Hi! I'm Xolarix, new on Mobafire... and this is my first guide.
I mostly main Jhin with 200k mastery points, but the guides for that champion are pretty good. But Pantheon... Pantheon is something else. I followed guides, and they just didn't work that well? So, I decided to make one myself. Develop my own build.


My rank isn't something spectacular, so take this guide with a grain of salt if you're someone with a high elo, because it may not stand the test there. I'd love to know if it does work though!
But my rank doesn't really affect my capacity to create fun builds. This is one of those builds where I wanted to do multiple things, instead of focusing on 1 particular specialization.

I like to think of myself as someone who thinks outside of the box, and I have a good understanding of game mechanics and how they interact with one another. It's why I like this build because, despite it being very close to an "on-hit" build, it is tankier than an actual on-hit build, while having a similar damage output.

Give it a try, and let me know how it goes :D

Be sure to read the notes by the item lists above. A lot of information over there!

So this is pretty much the core concept of this guide. Convince you to get Blade of the Ruined King first, and then build more items afterwards based on how your lane is going, how your enemy is building, etc. I am not here to teach you how to adapt your build to it, more to give a framework. And that framework is: BUILD BOTRK FIRST.

I picked up pantheon as a main a few years ago, playing him mostly in toplane, and I find that I have a ton of success with building BOTRK first. Yes, even after the nerf, that on-hit effect is insane early game until they build some armor. But by the time they did that, you have more items, and your ult, to pierce through that armor.
It's a massive powerspike that allows you to snowball from the early game and affect all other lanes if you gank them with your ultimate.

A lot of mobafire guides will tell you to build Eclipse first. A ton of them don't even include BOTRK in their builds. The game itself, also recommends Eclipse first. This is bad. Eclipse is overrated as an item. You can still build it, but build it 3rd or something. The shield is not that important early game.

I did the math. BOTRK is superior in every single way as a first item if you want raw damage.
Black Cleaver is an amazing second item always, due to extra hp, and the extra armor pen stacks on top of the passive armor pen you get from your ultimate. Going for lethality items is generally just not needed on pantheon, so you can happily build him as a bruiser with some HP at all times. Even in midlane. But, since midlane has a bunch of longrange mages and hyperactive dashing assassins, pantheon is just a better pick in toplane where it's mostly melee champions. At least IMO.

He's also a counterpick to Yasuo and Yone, so if you don't like the wind****ter brothers, go get pantheon, watch them suffer. He's a genuine anticarry, which is a rare archetype. With his point and click stun he's just always valuable as an engage and because you amp up the stun with 3 auto-attacks with on-hit effects, you can peel for teammates or at least make sure that 1 of them dies along with you.

While this build does contain an on-hit build, it's not as powerful as it was a few years ago when I made the guide. So this is mostly a relic of the past. However, the most popular guides for Pantheon still do not include BOTRK as a mandatory item.

You can also still get a fun synergy with Kraken and Guinsoo's Rageblade and BOTRK, which amps up your empowered W if done right. It will burst through tanks and squishies alike. However, be warned that that build will make yourself pretty squishy, so definitely use your E to disengage