I play pantheon as an ability champion and go for 45% CDR as quickly as possible. That requires 3 items - Black Cleaver, Boots and at least the hammer part of the Death's Dance. By that time, you're probably at the 20 minute mark??

I don't think the Youmuu's Blade would help in this build. I don't get a whole lot of damage from my auto attacks. I get it mostly from abilities. After those first 3 items I like to get a little MR and armor pen if needed and finish out the build with GA because I have a small life bar.

I just don't see a whole lot of replacements for the Ghostblade. Potentially in place of the MR or Armor Pen situationally?? But again, ability focused not AS focused is how i play him.

Hi, great job on the guide, it really clears out many points and help me improve with Pantheon.

I have started playing Pantheon and found Youmuu's Ghostblade very useful as my first item (starting Caulfield's Warhamemr if I'm ahead or Serrated Dirk if i'm behind) then the attack speed helps in clsoe trades or taking towers or the movement speed to just get in range of that W or run from ganks.

So I really want to ask why you don't have it at all in your build nor in the optional items or (if you ever do pick it) when to buy it instead of something else (Maw or Dominik's and take some other boots?)

Thanks

The HP gain from Black Cleaver hardly gives you any health. By the end of the game, you will still be very "fragile" in comparison to the tanks, and even most of the bruisers. If the game you are in does not have any large tanks (think ali, leona, nautilus, etc) then feel free to swap this item for something of your choosing.

I'm curious why you coupled Black Cleaver with Lord Dominik's Regards. Doesn't the extra health cause the bonus giant slayer passive damage to be lesser? Seems inefficient.

Great comments all. Sorry I've been so late to comment!

I have expanded the guide to give you my reasoning for what I've chosen. Keep the comments coming!

Ergh except there are diminishing returns as it is 1.5% of your missing mana. Not sure why I was assuming it was simply based on the size of mana pool. Read all the deets.

You only get the 6.2755/5 s if you are at 0 mana. The rate of regeneration effectively goes down as you get more mana back.

Assuming 9 mana glyphs:

0 mana (out of 418 at level 1) = 6.2755/5 s
1/2 mana (209 at level 1) = 3.135/5s
Full mana (418 at level 1) = 0/5s

So at least at level 1, 9 mana glyphs with Meditation only beat mana regen per 5 if you are below about 1/2 mana. Which with Pantheon is a lot of the time if you are spamming spears. So maybe worth?

Edit for my previous post. I messed up the math by using a factor of 0.003 (1 pt in Meditation) vs 0.015 (5 pts in Meditation).

So it is a difference of 4.7/5s vs 6.3/5s with the 101.25 mana from 9 mana runes.

You can only manage 2.97/5s with 9 0.33/5s mana regeneration runes.

So in 1 min of game time.

Meditation + base mana pool = 57 mana
Meditation + base mana pool + 9 mana glyphs = 75 mana
9 0.33/5s mana regen glyphs = 36 mana

Spear Shot costs 45 mana at all levels. So you get close to two extra spear shots using your rune and mastery setup. Vs. 5% extra dmg to targets below 40% health. Which I think is probably worth for trying to snowball the early game, which is what Pantheon wants to do.

Paraphrasing Spection, but I too would be curious on your runes.

Why flat mana? That gives you 101.25 mana. Whereas Mana Regen runes give you 180 over 5 minutes if I did the math correctly. I can see that it gives you a bigger mana pool which gives you better regen via Meditation, bit it is like 0.95/5s at level one or 1.2/5s at level one if you have 9 Mana runes. You get that by having 3 or 4 mana/5 glyphs at 0.33 mana regen/5s in your build and you don't have to sacrifice Merciless which is huge on Pantheon. And you can run some MR, which I know is helpful in many match-ups.

Looks pretty good. :-)

I like Pantheon but he is one of those champions that I feel like I could get more out of when I play him, so information such as you've provided is very helpful.

I like the section on power spikes and what to do if you are winning your lane and what to do if you've lost your lane. That kind of information is super useful and quite often lacking in guides. +1 for that.

Also the tidbit about saving Aegis of Zeonia for when they engage on you but also being conscious that it refreshes Aegis Protection so that you can benefit from both blocks.

I'd suggest giving some more detail to a couple of topics.

1) How to most efficiently CS with Pantheon in lane and under turret
2) How to most efficiently shove a lane
3) Maybe some pictures or elaboration on how you approach harrasing your lane opponent and then dropping creep aggro.
4) Maximizing your passive uptime.

I like your build, but I think it could greatly benefit from an explanation of your rune/mastery/item choices. I love the expansive ingame section, but I would like to see a bit on how to team fight and how to deal with Pantheon's lack of strength in the late game.