At level 1 trust your movement to land your Q and juke his. Respect him level 2 with dash, you have no mobility or damage block to dodge his q's. At 3 you can trade, need to juke Q1, w inside of Q2 and block Q3 with e. Respect his ult at 6, do not all in without ignite even with lead. Lots of ways for him to outplay your combo with flash and dash though tough matchup.
Akali
Pre 6 be aggressive and w in if shes in range. Try to block her E2 with your E, it's her main damage early. After 6 you just get fucked, she'll 100 to 0 you with a doran's shield. Shove and roam if you can
Akshan
Respect his level 1 and 2, full combo every time he's in range after 3.
Camille
One of the only bruisers you can just jump on on cooldown. Save your E to block her E, or Q2 but that's a lot harder to do. Her level 6 isn't a big deal but after her first item you will struggle 1v1
Cho'Gath
Can be aggressive early levels but after first back, he has too much sustain to poke, wins all in unless you juke absolutely everything, and scales incredibly well
Darius
Respect him and likely his ghost level 1 and 2. Your q outranges his E and Q, so if you can fit in 1 or 2 spears then you can win all in. Hold your w to jump inside and dodge his q. After 6 you still win if you can E his R. Good Darius players will try to ult before 5 stacks when you aren't expecting it, so be ready.
Dr. Mundo
You are stronger early but he can just sit back and farm from range. After 6 you just lose period so try to take short trades or just roam.
Fiora
The obvious issue here is you can't w into her or it can get parried. In general, wait for it to be down or you can w in melee range where she cant react. When the vital points toward her you can't avoid it, so trade back with auto-Q when she dashes in. Her level 6 all in is very strong.
Gangplank
You need level 2 first or he sits on a barrel the entire lane and pokes you out. Walk up and push level 1, if tries to Q you trade Q's with him. You can W into him at all times if his wave isn't huge. Block barrels with E.
Garen
E his Q if he tries to engage you, then turn on him with W. Q spam him, all in once hes low. Do not try to save your E for his R after 6, his Q-E combo does a lot more damage and if you don't eat that you'll never be low enough to be ulted.
Gnar
Anytime hes mini you can jump on him, including level 1. Respect his mega in general but try to block his R or mega W with E if you do fight.
Gragas
Has a ton of sustain and he can cancel your W with his E. Similar to Fiora, usually only W melee range or if his e is down. I like to start W though, they never expect it level 1. If he E's into you try to block with your E then turn on him
Gwen
Your Q outranges her scissor, similar to darius land a few then all in. In melee range block her fully stacked scissor with E. Respect her ability to run you down if you push after level 6.
Heimerdinger
You can jump on him anytime he's in range without a huge wave, E'ing towards him blocks all damage from his turrets even if they're behind you. EIther juke or E his stun, getting hit is a death sentence.
Illaoi
Used to be a fine matchup, but now after she finishes iceborne you cannot fight her period. The item slow makes it impossible to juke the E and it makes her way too tanky. I ban this champion. Before the item spike though, juke her E and all in. Even after 6 you can kill her 1v1 with ignite if you juke it, E the big slam from her R and you should be good.
Irelia
Pre 6 you must get a lead or you will get 100 to 0ed once shes level 6 with a vamp scepter. Don't let her get stacks level 1 for free, be careful about W'ing into her outside of melee range where she can't react, since she can w your burst and turn. Like fiora parry but less punishing.
Jax
Can't empowered w into him when he has E ready. Q spam the fuck out of him and if he E's you have 2 options: If you can turn and kill him, E the stun and then turn with W. If not, W him and walk out of the helicopter. Don't do this with 5 stacks though, you will stand inside the E and triple auto then get stunned. If he's low look for 4 stack W-Empowered Q-E to finish him so he cant block the empowered w. Complicated but extremely easy if you play it right
Jayce
Respect levels 1 and 2, engage after that. Block his melee form Q with E.
Kayle
Respect her level 1, fight anytime she walks in range after that. E during her R after 6 so you don't take damage for free.
Kennen
Jump on him at all stages if hes in range, even level 1. E his R after 6
Kled
Juke matchup. Dodge his Q and land yours and you win lane. If he does land it, E as his Q pulls you in. Try to dismount him and then wait for your cooldowns to come back up and burst him in small form.
Malphite
You have to land tap q literally off cd to keep his passive shield off. If you can land a few in a row you can be aggressive and kill him, but its hard and its just a better champ anyways. If you can't land them and kill him, he will whittle you down with Qs and then kill you with ult.
Mordekaiser
Dare him to throw abilities pre 6. If he misses something run him down, if not E and back off. Need a lead pre 6, use E to block his Q in ult.
Nasus
Anytime hes in range full combo him pre 6, hes a cannon minion. Need a lead and you can't all in after 6 no matter what lead you have. Be careful about using W or E on his side of the lane where he can ult and ghost and run you down
Olaf
Be really careful to not let him land a Q level 1, he can pop ghost and run you down. Poke and take short trades, all he can do is all in. Try to predict when he will use his E empowered auto and block it.
Ornn
His sustained damage is poor, take conqueror and don't be afraid to walk him down the lane and all in through his wave. His main damage is his brittle empowered auto so generally try to E that, but always block his Q-E combo. After 6 try to save W to cancel his R. Stun him as his R comes back towards him so he can't recast.
Poppy
Just poke, don't W outside of melee range or it will get canceled. E her Q2
Quinn
If shes good enough to cancel your W with her E its unplayable, be careful and hope that she wastes it or has bad reactions. If you can get on her shes squishy and you'll be able to burst her, otherwise just try to survive.
Renekton
Your Q outranges his, need to space correctly. Try your best to E his W. Most Renektons will use it right after dashing in, and you can listen for the sound effect of them turning it on. It's a huge part of his damage especially if he has [[Press The Attack]]. Respect his ult after 6, lot of free stats.
Riven
Try to E her Q3. Respect her level 1 and level 6, keep your spacing and poke. Force her to Q to close the gap rather than for damage, then turn on her if she wastes dashes to get to you.
Rumble
Champion does insane mind boggling damage, is manaless, and can farm from range. You can only trade while your E is up to block the flamethrower, and once you use it you need to back out of the trade before flamethrower comes back up. Stay in the wave to dodge the rockets.
Sett
Respect his level 1 and 2, other than that you just win trades because you can E his W and sit behind E until his shield wears off. Very straightforward matchup
Shen
Space properly and poke him down. If he ever dashes into you to trade walk him down the lane and kill him. E when he pulls up the block and be careful about him blocking your empowered W. Consider the fact that Shen can match your ult with his when its up before you go diving in too deep.
Singed
Follow your wave to lane and don't let him proxy, force him to play the lane. Just Q and auto, hold your W to follow his fling. If you're trying to all in you can just chase while E'ing and you block all the poison damage.
Sion
Really easy early on, you can cancel his Q with your W or just block it with E. Same as other tanks, has poor sustained damage so don't be afraid to walk them all the way down the lane through their wave if they overextend.
Tahm Kench
Stay in your wave where you can land your Q and he can't land his, be careful of being spit under tower after 6. Poke him down with Q's and all in once he's low, you can cancel his W with yours as well. Unlike other tanks, he actually has some power in an all in.
Teemo
He can blind you midair if you empowered W into him. Look for a 4 stack combo W-Empowered Q-E, you will chunk him hard and he can't trade back much.
Trundle
Rarely played, but in lane too many free stats to fight, too much sustain to poke. He just runs you the fuck over later on in the sidelane and with a lead he can dive you. Really no time in the game where you can deal with him at all.
Tryndamere
Always keep spacing, hold W for when he spins into you so you can keep kiting away unless he's really out of line in which case you can E his E and turn with your W. Rush Tabis unless you get a big early lead.
Urgot
Bait his E, then kill him. E his W. I like to Empowered W-Q, they always throw the E as you run away and once your W stun wears off its a max range Urgot E, so it's a good opportunity to juke it and turn back on him.
Volibear
E his Q if he tries to engage you. Poke him low before you look for an all in, don't underestimate his damage and healing.
Wukong
He can E into you at level 1 in your wave and auto you to death, I'm not sure what you're supposed to do about it honestly. From levels 3-5 you can win trades and you absolutely must kill him here and rush tabis or you can't leave tower after 6. Do not W into him from range when he has clone up or he will dodge it. Just poke with Q and space away from his Q and E if he dashes in. They usually clone when they dash in, so you can turn on him with W and all in if he burns clone.
Yone
Respect his level 1, Empowered W-Q every time he walks up after that. You can E if he tries to chase you in his E, or you can E backwards and block his R.
Yorick
Pre 6 you must kill him or you'll get steamrolled in the sidelane until 3 items. Just need to juke the E and if he gives you the opportunity try to W out of the cage
K'Sante
Your sustained damage with conqueror is quite a bit higher than his early, be aggressive and don't be afraid to walk him down the lane. Your q is faster and has more range than his as well, so juke his and land yours and youll do well. You should be able to get a lead early, and while he gets stronger at 6 it remains manageable
Aurelion Sol
Pantheon is versatile in how you can play him, if you choose correctly he works with any team.
Synergies
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Aurelion Sol
Pantheon is versatile in how you can play him, if you choose correctly he works with any team.
Pantheon is an snowbally AD Bruiser who is versatile and can be played depending on the situation both as a diver who tries to burst carries or a frontlining bruiser.
He wants to use his extremely strong pre 6 laning to get a lead. Throughout the mid- late game Pantheon should be trying to push in sidelanes and use Grand Starfall to force fights with numbers while enemies catch the waves you've shoved in.
Pantheon falling off a cliff late game is just a myth. Old Pantheon lacked an ability to survive teamfights without Aegis Assault, and had no armor pen so his damage fell off as well. It's from level 6 until 2 items where he struggles most. At level 6 if you haven't managed to get a lead pre 6, many toplaners like Tryndamere, Trundle, or Wukong that can run you down and massively outstat you can be extremely difficult to deal with.
Finishing 2 items and getting level 11 for more armor pen from Grand Starfall will finish this. At 3 items and level 16, you are a strong teamfighter and beat probably 75 percent of toplaners in the sidelane.
While he doesn't fall off, he struggles badly from behind. He has no mobility to escape ganks or teams collapsing on him in the sidelane and so if he isn't strong enough to control the sidelane he will struggle to get gold and xp to scale. When fights roll around, as a jack of all trades champ he is able to do everything when ahead and nothing when behind.
Conqueror is your main option. Pantheon stacks this rune very quickly and stays in fights long enough to use the AD and healing it gives very well. You can make a case for other runes in theory, but you will unquestionably be missing out on lots of damage and healing especially after the 20 minute mark or so.
Press the Attack is another option Pantheon can instantly proc Press the Attack with an Empowered Shield Vault, which then amplifies the damage from the rest of the combo after that. This does mean you need to be paying attention to your passive stacks and getting an empowered Shield Vault off if possible, especially in lane or isolated 1v1s.
However, this rune scales far worse than Conqueror even if the enemy team is squishy and you will be looking to burst them. It also locks you to using Empowered Shield Vault or you will not proc your keystone. I personally never run it, but if you really want the burst you can give it a try.
Triumph is the best option next, unless you need Presence of Mind for mana sustain. There are better mana sustain options though as Presence of Mind gives a lot of mana for teamfights and not much in lane. Legend: Tenacity is the only one in the next line that makes any sense on Pantheon. Finally, Last Stand gives a little damage and is the only option in the last line. Coup de Grace is redundant with your Comet Spear execute and you will build too much health to use Cut Down
Against ranged, Sudden Impact is too good to pass up. It does so much damage against these champions where you always have to begin trades with Shield Vault, proccing Sudden Impact.
For your other domination tree rune you can run either Relentless Hunter or Treasure Hunter, the other two don't make sense on a champion with a relatively unimportant ult and few item cooldowns.
These builds spike harder and earlier than bruiser builds but I feel that they turn a versatile jack of all trades champion into a budget assassin. Yes, you will burst hard at 1 and 2 items, but you will be left entering midgame teamfights with little to no HP, resistances, or ability haste. As teams group you will have a harder time getting on top of and getting a combo off on priority targets, as your only gapcloser is one medium range dash.
Bruiser Pantheon usually has a bit of lethality and when the opportunity presents itself to jump on the ADC he is still a threat, but when he has to settle for a frontline role he can be useful there too. There are better champions if you are looking to play an early game AD assassin, I recommend Talon or Rek'Sai
Items In Depth
One important thing that I think many people don't understand is how armor penetration works. Let's take a target with 100 armor vs a level 16 Pantheon with a build like Divine Sunderer, Black Cleaver, Death's Dance. Pantheon has 0 lethality,30 percent armor pen from Grand Starfall passive, 6 percent armor pen from Divine Sunderer passive, and 30 percent from Black Cleaver after a combo. So that should leave the target with 100-66=34 armor, right? Wrong. Percentage pen stacks multiplacatively, so really it's 100(1-.3)(1-.06)(1-.3)=46.1. Now let's replace the Divine Sunderer with an Eclipsewith 18 lethality. Flat pen(lethality) is calculated after percent pen. So (100(1-.3)(1-.3))-18=31. So because Pantheon gets a bunch of free percent pen from Grand Starfall and uses Black Cleaver really well, more percent pen is inefficient.
Therefore, you really want to be picking up one lethality item on Pantheon despite him being a bruiser. Lethality is at its strongest early on in the game and so you want to be rushing your lethality. For this reason I rush Eclipse in 95 percent of my games. It has a great build path for the laning phase, it's cheap at 3100g and is a great one item spike that gives Pantheon all the stats he needs early.
After Eclipse or the rare time I build another mythic, I build Black Cleaver every single game no matter what. The item is built for Pantheon as he stacks it so quickly and the stats fit him perfectly. Then you'll usually go into your resistance items, Death's Dance and Maw of Malmortius since you already built health/ Eclipse shield. An exception to this is after Black Cleaver, if you're ahead vs a squishy enemy team, go Edge of Night 3rd. You have a decent amount of ability haste already and if you're ahead you'll 100 to 0 squishies with the 2nd lethality item. Situational items like Chempunk Chainsword, Guardian Angel, Sterak's Gage, Serpent's Fang can round out the build last. If enemy team has one fed solo ap champion, I go Eclipse, Cleaver, DD, and then Anathema's Chains. If it's just one champion, Anathema's Chains does a lot more.
Run Flash Ignite every single game. Pantheon has early kill pressure into every single toplaner . Against many champs like Fiora, Irelia, or Wukong that get a strong dueling ult that also lets them gapclose, he needs all the help he can get to get a lead pre 6 or he just gets run down post 6. Additionally, Grand Starfall covers for Teleport somewhat.
Laning vs Bruisers
Most bruisers will beat Pantheon in a straight up all in the laning phase, especially after level 6. Your goal is generally to whittle them down with Comet Spears and you can then win an all in. Keep your spacing and don't let them walk inside your Comet Spear range. Obviously most bruisers can close this gap with an ability, but it is important that you force them to use it to close the gap and not for damage/to gapclose again. Of course, the specifics depend more on the exact matchups and those are all written out.
Laning vs Ranged
Against ranged toplaners, it's pretty simple and Pantheon does pretty well into most. Wait for your level 3 without getting poked out(give a few cs if you have to), then look to engage and dump your full combo. You dont need to all in necessarily as you have long cooldowns early. Empowered Shield Vault> Comet Spear>AA>Empowered Aegis Assault and with the bonus move speed either run away for a one sided trade or chase for an all in.
Laning vs Tanks
Against tanks, you should have Conqueror. It depends on the specific enemy champion, but you generally will win extended trades against tanks. With levels into Grand Starfall and Black Cleaver you will melt tanks later in the game. However, if you can't kill them early and they come to lane after first back with a Warden's Mail and Plated Steelcaps, you will just be tickling them.
BONE PLATING
Yes, it gets its own section. Do not empowered Shield Vault if the enemy has Bone Plating up. It treats Empowered Shield Vault as three separate attacks and so it does almost no damage. You need to land a Comet Spear before you can engage someone with Bone Plating.
Roaming with Ult
In the laning phase, there's a few things you can use it for:
In your own lane, if you catch your laner lacking going for platings or overextending after you reset, ult on their head. Don't feel bad about using it to catch a big wave either, especially if you're already behind.
Ulting to mid: This is always a good option if you are able to shove in your wave toplane and their midlaner looks gankable. Grand Starfall on their head, hopefully get a kill, and you can usually get back to top without missing more than a few minions
Ulting to bot: Obviously more risky, as you will likely miss at least one wave and give up at least a plating top. In my opinion it's usually not worth it except for 2 situations: 1. You are way behind to the point of no return toplane(in this case try to leave your adc the kills if possible since you won't be doing anything with them topside) 2. Your team is way behind and their botlane has shutdowns. You need to make a play and get the shutdowns or your team will just lose regardless of you winning toplane.
Rotating mid or bot is more rewarding when a dragon is spawning soon, as even if you don't kill you create priority for your laners to go to dragon
Teamfighting
Pantheon is very versatile and can fill a number of roles. He can ult into the backline and try to burst carries when ahead, he can frontline with a Goredrinker and kill enemy frontline with his team, or he can stay back and hold Shield Vault to shut down something like a fed Master Yi or Katarina. Which one you should do just depends on the game and what is needed, one isn't right for every game.
Why Play Top?
While Pantheon can genuinely play any role, top is the most fun and most rewarding once you learn it. Every matchup is winnable and you can force an early kill into every matchup once you learn it and for me, this is what makes him a fun main.
In midlane, half the time you'll lane against mages whose entire kit has practically double the range of Shield Vault and you'll be stuck under tower for 15 minutes. Against melee mids, you just statcheck them in every trade. Pantheon is a strong counterpick to these champs, but if they play passively you can't harass under tower or build up a big wave to 1v2 a gank in like toplane due to jungle and support being up your *** constantly. You have permanent priority and can roam, which is a strong strategy, but I like focusing on winning lane instead of running the river between every other wave.
Streams
There's two high elo Panth top players, Spear Shot and Keegun. Both of them have probably forgotten more about this champ than you or I know, give them a watch. Spear is my personal favorite, most entertaining stream you'll ever watch. THANKS FOR READING
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