I'm claubertonious also known as club. Im Gold, don't have insane experience on pantheon (Mastery 15 as of writing) and I don't even main him, however I've had a lot of success on him. Last season I had about an 80% winrate on him with 40 games and this season started rough but I took him from a 30% winrate in about 10 games to a now 58% winrate in top lane in less than a week. Even though pantheon is not my most played champion I feel like I know him better than any other champ and can give some insightful information.

Firstly, pantheon is a crazy good blind pick. As you could see in the Threats section of this guide, there are very few champions that pantheon isn't very playable into which is actually why I began playing him in the first place. Secondly I genuinely think pantheon is the easiest top laner in the game, he's simple, strong and he plays pretty much the same against every champion in the game. This makes him easy to pick up and a great champ to have in your pool whether you're a new or experienced player.

Mortal Will

• Pantheon's passive, mortal will, makes it so that after 5 attacks / abilities (yes empowered W counts as 3 stacks) pantheons next basic ability will be empowered. You can proc pantheon's passive on turrets and after spawning into the game or recalling his passive will be fully ready, this is also true after using pantheon's ult.

Comet Spear

• Pantheon's Q, comet spear, is a skillshot that can be tapped or held. Tapping makes him joust his spear forwards and refunds the cooldown by 60%, the range is around 550-600 units long and goes through minions dealing full damage. If you hold pantheon's Q he charges up a long range spear throw that does decreased damage after hitting the first target; charging the throw more does not increase the damage and when used, none of the cooldown is refunded. Both versions of pantheon Q have an effect that makes it do increased damage to targets below 20% health, including minions. Having mortal will makes this ability empowered where it just does more damage.

Shield Vault

• Pantheon's W, shield vault, is a point and click leap that stuns the target for 1 second when it lands. Shield Vault is not able to be dodged, meaning you cannot flash away from it and Jax will still be stunned during his E, counter strike, which is true for both regular and empowered W. Pantheon's empowered W is the same except it allows his next auto within 4 seconds to strike 3 times, applying crit and on-hit effects and it can be used as an auto reset.

Aegis Assault

• Pantheon's E, aegis assault, channels his shield infront of himself doing damage in a cone, after it ends he slams his shield down doing even more damage, this can be recast to end it early. Aegis assault blocks all incoming champion, minion and monster damage from where the shield is facing, including true damage. When his E is empowered, when his E ends he gains 60% ms for 1.5 seconds as well as bonus resistances based on his bonus health.

MORTAL WILL (P)

You want to keep his passive stacked as much as possible to be the biggest threat you can be, even using your Q on thin air to gain stacks is good when you aren't fighting.

COMET SPEAR (Q)

Spam tap Q as much as you can in lane without going too low on mana to combo your abilities, if you're fighting a weak laner don't use charged Q as the long cooldown will allow them to play the game, instead you can hold your Q so that they aren't allowed to cs. An exception to this is if they're already low hp so you can set up a dive. If you're fighting someone who's getting low hp wait until they're in Q execute range before using it if you are able to, if they're JUST above execute range and you Q auto you will do much less damage than auto Q .

SHIELD VAULT (W)

Pantheon's W is not only a great engage tool but also disengage, regular W does a much better job though as you don't waste your passive stacks and it gives you more time to space. If the enemy laner isn't giving you the option to W onto them then you can actually get close by landing regular W on a minion to close the gap to hit a tap Q , this is more consistent than trying to land an empowered W .

AEGIS ASSAULT (E)

Pantheon's E is where actual skill expression comes in, you can use it to block so many crucial abilities in 1v1s such as Garen's R and so much burst damage in teamfights when you engage. empowered E can be used to engage or chase with the ms but also to run, usually from beefy top laners who want to run you down. These are the only reasons you should be using empowered E . Lastly, there's a tech where if you use E right after empowered W connects, your 3 autos will still go through and at the same time you will use E, this is the max dps combo you can do as pantheon but it's extremely hard to time properly.

GRAND STARFALL (R)

Pantheon's R can be used in a couple ways but it's best used to roam, you can do this running out of base or from your lane but you can also use it as a pseudo teleport to get back to lane fast if you need to take a bad recall. Sometimes you can even use ult in lane to quickly stack your passive and engage again for a kill and sometimes if you overextend you can use it to get to safety, just make sure you can't be cced or it'll be cancelled and you'll die.

Generally I think Press the Attack is better, it feels stronger in lane against champs that you're allowed to W since it procs it instantly, but also even mid-late game pta feels stronger against squishy champions as you borderline 1 shot them.

I think Conqueror is fine, it's better against majority beefy champions for the sustain it gives and its good in teamfights as you do more damage to everyone rather than 1 player.

In conclusion, I think that you SHOULD run Press the Attack whenever there are 3 or more squishy champions on the enemy team, if there's 3 or more beefy then conqueror will probably be stronger for you in teamfights.

Laning is simple. In the first 5 levels you want to look to play aggressively, harass with Q's and get the enemy laner as low as possible. From level 1 you're looking to get lane priority as no champion can contest you, with weaker level 1 champions such as Gragas you can look to even trade with autos, but stronger ones like Darius you just want to land Q's and he will be forced to give you priority or get chunked really hard. Once you hit level 6 you need to be careful of the enemy top laner since they can most likely win an all-in against you with ults, but keep the theme of harassing with Q's until laning phase is over as there's not much counterplay. The deciding factor in whether you win your lanes or not is mostly spacing, simple right? Just be wary of jungle ganks.