Hello and welcome to my AD Thresh Top (and more) build guide! And also, a huge thank you for coming down to read the text of the guide.

With something as alien to most as Thresh Top or AD Thresh (or whatever variant it is you wish to do) is, it's essential to understand why you're building items, how to play this champion in non-support roles, and what he really is in the first place! Therefore, thank you once again. The 'build options' at the top are a very small amount of the variety available to Thresh, just that so I don't throw super-niche build ideas into the heads of people quickly skimming the guide before a game to get a cookie-cutter build. The majority of this guide will focus on AD Thresh Top. There may be applications and ideas thrown around for Predator Thresh Mid, and Thresh ADC as well, but their playstyles may vary. It's very important to learn the basics first before you start breaking any more rules than we already have done by taking a Support champion into the Top Lane! I hope you enjoy the guide, and the build!

I could never have predicted when I last updated this guide that Riot would rework so many items AGAIN, so unfortunately properly updating the build section will take some time.

Instead, here is my quick summary of how to build Thresh in Season 13.
EDIT: Now with the rearrival of Stormrazor in 13.10, even more options have come back. I have adjusted the below text to include this, but the rest still rings true.

For Top Lane, choose between Blade of the Ruined King and Titanic Hydra for your first item, and your main damage item.

If the enemy Top has a lot of burst but is bad in longer fights (Like Gangplank for example], then going for Titanic Hydra can help survive that burst.

But if they aren't able to kill you so easily, like a tank Cho'Gath, then you may get away with building Blade of the Ruined King. It's much riskier than Titanic especially before it's completed, but the damage payoff is pretty worth it especially in a meta as tanky as ours.

Whichever one you pick, buy Jak'Sho, The Protean second after you get your boots, usually Berserker's Greaves. However, in certain matchups where you need to be tanky as soon as possible, or are losing very hard, get Jak'Sho, The Protean first.

After that, whatever tanky items you need will do well, or the other damage item you missed out of Titanic Hydra and Blade of the Ruined King. Usually heavy magic resistance items are necessary right now like Force of Nature in order to make up for Thresh's low magic resistance, especially against items like Liandry's Anguish and Demonic Embrace which are everywhere right now.


tl;dr

OR

Before or After above,

Second item (Or rush if tank needed fast):

Then get the other "first" item if needed.
Then get a bunch of tank items like:



However, you may also opt for Stormrazor, using the full energize line of items with the re-introduced Statikk Shiv and the good old [[rapid firecannon] to deal insane amounts of burst damage in a single auto attack.

This playstyle is now genuinely powerful enough to hold its own. I recommend not using it against straight tanks like Cho'Gath, at least not as if you were going to burst them as easily as any other opponent. However, making your build to then roam and oneshot someone else is totally fine. Just don't disrespect the engage and damage of enemy top laners. Glass cannon Thresh doesn't fare well after being pulled by Darius.

Luckily, this new build is rigidly simple, just buy all the energize items, then buy Infinity Edge or Galeforce. However, using the crit and pivoting into Guinsoo's Rageblade is not a bad idea at all to shred the tanks later. You'll have the best of both Burst Thresh and DPS Thresh at once!

Building Thresh with AD scales the passive of Flay, which has a 200% Total AD Ratio as bonus magic damage on your next auto attack when fully charged. When fully-charged, which takes 10 seconds of not auto-attacking, the passive deals triple damage as you get 200% Total AD magic damage on top of the 100% Total AD physical damage that is innate to all champions except Kalista. Though this can lead to hilarious one shots in some games, being hybrid damage makes it difficult to itemise against as they must build both resistance types, but it is even more difficult to itemise hybrid penetration outside of Divine Sunderer, which is a bad item for Thresh as we'll discuss. Instead, the AD ratio's full power is mostly a early-mid game power spike, I feel.

However, Thresh still has great scaling into lategame through stacking Damnation. Each Soul provides 0.75 armor, 0.75 ability power, and 1.5 flat on-hit magic damage per auto attack. The ability power is negligible in most scenarios, but the armor is incredible, turning Thresh into a tank against physical damage if he builds only a little HP to balance the stats and survive other damage types. It is part of the reason I would wager ADC Thresh beats most other ADCs in lategame, provided they don't kite him or otherwise outplay him. The 1.5 on-hit damage leads to crazy on-hit damage throughout the game. It's fair to say that Thresh will gain 100 souls by 25 minutes on average from Top lane, meaning he deals 150 magic damage on-hit. This on-hit effect gives Thresh synergy with attack speed, and items like Rapid Firecannon, Guinsoo's Rageblade, and Wit's End gain even more value.

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Damnation is Thresh's passive. Souls will drop from minions, monsters and champions when they die. There is a roughly 50% chance a soul will drop from small minions and monsters, and a guaranteed drop from large minions, monsters, and champions. I say 'roughly' because it is calculated the same way critical strikes are.

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No longer central to the playstyle, yet still one of Thresh's most important abilities. Max Q second if you don't need more shield from W. There are hook accuracy tips and tricks in the Ability Combos section's video guide.

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Dark Passage, better known as the 'Lantern', is a support ability at its core, but still provides substantial shielding that scales with Souls. Use it to help allies whenever possible, but be sure to use it to shield yourself or collect Souls from a distance while laning.

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Flay's passive has already been discussed earlier in this section, and is the core of AD Thresh's identity. The active half of the ability remains one of the best knockbacks in the game, and is instant CC on whoever you Flay towards you. Max it always, and because you're doing so, you can use it for extra burst on opponents. Do not overuse this in lane for waveclear, as you'll run out of mana, and without it you are vulnerable to gapclosers.

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The Box is Thresh's ultimate ability. It deals 100% AP magic damage to the first enemy champion to walk into a wall. Even without AP, the base damage and slight AP from Souls will help this ability out. Additionally, try landing a Death Sentence, and then using The Box when you confirm a hit. Use your Q and Flay to drag them into the walls for guaranteed damage!

Rather than straight up 'build this, build that,' I will instead group items and rank them on how good they are for two different, effective, AD Thresh builds.

This will be divided into two lists:

Ideally, you'll pull items from both to make your ideal AD Thresh Top build, but you can go deeper down one if you desire. Stacking on full tank items can function decently, but stacking full AD is often cheesy and a sure way to get killed in late teamfights, and yet there is still a way to pull that off.

There may also be some overlap with certain items.

S Tier

- Best Items

A Tier

- Excellent Items

B Tier

- Lower-priority Good Items

C Tier

- Oddly-specific Items

D Tier

- Rarely-needed Items



Quick reminder that if an item isn't on this list, it's not worth considering. Even the D-Tier Items on this list can be considered under the correct circumstances.

S Tier

- Best Items

A Tier

- Excellent Items

B Tier

- Lower-priority Good Items

C Tier

- Oddly-specific Items

D Tier

- Rarely-needed Items




Copy and paste: Quick reminder that if an item isn't on this list, it's not worth considering. Even the D-Tier Items on this list can be considered under the correct circumstances.

Let's review each item on the tier list, somewhat briefly, to give you an idea why you might want to (or not want to) build it.

AD Items.

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Let me be clear, you do NOT build this item first, and Rapid Firecannon has the lowest damage of the Energize completed items, but the 150 boost to attack range is the most important stat for making Burst Thresh viable past laning phase. Without it, a lot of burst attempts lead to reckless kamikaze attacks off landing a Death Sentence, without the range to attack before being demolished. That said, this item IS skippable, because sometimes you sub in enough defensive items like Maw of Malmortius, Wit's End, and others to the point where the range difference isn't a life-or-death difference anymore.

Stormrazor is without a doubt the greatest item source of damage for AD Thresh. Its new AD ratio together with the AP Ratio which benefits from your AP from Damnation, Stormrazor and Statikk Shiv scale this one auto attack far harder than it ever has before. Typically, this is the one to build first in the Energize build, for highest burst, damage, stats, and scaling.

Statikk Shiv is warmly re-welcomed, and though its previous version wasn't as good on Thresh, the newly-statted, AP-scaling Shiv provides not only a ton of damage to your first target, but splashing out to others in a lightning AoE. Though yes, big damage good, the AoE gives AD Thresh waveclear, which was one of his greatest weaknesses, particularly with "Oneshot" builds. You'd usually build Shiv second in the Energise line, needing the waveclear, additional damage, and nice stats.

That concludes the S tier with all three Energize items. They all work so well with the Burst AD Thresh playstyle, so with the buffs they got, it's only to be expected.

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Berserker's Greaves deserve a spot on the list as they stand out from typical tank/bruiser choices like Plated Steelcaps and Mercury's Treads. Most tank builds for Thresh don't have space for attack speed items, outside of maybe a Blade of the Ruined King, so getting attack speed from the boot slot helps a lot, especially combined with Lethal Tempo. Naturally, they pair well with AD and crit builds, too.

Galeforce not only grants mobility for fancy Flay combos or ambitious Death Sentence hooks, but also helps quickly close the gap to execute wounded foes. Attacking first and using the Galeforce active after can also increase the damage potential, and of course, the mobility gives ADC Thresh a good escape tool if needed. The only real downside of Galeforce is that it isn't Infinity Edge, and doesn't have quite the same damage potential. That said, the utility is priceless and can really snowball a game, creating limitless surprise elements for your enemies, and helping you end the game before they realise what AD Thresh even does.

Since 13.10, Thresh no longer cares for things like being 'too squishy', or 'too risky', as the payload provided by the Energize items together with Infinity Edge are so incredibly volatile and powerful that while you wield it, enemies WILL learn to fear your burst. In other news, its physical DPS can be great when your team is magic damage heavy, and is a great midway between the early-focused Galeforce and the too-late-game Guinsoo's Rageblade

The stats scale every part of Thresh Top, from his most glaring weakness in magic resistance, to his mid-game AD burst powerspikes, to his on-hit prowess with attack speed. Wit's End is easily one of Thresh's best items, even against mostly or even full AD teams. Keep in mind when your AD opponent's do or don't do magic damage, like Yone does a good amount of magic resistance, but Riven does none.

Titanic Hydra is the ultimate item in terms of attack and defense, and good enough to build first. Every part of it is good with Thresh, the only exception being the ranged penalty.

Blade of the Ruined King (BOTRK) provides every offensive stat Thresh could want, including an on-hit effect. The Season 13 BOTRK also has a nice movespeed-steal and burst passive that is great for 3-hit pokes in lane (great with Press the Attack as well, and helps chase and escape. Excellent DPS option.

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The new Mythic Rageblade is a little too lategame for our snowbally meta, but when acquired past 100 Souls with some other on-hit effects or crit, the hybrid penetration, immense attack speed, and DPS can obliterate any opposition, turning Thresh into a hyper carry. It still lacks defense, and you will need to bring defensive items like Spirit Visage or Immortal Shieldbow that so you can maintain your DPS without dying too early. Tank builds can also use Rageblade, working well with Titanic Hydra and maybe Blade of the Ruined King.

The potential 90 AD makes it a Burst Thresh's dream come true, and high lifesteal grants sustain. Definitely a consideration for bursts builds, whereas DPS may prefer Blade of the Ruined King.

Crit builds, particularly with Infinity Edge enjoy the armor penetration, and with Thresh's high magic damage and the use of Energize items, the damage increase against high-health opponents works quite well with him now, far more than before Patch 13.10. Buy if needed.

Tripling Thresh's Damnation passive is quite useful, but lower range means it's harder to use in teamfights. But a lategame bruiser Thresh does not care, and with lifesteal, may even aid longevity in fights.

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Falling from grace since losing its Mythic status, but with a more focused passive, the shield can help you stay alive at low health and is great against burst, allowing its lifesteal and your DPS to continue. Despite its lack of attack speed, it's better for DPS attack speed builds with Guinsoo's Rageblade and Blade of the Ruined King.

AD and HP make it worth a slot when needed, though is mostly used to annoy and lane vs Mordekaiser.

Death's dance isn't a horrible item, but Thresh's need for HP and magic resistance far outstrip his need for more armor, and there are better options for that goal when it is needed. It's passives are the main draw, and can be used well in very specific, anti-AD circumstances.

When you really need even more damage in your first auto attack, Sorcerer's Shoes have your back, scaling magic damage from your Flay passive, Energize items, and of course, your ability damage as well. Generally very burst heavy and tunnel-vision encouraging.

Health and AD with an easy condition makes this a versatile Grievous Wounds option.

The necessary choice for AD Thresh's in need of grievous wounds. The armor penetration is nice but not as nice as the passive of Lord Dominik's Regards. You don't choose this because you want it, you choose it because you need it.

Health and AD with an easy condition makes this a versatile Grievous Wounds option for bruiser and tank builds.

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Armor penetration is close to wasted on Thresh, but not useless. Vs High armor it's decent, and helps shred for allies as well. Good AD, HP, and Haste make it decent in the slot, anyway.

This used to be an okay pick purely because it was the second best-in-slot damage item for the Oneshot build next to Stormrazor. Now that Statikk Shiv has reemerged, The Collector is worthless on Thresh, with lethality not helping his goals nearly at all. The higher AD values on items like Bloodthirster would be much preferred.

Tank Items.

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As damage, it's alright, but as a tank, it's perfect. Gives DPS, lane poke and presence, lots of health, and scaling, while fixing Thresh's waveclear issues.

You want tank stats? You've got tank stats. This provides everything someone needs to be a tank with even more on mythic passive. The magic resist also helps round out Thresh's defenses, and is overall just solid for Tank and Bruiser Thresh builds.

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Even against majority-AD teams, Wit's End magic resistance is a wonderful pick for mixed offense and defense against magic damage enemies.

Now that Force of Nature isn't stealing all the magic-resistance spotlight, Spirit's healing boost works well with items like Blade of the Ruined King or Riftmaker if you're using them, and has some application with even Dark Passage. Without lifesteal, though, go for the next item, instead.

As a cheap source of magic resistance with some health, Abyssal is a greatdefensive option with the added bonus of strengthening your magic damage from abilities, Flay passive, and on-hit effects.

Heavy-duty magic resistance to really tell enemy mages that you hate them. Great for any multi-hitting mages as well such as spellslingers like Cassiopeia or damage-over-time casters like Brand, and a suggested buy against full magic damage teams, and a fantastic counter to ADCs who rely on magic damage passives and items such as Wit's End or Kog'Maw.

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This new item gives straight-up damage reduction, effective against enemy solo carries or ADCs, and assists in locking them down heavily. In a snowbally meta, this level of anti-carry is insane! On top of that, it has a ton of health.

A very powerful tank item that provides plenty of damage on its own. Being a pure armor item, it can be a little too-much against AD, but is powerful regardless so long as you can round out your magic resist with other items.

Stat wise, Evenshroud is like a baby Jak'Sho, The Protean, which is a great merit by itself. It's real ability comes through with supporting your team with its passive, which does also work for you, as well, mind. However, outside of genuine teamwork, I feel it pales in comparison to the more reliable Jak'Sho, in solo Q, anyway. If you like the tank/support style, feel free to take it with your trusted premades, or if your faith is strong enough.

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Very overhyped when it came out, and though the damage burst is great with Tank Thresh, it's glaring downside is simply that it isn't Jak'Sho, The Protean. With Thresh's base magic resistance, that hurts a lot more than it sounds. It can be used, but be very careful of any champions that deal percentage-based health damage, especially magic damage. For all that is good, please do not rush this against Gwen.

Thornmail became more annoying to use since losing its ability to apply grievous wounds without getting hit, but has a useful passive and stats, regardless. Don't use it against specific, especially mage healer priority targets (i.e. Lillia, Gwen, etc.

Not as tanky as Thornmail, not as squishy as Mortal Reminder, Chainsword trades specialisation for control and versatility. It provides health, but can apply grievous with a simple auto attack, so you don't have to beg enemies to attack you like with Thornmail.

Health and AD are appreciated, as well as annoying Mordekaiser.

In a similar vein to Randuin's Omen, Frozen Heart counters attack-speed champions like Vayne and Kog'Maw, particularly as the prior's true damage cannot be countered. Worth it if there are enough auto attackers, otherwise, Thresh gets enough pure armor from Damnation.

Pure health has its downsides as it does with Heartsteel, but the regeneration allows you to take repeated engages, so long as you don't actually die in any of them. Great against flat damage champions to shrug off burst or poke, but a tasty treat for an enemy Kog'Maw.

Whether it's aggressively with Galeforce or straight-tank with Sunfire Aegis, Dead Man's Plate gives a ton of movement speed on top of balanced HP/Armor tank stats to help gap close for a quick Flay or a better chance of landing a Death Sentence. Unfotunately, as an armor item, Thresh often doesn't need it.

Still useful against heavy crit champions, but with the new magic-damage Energize items, it has slumped down a little in usefulness, and is now a very specific, specialised item.

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Still D-tier, Black Cleaver is only worth it to help your AD team that refuse to buy their own Last Whisper against Malphite and Rammus.

As a mythic, Frostfire was the best tank item for Thresh, but has not only lost that status, but has been powercrept by Jak'Sho, The Protean anyway. As now a pure armor item, a stat Thresh gets infinite of from Damnation, and back to being a Sheen item, a passive Thresh should not be using, Iceborn Gauntlet is beyond worthless on Thresh.

Chemtank joins Iceborn in the ex-mythic tank item club, and is not quite as bad as Iceborn, but is far outshone by the likes of Abyssal Mask, Spirit Visage, and Force of Nature in the health + magic resistance domain, and its movement speed active,though good, isn't enough to become worth buying.

As mentioned many times, Thresh has to build with his weaknesses in mind as well as his strengths.

Such as:

• Thresh has low range at 450, and so needs improved durability through defense stats and passives to take hits as he comes into range.

• Thresh has poor attack speed windup, but can alleviate this greatly by building some attack speed.

• Thresh has low magic resistance scaling and overall HP, and should build these stats when needed.

• Thresh has powerful utility abilities, but Flay and The Box are close range. He should build tankier to allow for riskier plays to maximise utility.

You may notice how some of them stack, and may even have ideas on how to incorporate multiple of them at once. Wit's End may come to mind.

In fact, how much exactly does Wit's End help Thresh?

Wit's End:

• Grants attack speed, alleviating the windup issue and working well with Flay passive on-hits.

• Grants AD, to scale damage early-mid game and add burst

• Grants an on-hit effect, granting increased synergy with attack speed

• And provides high magic resistance, helping Thresh's non-existent magic resist scalings.

Wonderful. However, this does not make Wit's End suddenly a god-tier item. But in the situation this calls for (weak-strong enemy AP), it is a fantastic option.

Though, you might not want to stack too many similar items. Building it together with Blade of the Ruined King will work well for many reasons, but then adding a Guinsoo's Rageblade is pushing very far into being too squishy, especially for a Top laner.

A Thresh that is 'too squishy' cannot use their high DPS because they're dead when they walk into attack range. There must be balance, or at least a plan.


Luckily, the inverse is less important. It's a lot harder to have 'too little' damage on Thresh due to how many things being tanky enables. Many tank items provide their own damage or damage boosts, such as Sunfire Aegis and Abyssal Mask.


Though at the top of the tank item tier list is Titanic Hydra.

So what does Titanic Hydra do for Thresh?

• Titanic Hydra provides HP, alleviating Thresh's squishiness and promoting close-range abilities, and allowing safer 450 range auto attacks.

• Titanic Hydra provides AD, boosting damage and burst with Thresh's Flay passive.

• Titanic Hydra provides an on-hit effect, increasing DPS and boosting the value of attack speed.

• Titanic Hydra provides waveclear, something Thresh lacks greatly due to Flay's high cooldown and fairly mediocre AoE damage.

• Titanic Hydra provides scaling with HP, granting further value to HP purchases.

• Titanic Hydra is not a Mythic, and so you have more time to decide which Mythic is best for the game you're in.

Just a Titanic Hydra and Jak'Sho, The Protean will do a lot of damage on their own, but this might not be enough damage for the game you're in. Sometimes you do need more damage earlier to impact a game harder, as many games since Season 11 are very snowball-heavy.

For that, a more sane and grounded suggestion would be Blade of the Ruined King, now what does that do for Thresh?

• Provides high AD, increasing burst and damage.

• Provides attack speed to alleviate attack windup, and increase DPS.

• Provides lifesteal, alleviating Thresh's lack of sustain in lane and in fights.

• Provides a strong on-hit and passive.

Finally, as I've alluded to, there is also an 'insane' way to go about building Thresh, such as forgetting everything I just said and stacking as much AD and damage as possible.

For this idea, let's look at Stormrazor first:

• Provides high AD, increasing burst and damage.

• Provides some attack speed to alleviate attack windup, and increase DPS.

• Provides a powerful burst on first attack when Energized.

• This burst scales with AD, that you build, and AP, that you get from Damnation.

This has downsides, of course. Having an all-important auto attack with only 450 range is a problem, and you're overkilling every minion you attack so farming is a chore. Not to mention every time you last hit a minion, your Flay passive and Stormrazor hit have to charge again.

Luckily, the other two Energize items are incredible.

• Provides high AD, increasing burst and damage.

• Statikk Shiv adds AoE for waveclear, helping farm and splash damage to enemies near minions.

• Rapid Firecannon provides 150 bonus attack range, allowing your first auto attack to be much safer and have more reach.

The way the new 13.10 energise items synergise is what turns this goofy build idea into something legitimately scary for squishy enemies. The damage and scaling off AD and AP with Damnation without compromising too much on farming with thanks to Statikk Shiv and remaining at safer ranges with Rapid Firecannon, you can hyper focus on an aspect of Thresh's kit to great effect, so long as you also know what weaknesses you're introducing.


This guide has stayed pure AD, and a seperate AP guide may happen at some point, but perhaps using this way of thinking, you could try making an AP Thresh build yourself? Creating builds is fun and I wouldn't want you, who have read this far, to not at least give it a try.


Though I am trying to get you to make your own builds, I understand if you would like to see an example. Examples are available at the top of the guide, but here are some that I use regularly. Just remember to only build what is appropriate, for example, don't build Spirit Visage against a Full AD team.















Notice the balance of stats. The first starts with Blade of the Ruined King, and takes Berserker's Greaves to get a good mix of AD, attack speed, and on-hits.

Under the same idea, it builds Spirit Visage, increasing effective hp against magical attackers, boosting the heals of BOTRK.

Jak'Sho, The Protean is a powerful tank stat ball for any tank or bruiser, and gives enough longevity in a fight to get good value from your DPS and lifesteal.
The last two slots can be whatever is most appropriate if the game continues past that point.


As for the second build, Titanic Hydra is providing AD and HP, and the on-hit effect and DPS is boosted by the attack speed from Wit's End.

Jak'Sho, The Protean provides a ton of tank stats to stay in fights longer, having synergy with it's own passive. Being so tanky and getting enough damage from Flay passive, Damnation, and Titanic Hydra, we can simply get Abyssal Mask to boost magic damage, and bolster our weak magic resistance.


The last build shouldn't need much explanation, but perhaps Maw of Malmortius can seem out of place. Due to Thresh's weak magic resistance, getting bursted by ranged mages before you reach 600 range to let off your attack can definitely happen, so the passive and magic resist of Maw help alleviate that, even if it's just enough to get that strike off, hopefully its enough to also fall back and charge a second, powerful attack.



I hope this has given you some ideas for your own Thresh builds! Or, feel free to have fun with mine, just build smart!

The above video is the most up-to-date guide I have on combos for Thresh. Anything newer than that will simply be adding in Galeforce dashes, which has been nerfed since Season 11 started, so not quite as shockingly fast.

The below text is almost 'legacy' due to its age, but still legitimate. If Thresh combos are new to you, it will definitely help.

The first thing we're going to talk about is this:




All too often you'll see Thresh players throw out hopeful Qs that miss, but 20% of the time they land that hook. This is fine if you've maxed Q with 40% CDR like a support, but we aren't doing that. We're maxing E, then W, with Q maxed last.

As a result, your Q cooldown is precious. Sometimes you have no choice but to bet on it, but when you can use Flay instead, USE IT. The slow from Flay will guarantee your enemy cannot dodge the Q stun without a dash or Flash.

Additionally, here's another important note:

Combo - Quick Q


I say 'at close range', because the closer you are, the more effective this is. Let me explain how this works.

When Q lands on an enemy, that enemy is stunned for 1.5s. Thresh is locked out of auto attacks for as long as he's got a hook on that enemy. You can recast Q at any time to jump towards them, ending the Q once you reach them.

HOWEVER, the enemy is STILL stunned for 1.5s. This means that you unlock your own auto-attacks while the enemy is still stunned. You can see this as a 'free-auto' or even 'burst' damage by double-casting Q quickly at close range, meaning that while you can't auto-attack for maybe 0.25-0.5s depending on distance, the enemy can't retaliate for a full second of you being able to attack.

This usually means enough for one auto-attack on AD builds (which will have charge up, and the movement will add Energy to your Energize passives), or two on attack speed builds.

This might SOUND minor, but it's those minor differences in damage that spell victory and defeat.

This might also be unclear, so here's a clip from an OLD video of mine that explains it visually (Timestamped link):
Play Video

Very old video, wow. Sorry about mic quality. I've improved since then, I promise.


Now let's talk about some other combos.

Combo 2


By using the slow from Stormrazor's auto attack, or Bilgewater/BOTRK's active, you can easily walk up and land a Flay, causing another slow to guarantee Death Sentence. Alternatively, particularly with both Stormrazor and Rapid Firecannon, you can hit someone for the slow, then immediately follow up with Death Sentence for a higher chance to land from quite a distance.

Combo 3


Hook first is risky business as we've mentioned, but sometimes it's the only option and best option available. OR you can combo from Stormrazor like mentioned in Combo 2.

You can see we do The Box straight after Hook, not after Flay. When Death sentence is in the air, before and after landing, you can use Ult. Once you've confirmed the hit on your hook, cast R. This way, you will pull them towards you, and as soon as the 1.5s stun is up, use Flay to pull them further into your Box walls for damage and insane slow, guaranteeing the Box to land. This can be an insane burst of damage that, although I hate this argument, can really surprise opponents.

Landing The Box is actually a huge deal, not just for its damage, but the 99% slow. Even if they flash immediately, the slow still keeps them essentially locked down, easy to hit with a few more auto attacks. If you have AD instead of attack speed, you can even catch up while charging your attack first, then continue attacking once you've caught up.

Welcome to crazy zone. It's Jungle Thresh.

Thresh jungle sounds either like the most ambitious ganker ever or the worst idea you've ever heard. To be honest with you, it's a bit of both. There are better junglers who can achieve similar ganks, similar scaling, similar damage, and plenty who can do better. So if you're doing Jungle Thresh, you're not doing it because it's the META. You're doing it because it's Jungle Thresh.

Let's have a pros and cons section for our Jungle Thresh boi:

Pros:
[*] Powerful CC leads to powerful lockdown for ganks.
[*] Able to farm a LOT of souls from jungle camps like Krugs and Razorbeaks.
[*] Can scale well with certain builds. Lot's of builds to choose from.
[*] Did I mention he ganks hard?
[*] Surprisingly healthy clears done right.

Cons:
[*] SLOW clears early.
[*] Squishy, vulnerable to invades.
[*] Slow clears means slow counter-jungling.
[*] Weak damage means slow objective-taking.
[*] Long cooldowns and skillshots mean missing abilities ruins the whole gank.
[*] Stealing Thresh from perfectly functioning support lanes.
[*] Though he is very versatile, other champions specialise in any of these areas at like 500% efficiency compared to Thresh.

He's definitely risky, but at this point, you don't care. You just want to play Jungle Thresh. I get that.

So let's talk build.

Bami's Cinder is the way to go, no other item will give you good clears. These days, you don't have to rush to finish Sunfire Aegis. Unfortunately, all the useful DPS items with waveclear like Statikk Shiv, Titanic Hydra, and Runaan's Hurricane are fairly expensive and other than Hydra, don't provide much versatility.

While you can still buy Sunfire Aegis, it may finally be time for the other damage type to show up.



Riftmaker is an AP item, but purely because Jungle Thresh, the Jungle, Jungle Items, and Thresh's scalings have changed a lot since adding the Jungle section to an AD Thresh guide, back during a time when AP was heresy, I'll allow it here.

Now that Flay has an actually good AP Ratio, buying something like Nashor's Tooth or Riftmaker grant DPS and some waveclear for the jungle monsters, and with the up front burst damage of AP, are a bit more appropriate for ganks. Leeching Leer's sustain is also nice enough to sustain while clearing alongside Dark Passage shielding.

I'll keep this short and sweet. Here's the optimal route:


I put gank twice usually because you'd gank after doing crab, but if you want to do two ganks in a row, go for it.
These may not be optimal clears by most standards, and you can even cut more camps out of it and go for Level 2 ganks, as you'll be betting on ganking a lot anyway.

How to Jungle Clear

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Naturally, jungle clearing with Thresh can be messy if you don't know what you're doing. I'm going to explain the key things you need to do for a healthy clear:



Against monsters particularly, the Lantern can block their movement, giving many extra seconds of free attacks (i.e. the camp isn't attacking you cos they're walking around the lantern). This is easiest to do on Krugs and Blue Buff, weakest on Gromp.



In jungle we take W second for the shield and pathing block. The shield will help you absorb some extra damage, since you can't kite forever. You'll either be leaving leash range or they'll catch up with you. If they catch up after the lantern pathing block, this is where the shield comes in.

The shield should also be used when they're GOING to attack you, such as when you leave Blue Buff's leash range, and you have to cross past him again.



Against almost all jungle monsters, and as all jungle champions, you should aim to kite every three auto attacks. So you go three auto attacks, walk back, and repeat. This way, the jungle monster's attacks are so slow that they do two attacks, and you do three.

Against Gromp, you want to kite between every attack that so when Gromp has its increased attack speed buff for the first few attacks, Gromp only does one attack for every one of yours. When you kite Gromp, you lower its attack speed by doing this (this also works against attack speed melee champions, but they (sometimes) are smarter than Gromp).

However, as a ranged jungler, things are a little different. You want to have the above concepts in your head still, but you SHOULD kite after every attack since there's many attacks you can get for free by using your range. However, when you leave leash range and have to walk past them, you should REVERT to the melee kiting method of 3:2 of your attacks:monster attacks for optimal clearing and healthiness.



In order to scale, we want to farm the jungle a lot in order to gain a TON of souls. Since Thresh is a slow-clearing jungler, we want to make sure we get Hunter's Talisman first, then quickly get Bami's Cinder to increase clear speed dramatically. This way, Krugs and Razorbeaks are actually viable to take.

Be sure to carefully take crabs as well, as they will give even more sustain, and of course, a guaranteed soul. Using Death Sentence or Flay to stun the crab, then full combo it during that time with a 100% charged autoattack will bring it's hp down quickly, just careful to not get it stolen. You burst it at first, then devolve to weak auto-attacks to finish it off. Best to save Smite for Crabs.

Given enough time, you'll have the armor and on-hit damage to take on anyone, especially squishy AD champions.



This is the real strength of Jungle Thresh, but on it's own it's nothing special. That's why we have that whole section on souls and building damage and scaling. Master farming that so you have something to fall back on if ganks don't work out or aren't available for whatever reason.

I've been ganking from the jungle with Thresh since his release. Jungle Thresh was the first thing I did with him. So I've got some experience as how to go about ganking. Where and when to gank is a whole other world.


General Ganking Combo



You might be thinking, why not hook first?. Hooking first invites enemies to Flash out unscathed, or just juke you without it. Starting with E will slow your enemy down, making your Q almost impossible to juke without a dash, and even then, the slow is enough for your laner to catch up and help with the beatdown. If they Flash before you hook... Well then. You can of course predict their Flash as well to try and look cool.


Combo 2



Why auto attack? Because that may apply Red Buff if available. Also, when approaching from behind, enemies have to move through you. Even if they Flash over you, you'll likely still catch them easily with Flay, and that leads to an easy catch with Q while they're slowed.


Combo 3



Starting with Death Sentence is more common before you get Mobility Boots to get in range for just straight up Flaying them. Sometimes enemies burn flash first so you'll be forced to hook anyway. That's what starting hook is good for.

Additionally, you can see we do The Box straight after Hook, not after Flay. When Death sentence is in the air, before and after landing, you can use Ult. Once you've confirmed the hit on your hook, cast R. This way, you will pull them towards you, and as soon as the 1.5s stun is up, use Flay to pull them further into your Box walls for damage and insane slow, guaranteeing the Box to land. This is a general combo and I'm gonna copy paste this description to the ability combo section I need to do.

One more example:


Combo 4



From here you can either:





The latter combo is the same as Combo 3, but from a brush, undetected, which means the enemy cannot aim to juke you, and it's your own aim and prediction that will decide if it hits.
The first of these two is more guaranteed, but less likely to hit from within the brush. Usually, you'll have to step out at the right time.

Anyway, that's enough examples, the rest you can work out yourself from experience.



First gank strategy can be used to think of what jungle pathing you're going to take. However, you usually start on bot side and make your way towards top as you clear, so typically, you'll be ganking top or mid lane first.

After that, you can just walk down river, with or without taking crab, and gank mid, then again to bot. You can also camp enemies effectively if you deny vision with an early sweeper trinket and control wards. Aim to gank from behind lanes (Tribush in top/bot, side entrances behind the river in mid) when you can to easily burn Flash and land easy Flays.

When Dragons and Heralds are spawning, you can use them to decide where to gank, if viable. When Dragon is about to spawn, enlisting the help of your bot lane by ganking them can be a good idea. You could also gank mid lane, then ask them to help you 4 man gank bot lane, then take dragon. Additionally, with careful planning, aim to countergank the enemy jungler, then use their death to spell out a Dragon or Herald. Typically, ganking top lane can lead to getting a Herald.

Sometimes, you might just want to go for Turret platings, and the Demolish rune helps a lot if you had space for it. Camping a single lane and just shredding platings can be extremely effective if they're a snowbally champion, and can actually outvalue early dragons sometimes if that laner proceeds to carry. If they proceed to give up shutdown bonus and feed, then your team will blame you for losing dragons and being terrible, not blame the feeding teammate. Ah well.

Point is, be careful with your planning. This goes beyond Jungle Thresh now, jungling is just a big brain task.

After all, I am a YouTuber and streamer now, so having video content would make sense. Here's a bunch of my video content, "recent" as of 23/05/2023, starting with guides.:
Play Video (Not exactly a 'guide', but goes into detail about Thresh.)
Play Video (Season 11, Jul 10 2021 - If you're going to 'Oneshot' as Assassin Thresh, do it like this!)

Play Video (Season 10, December 2019
Play Video (Season 10, May 2020)



Hope you enjoy, and hope it helps learn this complicated AD boi.

And now here are a mix of gameplay videos, either live commentary from streams, or straight-up meme montages.

Memetages:

Play Video Play Video Play Video Play Video Play Video Play Video Play Video Play Video Play Video Play Video Play Video Play Video

Gameplay:

*Updated for Season as of 23/05/2023

Play Video Play Video Play Video Play Video Play Video

Hope they're insightful, or at least, entertaining!

AD Thresh Top came about from me playing AD Thresh Jungle around Season 4, and one ranked game, our Jarvan top wanted to get away from the matchup he had, so I offered to play top instead. I built full-onhit which I nowaday would consider hilariously flawed, but won and did well regardless.

Over the years, AD Thresh Top stuck with me, experimenting with new items as they release and new combinations to make the most of his kit.

The 200% Total AD Ratio auto attack is what initially caught my eye, but as I grew to understand it, it seemed like an overrated part of the kit. Back then, before Season 6, there was no Rapid Firecannon to extend your range, so you usually either hooked, dashed, and died, or walked into enemy range before they got into yours.

Instead, I tended to focus on the Damnation side to this Flay passive. The minimum damage (10 seconds to charge the entire 200% ratio) was always equal to the number of souls you had gathered. Now since late Season 11, that number is now 1.5x your number of souls. 100 Souls does 150 Magic damage on hit without charging.

This meant using attack speed would increase your DPS significantly, scaling greater the more souls you had. Of course, it would apply with Guinsoo's Rageblade and Runaan's Hurricane as well.

But with only 450 attack range, focusing too hard on either was often a death sentence to Thresh himself. To sustain DPS, you needed to be tanky enough to survive some hits, so your DPS can continue, rather than dealing very high DPS for only a couple of seconds.

Focusing hard on positioning doesn't help either, as now you're failing to use Thresh's utility abilities. Flay and The Box are very close-range and very effective when used at the right time and place. Staying in the back, though can be used to peel, severely limits your options with them.

So a few things slowly became obvious:

• ADC Thresh is hopelessly useless due to range issues and limited ability use.

• You needed to build SOME tankiness.

• AD is built for early-mid game primarily.

• Attack Speed gets better as a game gets longer.

Meaning the ideal Thresh top build is a mix of AD, defense, and attack speed. As Seasons have gone by, the items available have changed time and time again, but with Season 11's Mythic items and reworks, there are so many options available to Thresh that several playstyles have emerged.

As mentioned in the Introduction, I will primarily focus on AD Thresh Top for the majority of this guide, with the goals outlined above.

Built with high AD, he gains Assassin burst.
Built with high Attack Speed, he gains Carry-like DPS.
Built with high Defense and Ability Haste, he becomes a disruptive Tank.

However, any fed LeBlanc will outburst an AD Thresh, any lategame Vayne or Kayle will outdamage an AS Thresh and have the tools to keep themselves safe and mobile, and any Malphite or Shen will be far tankier than a defensive Thresh.


This fully cements AD Thresh Top's role in League of Legends as a true Jack of All Trades, Master of None.

You can build into one of these as much as you like, but the ideal build, especially for top, will always be a mix.

Halfway into Season 13, I finally updated those "Item Tier Lists" I made. It was some time and effort, but I knew that when I initially decided to do that.

As Crit Burst Thresh revives with the buffs to Stormrazor and the reawakening of Statikk Shiv, that build has crept back into being genuinely recommended rather than reserved for memes. It's not just a lot of fun, but it genuinely might be the better way to go while the game is so bursty and snowbally.

I've checked it over a few times, looks fine to me. It's getting late, and think its about time I just hit save and publish those changes. Hope you like the guide's changes!

- Changed Item Build and Item Tier lists
- Updated Item Tier List explanations
- Updated Ideal Item Builds
- Updated Jungle Thresh a bit, it was very old.
- Updated videos section.

With the new Season here and me coming back after a break, I've made a very quick change to the preview build and the recommended build you should use in the 'Season 13 Quick Change Summary'.

I will get to more details about why, alternatives, and funny stuff once I get the video guide going, and will update the rest of the guide to reflect it.

My approach to Thresh Top has embraced versatility and all the fun stuff he CAN do. Sticking to one build can work with the Ady build, but I feel like suiting it for the situation a little more heavy-handedly than other champions is such a Thresh Top thing to do!

Changes:
- Changed the date of previous changelog to be correct.
- Lethal Tempo is now the primary rune, a standard, scaling choice you can't go wrong with.
- Added the alternative Press the Attack and Fleet Footwork runes for top.
- Updated matchups section heavily. Will be expanded on a later date.

Such huge updates, and I didn't update this guide yet!

I took some time to play the updates a lot, and have arrived at some pretty solid conclusions, supported even by the experimentation of a Challenger player named Ady!

Not directly, of course, but on Ady's League of Graphs page, I saw 14 games of Thresh Top up in Grandmaster and Challenger rank, supporting a lot of my build philosophy's, and proving my other ones wrong, such as how little value I placed on Berserker's Greaves. Reflecting on my own build philosophies and experiences with this in mind, it does all make a lot of sense.

As such, these were changed:

- Wit's End is now considered a core item.
- Iceborn Gauntlet is once again the top Tank Mythic option to take.
- Berserker's Greaves considered the default boot choice, with the defensive boots as situational.

Some of my thoughts, like my pushing of Sunfire Aegis were mere speculation I threw out when Iceborn Gauntlet was nerfed, so Ady's games were a nice wake-up call.

The Durability Update and the Souls update that improved the armor amount received from Damnation as well as on-hit damage, also boosted Wit's End as an item, covering his main weakness, and improving both burst and DPS. And, if you can live longer by default, it makes a higher DPS build all the more viable. The higher defenses of Sunfire Aegis and defensive boots would have been more valued in the first half of Season 12, but now, we are a bit more free to go for higher-damage builds.

As everyone else is also tankier, it also nerfs 'One-shot' Thresh, so honestly scrap lethality Thresh entirely, and at least build a Galeforce if you want to do that, using the crit route with Stormrazor instead.

In fact, in the light of Ady's games, I think a drain tank Thresh with Immortal Shieldbow, which already showed some promise in previous patches, is becoming very, very powerful and should not be underestimated, though it does have a lot of risk in the early game that I would advise caution against, for now.

Depending on my own experiments with the item, I may or may not add such an item set and playstyle to this guide.

For now, I have a certain Thresh Top guide video to make!

I've taken some time to primarily update the item build section, as you can now see, it's lost some weight in many ways and had a makeover.

Replacing describing every item with walls of text are Tier List-style pools of items for you to build items from. The section following it also gives you some build examples!

Actually as of writing this changelog I still haven't made that section. It's getting late. One more section.

I hope you enjoyed my guide!