Are you still alive ?

Yo dude I love your guide and all (been maining Panth for like 2 years now, wonderful experience thanks to your guide), but I just wanted to ask you. Is the Matchups section up to date yet?

This is no longer true by the way :P

what abount aery ?

What would the 'Sustain-EON' (onhit-sustain) runes be used for which champions?

I just wanted to say that I was looking to try out Pantheon and found your guide! It is so in depth and amazing of all the information it carries. It even made me laugh a few times in the mindset section xD. Also saw that you respond to people who comment on here and thought that was just absolutely amazing. Thank you so much for this guide and for being an amazing person :)

Hey, I don't play Pantheon myself, but every time I see this guide it just blows my mind. The combination of beautiful visuals and in-depth information is just insane. I think I can safely say this guide is an inspiration for every guide writer. At least for me it is.

Any thoughts on Pantheon jungle? He heavily relies on ganking, but since the scuttle crab spawn being delayed, I rarely see him in the jungle.

Keep up the amazing work! +1

I used to play Pantheon so many years ago, and i wanted to play it again, your guide is really complete, it helped me alot to understand all the matchups, but i still can't imagine myself playing without Electrocute xD Great guide btw :D

Great guide, as i have played alot of pantheon myself, i would reccomend to also try these runes if you have some mana problems: sumommon aery, with manaflow band, absolute focus, gathering storm, then take precision with triumph and coup de grace. The summon aery also help with real early damage, since you dont have to use 3 spells to activate it. manaflow will increase you mana every time you get early kills, it will also help you stay in lane if you need to. then absolute focus, when you poke enemies in the early game it helps with damage, and then gathering storm will make your lategame not that hard, since you got more damage (combine with black cleaver and the armor is easy to get past). Triumph and coup de grace is self explanatory.
I like these runes more since they help at the start, and are not useless mid to late game. I would reccomend to try them and see if you like it, but i understand it is not for everyone though

Wow, what an amazing guide. You have my upvote. The creative layout and abundance of detail really stand out. Especially the format of the Pros and Cons. Not planning to play Pantheon any time soon, but this guide was really nice to read.

Started playing toplane about a month ago, transitioned from Jungler/Support and this guide helped a lot with Pantheon but also the safe zones and warding around toplane. Huge thanks, great indepth guide, good luck this season!

Hello Swuft!
my friend told me to check up this guide, wow just wow this guide is so in depth that i cant believe so many information, i think you spent allot time making this, and using BBCodes great just great, this guide is one of the best i ever saw, nice job.

I've been a Plat Top/Jungle main for the last 3 seasons and I've played a lot of Pantheon in that time, I find that I don't disagree with the notions in your guide but some of the ideas give me pause.

I do agree with Black Cleaver being the most essential item in any Pantheon build. I am a strong supporter of building it every game as a first or second item depending on the enemy team composition. That said, in a lot of laning matchups the armor reduction applied by the item isn't as strong a factor because the enemy hero does not purchase an early armor item. It's not a non-factor, but against non-melee heroes it will not be a particularly large value unless they stack multiple items.

That said, 20% CDR is incredibly powerful due to the longer cds of his non Spear Shot skills. Ionian Boots of Lucidity are an item I don't like to buy on him simply because the passives from Ninja Tabi and Mercury's Treads are not available in other places that you'll buy on Pantheon, while CDR is widely available on non-boots slots. As a rush item I intend to sell at a later point in the game I do buy it very occasionally, but in that position more Long Swords are usually just as good for increasing damage output.

The conversation about which mastery is better, Thunderlord's Decree or Deathfire Touch is an interesting one. Had I not had pretty extensive experience using Thunderlord's Decree when it was just flat out better on everyone I would still agree with your Deathfire Touch point of view. The best part about Thunderlord's Decree is that the burst from it will get you a lot of kills that the DoT from DfT will not. The second best part is that the flat penetration is just better than % in early game. Being able to cast Heartseeker Strike and activate Thunderlord's Decree with one skill is also very useful.

Deathfire Touch is an incredible mastery which does provide a lot of additional poking power during laning. In certain matchups the burn effect (as well as the % armor penetration) will provide a specific advantage that makes it more desirable, but for the most part I've found that the ability to Q->W->Auto and activate Thunderlord's Decree makes it output more effective damage unless I can keep 100% uptime on the burn effect from Deathfire Touch . Both of them (as well as Pantheon's other skills) scale with Bonus damage stacking, which is always desirable on Pantheon.

The only build which is exclusively strong with with a particular mastery is when maxing Heartseeker Strike. The situations where this is desirable are less than they were before, but the fact that it still has a higher total damage output (on both single and multiple targets for a single cast) AND is a strong AoE skill makes it useful to be aware of as an alternate build. Not having any discussion of it seems like a weakness in such an extensive guide.

Itemization is where I take issue with your guide. I understand that your guide is set up as an intro to the character, but there is no discussion of what to do if you lose lane or are in a match-up where winning lane is a low % possibility. There is not even a discussion of what to do in match-ups where the opponent WILL be stronger than you at level 6 and is free to simply sit back and get whatever exp/cs they can.

Having taken the time to actually a lot of the ridiculous gimmick builds and also just play a lot of the hero, Flat HP is an incredibly underrated stat that can win him fights by itself because of Aegis Protection + Certain Death. Knowing how to just out right click people and pay attention to his stack timer in order to not waste his shield is essential to playing Pantheon to his full potential. Completely negating enhanced auto attacks is very useful against people like Garen, Wukong, Riven, etc...

For that reason I'm surprised you don't discuss situational rush for Bami's Cinder, Jaurim's Fist, or Giant's Belt. Sunfire Aegis is a particularly strong item because the additional burn damage combined with HP and Armor makes diving with Grand Skyfall that much safer and effective. Frozen Mallet has always been a "win more" item for Pantheon that provides a lot of a useful stat (Health) without totally neglecting his damage output. For that same reason, being able to stack the CDR from Black Cleaver is a useful note in games where your team is stacked with damage output and you simply need the best CDR/Damage/Health in the fewest slots.

While I do believe strongly in Pantheon's abilities as an AD Caster/Assassin, I find it far more useful to lean more towards being a bruiser unless I am so ridiculously ahead that it would be nonsensical for me to build anything but damage.

That said, I do agree with some of the other comments about Tiamat. Being able to make use of the additional active from Tiamat or Ravenous Hydra, as well as simply clear waves and then walk in the general direction of other lanes WITHOUT using mana is really nice. It also has the advantage of being one of the highest flat damage items in the game and allows for animation cancelling out of the backswing on Heartseeker Strike as well as autoattacks. That said, it is not a frequent pick-up. The additional pressure it provides on your lane is very useful if you plan to roam freely, as I do believe strongly in the effectiveness of increasing your farming vs pure kill potential.

I do think Youmuu's Ghostblade is an essential consideration. Not so much for the active but because of the armor penetration. Ranged Heroes as a whole tend to not only start with less armor but have less armor at the end of the game ( Thresh & Gnar being the exceptions). With no natural armor piercing abilities being able to itemize for it is very important. Being able to land the biggest Heartseeker Strike in teamfights on multiple people can do more than the biggest Spear Shot. Attack Speed is a good stat on Pantheon that takes practice to use effectively. You should be giving priority to landing spells without interrupting attack animations in progress. It's also worth noting that unlike the Black Cleaver or either of the Last Whisper path items, flat armor penetration works on turrets and monsters.

That said, there will be games where purchasing Youmuu's Ghostblade, or any of the Serrated Dirk path items, feels impossible. Maw of Malmortius and Duskblade of Draktharr are both excellent pickups when the game allows or calls for them, but are fairly situational. Finding time in your rotations to land autoattacks is important whether you have a Duskblade of Draktharr or not, so landing the passive isn't a huge problem. Maw of Malmortius is typically a better pickup, because while a difference in 20 damage and 40 magic resist isn't always a gamebreaker, the 300+ shield provided by Maw of Malmortius is. Maw of Malmortius has another passive, and while lifesteal and spellvamp (fully activated by Pantheon's spells) are never bad, they are less important than the other factors between the items. Duskblade of Draktharr has movement speed too, which is equally useful.

All 3 flat armor penetration items cost basically the same amount of money. Youmuu's Ghostblade and Duskblade of Draktharr provide similar increases to single target damage output but Youmuu's Ghostblade completely dominates for multi-target damage output. The active effect on Youmuu's Ghostblade is fairly multipurpose, and can be used for things like catching up to people, hitting turrets, fighting monsters, and running away. Maw of Malmortius is useful as an anti-magic item that also gives you a nice damage spike.

I only buy all 3 when I am ridiculously fed, fighting a squishy team, and cannot rely on my teammates to output any damage OR am fighting a bunch of tanks and supports who are playing "protect the carry" and assassinating one champion negates their entire team's damage output.

Death's Dance. I don't buy Death's Dance very often. The mixture of damage and CDR is quite desirable, the pseudo-survivability is nice, and the lifesteal/spellvamp effect can be incredibly useful. Why don't I like it? Price point and what else I could be doing with that slot. Simply put, in a 5v5 fight (which is a bad position for Pantheon anyways) the ideal scenario is that for whatever reason all 5 of them tank the full duration of Heartseeker Strike without interrupting/killing me AND that lifesteal effect let gain enough health to not die from the bleed passive. That's frequently unrealistic.

As a survivability item, Ruby Crystal as well as any of the items that build out of it will provide more than Death's Dance in all but the most ideal situation. For Pantheon especially, an AD Fighter who has fairly weak escape tools and typically needs to scale into an off tank, there are better choices no matter what the enemy team composition. I have bought it, I've had it be incredibly effective and save my life a number of times. Death's Dance is just so expensive for a payoff that I don't think is greater than a lot of the other options for Pantheon.

Finally, for the bad Pantheon in all of us. Infinity Edge does work with Spear Shot. The wiki is wrong. I tested it an hour ago because I saw that comment and had to test it. The thread that is quoted is from 2011. The main problem is that Spear Shot can only critical strike with Certain Death. Don't buy Infinity Edge, because if someone is below 15% HP, chances are Spear Shot would have killed them anyways. Also, don't buy a Muramana. Pantheon can stack it, but it's terrible.

Be aware that in some games it will behoove you to get a Zz'Rot Portal, because late game Pantheon has a number of problems that can be negated by forcing a 5v4 because a lane is passively pushing.

I think it's important for every Pantheon player to learn how to use both mastery setups. The strongest one on one kill potential is definitely Thunderlord's Decree with Assassin and Oppressor . Depending on matchups it can be nice to switch to Deathfire Touch .