Hey guys and welcome to my first guide.

This guide will show you how I like to play Pantheon. He certainly remains one of the best dps assassins even after his nerf in my mind and can make a fantastic anti-carry when played correctly.

Pantheon is renowned for his strength early game. This build will work wonders for you if you manage to utilize this to your advantage and farm well early game, as Pantheon is fairly item dependant, as is the case with most dps champions.

Anyway, have a read of the guide and perhaps try a few games with it and please leave me some feedback as to what you think of it.

Advantages:
- Strong early game
- High DPS
- Great at last hitting (due to Heart Seeker Strikes passive)
- Will deal huge damage to squishy's
- This build provides great armour pen throughout game, making him viable agaisnt less squishy targets

Disadvantages:
- Quite item dependant
- Fairly squishy
- No escaping mechanism

greater mark of desolation These provide you with the ability to deal much better damage early game.

Pantheon is very mana hungry throughout the entire game. These help you to maintain high mana regen and this means you dont have to rely on an item for mana, which in my opinion would be a waste of an item slot.

These provide Pantheon with the ability to lane much more efficiently against AP characters. They also make it much safer for Pantheon to unleash his combo on an AP character, without the fear of losing to much health during early game. Generally Pantheons squishiness is his downfall, these help to eradicate this weakness.

greater quintessence of desolation The provide the same benefits as the marks, allowing Pantheon to all in all reach an armour penetration value of 24.93 right off the bat. This allows Pantheon to do maximum damage early game and will be of great help.

Most people choose to go for the 21/0/9 approach however, with the runes, your damage output should be fine throughout the game. Instead, i chose to go for this set-up, allowing Pantheon to have the 15% cooldown reduction from and all of the benefits to mana and mana regen. I find the 21/0/9 set-up means Pantheon cannot remain in lane as long and this obviously results in less gold and in turn a slower rate at which you acquire items.

Recommended

This is a very important spell to have. It allows Pantheon chase, flee or engage a target. With no form of escape mechanisms, this is a great spell for disebgaging and fleeing. It can also be used to chase down that enemy who tries to escape on low health.



This again is a great spell for escaping situations or chasing down. I usually use both this and flash as it provides 2 different ways to chase and flee, which I think is where Pantheon really lacks. Combined with Pantheons already decent speed, you should have no problems with this any more.


Viable


This is an option you could take over ghost. The fact it lowers your opponents damage for a short time can allow you to escape or it can be used to chase. However, in my experience ghost is the overall better option due to its longer duration.


This is a spell that you could take if you happen to spam abilites a lot, however more experienced Pantheon players probably shouldnt take this.


This is a spell that could be used if you think that an extra bit of damage would be handy against your opponents. But if you time your combo correctly, you shouldnt have too much of a problem anyway. An escaping mechanism would also have to be given up, so make sure to consider that before deciding on taking ignite.


This is a very viable spell to use, as it allows you to escape certain situations and becomes very handy against a heavy CC team. However, I usually exchange for if this is the case. If you would rather not do this though, then go ahead and take cleanse.


Not Advised


This spell is what the tank should be taking. It should never be took by Pantheon as you will be giving up a means of chasing and fleeing, which is needed when being an assassin especially.


This is what the teams support should take. It could provide you with a means of seeing potential ganks, however if the support can do this for you it will be much more efficient and you will be able to take a different summoner spell which could benefit you much more.


This is again what the tank should take. Some people may consider taking this to avoid being slain in some situations, however when using pantheon you should try to avoid taking any more damge rather than heal some of it off.


This is generally not advised as once you unleash your combo you back off. This is a spell meant for dps based characters or bulkier types of characters.


You are not a jungler, as simple as that.

I put a rank in to start things off as it gives you a ranged attack that you can use to last hit minions. You can also use it to poke, but with his low mana, you'll want to try and save them for the creeps.

I then put a rank in as this gives you a stun which you can use if your opponents over-extend or / and become in range of your turret.

After this I put a rank in heart seeker strike which allows you to begin using the full combo of - - - on your opponents. This is when you should begin trying to get kills.

After this try to max out heart seeker strike followed by and lastly while taking a point in your where you can.

You will want to max out last as you only use it for its stun to initiate, and levelling it just means slightly more damage. It also is the only ability (other than your ult) that uses AP, which means this attack is not used for its damage anyway.

This is my preferred option to start out the game. It provides Pantheon with the +100 health and 3% life steal which helps him become a little less squishy early game. The addition to his attack also provides a slight extra punch to his attacks.


These are very helpful for, you guessed it, chasing and fleeing. If the enemy team has heavy CC, then you can exchange these for


This is one of my favourite early game items. If you can get it quickly, it provides a huge boost to Pantheons damage output and allows a further 10% on his cooldown reduction, creating an overall 34% CDR once you have factored in the masteries.


This provides a huge boost to attack, once you get it fully charged. The life steal it provides also allows Pantheon to compete well when 1v1 with a dps champ such as Master Yi or Tryndamere, assuming that they arent fed. If you can get the B.F sword early it will also allow Pantheon to hit crazily hard early to mid game.


Most people will usually go for next, however I feel at this stage of the game a comes in much more handy, as it allows Pantheon to do lots of damage against any champs who have bought armour or opposing tanks. It will also make killing squishy's that much easier.


Now i go for this, as it provides Pantheon with a huge boost to his health, while simultaneously getting a 40% slow on opponents. This is absolutely fantastic at making chases a lot easier, and along with your stun, you can defend at turrets if need be with ease as if they do happen to get in range of your turret, you can keep them in range for a good 2 - 3 seconds.


Finally I like to go with this. It provides another huge boost to his attack, while simultaneously giving him the ability to land powerful crits. This means that if you are lucky you can land some very powerful basic attacks, straight after you unleash your combo.

So thats my build, hope you will try some games using it and provide me with some feedback. In my experience, when this build is used correctly, you should dominate and reach a high kill:death ratio almost every game.

Just keep in mind that you are squishy. Your job is to go in, unleash your combo, then get out of there. Pick single squishy targets that are at perhaps half health or below and you will easily get the kill.

Thanks for reading and have fun with this build. If you have any questions feel free to post a comment and I will try to get back to you ASAP.