, its not worth it. Walk amongst enemy minions and throw dem spears to keep the enemy champion back.

Pros
Is pantheon

Cons
Is not a baker

Well, here is the first version of my Pantheon build, please vote and leave a comment and I will discuss changes.

Oh btw, notes to riot, we really need a new 5th age skin for Pantheon! The manliest character in League.