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Thresh Build Guide by

Thresh, The Chain Warden: In-Depth Support Guide [Season 4]

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5 Comments League of Legends Build Guide Author Gentleman Wolf

Thresh Build Guide By Updated on

Guide Discussion (5) More Thresh Guides

Choose Champion Build:

Aggressive Supporting
Carry Supporting
Passive Supporting
Tanky Supporting

Spells:

Flash

Ignite

Ability Order

Thresh Passive Ability

Introduction

About the Author: Hello there Ladies and Gentlemen, I´m Gentleman Wolf, an unranked player who´s got some tips for you on how to play Thresh and how to master his kit. I´ve played support champions since Season 3 and mastered the following champions Blitzcrank,Sona and Thresh. I play Thresh mainly as an Aggressive Support or Carrying Support. Sometimes I build him to be a Passive Support or a Tanky Support.

Thresh is one of the strongest supports in the current meta. He has high utility, damage, and is tanky, even while building team oriented items. His kit is very rewarding when used properly, and his high mechanical skill cap means you'll always have something to improve on. By dominating your lane and properly cc'ing priority targets in the late game, you can easily carry your team to victory with Thresh
Here´s my profile on League of Legends.

And here´s the stats Ive got with these builds.

Abilities

Thresh´s abilities:

Passive = Damnation

Thresh does not gain armor per level. Instead, Thresh collects the souls of dead enemies by approaching them or by placing Dark Passage's lantern nearby. Souls permanently grant 0.75 armor and ability power. Champions and large minions always drop a harvest-able soul. Small minions only sometimes drop a soul.

A soul will only drop if the enemy unit dies within 1900 range of Thresh. Souls are visible to allies, and only become visible to enemies if the enemy team has vision of Thresh. Souls disappear if not picked up after 14 seconds.

Q = Death Sentence

Thresh throws his scythe, dealing 80/120/160/200/240 (+50% of ability power) magic damage to the first unit hit and dragging them towards him for 1.5 seconds.
Additionally, he may reactivate the ability to leap to his chained enemy.
If Thresh hits a target, Death Sentence's cooldown is reduced by 3 seconds.

W = Dark Passage

Thresh throws out a lantern that shields nearby allies from damage for 60/90/120/150/180 (+40% of ability power) for 6 seconds. The first ally to click the lantern with be pulled to Thresh. Allies can only receive the shield once per cast.
The lantern collects nearby souls while out.

E = Flay

Active: Thresh sweeps his chain in a line, dealing 65/95/125/155/185 (+40% of ability power) magic damage to all enemies hit and pushing them in the direction of the swing.
Enemies are then slowed by 20/25/30/35/40% for 1.5 seconds.

Passive: Thresh deals bonus magic damage on each auto attack. The damage is equal to the number of souls he has collected plus 80/110/140/170/200% of attack damage, based on length of time since last attack.

R = The Box

Creates a prison of walls around Thresh, dealing 250/400/550 (+100% AP) magic damage and slows any champion that collides with a wall by 99% for 2 seconds. Once a champion collides with a wall, the wall is destroyed.
Any other walls struck by any other enemy champion deal half damage and slow for half the duration.

Runes

9x Greater Mark Of Attack Damage

Thresh has ranged autoattacks which makes AD valuable in lane for AA harass. Also, Flay´s passive has a high AD ratio so getting AD through runes helps out a lot on your laning.

9x Greater Seal Of Armor

Standard seals for supports; You´ll take less physical damage from the enemy´s ADC, support´s AA's, turrets and creeps.

9x Greater Glyhp Of Magic Resist

You are usually in the front line so MR helps your survivability. Most supports do quite a bit of magic damage also.

3x Greater Quintessence Of Attack Damage

The same as for the marks.

3x Greater Quintessence Of Ability Power

Same as for marks, Magic damage.

3x Greater Quintessence Of Health

Health Quintesseces are very strong on most tank supports, getting 78 HP at level 1 adds a solid amount of durability to your champion and helps you survive longer in fights.

3x Greater Quintessence Of Gold

These Quintessences are a standard pick on a passive support playstyle.

You can always mix the runes around and try out other runepages.

Here are my own runepages:

Runepage 1: Flat Armor Marks, Flat Armor Seals, Flat Magic Resist Glyphs And Flat Gold Quintessences.

Runepage 2: Flat Attack Damage Marks, Flat Armor Seals, Flat Magic Resist Glyphs and Flat Attack Damage Quintessence and Flat Ability Power Quintessences.

Masteries

The Masteries I use are 0/9/21, 0 in Offense, 9 in Defense and 21 in Utility.

I´ve picked 9 points in Defense to gain some sustain and survivability by putting points in: Block, Enchanted Armor, Unyielding, Veteran´s Scars and Juggernaut.

I´ve picked 21 points in Utility to get some extra range to wards, some mana regeneration and the gold per second and the gold stealing from enemies by putting points in: Phasewalker, Meditation, Scout, Summoner´s Insight, Alchemist, Greed, Runic Affinity, Culinary Master, Scavenger, Wealth, Bandit, Intelligence and Wanderer.

Summoner Spells

I´ve picked the following Summoner Spells: Flash, Ignite, Exhaust and Heal.

Aggressive Support: Flash + Ignite

Passive Support: Flash + Exhaust

Tanky Support: Flash + Heal

You can choose other Summoner Spells and try how well they work with these masteries, runes and items.

Items

Starting Items:

Doran´s Shield gives you a good amount of HP and it´s passive gives you an advantage on early game laning. Getting a ward helps make sure you stay safe in lane and grabbing potions will keep your health and mana high.

Early Purchases:

These are the items you should aim to buy when you first head back to base. Sightstone will give you vision to protect yourself from ganks. Picking up a Vision Ward at this stage of the game is a good idea as well because they no longer have a duration. You can usually put it down in the small bush in the middle of the river early game and often have it last for 10+ minutes because most players just walk through the river without actually checking that location.

Core Items:

These items give you a massive boost to your Attack Damage and Ability Power in the early game, mid game and late game laning and teamfights.

TIps&Tricks

Thresh has a lot of combos you can pull of that will greatly improve your abilities to play him.

1. Death Sentence escape: When you are in the jungle and being chased, you can use your Q to hit a jungle camp and then follow the hook over to evade your foes.

2. Dark Passage + Flash: When a jungler comes to gank for you, start by throwing your lantern to him/her. Once he/she clicks it start to walk towards the enemy and then Flash into them. This will bring the jungler right to the enemy without him/her needing to use any of his summoners. If they try to flash out your jungler can still Flash and you can Flay or Death Sentence.

3. The Box + Flay: Unless placed perfectly, the walls of The Box will not be exactly on top of the enemy. That isn´t a problem though, using your Flay, you can either push or pull them into the wall, detonating it on them for tons of damage and a crippling slow.

4. Dark Passage + Death Sentence: Start by throwing your lantern near your ADC, then walk forward and hook your target. Wait a second or two and then follow your Q. If your ADC follows after, you can transport him/her a ridiculous distance and then blow up your enemy with the help of your ADC.

Pros / Cons

Pros

High damage with Flay´s passive at max strenght.

Three forms of CC

Low mana costs.

Very powerful vs Attack Damage-based teams because of his passive.

Lantern is a good tool on saving your allies.

Cons

Lacks sustain.

Not the easiest champion to learn.

Mainly skillshot based.

If you get behind in leveling and can't collect souls you wont survive long enough in teamfights.

Lacks scaling Magic Resist as a tank, very vulnerable to Ability Power bursts.

Farming

Thresh doesnt really farm the creeps himself, but he does farm souls from the minions or jungle monsters / Dragon / Baron Nashor.

When you´re farming for souls and zoning the enemy, I´d recommend you to stay in the bushes at a safe distance from the enemy team´s ADC and support. You can use your Dark Passage to farm the souls by throwing it near the minion wave. Dark Passage will suck the souls from the ground and you won´t need to move anywhere near the enemy team yourself. You can just stay at a safe distance and toss Dark Passage when you see souls on the ground.

Team Work

Now that Golems are patched, you can't start with the camp so just start off leashing for your jungler. You want to push the lane with your ADC so you hit level 2 before the enemy does. Doing this allows you to zone them and engage them for an easy kill while they are both level 1.

If your jungler comes to gank for you, there are many ways to set up a gank.

1. Dark Passage: This is the worst way to start off a gank aside from the jungler just running down. You are still going to be pretty far from your enemy and they can see you throw the lantern and back off.

2. Dark Passage + Death Sentence : Landing your hook and following it while your jungler takes the lantern is much better, this will put the jungler right on top of your target and make it easier to finish them off.

3. Dark Passage + Flash + Flay: By throwing your lantern back to the jungler, and then using Flash followed by Flay while he is taking the lantern you accomplish three things. You get the jungler right on top of the enemy so he/she can start applying CC. You hit the enemy team´s support and ADC, meaning they are both slowed and pulled into you. You've kept your Death Sentence available for after they flash and can easily reel them back in if they burn it. Doing this will almost always result in a double kill for your team unless you get counterganked.

Summary

I hope you ladies and gentlemen have learnt something about on how to play Thresh and what to build on him and what masteries and runes you should try out.

Most importantly have fun and try your best out there!

-Yours truly Gentleman Wolf