Thresh

Thresh is the newest support to League of Legends lineup. He can be played with many styles but I main support and therefor play him as such. Thresh has a lot of mechanics that make him perfect for supporting an Attack Damage Carry: these include a passive that allows him to become strong without last-hitting any minions, can disrupt very well, excellent zoning and his lantern which allows for extreme turret dives and ganks. The aim of this guide is to help both those new to Thresh and those who are hoping to use him for competitive play. This guide focuses on duo-laning with an ADC(Attack Damage Carry).

Pros +Amazing disruptor +Never actually caps +Zones/pokes extremely well +Enables hard turret dives +Doesn't need to last hit +Intimidating skin

vs

Cons -Enemies can (sometimes) see souls -Lackluster if denied souls -Only 1 shield, no heals -Needs a competent lane partner -Starts off rather slow

Defensive Tree

- For extra HP. If you decide not to use heal, invest this somewhere else.

- For even more HP. Thresh can get tanky Armor-wise through diligent soul farming, and the HP increase from this will get you more out of it.

- Thresh needs a lot of armor early on to compensate for his unscaling-with-level armor stat.

- I'm playing Thresh relatively tanky, so this should help with damage on magic-based pokes ( Sona, etc.).

- Gives a little extra buffer HP for the first few levels.

Utility Tree

- Mainly for flashing. Don't forget that you can use flash-Q combo to initiate in laning phase. If you decide to use Clairvoyance or Clarity, this makes them even better.

- Get to lanes faster. Get to allies faster. Collect souls faster. Between this and Nimble , you'll be chugging along.

- We get a little bit of mp5 from items, these 3 mp5 will help greatly throughout the game.

- This highly underrated ability will allow you to pink ward baron/dragon's entrance and temporarily see if there's any wards hidden in the waaaaay back. It will also help if you drop a ward over a wall to see if any enemies are there. If you don't like this mastery I suggest putting the point into Wanderer instead

- More mana is a plus. I tend not to build items with mana as a support, as they're often attached to items stacked with AP, which is not the focus of this build.

- Gold generation guarantees your late game.

- I only take 1 point in this as the extra 25g goes to waste if I don't.

- This will help you keep pace with your carry. However, since you will have a couple times in which your lane partner is recalled, I tend to find 1 point in this sufficient. Later game you will be rolling in assists anyway.

- Poke, poke, poke. This mastery gives you a nice gold bonus every time you poke one of their champions. Since you'll be running around near the minions to gain souls anyway, I would highly suggest this mastery. Make sure to run into a bush to clear minion aggro whenever you attack the enemy champ.

- This mastery will assure you maximum cooldown reduction from less items. Don't be afraid to go a few percent over the CDR cap of 40%, but if you regularly exceed 50, I would suggest skipping this mastery.

- 3% speed might not sound like much, but once you have your tier 2 boots it's like having an extra pair of boots. Combined Wanderer , you can get up to 5% increased running speed when not in combat.

Though he gains AP and armor through his passive, I would highly suggest getting somewhat standard tanky support build.

Mark of Attack Damage - The passive on Death Sentence scales with AD. These runes will give you a pretty nice amount of poke with it.

Seal of Armor - Thresh gains armor per soul, but at the beginning he needs all the help he can get. Scaling armor is less effective because it's exactly what his passive does. It's better to start slightly more tanky so you have more time in-lane to harvest souls.

Glyph of Magic Resist - Standard for Supports. This will improve your sustain when laning against a pokey support like Sona.

Greater Quintessence of Gold - Gold per 10 quints are standard on supports because your ADC will be taking all the farm. Even with the background gold increase in the Nami patch, these extra 3 gold per 10 seconds add up to a lot in your average match. Never forget: Gold per 10 items/quints guarantee your late game!

My mainstays

- Ahh, flash. The go-to summoner spell. Useful for initiating, chasing, escaping, dodging ... even with the nerf to distance and increased cooldown it's still arguably the best summoner spell in the game. If you're going to get

- I always run with either Heal or Exhaust when I support. However, with Thresh's skillset and the recent changes to this spell, I run this with Thresh every time. With Summoner's Resolve it will also give you an extra boost to maximum hp.

Alternatives

- I really like this spell. You can use it to escape or to chase down a fleeing enemy. You can use this spell in tandem with your Q to catch up to an enemy and drag them back into the fight. Replace Flash with this if you want to get it, and move a point out of Summoner's Insight .

- Another good summoner spell. This spell is great for spotting ganks, scouting dragon, preventing bush jukes and flat out ruining your enemy jungler's existance. With Summoner's Insight , enemies revealed are visible for the duration even if they run out of range afterwards.

- I'm not a huge fan of this spell, but if you spam abilities, have a large mana pool and don't build mp5 it could be a necessity. Some carries like Vayne and Caitlyn can be mana intensive if they spam, so you could use this to play very aggressively. However, this is based off a percent of your max mp, rendering it somewhat useless for most supports (most stack regen instead of making a large pool).

- Damnation

This - to me - is the best passive for a support in-game. Simply by hovering around a fight he gains AP/Armor and because enemies have to have vision of Thresh to see the souls, sitting in a bush to gank does not give away his position OR prevent souls from spawning. To reach base armor of a regular lvl18 champion, Thresh only needs 80-100 souls, which is not very difficult over the course of the game. He still gets armor from leveling, so this passive will give him a very robust amount of AP by the end of the game.

- Death Sentence

The passive gives Thresh some great poking capability, with a maximum of 10 seconds to increase the damage. As I mentioned with the passive, it's very easy to gain 80-100 souls in a game. This scales of of his AD, which means putting a few Mark of Attack Damage on him will give him some sexy poke during laning phase.
The active is somewhat similar to Skarner's Impale, in that while you're pulling the enemy you can still run around, even though it's only for 1.5 seconds. In some cases it's very effective to pull yourself to the enemy, but in most cases and especially laning phase you'll mostly be using it to pull the enemy ADC out of position so your ADC can pummel them. There are some tricks you can do with Thresh's abilities when used in tandem or with certain champions. These will be explained in the "Tips and Tricks" section. I pick it up at level one and max it first (side by side with Flay)

- Dark Passage

This is what I would say is Thresh's signature ability. It allows for Hail-Mary turret dives and pulling people through walls. Simply throw this down near the enemy turret while your ally is diving, and make sure to stay within 1500units of it. This is also great if an ally is caught out of position or falls behind while running to get the heck out of there. You can also collect souls with the lantern, though its range on absorption is lower than yours. There are some tricks you can do using this lantern that I will cover in the "Tips and Tricks" section. I take this at level two and max it last.

- Flay

The wording for this ability confused me at first. Thresh flings a sickle that starts behind him and goes forward, doing damage and pulling enemies along the path of the sickle as well as slowing them. Cast forward to push; cast backward to pull. The range is small but it is an EXCELLENT interrupt for an enemy's channeled spells such as Katarina's Death Lotus. I take one point in this at level 3 and then max it second after Death Sentence.

- The Box

The image that came to my head when I read this ult was the Black Coffin kidou from the anime Bleach, but I was a bit off. Though it is called "The Box" it is actually a pentagon of walls that form around him very similar to Karthus' Wall of Pain. Though it says it slows by 99%, movement speed cannot be reduced past a certain threshold, and so it would pretty much just bring you to that. The pentagon forms around Thresh's current location but does not follow him, making this good for an escape or running into the center of a team fight and dropping a wall there. As with almost all ults (except for Janna), put points in this at levels 6, 11 and 16.

Death Sentence is maxed first because:

Its mana cost does not increase from rank to rank
Its cooldown is reduced by each rank.
Most used ability.

Dark Passage is the last ability that should be maxed because:

The flat increases per rank are not very noticeable.
It only requires 1 point to use it for repositioning.
The shield radius is tiny, which means only shielding 2-3 people at most.
The amount shielded is not enough until you have some AP to back it up.

Flay is second because:

It disrupts the enemy team during a fight.
It's the closest thing Thresh has to an escape (for himself).
It's your only form of AoE besides your ult, and ult doesn't work on minions.

While Thresh's Q cannot pull enemies over walls, he can activate it again to pull himself over a wall to an enemy. Used in tandem with a lantern you can bring your teammate to dragon or to a gank.
For example: Drop lantern near tribrush or in river in bot and then Q over the wall and pull yourself to dragon, allowing your ADC to quickly finish off the wave and catch up. When he does use the lantern to arrive the lantern will shield everyone in the vicinity.

Thresh's W counts as a neutral, clickable object. This allows for some creative plays like dropping the lantern behind a turret that someone's sitting under so an ally Lee Sin can dash to it for a double shield, ult the enemy towards Thresh and then click the lantern to catch up to the enemy while still saving Q for an execute.

If built tanky Thresh can be an initiator. Simply double-tap Q to pull yourself Amumu-style into the thick of the enemy and drop your ult or E. It will slow and damage the majority of the enemy, which will give your team 2 seconds or so of the enemy being in bad position.

A great way to combo Thresh's W and ult is to drop your lantern near your ADC and then move into a bush near the battle. If they choose to chase after the ADC they can click the lantern to move to the safety of a bush. If they then chase into the bush drop your ult for a nice surprise slow to allow them to get away.
...If that still doesn't keep them off you can use your E to slow yet again.
...If that STILL isn't enough you can double-tap Q to bring yourself to the chaser(s) and activate Randuin's Omen or Shard of True Ice while your ADC kites them down.

Support Thresh has a massive amount of potential. He can disrupt on par with Alistar and Leona while zoning and hovering with auras like Sona, as well as put out a decent amount of damage even if loaded up with aura items. The large amount of health aura items give synergizes well with Thresh's passive, Damnation, which can effectively turn him into a tanky disruptive support that would make Alistar and Sona's lovechild jealous.