Thresh Build Guide by LordLordington

Introduction

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Hello! Thank you for checking out my guide for what is no doubt one of my favorite champions in the game. Thresh is a easy to learn, difficult to master champion who ends up being a lot of fun once you learn to play him right. I recommend playing a few intermediate bot games as him if this is your first time playing Thresh. Be warned that this is NOT a meta build, so expect some resistance to your calls in blind picks and bot games. Thresh is especially fun when playing with friends in my opinion, so practice teamwork if you have a regular team

Please enjoy this unusual build, and leave plenty of feedback.

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Pros / Cons

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Pros

• Can take a lot of harass
• Good at poking fairly consistently
• Destroys squishy top-laners
• A lot of CC
• Becomes a team fighter late game unlike most other solo-tops
• Can burst to finish off enemies

Cons

Slow

• Takes a while to become really strong
• Inconsistent damage output
• Requires efficient farming to build well
• No sustain

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Abilities

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Damnation

This is Thresh's passive, which allows him to absorb souls of fallen minions and enemies for bonus AP and armor. This allows thresh to become tanky without even buying armor buffs and keeps his spells doing consistent damage.

Tips:

• When assisting a jungler, the big monsters always drop souls.
• Siege and super minions always drop souls too.
• Use your Dark Passage to pick up far away souls. Every last one counts.

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Death Sentence

Thresh's signature move. It's not as fast as Blitzcrank's grab, as it needs a second to wind up, and has a smaller hit box, but it does stun them for longer. Additionally, it can be activated again while Thresh is pulling the target to have him jump to the enemy and it deals a decent amount of damage. Upgrade this second.

Tips:

• If you have ample mana, this makes for an amazing bush check.
• Always initiate with this first. Your other damage can come once you've jumped into the fight.
• Grab enemies away from turrets or pull them back to yours.
• While it won't pull an enemy through a wall, it will allow you to jump through the wall to them.

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Dark Passage

While more powerful on support Thresh, this move is not at all worthless. the shield can save you or an ally from an ignite at a inopportune time or deflect a bit of harass. Additionally, you can toss the lantern to an ally and have them click it to have them jump to you no matter what is between you. That said, still upgrade this last.

Tips:

• Use this to collect hard to reach souls.
• Always try and bring the team to the fight with this, don't be greedy.

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Flay

This is the ability that makes Thresh solo top viable. The passive on this move will boost your auto attack's damage if you've waited a while between attacks by the number of collected souls and (at max level) an additional 250% of your attack. This makes occasionally poking extremely powerful. And that's just the passive. The active ability is nothing to sneeze at. Not in terms of damage, but the knock up time is invaluable. This is a difficult move to get used to, and will undoubtedly take some practice.

Tips:

• Knock the enemy towards you by aiming the flay behind you to stall them longer when initiating
• Keep in mind which direction you knock up the enemy when they are chasing you.
• Can be used to interrupt certain moves like Bullet Time or Death Lotus.

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The Box

Thresh's kick-*** ultimate. Usable for any situation, whether chasing, running away, or initiating. This is the biggest slow in the game, so feel free to wail on them, as it lasts two seconds. Enemies can hit multiple walls too, but it deals less damage.

Tips:

• Wait until the enemy's flash is down to use this. Help from a jungler is always appreciated.
• The walls do considerable damage, so you can turn around chases by popping it in a bush.
• The ability is even more powerful in the jungle, where it can't be avoided.

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Combos

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The Finisher

>> >> >>

This combo will be used as often as necessary throughout the laning phase. Grab them, wait until the second pull before jumping to them, flay them backwards, auto attack a few times, and box just as it looks like they're disengaging. Ignite to finish the job, but make sure that their flash is down before you use the combo since The Box's walls can be jumped. If you know how tanky the enemy is, use this only when you're sure it will finish them off.

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The Best Friend

>> >>
This one's a bit weird, but definitely cool to pull off. If there's an enemy ADC or other squishy/low health champion visible through a wall, you can team up with a heavy damage team mate to surprise them. Toss the lantern near your partner and chain to the enemy squishy. Jump to them, and your ally can click the lantern to follow (this has to be done quickly as thresh will recall his lantern if he travels too far). This puts you in a convenient 2 v 1 which can be won regardless of turrets. Try it with a friend communicating via skype to get the timing just right, and it should look like this:

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Summary

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Thresh's toolkit is impressive, but his best weapon is surprise. As a ranged top, he has a distinct advantage from the start, but even more advantageous is the fact that no one thinks that he'll go top lane. In ranked and draft, this can fool people into thinking that thresh is the support similar to the Zyra support swap.
And that's it! I understand that this is pretty short as it is, but I plan to be adding more sections like items and masteries shortly, and over time I'll compile a list of matchups, good and bad. Until then though, just make sure to keep throwing lanterns and chains all over the place, and to have fun.

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