Because of Damnation, Thresh gets 0 armor per level. If you don't have additional armor when laning versus an AD carry bottom lane, you're gonna have a bad time. Flat magic resist is to reduce damage from enemy supports who do magic damage. Flat is better than scaling the large majority of the time because flat is stronger than scaling at level 6, which is when people will get their ultimates and try to make plays / kill you. Many AD carries also have magic damage skills and ultimates. GP10 quints are just for additional income since you're a support and you aren't farming minions.


Offensive options: Magic pen reds for skill damage and making Death Sentence's passive to do as much damage as possible, or hybrid penetration runes for mixed harass damage.

This is gonna be the longest section cause Riot really doesn't talk about items in the spotlight.

Basically, Thresh needs tanky support items. Start with some Sight Wards and potions for laning. You can also buy a Vision Ward vs stealth or in organized play. Since he has good HP scaling (92 per level) but no armor outside of his souls, I recommend Sightstone for the wards and HP, Emblem of Valor for the armor/regen and Boots of Speed during early game. With 4 Sight Wards, you can keep 2 spots warded for the entire duration it will take you to passively generate enough gold to buy a Sightstone. Another possible early item is Kindlegem. If you'd like, there's also Philosopher's Stone and Kage's Lucky Pick. If you don't want anything they build into, I recommend against buying them - Having a completed item will be more useful during mid game, while having GP10 will make some of your items later cost less. If you are expecting a very long game, obviously GP10 will be better than rushing a completed item. Doran's Shield also helps with his lack of armor, works alongside Unyielding and Block , but doesn't build into anything.

During mid game, work on Ruby Sightstone, Aegis of the Legion and Ionian Boots of Lucidity - more tanky stats, and cooldown reduction. Since you now have magic res from Aegis of the Legion, you can get something like Locket of the Iron Solari for more CDR. Later on, Shurelya's Reverie is useful for initiating or escaping. If the enemy team has a lot of mages, you can upgrade Aegis of the Legion to Runic Bulwark. For enchants, Enchantment: Captain is supportive, and Enchantment: Homeguard is useful if you're being sieged at your base.

There are many more items that can "work" on him. Melee range tank / debuff items like Abyssal Scepter, Frozen Heart and Randuin's Omen can all work because his kit encourages you to pull people right into melee range and you will presumably take some damage back. Iceborn Gauntlet can work too if you have a lot of cooldown reduction already, but it's fairly expensive. Riot's in-game shop also recommends Sunfire Cape. It's an offensive option (especially alongside Abyssal Scepter), but if I had a Giant's Belt I would rather make Randuin's Omen for the active/passive.

Normal vanilla support items also work. Zeke's Herald helps if your team has a bunch of AD champs. Mikael's Crucible can be used versus obnoxious crowd control teams. You could also combo the active with Dark Passage to save someone. Twin Shadows can be used for slowing people before using Death Sentence on them. There's also Shard of True Ice. On other ranged supports this is like a peeling tool or something to help your initiator, but Thresh could just self-cast it to keep people in position for his other skills.

ADC TOP:

If you play Tresh on Top lane, you just need to farm. It's hard for other Champions to win Top lane versus Tresh, and you can push hard with him. At early game you need to play defensive and you have to get Bloodthirster. After this, you may Dominate Top lane!