This build got me my first pentakill with Panth !! I love it !
And NO there's no need to buy hydra sooner.

i think you should put triforce there cause its really good on pant since his ap scalings are 100% and the sheen helps you in trading too cause it doubles your ad when it procs it really helps in trading

Getting an early Brutalizer, and just sitting on it, will give you a massive power spike early. It's similar to the good ol' days where you saw top lane Rivens starting red pot. If you get first blood on Pantheon, back and buy a Brut then ult bot lane, it's worth it cause you'll be so far ahead it's not funny.

If your even or behind I dont really recommend it.

The new Black Cleaver is really good on Pantheon, but like I said, the build path is meh. Therefore, getting it after Hydra / LW is good as at that point in time you do a lot of damage that is mitigated by the weak point of phage / kindlegem.

I feel that those three items, LW, BC and Hydra are now core on Pantheon to do anything mid - late game, but generally Hydra is best first, and it's up to you to decide between BC and LW.

Also, going Hydra removes the need to have flask. As you can push without mana and have life steal.

Appreciate the Vs. champs section.

With the new BC not building out of Brutalizer, does that change either rushing Brutalizor or getting the new BC any??

Granted I may have over-stated the difficulty, but the thing about Darius is that I feel he can deal just as much damage as you at level 1, and it comes down to whether or not he misses a skill shot (well, if you're out of range or not) or if you are too close so his Q does less damage. If Darius starts Cloth, 5 pots he can deal meaningful damage - and with his passive and ignite (quite a few take ignite) he will at least 1 for 1 unless you massively outplay or he ****s up. The other problem with Darius is that you are "forced" to all in him with your W on Pantheon, meaning he can easily get all 6 stacks of his passive off on you, and then he gets a massive power spike at level 6 where you don't. I feel that the damage is really similar < 6, but then from 6 onwards he outscales due to his ultimate.

Darius is an easy match up if you go AD marks, AD quints, CDR Glyphs and start Long sword, 1 hp pot, 2 mana pot. you can spear him and first blood with ignite lvl 1-3 or zone him and poke him enough where you out farm him and have a decent advantage.

Great point. Pantheon has only a few mad match ups, and they are fairly out of the current meta / not seen. Malphite is a fairly common top laner granted, but like you said, most people presume it's jungle Pantheon so won't necessarily pick Malphite to counter Panth unless a champ like Amumu etc is already locked in (guaranteed jungle pick).

The reason why Pantheon falls off - same reason why most ad casters fall off, is because late game you need to build tanky (especially on Pantheon with his ult / w) and your damage plateaus with Cleaver, Last Whisper and maybe Maw of Malmortius. Also, the damage on your W is negligible meaning all you can do on one target is Q - W - E - Q.

As you touched on as your last point is perfect. Starting flask and pots as your start you want to stay in lane until level 6, first buy a Brutalizer and look to ult bot lane, secure a double kill and then get dragon giving your team a good start. Pretty much you act like a second jungler for bot lane gank wise, and let your adc carry you after you help feed them.

To all those reading about Pantheon's late game scaling an are concerned about it.

It doesn't matter if a champion out scales you if they're 3 or 4 levels ahead of you and completed core damage items, Pantheon is designed to shut down Hyper-carries (Karthus, Ryze, Tryndamere etc) and Late Game champs (Nasus, Jax then snowball his team hence which is why some people like me play him mid against the weak start up casters, if you shut down your lane opponent and bring the game to an early close you won't have to worry about a thing ;).

One more thing don't be afraid to first pick him tell your team that you will go solo lane or the jungle many people will assume you're jungling when they see Pantheon getting picked. If you decide to do the latter (jungle) you will have 3 options.

1. Shut down the enemy jungler i.e Amumu .
2. Baby sit your weakish laners i.e Kassadin and give them a safe lanning phase by applying pressure to their opponent.
3. Shut down enemy hyper carries i.e Vayne etc.

Pantheon works best with hyper carries on his team so try to see you can get a late game champion on your team like Kog'Maw or Cassiopeia because they can circumvent pantheon's Achilles Heel