Thresh, from my experience could be a very very strong bruiser.

Tho I tend to only do this while playing as support (assuming I get a number of assists) since most groups disagree and rage when I ask if I can top Thresh >->

Anyways, great guide! Thought I do disagree with a few items
- Maw of Malmortius is a situational item that I don't believe belongs in the core build
- Zephyr seems a bit out of place as attack speed doesn't do as much for Thresh as it does for others due to the Death Sentence passive

+1 Every game enemy surrender at 20 minute!
Just get the phage and BT better than rushing static or other attack speeding items

Updated the Pantheon section and downgraded him from a tough opponent to just a medium threat after a couple more games against him, master the timing of Flay and he's no biggie.

Encountered an ally stating that Thresh doesn't bring enough CC to be a viable top laner... lolwut?

I prefer Bork for the active and AS. BT just doesnt feel like it does enough other than raw damage for him.

Haha, nice!
I did use BotRK a lot on Thresh, but eventually ended up liking Bloodthirster more for the AD scaling. Could always try both...

True. But that's all assuming you aren't wrecking the lane. I personally feel like you can abuse his early game hard enough against most bruisers to warrent building a bit more of a DPS heavy build.

I did it today against Renekton and went 7/3 with a BotRK, PD and IE. :p

I'd love to include them, but since I used a combination of ingame experience and calculated gold efficiencies when landing on my build, I just couldn't make room.
There's already an alternative guide that includes those items on AD Thresh, but I felt a crit centric build didn't take advantage of his strengths, especially Death Sentence.

Remember, at the end of most games you're going to have Ninja Tabi, Bloodthirster, Phage and another minor item like Stinger or Hexdrinker. There's not a whole lot of point in comparing full 6 item builds to each other, as games rarely reach that point.

voted +1

Needs more Infinity Edge and Phantom Dancer go more man mode! Otherwise nice guide. :3

Thanks for the feedback all.
I by no means feel that this is the best build for Thresh in general, I absolutely agree that the strongest place for him is as a bottom lane tanky support. But if you enjoy the champion already and are experienced with him, and feel like some fun elsewhere as an AD bruiser, then this is the build I recommend.
This is a guide for people who enjoy AP Master Yi, AD Sion and AD Kennen. Viable but suboptimal builds. (I'm going to amend this to the guide's introduction to clear things up.)

There are others that recommend Sunfire Aegis and Warmog's Armor, but these items just turn you into a regular support tank... which is not the point of this guide. There are already good guides on Support and Tank Thresh, I didn't feel the other AD Thresh guides were up to the standard I wanted to see out there.
Building as I've suggested you will be a damage threat, an ADC out of the top lane and late game you will become a hard to deal with bruiser balanced between damage and survivability. The items I suggest offer the best gold efficiency for the role, this is combined with your gold lead because of superior farm potential compared to lane opponents.
Some builds will put more emphasis on Attack Speed with Runaan's Hurricane and Statikk Shiv, again that is not the focus of this guide. This build is about deceptively high damage and versatility, landing a high damage auto attack and then using abilities to skirmish and disrupt the enemy. Rather than the novelty of how quick you can clear the Wraith camp.

@ShortyHun
Thanks for the compliment on formatting, it took a while!
This guide is for AD Thresh exclusively, as the title states. Sure his abilities scale off of AP, but the passive attack from Q scales amazingly well off of AD. That is the core that makes it work and the point of the guide, a solo AP thresh in top lane would not work as well as AD.
Even as AD, you get some AP for free because of Damnation, your abilities are mainly used for their utility and not for the damage regardless of your build. This is explained in the "Mixed Damage" section and differentiates the build from Hybrid ones.

@Meiyjhe
Again thanks, I probably should have started with C2V on... but didn't want people to leave troll or empty comments just so they could downvote on my first guide. I should also point out that it's intended for people who already enjoy Thresh in other roles, or were avoiding him because they don't need another support tank in their champion pool.
There's no real point in doing guides that are the same as everyone elses, this is a slightly different look at Thresh.

@SmokedCarpenter
I originally used Flat AD pages on Thresh as well as variations including ArPen and %AS. In general I have never been a fan of the Hybrid Runes, but felt it wouldn't be thorough to not at least give them a go despite my skepticism.
Ultimately in my trials I achieved higher damage using Hybrid Penetration, though I do state in the guide that if you don't already have these to just use AD, I wouldn't buy a full Hybrid Runeset for Thresh alone.
I'm a little confused by your suggestion of using AD Quints and ArPen Marks together... I would advise against this on any champion. Because Armor and Magic Resist reduce damage received with diminishing returns via an inverse exponential, Armor and Magic penetration in turn becomes exponentially more valuable the more you have. In short, the more Penetration you have the stronger it becomes. So pick one, Penetration or Flat AD and not a mix of both.
Those masteries are my personal preference, as I suggest people should experiment themselves. I don't generally like 21/9/0 or 9/21/0 masteries for top lane as I've had more success with mixed builds. 9/21/0 with a focus on physical is the standard top lane meta.
When Damnation is stacked up, Thresh receives 100 Armor at 150 souls which gives him a headstart on other bruisers. The items in this build actually give you the right balance of dealing damage and survivability, if you use his ranged attack and abilities as suggested.

You can be the initiator on your team when required, but you need to make a judgement on a fight by fight basis. If you use all of his abilities to full potential you won't be engaging 5v5 straight up fights. You will first be picking off enemies during the poke phase and then engaging when it is favorable for your team, in this way you don't need to be a pure tank to fulfill your role.

Approach it for what it is, an AD Thresh build... not a tank and not a pure support, an AD Champion who picks up bruiser attributes along the way. I'd urge you all to actually give the build a go without preconceived expectations that it is going to fail... and maybe not to turn your nose up when someone else chooses Thresh ingame.

Thanks for the feedback, I'll try to take it all onboard if I decide to do further guides.

better get shuru to review this one :)

+1