Hey guys, I'm GG alert, player on EUW. In this guide I'm gonna be focussing on supporting with Thresh. He's my favorite and main support and one of the best in terms of winning and carrying.

Note: I'm assuming you've read my general support guide. This guide is mostly an extension of that one to go more in-depth to Thresh in specific. Please read my general support guide as well.

Feel free to check out my stream, where I'll be playing support most of the time: http://www.twitch.tv/gg_alert

Thresh can almost always be picked. He works best with offensive adc's (e.g. Draven and Lucian). His Dark Passage is a free escape in most situations and he has strong lane presence. Chances are he's banned tho', since he's so strong.

Pro's
-Great engage with Death Sentence or Flay
-Great disengage with The Box and Dark Passage
-Get's really tanky with his passive Damnation
-Good damage
-Has a lot of CC
-Looks awesome

Con's
-Annoying auto attack animation, easy to cancel accidently
-Hard to master landing his Death Sentence
-No sustain

-Summoner spells
As primary summoner spell you'll always want to bring Flash. You can use it to suprise enemies by flashing in, escaping or pulling of an awesome flashjuke.

Secondly you can take either Exhaust or Ignite. I like to take Ignite as it counters Heal (that is, if you use it first) and you can secure kills with it or just deal more damage in order to win the fight. Taking Ignite brings more kill presence to the support, so now the enemies don't only have to be wary of your CC but your damage as well.
If the enemy team has champions like Tryndamere and Zed, Exhaust can help greatly while peeling for your carry.

I don't recommend taking anything else then these three summoner spells.

-Runes
I take everything that makes me more tanky. You could use health seals/quints instead.

-Masteries
Above you see my preferred mastery setup. You can take 0/21/9 as well as it makes you even tankier. If you really like utility and know what you're doing you could go 0/9/21, but I personally don't like that.

Passive: Damnation
Make sure to collect all souls you can, as you'll keep scaling with every soul you collect. You don't get armor/level so you'll need them. Souls are also a great part of your damage as they give you AP and work in your Flay. You can collect them by walking over them. Be carefull tho', since the enemies will know where you will be heading and could try to poke/engage on you. You can also use your Dark Passage to collect souls (but be carefull, as you'll take away some presure and can't use it to save someone since it's on CD).

Q: Death Sentence
Your bread and butter. Hook anyone you want to see dead. If you hit, folow up by pressing Q another time. You'll need some practice landing this since the animation has a windup-time. Try to predict where your enemies will be walking when the hook actually starts flying.

W: Dark Passage
This skill is unique and the best ingame ability to let someone escape. It works over walls as well. You can use this to initiate ganks with. Use it to get your carry faster in lane after recalling as well. When you've thrown your Dark Passage it grants vision. Use it to scout bushes instead of facechecking them.

E: Flay
Use this either to initiate or to follow up on your Death Sentence. If you use your ult The Box make sure to Flay enemies inside a wall to make sure they get hit. You can use Flay to help your adc pushing as well.
Note: The direction in which you're using Flay matters; you'll either pull the enemy closer or knock him away. Take some time to practice the uses of this.

R: The Box
This ultimate is a bit similar to Jarvan IV's Cataclysm, except that they can walk out of it... and get slowed for 99% and damaged heavily. The slow is basically a snare where you're still able to use blink abilities (e.g. Flash, Arcane Shift etc). Use this to lock up a team or zone them away.

I almost always level R>E>Q>W. You can swap the importance of Q and E if you like.

-Boots
Most of the time I take Mercury's Treads to get tenacity and magic resistance. If you're a fan of Mobility Boots you can take them. If the whole enemy team is AD and they lack CC, you can get Ninja Tabi.

-Gold income
Almost everytime I'll take an Ancient Coin. If you feel like your carry needs more sustain and shielding, you could get a Relic Shield.

-Early game
If the both enemies are ranged or if I feel like I need to be tanky, I take a Doran's Shield as soon as I spawn. Otherwise I'll just get my Ancient Coin. If I feel like we need a lot of wards fast I start of with a Ruby Crystal and upgrade that into a Sightstone on my first recall.
After I get a Sightstone I'll upgrade my gold income item and get Boots. As soon as you get a Sightstone you'll want to sell your Stealth Ward and get a Sweeping Lens.
If you're doing well in lane you can already upgrade your Sightstone into a Ruby Sightstone or already build some midgame item receipes.

-Midgame
Here is when I'll start getting pretty tanky and start offering even more utility by getting a Giant's Belt and a talisman of ascension. It depends on how much I feel like we need a talisman of ascension when I actually buy it.
If I now need more armor I'll finish my Randuin's Omen, if I need magic resistance I'll get a Locket of the Iron Solari or a Banshee's Veil. If the enemy team has a lot of CC (e.g. Leona) I'll build a Mikael's Blessing for my adc, and it gives me some CDR as well. I'll get that depending on how well my adc can dodge and if he has escapes ( Tumble, Arcane Shift etc)

-Lategame/full build
At this point your build will look like this: boots + Ruby Sightstone + Randuin's Omen + Talisman of ascension + Locket of the Iron Solari and maybe a Mikael's Blessing. You can now finish according to what you/your team needs.

Armor: Get a Sunfire Aegis or a Thornmail. Consider an Iceborn Gauntlet if you're ahead and want some extra peel/CC/damage.

Magic Resistance: Banshee's Veil is great against poke comps. Spirit Visage gives you more CDR in case you need it.

Utility: Twin Shadows gives you some more damage and a sweet active to hunt people down. If your team is full AD you could get a zeke's herald for more damage. Maybe.

When you're full build, don't forget to buy elixirs and upgrade your trinket into an Oracle's Lens.

A lane can easily be won (or lost) in the first couple of minutes. Pay therefore attention to the first few levels as you're really strong.

Level 1: After you gave a quick leash to your jungler, head into your lane and start pushing. If you hit level 2 first you can easily score first blood. The passive damage from Flay will help with both pushing and poking the enemies.
You'll hit level 2 after getting experience from 6 melee and 3 ranged minions. Count them.

Level 2: If you hit level 2 first, engage instantly. Use ctrl+q to level your Death Sentence and try to hit your target (mostly the adc, but when a squishy support is out of position you can hit them as well).

During the rest of the lane, you can walk in and out of the bush to zone the enemies. When using Death Sentence make sure to hook the right target. If you hit the wrong target, you don't need to follow up, just back of and be carefull for a counterengage.

Make sure to ward the river/tribush and later on the dragon as well. Sweep the lanebushes to stand in to scare the enemies away from them.

Try to stick with your carries as it's your job to protect them. Make sure to ward Baron Nashor and other chokepoints.

Look at your team composition. Do you have a siege comp? Group up and siege towers. Do you have 2 strong plitpushers? Stay midlane, waveclear and make sure nobody get's cought by using your Dark Passage to keep your allies safe. This works the same for poke comps.

As Thresh you can easily engage teamfights. Try to stand behind a corner and land a hook. If you hit someone you don't want to engage on (e.g. Amumu), dont reactivate your Death Sentence and ping your team back. If you did hook the right target, use your talisman of ascension, fly into the enemy team and do your thing.
Afterwards walk out before you take to much damage and start peeling for your carries. If you have someone else that can engage for you, let him do it (unless you see a golden chance ofc).

-Throw your Dark Passage behind you when you want to zone/scare away your enemies. They'll asume someone is comming to gank them and back off. Don't overuse this strategy.

-You can cancel the windup-time of your Death Sentence by immediately using Flay in the same direction. You'll save some time, but you won't have your Flay up to follow with. Use this when you're chasing someone down as a team.

-When someone has clicked on your Dark Passage but hasn't arrived next to you yet, using Flash will take them with you for the extra range of the flash. It's not to much, but sometimes a small difference has a huge effect.

-After you've hit your Death Sentence, make sure to walk backwards. This way you'll drag the enemies with you over a longer distance (closer to your team, further away from their tower etc). You can use this in combination with The Box to drag them inside a wall. You can still pull yourself to them after having walked back (learn to time this!).

-When timed correctly, you can use your Flay to interrupt gap-closing abilities (e.g. Leap Strike, Zenith Blade etc).

-The passive damage of your Flay takes some time to reach it's full potential. While poking with your autoattacks, make sure the damage has stacked up. Therefore, only doing 1 autoattack at the time, you'll deal the most damage and get the least damage in return.

-Your autoattacks seem ranged but won't be blocked by Yasuo's Wind Wall.

-While escaping, you can hook a minion or neutral monster with your Death Sentence and pull yourself to them.

I hope you now know how to support with Thresh. All time you spent mastering him will pay of for sure.

Please read my general support guide as well.

If you have any questions or if I forgot anything/you would like to know more about something, please comment down below or catch me on my stream: http://www.twitch.tv/gg_alert

16/0/6/2014 - Added more build-cheat-sheets to show progress. Added tips and tricks.
15/06/2014 - Guide Launched