Not Updated For Current Season

This guide has not yet been updated for the current season. Please keep this in mind while reading. You can see the most recently updated guides on the browse guides page

Pantheon Build Guide by

I am Pantheon

8,170 Views

0 Comments

Pantheon Build Guide By Updated on

Guide Discussion More Pantheon Guides

Items

Start #1

Start #2

First Back

Core

Standard Build

Heavy MR Build

Tank Matchup Build

Ahead Vs All Squishies

Non Core Viable Items

Ability Order

Pantheon Passive Ability

Threats & Synergies

Threats

Synergies

Extreme Major Even Minor Tiny

Show All

None Low Ok Strong Ideal

Extreme Threats

Ideal Synergies

Talon

Extreme

Ward everything, keep him shoved if possible, and pray.

Synergies

Ideal Strong Ok Low None

Introduction

Hey there summoner. My name's Silmari and I'm a Plat main. I picked him up early in season 4 and have never looked back. Throughout my time playing ranked I've always had a 60%+ win rate on Mantheon.

I reached gold in very few games played my first two ranked seasons, this season though, I wanted to hit plat. Turns out it wasn't that hard. I'm now plat in solo/duo as well as flex and on my alt account.

Now I'm turning my sights towards Diamond and starting to make great progress. I had a shift in thinking that caused me to win 15 out of my last 20 games. That's what I'm here to share.

This guide should be considered on going and in progress. If you want the tips and tricks that I used to climb and will continue using, stay tuned.

Runes

Runes for Armor Based Matchup

You'll use these runes in most match-ups. We take one extra armor quint because it takes a lot out of the enemies harass. I also use both mr and armor blues here, you can feel free to swap the MR for Armor runes, but I prefer the extra MR for when I gank mid.

Greater Mark of Attack Damage x 9
This is fundamental in any [pantheon] rune page. A case can be made for when it's in an awful overpowered state.

Greater Seal of Scaling Health x 9
Health works vs any match-up. > because we aren't building any defensive items. This will help late game survival. Also, hp is going to help when we roam and encounter an AP lane.

Greater Glyph of Armor x 4
Taking 4/5 depending on how you feel to mitigate lane harass.

_____

Greater Glyph of Magic Resist x 5
Why here? The play-style I encourage has you roaming to mid often. No such thing as too much protection.

Greater Quintessence of Attack Damage x 2
AD, because your .

Greater Quintessence of Armor x 1
No such thing as too much armor. This will mitigate a lot of the damage you'll encounter from , , etc...

Runes for MR matchup

Use this page vs all AP match-ups

Greater Mark of Attack Damage x 9
See above.

Greater Seal of Scaling Health x 9
See above

Greater Glyph of Magic Resist x 9
We want as much of the blue as we can get...

_____

Greater Quintessence of Attack Damage x 2
See above.

Greater Quintessence of Magic Resist x 1
Again we take an extra because we want them to feel like their attacks do nothing. It discourages them from instigating and allows us to win trades when they do.

Masteries

Always take over . The additional ability power is great as is mostly a melee caster. It increases dps on all of your abilities. Attack speed is more or less useless here.

provides early game sustain in lane. You can take here, but I'd prefer to plan for my early game rather than take a slight team increase later.

Depending on the situation, I'll take 2 points in and 3 points in mostly if I need extra sustain, by default take 5 for maximum wave clear and dps.

Take this always. is the only other option here, but some games you'll end up with 20 kills and others 4. This makes it a bit unreliable and you don't get the early game damage you will with .

Provides movement speed throughout the game. Helps when getting back to lane or in ult range, also synergies well with for getting into stun range.

has great synergy with and gives you biscuits when you go Dorans. is viable here, mostly when you plan to stomp a squishy lane. I still prefer to go because of aforementioned synergy with .

is freaking fantastic and has synergy with dorans ring start. You can skill cs a lane forever and farm under tower if your shoved in. is an option for sure. It has synergy with your passive and is good for finishing kills with a flash q, but provides you with long term sustain throughout the game. IMO that's much more beneficial.

I always take this. The other options aren't super viable.

There's no lethality in our runes. Take this here for a little more penetration. We get plenty of CDR through our itemization.

This is pretty much the only keystone you'll use, it has great synergy with and is also easy to proc with your basic combos. I've toyed with keystone and q harass, but find it to lower burst DPS and I consider it vastly inferior overall.

Summoner Spells

Flash

Take flash 100% of the time on pantheon. It's the most picked and most versitile summoner skill overall. Three use cases:

#1 Your opponent flashes out to prevent death, > > and walk away. Only do this if you can secure the kill, but usually if they out you've wont the fight.

#2 Use it to get a pick. If you see an ADC/Mage/Support out of position you can > to open a fight.

#3 Use it to disengage or escape...pretty standard.

_____

Ignite

Always take over . You have a global ultimate, that's your teleport. Ignite will give you the edge in most top lane match-ups where your enemy runs .

I'll tell you this right now if you feel the need to take as your playing wrong and you should come back to finish reading this guide.

DON'T EVER TAKE !

Skill Sequence

This part of the guide will make or break you as a player. This is the switch that caused me to climb out of gold and increase my cs by around 3 cs/m minimum. The 3 main differences here are:

1: Wave-clear

One of biggest downfalls is his wave-clear. It's slow as hell and often you'll get shoved into your turret unless you the opponent back while auto attacking, but even then if the opponent wants to they'll out clear you.

Maxing will quickly allow you to shove waves, get all the cs you'll need, and add high burst potential for ganks(which leads us to #2)

2: Burst Potential

The play-style I encourage is to shove waves and roam. If you max first you'll be able to quickly clear waves and then walk off or and quickly burst your enemy. The value of one maxed + instant is more potent when ganking than the value of a maxed .

There are other benefits to this as well, but you'll have to play it to understand.

If you want validation for this tactic check the op.gg for keegun or Apdo dogjj they are both Challenger NA and use the same skill sequence

Alternatively you can use this sequence

Ability Sequence
1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12	13	14	15	16	17	18

This is typically the standard skill sequence. It's for a particular lane stomp style of play. It will NEVER do you any good against tanks, it will lower your ability to get high CS, and it will lower your burst dps. I only suggest this against match-ups where you have to keep pressure on the opposing laner or if you're sure you're going to 5-0 in the first 15 mins. If you do max and don't succeed at dominating your opponent, you'll fall behind in both cs and kills and have very high potential to fall off the edge of the rift in terms of damage very early on.

Abilities

's abilities and how to use them:

Aegis Protection

allows to block one auto attack for every 4 abilities or autos that he does. It also resets when using .

Tips and tricks:

Aegis Protection is a fundamental part of Pantheon kit. It will probably take a little while to learn. Basically it can be proc via any auto attack or ability as well as resetting when you use Aegis of Zeonia. This is part of the reason that my play-style is heavily push oriented. By pushing with auto's and Heartseeker Strike we get constant resets on Aegis Protection, which mitigates ranged or melee harass in a big way, think Jayce and Gangplank.
More importantly you have to learn to use it in trades/duels. Basically after you've stacked it 4 times and your opponent comes in for a trade it will block their first auto attack, if you follow that with a stun it will reset and block their next auto attack. Then as you weave in skills you can continue to block autos. You can take heavy advantage of this to win in most trades where your opponents don't take it into account.

Spear Shot

is 's bread and butter. It's a straight line non-skill shot that always hit's its target and doesn't impact minions while traveling to players.

Tips and tricks:

Use Spear Shot to poke down enemies in lane before you go all in for a kill. It's your primary form of lane harass and one of the things that makes foes fear you. Also, use it to finish escaping kills the Flash > Spear Shot combo is your primary finisher.
Even if you aren't using Spear Shot for harass (I often don't) the fear of it will still impact your enemies play style. Most of the time, people will pick something very tanky, even if they don't know the champion at all (I see you Malphite), just to avoid getting bullied by Pantheon.

Aegis of Zeonia

aka stun. Provides one of the most simple point and click stuns in the game.

Tips and tricks:

In lane you can use Aegis of Zeonia to disengage from an aggressive opponent or to initiate for your jungle when going in for a kill. Don't forget that Aegis of Zeonia resets your passive. If you wait until after you block your opponents first auto then Aegis of Zeonia you'll also block their next auto.
Aegis of Zeonia can also interrupt enemies skills that channel on your teammates Warwick's R Infinite Duress, Malzahar's R Nether Grasp, and Katarina's R Death Lotus or wind up skills Vi's Q Vault Breaker or Rammus Q Powerball .

Heartseeker Strike

is an underrated part of 's kit. is a channeled ability that shoots out multiple spears in an arc in front of causing aoe damage. It also has it's own passive, which is crucial to 's kit. It gives 100% chance to crit enemies below 15% hp.

Tips and tricks:

In the wave clear play-style use Heartseeker Strike early and often to shove the wave. When the enemy comes to clear cs make sure he's in the path of Heartseeker Strike as you use it to clear the wave. This will usually proc Thunderlord's Decree and can be equally as effective as Spear Shot harass in lane.
In the early game if your getting pushed under turret you can use Heartseeker Strike for just one proc of it's damage on the caster minions, then cancel the channel. It should put one tick of damage on them and after the tower hits it will only take one auto per minion.
The passive part of Heartseeker Strike is fundamental to understanding Pantheon This lets you crit enemies under 15% hp with all of your skills. What does this mean? In reality it means when fights get close hp wise, you'll start critting like a mad man. Your Spear Shot will do insane damage for finishing ranged kills, your Heartseeker Strike will do insane damage on your second or third skill rotation in teamfights as well. Keep this in mind when your enemy is low, there's almost always kill potential

Grand Skyfall

is a semi global ultimate. It will 2 seconds to channel and 1.5 in the air before you land. During the 1.5 seconds the are of effect will be seen by the enemies. When you land you'll slow your opponents momentarily. You do more damage if you land smack in the middle of them, less on the outer half.

Tips and tricks:

Having Grand Skyfall in your kit means 2 things. From a balancing perspective, when a champion doesn't have a damage dealing ult more dps tends to be shifted into the rest of their kit. It's one of the reason's Pantheon is so strong. That also means that you'll pack a punch right after you land using your ult. It also means that you don't have to take Teleport. Not needing teleport for global pressure means you can shift even more power into your lane phase and fighting in general via Ignite
If you can't solo kill your laner, look to have your wave pushed into the enemies tower around level 6 and Grand Skyfall to midlane for free kills. If the enemy midlaner has high mobility, make sure they use their escape skills before you ult in.
If there's no opportunity midlane or it's a hard lane to gank like Ahri you can shove in your wave and back, then immediately Grand Skyfall to botlane. If you do this, most enemy toplaners will try to rush your top turret. Try to make sure and secure the botlane kills and then help them take first tower bot. If you don't get the kills or your team isn't helping take the turret Immediately Recall and go back to lane.
Try to position Grand Skyfall a bit behind your enemies instead of directly centered on them. They will always try to move out, this means based on where you position your ult you can force their direction. This can trap an enemy between you and your teamates or force them into your jungler at river.
Grand Skyfall also allows you to split push. Try to stick on the map opposite to objectives that are coming up. When you see the enemy team collapse on said objective, you should start moving towards them. You should usually have Youmuu's Ghostblade by this time and can use the active to get in range to ult quicker. With the Heartseeker Strike max build your split push becomes very viable. Push hard and Grand Skyfall in.
If you're very far ahead you can use Grand Skyfall to initiate or get solo picks. Be careful with this at bronze/silver/gold though and make sure to ping ahead. You're team may not see it or they may not care and simply let you die.