Dear Thresh,
A lot of people don't understand you yet. I do. I get you. Everything makes sense when using you, and yeah, it feels ok.

Thresh is one of the only champions that even pros have thought "I wonder what in the World he could do in competitive play". He has so many tools at his disposal, and they're all incredibly unique.

In this guide I'll go over how to effectively become the BEST team fighting support out of all of the available supports. Also, go over why thresh helps overcome the "ward" meta, where it's near impossible to gank bot without teleport or a mobile jungler like hecarim and lee sin.

Ohhhhh runes. Let's a take a look. These are all personal preference when it comes to support.

Greater mark of armor: Sure, Thresh's armor scales quicker than others due to his passive. But why not become even tankier in lane against those pesky adc's. Because of this quick scale in armor, Thresh is great against early game adc's like MF.

Greater glyph of magic resist: Pretty common here for all. This is even more important for Thresh and even more so in my build as I start off building damage reduction/shield/armor instead of MR

Greater seal of armor: Even MOAR ARMOR! With my rune page, I'm starting off with an extra 21 armor. Pretty dope.

Greater quintessence of gold: Thresh scales well by himself, but with items...dear god. Thresh can become such a pain in the *** for other teams if you get just a few items. He can become tankier than Taric in a heart beat.

Here is where I tend to differentiate myself in the support World. These masteries may be quite similar to others, but there's some definite differences here.

Here I tend to differentiate also, but only because this is Thresh. Everyone tends to pick exhaust, I get it. It's a huge detriment to their ADC when they're exhausted. But, this Thresh build is for team fights and if Thresh can get to the ADC (Which a proper ADC won't allow), then it's already probably too late.

Heal Once we go through items, this will make A LOT more sense. To sum up, using Heal, plus your W, plus Locket = around 750 shield/heal for each member of your team....pretty neat eh?

Flash Self explanatory. I usually don't use this for defense also. Sadly, a supports job is to rack up kills for their ADC. If the ADC and I are running from a gank, I will step in front of him so he doesn't die and I do. If I flash...then he becomes the number one target. Flash on Thresh is used for flash/Q's or flash/R's or to jump into the middle of your team and throw out your shield/heal/locket combo.

Here's where things get interesting...and I'll put guides for two different scenarios here.

You're winning your lane

If you're winning your lane, the items displayed in the top work just fine. Some may switch around the Bulwark and the Locket in purchase order, that's personal preference. The MR from Bulwark is great if the other team is AP heavy and are ganking bot constantly. Otherwise, Locket makes your duels bot near impossible for the other team.

You're losing your lane

IF, you're losing your lane, the items displayed are probably not the best to start out with. For example, your lane gives up first blood from a gank from jungle. You go back with 500 g. At this point instead of buying Ruby Crystal, you'll want to buy 2 wards (150g) and cloth armor. With wards purchased boots aren't necessary. IF you're losing your lane, locket is helpful but rushing Bulwark and buying individual wards is a more feasible plan. With the increase in price of sightstone, that can be purchased 2nd. Also, if your jungler starts building bulwark/aegis then go straight for locket.

Here's another area I'm different from several Thresh players. I understand the want to level up Death Sentence but it's really not necessary. It provides a shorter cooldown and higher poke damage for auto attacks, cool. Instead, level up R/W/E/Q and success!

Why level up Dark Passage? It scales quite nicely per point and you will be steadily gaining AP as well from souls. Around level 10 your shield should be hitting for ~240-250. That's a hefty shield for such an early level and can really turn around mid game. It also helps for jumping over and starting an early dragon if your team is communicating well.

Next in order is Flay. This scales the slow % and ends up dealing 205 damage, nothing to scuff about but at 40% slow, after you've hooked someone and pushed them the opposite way...that's tough to get away from.

The Box Honestly...I usually don't even level this at 11 and 16. The cooldown goes 10 seconds which is small and the damage goes up 150 (only reason you may want to). Usually I choose to fully level Flay before I continue on to the Box.

Thresh is such a unique champion it's hard to pin point his flaws.

PROS

He is SUPER tanky and scales horrifically well on armor/AP
Free AP? Sure that works for me
Long range hook/initiation
AOE Slow with Flay
AOE Slow with The Box
AOE Shield with Dark Passage
A badass move where you can save your ADC with Dark Passage
A badass move where you can pull a jungler or ganker INTO you

CONS

Dark Passage A lot of people still haven't figured out how to use this??
Flay is hard to hit and bulky
Death Sentence is SO SLOW and hard to hit
Have to put yourself in harms way to collect souls (unless you use your lantern but it's horribly important to keep off cooldown)
No sustain in lane, have to be aggressive

Thresh is a unique champion. His abilities can be hard to land and hard to use effectively. Here's a couple of tips for those abilities.

Death Sentence There's a couple ways death sentence can be used. It's great to poke down the ADC a bit in the beginning of the game and does hefty damage for each time as well. IF you hit death sentence there's three options:
A. Pull yourself to the champion
B. Slowly pull them towards you
C. Stay still and hold them in place

It all depends on who you hook which option you should take.
If you hit the ADC, it's usually a decent idea to pull yourself to them and then combo Flay and push them back towards your ADC. With a Q/E/auto attack you've done a good amount of damage, slowed them 20-40% and they STILL have to pass you or may even take some shots from the tower.

If you hit the support, I usually pull them slightly towards the ADC for some free shots.

BIG TIP: It is possible when you land Death Sentence to pull them towards you AND jump towards them. You must time it right but it is doable. Usually if you time it right the hook disappears mid jump but you continue to fly towards them. If you can hold their ADC for one auto attack from your ADC THEN jump to them and push them backwards with Flay, it's close to game over. Thresh's CC is stronger than Leona's in many instances and is actually a great pick against her.

The lantern...boy oh boy people. There's a couple of great places to put this and it all depends on warding situation from the other team. If you're on the purple side, you can put it back into your jungle and reach a little bit past your own tower. This is great for ganks from people like Lee Sin/Xin/Mao.

On the blue side, you can place it at your tower then jump into your own bush. It's hard to react quick enough even if there is a ward in the bush youre pulling the ganker into.

SAVE YOUR ADC. If your adc is running somewhere goofy throw the lantern in front of them, not on them. If you throw it AT them they'll have to back track and click.

Speed up your ADC to lane: Place the lantern behind you/near tower if your ADC backs, once they reach it they're catapulted to you and save time.

BAIT: Place your lantern backwards and try to bait out a fight only for the other team to see someone else FLY into their screen.

Help SMITE steal: If you have a jungler who can smite steal, throw the lantern in there so they can click it quickly after smiting.

INITIATION bot lane: Throw your lantern back towards your adc then try to hook someone. If you can hook them and jump then your ADC can jump to you. Free flash for everyone!

All in all, Thresh is so much fun to play. In my opinion he IS the tankiest support in the game by far. He scales so freakin well and will have 70 natural armor by the time other champs are 40-50 natural.

He has so many tools at his disposal. AOE slows, AOE pushbacks, Long range hook initiation, AOE Shields, ganking presence and free flash with lantern.

It does take some time to realize that he is more like a Leona than a blitzcrank. He can hook and pull, but it's more effective to hook and JUMP to other champions and push/slow/pull etc.

Don't forget his W/heal/locket combo. At level 18 you're almost hitting 1000 damage reduction on EACH team member in your range. That's just freakin insane.