Pantheon Build Guide : [13.24b] Pantheon Mid - The Versatile Anti-Carry (Make Assassins Cry)

INTRODUCTION

PRE-GAME

CHAMP INFO

GAMEPLAY

GAME PHASES

OTHER

End

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Am I qualified to make a guide on pantheon?
Nope.

Hello, I'm not in a particularly high ELO but I couldn't find any good pantheon mid guides here so I thought I'd contribute (As of writing this, there is only one other regularly updated pantheon mid, and it's an off-meta HoB crit build(Not that it's bad), but felt like people should know the "norm"). Do note, since I'm not high ELO, things I say may not always be true, if you have any contradictions or anything to add, feel free to comment and I may (or may not) add it. I'll probably do often adjustments to the threats tab (about mus).

Although I'm not incompetent at pantheon at least.

Me in S12

Because of this, I give lots of options outside of just what I do. But everything I write down I am pretty confident in, my least confident section is the MU section.

I have lots of videos in spoiler tags, most of which are just to clarify what I said by giving an in-game example or some examples of it. The gameplay isn't perfect and will often contain many mistakes (I do often comment on the obvious mistakes)! If you don't need further clarification or don't want to know more, you don't need to click on the spoiler tag.

Do note, I assume the reader knows the bare basics of Pantheon and what his abilities do. I will not be rehasing much of what the wiki says nor his individual numbers on his stats/abilities, so if you have never read his abilities yet, i emplore you to read them here

Abbreviation List

Definations

is an interesting champion that has had some identity issues in the past few years. Originally, a top-laner then into a strong jungler and support. Now he's mediocre in top, jungle and support while serving as mainly a counter pick in mid-lane.

He's a simple AD early aggressive diver/assassin that wants to dominate the laning phase with short high burst damage and take free trades from his and . He pushes this lead to make the rest of the enemy team miserable through invades, skirmishes and ganking.

He's a champion that wants to push the pace of the game by taking objectives and towers. His late-game is not the best as he doesn't have the easy and safe assassination of many assassins, the DPS and tankiness of a bruiser, and doesn't have the damage and utility of most mid-lane mages.

In the late game, he can function as an anti-carry, scuffed assassin, engage and damage soak depending on your playstyle, item, and the team comps. Although I primarily identify him as an anti-carry.

+ Counters Melee Assassins
He wins against every melee assassin pretty convincingly. His strong damage early on, along with his negating large parts of their burst damage (be careful, they can outplay this!). His provides good engage in the lane, sometimes even granting free trades where the enemy does 0 damage to you (as they are stunned for the whole duration).

Have an dashing everywhere? Do you have a trying to 1v5? As long as they don't instantly 100-0 your allies before you can press , they just end up getting stunned and getting one shot (even if you don't have enough damage, they still get bursted because your allies should be there to help DPS/CC chain).

+ Flexible Builds
Pantheon is listed both as a bruiser and an assassin in the LOL wiki. He can comfortably build the majority of the lethality and bruiser items. As a mid-laner, you might not be familiar with building too many defensive items. If the opposing trolls champion select and go all AD/AP-comp, you can stack AR/MR and become unkillable while dealing a lot of damage. More information about his specific items can be found in the items section.

+ Always Useful
Despite being known as an early-game champion, that doesn't mean he isn't useful late-game. Sure, his duelling power and teamfight DPS aren't top-tier. He does, however, always have a point-and-click stun with .The ability has many uses, such as being able to shut down hyper carries like , , and , peel for your carries, or engage onto the enemy.

His allows him to tank anything as long as he is facing the enemies.

enables him to join fights from half the map away, support carries from half the map away when they are caught out, and even baits.

+ High Map Prescence
With the nerf to in S12, 's is insanely useful. If the enemy top or bot overextends after level 6, you can simply to reverse the fight.

It also can act as a free to lane to catch your minions (with the added waveclear).

Mid-to-late game, allows you to quickly join most fights and traverse the map.

Want to do two things? Can do with Pantheon Ult

+ Easy to Pick Up
has a really simple design, so you don't need a lot of games to play him relatively competently. This suits his identity perfectly, as mid is primarily a counter pick to assassins and some low-ranged mages, so you don't need to invest a lot of time in a counter pick. You don't need good micro or low ping to play Pantheon well.

+ Flex Pick/Enemy doesn't know Pantheon's position
Currently, his play-rate position distribution according to lolalytics is 23% jungle, 34% support, 25% mid, 17% top, and 1% bot. This makes it difficult for the opposition to determine which position you are in, making it difficult for the enemy to counter pick. Even if you choose Pantheon after the opponent's mid-laner, the other lanes must consider the chance that Pantheon will be against them.

It also provides you with a champion to play if you are assigned to top, jungle, or support (though they all play slightly differently).

+ Niche Pick
To add to the previous point, many mid-laners don't play against Pantheon very often and don't know how to play against him. His pick rate in mid is now 1.7%, which puts him just above champions like , , , and .

- Mediocre scaling
Compared to many other bruisers, his scaling is a lot worse, and his 1v1 potential will lose to a decent number of top lane bruisers depending on your build. With more bruiser build/CDR, his scaling is pretty okay when he gets like 3-items (Since you can just spam Q). However, he will always be useful.

- Bad vs. Mages and Linear Engage
Pantheon isn't the best against mages. Don't get me wrong, I don't mean all mages, but rather those with a longer range or a reliable CC skillshot.

We're repeatedly poked in the lane until we reach level 2 or 3, where we can potentially counterattack. Even so, our engage () is limited in range and readily negated by good tethering (note that the keyword is "good"; in low-mid ELO, they often mess up and you can kill them off with one misposition). He also lacks a reliable way to farm minions from a distance. He has a charged , but it doesn't inflict much damage, especially when passing through minions. Its cooldown is also quite long with the charged version. The tap 's range makes it possible for you to be poked and outranged by a variety of talents. Furthermore, using a comet spear to farm depletes all of your stacks, reducing your threat in a fight.

Even if you can onto the enemy, the engage is fairly linear. Because it moves in a straight line, many abilities, including , empowered , , and , may easily CC in the middle of your jump, interrupting your empowered AAs. allowing people to simply utilize their CDs before disengaging.

- Minimal combat Ultimate
Most champions get a huge spike at level 6. Grand Starfall is a really good ultimate, but its combat usage in a 1v1 is minimal. Yes, it can be used to engage, or even cheese kill low-HP enemies (even when you have like 30 HP, although it's super risky). It also grants 10% armour penetration at LVL 6. While he does gain some combat ability, he gains a lot less compared to most other champions.

- can be negated with mobility
If your opponent has a lot of dashes or movement speed, the enemy can often just go behind your .To counter this, use it after they have used their mobility, or use it reactively against an ability rather than proactively.

- is countered by Intangibility
Shield Vault has a clear range, and it can be obvious when we use it sometimes. If the enemy has intangibility, they can use it to avoid the stun.Now we are in melee range but without one of our key abilities.

Example vs Zed R

While you can pick into every game. To play optimally, you want to take note of the other 9 champions in the game.

More ★s--> More important/More effective VS
★★★★★--> Super important/super strong VS
★☆☆☆☆--> Very minor importance

Your team

Ⅰ. Have AP on your Team	★★★★★
As the midlaner, you are often your team's source of AP. ADC is almost always AD, while top and jungler are more AD heavy, and support usually does little AP damage (with exceptions like Senna, Brand, Zyra, Xerath, Velkoz, and so on). If you are not aware if certain champs are AD/AP then using on this website, you can see % of their damage as AD/AP (just search/click on the champ and their position).
ⅠⅠ. Good with Skillshot reliant junglers	★★★★☆
We W, they hit skillshot, they die. =)
ⅠⅠⅠ. Having an AP Jungler	★★☆☆☆
If mid and jngl are both AD, this allows the enemy to just stack armour. Not as big of a problem in lower ELOs where people don't adjust their builds.
ⅠⅤ. Good with hyper carry ADCs/bot laners	★★☆☆☆
Things like Kog/Jinx etc. where they need peel against assassins/divers.

Example

Enemy team

Ⅰ. Having a Good Mid Matchup	★★★★★
One of the most important aspects, as some long-ranged mages will bully us all through the laning phase while outscaling us. ⤷

ⅠⅠ. Good against Dive/Assassins	★★★★☆
Slippery champs like Master Yi, Ekko, etc. They are too difficult to hit with skill shots, but with our Shield Vault, we only need to click on them. Usually, they get chain CCed or Burst down. (Because of this, if the enemy team has someone like Master Yi 1v5ing fights, remember to save your W to stun him. Often, people will respect your stun and go in after you use it. Better to not miss out on using W two times than giving Yi a penta.) ⤷

ⅠⅠⅠ. Good against most Reset Champions/Hypercarries	★★★★☆
Similar to above. We can often CC them and ruin the reset/1v5 fantasy. Most reset champs require going into close range. Our E can also help us stall and live longer by delaying their reset and denying all of their burst. The greatest weakness of Hyper Carriers is usually point-and-click CC, as there is limited outplay potential (aside from spacing, Cleanse, qss, and Mikaels). ⤷

ⅠⅤ. Good against Immobile/Low-peel Enemy Top/Bot laners	★★☆☆☆
With our ult, if they are slightly too far out, we can ult behind them and secure a kill. With mobility (ie. Zeri E) and peel (ie. CC), it makes it harder for us to ever gank them. ⤷

ⅤⅠ. Bad against Tanks	★★★☆☆
We are a burst champ with no %HP scaling against enemies, nor do we scale off defensive stats. We can't even focus down a tank with our W.They generally provide much more utility, tankiness, and DPS in late-game teamfights. ⤷

Ⅴ. Bad against long ranged champs	★★★☆☆
Champs that have insane range make it difficult for Pantheon to gap-close. Our best tool is our R, or Flash-->W. It is even worse if they have high mobility (ie. Jinx passive, Zeri Ult stacks). ⤷

ⅤⅠ. Bad against trap champs	★★☆☆☆
Champs who can place a trap right under our landing location from our R and get a guaranteed hit on us, as it is really obvious where we land. Against CC traps (roots, stuns, grounding, etc.), we just get focused down (but we can use E and actually bait lots of abilities). ⤷

FLASH

Standard summoner icon for almost every champion. As pantheon, we especially like flash, it allows us to gain the extra distance to , allowing for a very easy gank setup/pick on the enemy. Also, it allows us to reposition ourselves so the enemy can't go behind our .

Flash W op

IGNITE

Standard summoner spell for Pantheon. Pantheon is someone who wants to win early and snowball his lead, ignite allows for him that extra kill threat early on. Especially useful champions that heal (eg. sylas).

TELEPORT

Good against poke champions, particularly ones where you don't think you can kill or even pressure the enemy laner hard enough. Note: teleport will often end up being redundant due to (but is global whereas our ult is only semi-global).

EXHAUST

Niche summoner spell you use against more DPS-based champions (ie. and users)(like and many top lane bruisers). Better vs the champions that can't just instantly jump away and reengage after the exhaust is up. You can also take this when you think you are going to end up sidelaning against the enemy top laner (and you want this vs. them).

Allows for chase downs/escapes due to the movement speed slow.

GHOST

Niche summoner spell. Used when you want the extra movement speed to engage with but don't need the other summoner spells. You can often just use empowered , and/or better / usage.

Also good vs. high threat mid/jngl that you need to use this to escape from.

Major Runes

Press the Attack is the standard rune for mid-Pantheon. Gives burst + decent sustained damage.

Indepth

is a good all-in scaling rune.

PTA does more single-target damage unless they are very tanky.

Indepth

Electrocute is not a very good rune page. It makes you focus more on the burst aspect with limited DPS afterwards. The increased burst compared to PTA isn't too much that I don't find myself ever taking it.
This is good when u are poking your enemies with q or farming with q (so you don't have passive constantly stacked up, don't need to rely on emp W) E

Indepth

Why not the others?

- This is a scaling passive survival rune. Also helps with kiting/chasing. We don't need this. Although the extra little bit of health is okay, the movement spd is nice to help stick onto your opponent.

- Okay rune. But due to our short range, we oftentimes don't get to have the first strike. In lane, it is ok against some champs like who don't have ways to really poke it off and we can just go in on. But we just lose too much damage IMO. Using this on our ult to hit the whole enemy team is pretty satisfying though.

- For those that don't have a good rune. We do. But we do actually like pretty much all the summoner spells.

- Meant for supports and supportive champs. We only have w to proc. Lose too much combat pressure. Possible maybe vs some ranged champs where u play around the jngl gank, but the PTA dmg amp is just better IMO. The slow also isn't the most useful for us.

- If you go crit this is probably the best. Otherwise, we don't play around with our AAs that much. Getting three fast AAs doesn't give us much.

- With our r we don't need this often. Pre 6 this rune isn't even that strong anymore after the nerfs to its early game. But it is a usable rune. We lose a lot of combat ability from it though.

- Very weird pick for him. If you wanted to scale into team fights with getting resets and applying to multiple enemies, usually taking conqs will just do a better job of it.

- Used to be played on panth supp. allowing him to run away with e after his combo (as his e back then reduced his movement spd when running backwards). It can still be used to chase and run. But I would rather just get a youmous/BC (grants spd)/Bork. If you wanted it to run away when trading early, it isn't even worth it due to how much damage you lose. We also don't need to stick that close and our q has a long range and can even be held and thrown quite far. The main reason you go for this rune is the antislow. You could maybe justify this against something like a top, jungle and adc/support together on one team (Because of , and ).

- Okay rune that can be used when you poke with Q against bruisers who you can't go in on. Better in top lane. Pretty weak later on.

- Similar to comet. Just this one is a shorter cd, doesn't miss, has less damage and isn't AOE. IMO comet is just prob better (but also not good in general). This also falls off super hard late game.

- We aren't a tank. And we waste most of the extra resistances because of them being stunned or us using

- If you want to do short trades in a melee vs melee situation. PTA is just usually better. Or Electrocute (but it has a lot longer CD). The extra tankiness it grants is pretty minimal.

- Makes our 1v1 ****. The shield isn't that useful. PTA dmg amp probably provides more value for our teammates than this. We are a mid-laner, not a support.

Minor Runes

Runes in Colour are runes that are viable, meta and/or things I recommend.

Runes in Sepia are usually suboptimal runes. There is often a better rune for Pantheon. Sometimes they can be used because of specific playstyles or games.

Runes in Black and White are runes that I think are basically useless. There may be a 1/1000 game for it, or if you are a hardcore OTP you could justify using it if you know what you are doing. But runes that aren't worth talking about for newer Pantheon players.

Inspiration

Secondary Tree
Inspiration is mainly an aggressive early + mid-game focused rune page. Can be used if you don't just want more dmg/defensive contained in other runes and want a little extra spice.

Biscuit Delivery

Standard rune to take against ranged champions for the extra sustain + mana. Early game focused rune.

Cosmic Insight

Great rune against ranged mid-laners that force you to just farm as they are too far away. Especially good when you are duoed with your jungler. This allows u to flash engage for a gank guaranteeing a kill or the enemy flash. Great into immobile mages (eg. , , , , etc.) or champions that are too far to reach late-game and needs to be dealt with (eg. , , etc.). The item haste is also amazing with any of our mythic options.

Why not the others?

was a standard for ranged champs but with the big nerfs on 12.7 and 12.14, it's kinda useless IMO. The 2% movement spd is nothing, celerity base gives 1% straight up. The 30% instant mana/hp is ok but not useful enough IMO, especially in a scaling meta rn.

is a good rune for support. But in mid we almost get to never proc it. But that doesn't mean it can't be used. You could make use of it in the side bushes in mid as well as behind the wall and using hexflash to help close the gap. You can also pull some mind games with it sometimes just by using it in the middle of the lane.

is an okay rune. I like having early boots to help dodge skill shots as well as help chase enemies down. This rune helps those who want to get to their core 1-3 items. We don't need that many items, the spike is strong enough for us.

is super niche. We don't build for quite a while. We don't need this to live with our tanky stats + does a similar function. There may be games for this such as jungle, mid, etc. But most times it is just better to take something we are used to.

is an okay rune meant to get to item power spikes earlier. Just feel like there are better runes.

is a pretty okay rune if you want to roam more. You can do this by Demat a cannon minion and kill the rest. Also allows you to get poked less in lane as you are clearing it faster. I haven't tested if you can one-shot back wave earlier or not with Demat and if it is worth it or not.

is a pretty terrible rune. Our cc makes it so we are already on top of them. Taking Grudge gives you slow on your abilities, but grudge is not that great of an item anyways, and it is only taken as a late item anyways, making this rune basically useless. The movement speed to ally CC is pretty niche, I'd rather go for TWT/Celerity/Nimbus Cloak if I wanted the movement speed anyways.

Domination

Secondary Tree
Domination is a snowballing/scaling tree mainly. Take against easy mus or matchups where you are roaming a lot.

Sudden Impact/Cheap Shot

Honestly, you take either, we proc both similar amounts. I do think Sudden impact is better currently. Sudden impact is better for longer trades/scaling/vs. squishies. Whereas, Cheapshot is better vs. High armor enemies and short trades.

Indepth

Eyeball Collection

Gives some decent AD, allows us to snowball harder. Can take over or (as a secondary tree), when you don't need the extra early power and just want to snowball off of eyeball + hunter rune.

Treasure Hunter

Allows for a higher snowball to get to our item spikes faster. Pantheon often has to give up farm to be at plays so the extra gold is a good way to compensate. Helps us through the mid-game. After 13.4, this rune isn't as needed as much and is highly preference based.

Ingenious Hunter

Decrease the cds' of , , , , , , . Gives the most direct combat pressure (other than the gold from Treasure hunter).

Relentless Hunter

My personal least favourite, but it allows u to have more speed to engage with as well as just having faster roams.

Ultimate Hunter

is the rune I like going over as I would rather have lowered cooldowns to roam more with my ult than just having increased movement speed. But this is up to preference.

Why not the others?

Resolve

Secondary Tree
Niche Rune page. You take this tree when you want or . Otherwise, rune page isn't that good for Pantheon. Do not use this page if you are going full damage build.

Conditioning

Conditioning is a solid rune to compliment the HP you buy (and since DD/maw kinda suck now, its less worth to buy them). Something like Eclipse/gore-->BC-->Shojin with this rune is good. Although Pantheon already has high armor so he doesn't need this.

Bone Plating

Good vs. high burst enemies that lack ways to poke it off(ie. don't use it vs someone like . Good vs. enemies like or ).

Conditioning

Not a huge fan of this rune. This is just kinda a placeholder rune for when you want to take and . Although, it does amplify the health we get from bruiser items.

Unflinching

When you need the extra tenacity, usually, you just take this because you wanted or and have nothing else to take because we have tenacity from . When you take this and , going loses some value.

Why not the others?

Sorcery

Secondary Tree
Sorcery is very versatile rune page where we can get scaling, cdr, mana and speed.

Manaflow Band

Only take if you can poke enemies with (ie. low range/melee champs). You gain an extra 6.25 AD when you have .

Nimbus Cloak

Great against ranged mus that you want to stick to them for a longer trade (ie. emp w, q, aa, ignite--> run with nimbus + AAs, emp q to execute). Don't take it if you take TP as if you could just use ult if you wanted to use it for more of a tping into a fight. Although this doesn't help much with actually getting ontop of them (unless u use flash).

Transcendence

For a more CDR playstyle, playing around your and being more utility/DPS rather than burst. Helps your teamfights and duelling power too as most of your damage come from your abilities.

Gathering Storm

Great for the raw AD scaling. Allows you to build more tanky late game while not giving up the damage. Can take if you hard win lane anyways or you know you going to lose lane no matter what and don't need the extra sustain.

Why not the others?

Precision

Primary Tree
Precision is our main rune page. It provides mana/hp on takedown, stacking tenacity/atk speed and some extra damage.

Triumph

If you don't need extra mana, take this. I think this scales better than . It allows us to have a better team fight and tower dives. It synergies well since likes focusing one enemy down and getting the heal to help survive the rest of the enemy team (as he can't just leave the fight unlikely many other melee mid-laners). This is often times our only heal.

Presence of mind

Use if you find that you are running out of mana. Good against melee laners where you trade a lot (ie. bruisers), they have good resource sustain (ie. healing and/or no mana/energy champs) or MUs where you end up spamming . Do not take if u are buying (if you still want extra mana early on then go for manaflow instead).

Legend: Alacrity

Only take when you think you don't need . While we don't love attack spd, it does help us with easier csing, getting passive procs, and applying PTA when we don't use emp W.

Legend: Tenacity

I go about 90% of the time. Before the game, count how many cc that can be countered by tenacity (ie. not knock-ups, suppression, etc.). Ask how much you value getting cc'ed for a lesser duration this game. If you don't feel like you get much value out of this rune then you go

Coup de Grace

Good if you are planning to play more of an assassin/brust playstyle (ie. building things like ). Note: has does more damage than this rune in every single game I've checked.

Last Stand

good if you are playing a more bruiser playstyle. Synergies with and /. This rune sucks against those with executes (ie. R, R, R, etc.) or even those who do more %missing HP dmg. But on the flip side, this is good against % current health, as they will more quickly get you low but not actually kill you (ie. Bork, etc.)

Why not the others?

Stat Shards

Take double , the last rune is or depending on the opposing lanner.

I tend to stay away from since I feel like we want more damage early to one shot despite how much we like Abt-Haste. You can go it if you don't plan on building much abt-haste (i.e. first) or if you are against a ranged mu where you want to all-in (so you get your 2nd q up faster) instead of doing shorter trades.

isn't a terrible choice for better CS'ing as well as more DPS in longer trades (more AAs --> more passive procs--> more damage).

Import into Item guide In-game

General/Stat Priority

Before I go into depth about each item, I want to first talk about the theory of Pantheon's itemization, which stats Pantheon is looking for and when to buy it.

Itemization based on game time

In the early game, my interpretation of Pantheon's identity focuses on buying raw AD and lethality. Depending on the matchup, movement speed is also crucial, though less so for roaming since we already have our ultimate.

CDR/Ability Early on, haste isn't all that great. While it enables us to potentially finish an opponent with a second , it doesn't help with shorter trades, which is what Pantheon is typically pursuing.

Mana is nice to have (from or ), but can make you lose too much damage.Getting one of these is acceptable if you have to stay in your lane for an extended period of time or are up against opponents who require constant usage of your abilities (the enemy is healing, for example, thus more trades are required). Reminder: Only purchase Cpot as your starting item; don't buy tear as your starting item.

Early on, defensive stats aren't all that crucial because we can use to tank the damage. Early on, I won't invest in anything more than a and a (which I use to complete my T2 boots). Additionally, you typically need more damage while utilising an ult early on in the game because you are ganking or saving allies.

In the mid to late-game, I start looking for more CDR. Fights are now skirmishes, teamfights or side lane fights vs top-lane bruisers. These fights are much longer and you no longer have the option of short trades. I prefer CDR more when I know I need my W/E up more in a fight. Typically this happens when opponents have a few champions that I really need to stun (ie. Fed mid and jungle assassins), then I buy more CDR to hopefully have my stun up when I need it (obviously best solution is to hold W for when they go in).

Defensive stats are also much more important. We can't take advantage of our CDR if we die. When late game comes, our damage will start to fall off because the majority of our damage is in our , which is on a low CD, but still not enough DPS compared to most bruisers. I start playing mid as more of a utility champion, based our his W/E usage. Although, this heavily changes depending on the game (ie. We are the only AD dmg or if the team has lots of frontline/cc already).

Assassin vs. Bruiser?

I prefer to start with 1-2 Assassin items and then start buying bruiser items and maybe even tank items.

Can you build full damage? You could... But many bruiser items synergy with Pantheon so well that we don't actually lose much damage compared to buying lethality items. If you want to go full damage, I still recommend buying and maybe even a , and/or later on. I personally think it's not worth building lethality items past 2nd item, if you want more damage, go for , or .

What about bruiser from the start?
This is completely fine. If you wanted to start with a and then go into something like . Especially if you don't feel like you can exploit the enemy laner, even with extra damage. This is highly preference based as well as teamcomp dependent.

Is Full Tank Viable?

No. If you wanted to build tank items, the earliest I recommend is as a 3rd item. Building it earlier just gives you no damage. I very often go a pure tank item 4th and/or 5th item.

Is Crit Pantheon Viable?

I'll admit that I haven't dont too much testing on crit panth. I personally don't think IE is worth thinking about but navori could be good as we love the cdr/abt reset, along with the other stats being ok. Then this just leaves on what other items. You could do something like into but you end up so squishy. But this is mostly theorycrafting right now. I recommend going to for and maybe scaling defensive runes like and . could get a lot of value instead of .

Item Order

Green means the optimal times to build them (if you are going to build them). The time we want to buy the item most

Yellow is when it's either 1. suboptimal 2. you are forced to build into this as you or your team needs this (ie. anti-heal, etc.)

Bold are just higher priority and/or core items.

If it doesn't have any colour, it doesn't mean it can't be built as that item, it's just that it rarely should be. Ofc every game is different, this is just meant as a guideline.

Click on the item name to see my indepth discussion on the item.

Item	1st	2nd	3rd	4th	5th

Eclipse
Youmuu's Ghostblade
Goredrinker
Divine Sunderer
Duskblade

Umbral Glaive
Muramana
BOTRK
Black Cleaver
Spear of Shojin
Death's Dance
Guardian Angel
Chempunk Chainsword

Maw of Malmortius
Prowler's Claw
Serpent's Fang
Edge of Night
Sterak's Gage
Serylda's Grudge

STARTING ITEMS

Corrupting Potion
Recommended Item for beginning Pantheon players as well when against ranged champions (for the heal against poke). After 12.14, it only gives 100hp more than Dblade + Pot. Take this mostly for the mana and so you don't need to buy pots later on. Most of your mana problems comes from using E in lane, if you don't need to use it often, then you generally don' need the mana as much.

Before 12.14, you could take to get more movement speed to chase enemies down/run away but now it is not even worth it.

Long Sword + Refillable/3 Potions
For Easy MUs and you don't need the extra mana (ie. won't be trading too much or spamming too many s). Allows you to get an early (which is an amazing item).
Typically against melees such as .
Be careful as if you get caught up in lane with no mana, it can throw the lane for you.

Can swap Refillable Potion with 3X Health Potion. You do this when you want a stronger early game but don't need the Refillable later on (Although you can buy later). Or when you need the extra Health to survive early but don't want to go as it delays our

Eg. I like to Take Triple Pots vs. as I'm incompetent at dodging his 3rd. This is just to make sure I don't throw the early lane (which is the only time that Can win this lane.), and I never need potions late on as is never going to have the opportunity to step up to the wave

Doran's Blade + 1 Health Potion
For when you need the increased max Health and early pressure. Good for enemies that can all-in you before you get to heal with potions (Eg. ). As of patch 13.20, best item against non-free melee/short ranged match ups.

As of 12.14, the other options got nerfed a lot. You want to take this if want as much strength before 1st base. (This only gives 100hp less than corrupting pot start, 160hp less than lsword + 3 pots and the same health as Lsword + refill)

TRINKETS

Stealth Ward
Start with this in lane. Starting with is not worth it as is not that great at escaping ganks. (Unless you have a very specific game plan for the Oracle Lens).

Typically swapped out after laning phase, but you can keep it if you wish to.

Farsight Alteration
I typically swap to this after laning phase. Helps with a safer split push. Also because we don't need when flanking team fights after splitting because we can engage far away with . Also, this gives us more information for a better Ultimate. (Eg. You see an alone support/ADC, but you think there might be people hovering behind them, you can trinket around them to see. Do note, this informs the enemy and they'll play accordingly)

Oracle Lens
Good vs , , , etc.

I typically take otherwise.
Can take when your team has a lack of or when the enemy team heavily relies on having vision (ie. Squishies, Artillery mages (AP , , )). Or just when you don't think you need .

MYTHICS

Eclipse
The standard "Assassin" mythic for . Gives us a bit of everything: movement spd, lethality, % armour pen, shields, abt haste, max hp% dmg. Take this if your job is to delete the squishies. Despite the various anti-tank aspects on it, don't take it to counter tanky enemy team comps.

When building, rush first.
Love the change to it in 13.1b! (changing from omnivamp to abt-haste)

Youmuu's ghostblade
Great item for snowballing or if you can afford to go more of an aggressive build. The movement speed allows us to engage/get picks without our ultimate, which is great when you are fed but can't reach the enemy. I do think and scales better into the late game as the untargetability of duskblade and versatility of eclipse is much more impactful in teamfights.

Goredrinker
This item works best against high-melee enemy team comps. Ie. If the enemy team is an , , , , , this item would get insane value, as the more people you hit (ranged champs usually will be too far to be hit and will want to kite away/not clump, thus why good against high amounts of melee.)

In-depth

Divine Sunderer
A standard anti-tank item. Typically built more on top pantheon, but viable mid. I don't like Spellblade items on Pantheon. He only gets to proc it once, maybe you can get it twice but that's it. If you look at common Sheen users (Camille, Jax, trundle, etc.) they have abilities with very low CDs (like 4sec or less) that they weave into a combo (usually an AA-reset)

Decent if you need to match a bruiser (usually the top-laner) in the side-lane as it provides more sustained DPS, abt-Haste as well as tankiness.

Scales better than
Good if you want to build tankier but suck at using actives.

Duskblade of Draktharr
This item generally allows pantheon to scale better into the late-game team fights due to the untargetability. However, your 1v1 is weaker.

When you take this item, either you are going full damage and hoping the untargetability will save you, or you will buy a bit more tanky items afterwards.

BOOTS

Mercury's Treads
Take into high ap and/or high cc (that is affected by tenacity (Note: many "knock-ups" are actually just a small knock-up with a longer stun duration allowing for it to be affected by tenacity)) team comps.

Plated Steelcaps
Take into heavy AD-team comps where you don't need the tenacity. Also works a bit against AP- auto attackers (eg. , , etc.). Ofc if you are building purely for them, it's probably better to go for , but if they have a lot of AD threads and you still want to not get shredded by AP-auto attackers, then this does also help out.

Especially good into ADC mid-laners like , , (these three more so than Yasuo & Yone due to their strong early power, but still does wonders against the windshi*ters) or if their mid + jngl are both AD champs.

Ionian Boots of Lucidity
Niche item. I don't recommend it, but if you are winning and want to snowball even harder. Can take it if you don't build any Ability Haste in the first two items (ie. , ).

LEGENDARIES

Black Cleaver
An amazing item on , I buy this 99% of the time (if the game lasts long enough). We buy this 2nd or 3rd most games. Each of our empowered AAs from procs 's armour shred. Each hit of out applies a stack. So often we can just e to tank a bunch of damage while shredding their armour for our whole team.

It also gives us a ton of ability haste which is something we love as our AA DPS is quite low and and are amazing abilities, and is a large portion of our damage. Health is to gain a bit more tankiness since we have high armour already and are probably building defensive boots (also great if you started with since it gives you no hp).

It got buffed in 13.1b so definately buy it!

In-depth

Spear of Shojin
Spear of Shojin was practically made for us (Pantheon uses a spear and this is the only spear item we can buy). The Stats are great with us, the only downside is W not getting the full effect of the CD reduction since its CC.

The Speed when low is pretty good, most other AD spellcasters has ways to leave the fight (IE Zed shadows, Talon E, Qiyana Grass), but after going in we have trouble leaving. Usually without this item I just get blown up after my E ends, but this gives me to kite away, waiting for my CDs to re-engage. Due to the speed + CD, this allows pantheon to carry a lot better in the late game.

This item is quite expensive at 3.4k, along with giving limited defensive stats (300hp). I recommend you only buy when you are ahead or even. Buying this while behind will make you too squishy, much better as a snowballing item. (Also, the high price means you won't get it for a long time if behind).

The CD effect scales off of bonus AD, which is great for us as all of our items we build have around 40-60AD per item. You can also tech into and if you want to exploit this and get even more CD late game (although I wouldn't get ).

Umbral Glaive
It gives pretty good stats for a cheap price, allowing for an early 1 item power spike. All while having an underrated ability.

Especially good on due to him wanting both and for the bush cheeses. Now he can (kinda) do both by buying and taking . Also, his ward killing speed is pretty bad, and this speeds it up by a lot. Although, one-shotting wards can be bad as well as we can only get one passive stack from a ward instead of 3/4.

In-depth

Death's Dance
Good item on , standard item when playing against heavy ad opponents. More of a team fighting item as you get heals on takedowns and helps you not get one-shot (Also our blocks damage from the ignore pain effect.

Maw of Malmortius
Not very good on us. Has no ability haste, life-steal isn't good on us as we rarely auto. Only take when you really need to survive burst, otherwise, just buy a mercs. If enemy has like 3-4AP, getting an 4th+ item might be okay.

Warning, sometimes we end up proccing the shield and then immediately using and making our Shield useless.

Edge of Night
If you need to dodge that one ability then this is your item. I typically don't like building this as many times we can just reaction speed our to block. Although, this item gives us a good mix of AD, lethality and Hp, something no other item gives.

Serpent's Fang
Purely situational. Use when heavy shields (ie. , , , , , etc.)

Blade of the Ruined King
Duelling/DPS/Anti-tank item. Our empowered procs the %current hp 3 times, making this a pretty good item on . Great item against high hp targets, especially enemies with no mobility where you can get off even more autos.

DO NOTE:
- This item is quite expensive and has a bad build path, so it may feel awful before you finish this item.
- Having this makes you quite squishy compared to something like
- Not that good with a conqueror cdr bruiser build focused on spamming Q.

Muramana
The mana is nice, it makes it so you don't need need to take , or (Although and increase your mana, thus increasing your AD from ). The main problem with this item is that is an early game champion that wants to snowball, while requires you to use 400 gold early for .

It's an item you buy when you focus purely on burst (Don't buy this vs tanky enemies!!!). It also gives you no defensive stats. But when the item is stacked, it's one of the best pure offensive items for Pantheon.

Good to take when the enemy laner is someone you can't really reach or fight against and you just have to scale into mid-game and try and one-shot the squishes. Or when you hard win the lane anyways.

Prowler's Claw
Similar to and . Not a huge fan of this item personally as we kinda waste the slow as our AA is usually going to be right after our W. Tricks we can do with it is R-->AA (slow)--> Q to make Q easier to hit, but this is honestly so niche that it isn't worth thinking about imo.

All 3 stats it gives is good but I'd rather just take Muramana or Bork over this. I guess if you dont have a tear and don't want to play around your emp W, then this item is good, but usually when you do that you are too squishy with this item to play a bruiser Conqueror style. If you want lethality, AD and cdr, I recommend .

Sterak's Gage
Okay, bruiser item that allows pantheon to survive for a longer time in team fights. Not a huge fan of it since Pantheon has pretty low base AD later on (champions like Rakan, Maokai etc. actually have more base ad at lvl 18). We also don't stack too much HP either.

If you want to use you want to stack a decent amount of health to get the maximum value (also resistances to get more value out of that health). IE.-->--> -->

I honestly rarely get to buy this as the item has no Abt-haste.

Warning, sometimes we end up proccing the shield and then immediately using and making our Shield useless.

Chempunk Chainsword
This item now has insane stats for its cheap cost. If you want to 1v1 healing top-laners, this could be a good buy as it gives cdr for more ability rotations and makes your damage stick due to the anti-heal. You can buy this as a 4-6th item as well just for the stats it gives. If the enemy are 4-5AD damage, I recommend you to consider instead if you want the anti-heal.

Guardian Angel
A standard late-game item on many bruisers/assassins/ADCs. Try not to buy it before 4th item. Great item to buy if you want to stack armour against an AD-heavy team.
Great for when you know you going to die (ie. assassinating high priority target in a team fight and you know you are going to die afterward). Good when you are hard-carrying since enemies first focus you down. Good if you plan on using to engage the enemy team (as you'll probably die, but you did dmg and baited lots of important CDs).

Good to use if you have a bounty that you don't want to give up.

SUPER NICHE ITEMS

Thornmail
A great item if the enemy is hard AD damage and you need the anti-heal and armour. Don't take it if you still need more damage to blow someone, but you can take it if you are very far behind and have given up and are just going to tank for the team.

Hullbreaker
If you plan on splitting a lot this is a good pick, but only do it when you think you'll be hard splitting and not ulting in as often or trying to get picks with the team.

Example 1: Enemy team comp has strong teamfighters and no one can 1v1 you.
Example 2: One fed enemy member that is hard carrying them, you lose in a 1v1 to them but you beat everyone else on their team in a 1v1. When you split and they send their carry (bc you are too strong for everyone else, and u push fast with hullbreaker), your team can 4v4. You can often join the fight with (but don't get cancelled!). This item also allows u to survive better vs the fed member while slowing their push because of our empowered cannon minions.

Serylda's Grudge
While in theory, this item sounds great bc the stats and effects are things wants. But with % armor penetration, , /, we get a ton of % armor pen already. And since armor penetration in LOL is multiplicative (ie. 20% armor pen * 8% armor pen * 30% = 48% armor penetration instead of 58%). It makes it so if you have more armour penetration, the less effective the additional armour pen is.

You could still pick if they are hard stacking armour (but I'd prioritize over it and probably ) or if you want to go full assassin pantheon. Because it is often picked up later on in the build, it often has an inflated WR on many sites.

Can I buy Grudge over BC?/Why BC is better than Grudge.

Anathema's Chains
An Okay item. Good against one really fed enemy, allowing you to tank longer, but more importantly, it reduces their Tenacity by 20%. This makes our stun and any other CC on that champ last longer. This is great against tankier (ie. not full damage assassins that you can just one-shot) opponents that your team needs to lock down for longer periods.

The stats it gives is also pretty good, great to suppliment resistance items (ie. , and ).

Helps to deal with the enemy splitpusher if it is your job to 1v1 them. Also great when enemy has only 1 champ of a particular damage type (ie. their team is 1 ap, 4ad or minor ap champs like enchanters). Then putting anathemas onto the ap champ and then stacking armor is really good.

Warmog's Armor
A niche item that you buy if you keep on getting chunked and can't do anything about it (ie. Their team is Liandries , AP , AP , ).

Do note: Often you can just avoid taking too much poke by using to engage in the fight. (Against normal poke champs)

Why not __ item?

Any Crit item (Collector, ER, Lord Dom, IE, etc.) - We don't use Crit very well, none of our abilities scale off of crit other than our emp W AAs. We barely AA outside of that as our AA-speed is quite low, and it isn't worth it to build ATK spd as we are an ability focused champ.

. Crit item. Our Q does massive extra damage when they are lower than 20% health, usually, it kills them already so there is no need for the execute effect. Also, we often don't want to be taking the kill, as we do have some trouble carrying.

. Crit item. We barely AA outside of that.
Not a bad item other than that, but usually there are better items. The best thing about this item is the extra mana/CDR.

. Crit item. Troll item when we have . We get so much % armor pen from our R passive, /, already. We build a decent amount of health so the effect is pretty suboptimal.

. Just not a good item rn. Very few champs take it. It allows us to snowball harder around the map, but it falls off hard mid-late game. It isn't like we need more ults all the time.

. The cleave effect isn't that good on us. Our wave clear is fine and in teamfights it rarely does dmg to nearby enemies. This item is lifesteal and not omnivamp as of 13.1b so its kinda even worse now.

This item is also usually used on auto-attackers, which is not us. The champions that usually take this are splitpushers with low wave clear (due to vamp and cleave), junglers with terrible aoe to clear camps or single target champs. This item is also pretty expensive, and only gives us offensive stats (other than vamp), i'd rather get muramana/bork if i wanted full dmg

. We don't aa that much, we don't stack HP or health scaling. Not a terrible item but if you want a team fighting item with AD + HP, I'd rather go or .

. We aren't a tank or support. We don't even have that much CC. Maybe there is a 1/500 game for this, but frankly not worth it.

	Comet Spear(Q)	Shield Vault(W)	Aegis Assault(E)
START
Max

Indepth in Laning Section

Every Level

1st Max

Max first, it is our primary wave clear, damage, poke, etc.

2nd Max

W-Max

More reliable damage
Lower Abt-Haste is more likely to allow more rotations on W
Better peel/Engage
Better Snowball Potential(Keep on stunning/engage on them and preventing them from running away)

E-Max

A bit more damage
Greater survivability (if you can actually live that long until its up again)

If unsure, I am a strong advocate for W-max first. Actually after 13.5, go W max 2nd since E cd is increased at higher ranks. Will update format later.

3rd Max: Level the other ability or
Level whenever you can (Even if in middle of fight and you level up and want more combat pressure, it is probably better to still level this ability due to the extra 10% armor pen/rank)
More info on abilities in Abilities

Mortal Will

🔶	Every fifth ability/attack is empowered with a unique effect. Using ultimate fully stacks it after landing.
🔶	Getting more atk speed helps stack passive faster (for us the only viable options are Legend: Alacrity, Blade of the Ruined King and
🔶	Often when I want to stack up, I will tap Comet Spear at nothing to just get me to 4-5 stacks (although don't do this too much or else you run out of mana, also note that if you use Q to stack up, it will be on cd for a bit.)

⤷	Example of Prepping Passive with Q in Bush

Comet Spear

🔶

You can Q-Flash. What you do, is you q and then you immediately flash and the ability is cast from your new location. Makes it harder to react to compared to Flash-Q. You can do this for both tap and hold q (hold q: you can hold and release and then flash still). But be careful, good players will expect you to flash while holding the Q to finish them off as they can see your very long animation.

⤷	Q Flash demo

🔶	Our Q is said to have 600-range but it actually has 560-range in front and 40-range behind us. This makes it so it's easier to hit enemies to the side/behind us. Also, most ranged champs in mid have 550 or 525 AA- range, making it so our Q is still longer range, so if you get AAed, you can often just Q the enemy to retaliate.
🔶	Against tankier melees (aka. bruisers and tanks), you can often just play as a poke champion and spam Q's on them while they can't hit you back. This skill is used much more in top-lane.
🔶	This move basically does double the damage when used against enemies with less than 20% of their maximum health. So we usually use this as our finisher, this is why we don't need The Collector, as its effect is kind of redundant. When going for an all-in, you want to use Ignite somewhat earlier in the fight as we want to use the damage to put them under 20% of their HP so we can get the bonus damage. Note: Shields don't increase health. If the enemy obtains a shield while at 20% or less, it will block your damage, but we will still deal the bonus damage.

Charge Spear

🔶	Beware that it has a long cd when used like this and will weaken your damage a lot! It is a pretty niche move. Okay to poke in neutral before the team fight. But it can mess up your passive stacks. It depends on how important emp W is for this fight. Also if not at max stacks, it can be an okay way to stack to full (although it is obviously much slower than tap q at stacking).
🔶	You can often use charged Q to get an assist/contribute when you are too low or they are too far away.
🔶	Your charge Q is now a projectile (tap Q is not). This matters vs. Braum, Yasuo, and Samira mainly. Also remember that it does less damage when it pierces through enemies if it's a held Q.
🔶	Your Q is one of your best ways of proccing Bone Plating, Crown of the Shattered Queen, Malzahar passive, Mobility Boots spd bonus, Banshee's Veil, etc. In the laning phase, you might be able to do a melee Q to poke off bone plating, but after laning phase or if the enemy has good positioning, you often need to do a charged Q to proc it.
🔶	Good at stopping bases. Many people will try to take greedy bases forgetting about our charged Q, punish them!

In-depth

Shield Vault

🔶	This is your primary engage. Along with how you proc PTA/Conqs quickly.
🔶	Great for peeling assassins/divers off of our carries as this is undodgeable.
🔶	You are locked in animation when doing empowered triple AA.
🔶	You can cancel Mortal Will Shield Vault AAs by immediately moving pantheon after your press w (can also be done by buffering any other ability), but before he hits the enemy. This is so he doesn't need to be locked into the animation. In the next few seconds, when you AA you will still do the triple AA. A good strategy if you know someone will cc you after you land with emp W (eg. Ahri nearby looking to Charm you).

In-depth

Aegis Assault

🔶	You gain invulnerability towards all damage in one direction. Even if a projectile is hitting you from behind the shield, as long as your shield is facing toward the enemy, it will block it. (ie. Ahri return q, swain e, Draven r, etc.)
🔶	Aegis Assault's damage is almost all in his slam, so if you don't care about the shield (ie. assassinating someone), then just instant casting is better. You don't want to be holding it if the enemy is just focusing all of their energy on killing your ally and you are hiding behind a shield for no reason (as the damage from holding the shield is quite low. One advantage of holding the E while fighting someone (other than the block) is that the damage still goes off while moving. Typically AAs do more DPS than the damage from holding Aegis Assault, but while E is held, you can move around and run away or chase the enemy down without having to be stuck in animation to AA.
🔶	If you want to get to lane faster, you can use empowered e (and then cancel it), to get the minor speed boost. Don't use it if you need want to have Mortal Will stacked when coming to lane, or you think there is going to be a skirmish (also note that it costs a good amount of mana). Not having Mortal Will makes you a lot weaker as you cant stack Conqueror and Press the Attack very fast, as well as losing the triple AA damage.
🔶	Your opponent may get behind your shield, you can flash so your shield is facing toward them again.
🔶	You can use the shield to help you freeze waves. Do note, that your slam/hold does do damage to minions, so take that into account (ie. instead of using 3-4 minions to freeze, use maybe 6-7).

In-depth

Grand Starfall

🔶	The range on Grand Starfall is insane, and it's at its maxed range rank LVL-1 unlike most other semi-global mobility ults Weaver's Wall and Paranoia (whereas theirs gets longer at LVL 11/16).
🔶	When roaming in the laning phase, the enemy mid barely has time to ping, and enemy top/bot wards are useless. Ideally, you want the enemy mid-laner not to know where you are, but it isn't too big of a problem if they do see you as our ult has such a long range that often enemy laner won't ping in time/won't ping enough/enemy bot/top won't respect the pings.
🔶	Make sure to account for the long cast time on Grand Starfall and don't be afraid to overestimate the distance and use it further behind them than you expect. It is perfectly fine if they don't get hit by this ability, we are using this to pincer most of the time rather than for damage or the slow.

⤷	Ganking Bot with Ult (This execution was pretty sloppy, using [Aegis Assault] after Samira's R would've probably been better)

🔶	Always try to ult out of vision (with Oracle Lens if you suspect you are on vision or Umbral Glaive, but most times it is just going behind a wall or in a bush.

⤷	Leaving Vision to engage Only the first 10-15 seconds. If I ulted at my tower, the Zeri is going to dip and it'll be a wasted ult. This was a questionable move since I don't know if Zeri used her Spark Surge yet. But we'll just pretend she did...

🔶

You can use on the enemy when they are under your tower to clear wave and them under your tower. They take turret aggro because the minions were cleared by our R. (note. if you want to clear the wave fully, make sure the cannon is at half or below hp so you kill it when landing). You can also use this as a to lane, although it usually has better uses.

⤷	Examples Got lucky she decided to use her ult when she did Not quite what I meant, better to have them under your tower but vex used her passive, so it was free kill. Also, don't hold E for as long as I did there. That was me not button-mashing enough.

🔶

You can use it to run away (as long as you don't get cc'ed or die during the startup). Great when you are getting ganked/collapsed on and can't escape. Good to use when the enemy is locked into an animation/they have burned their CC. Even if you die while trying to use it to escape, the cd of it turns to 30s when it is cancelled. So if you know you can't escape and think the possibility of escaping with ult is low, you can still use it as even if u get cancelled/die, it resets to 30s. In the mid-late game, it will come off cd when u revive anyways.

⤷

Example1: Ulting away from Kayn R

🔶	Countering Tower Dives: If an ally is about to be dived under the tower, ping your ult and spam ping on my way ping (ofc only do that if u are going to do it and in range). Champions like Galio and Shen do this a lot.

⤷	Example of baiting the enemy tower dive

🔶

In team fights, can engage with into a middle of a 5-man as long as he gets his in the right direction. I typically use w right after landing on a priority enemy on the side so I can immediately use E after facing the whole enemy team while also dodging the mistimed abilities of my landing. You can also just E immediately after landing. Allowing him to transform into a tank and tank opponent's most important CDs. You often end up dying, but not before putting the opposing team into chaos and having them burn a lot of important abilities on you, great for when you are behind and aren't that useful in fights anyways (Note. This ability will be less effective in higher ELOs because people know not to waste their CDs, etc.). It also does surprisingly high damage despite the shockwave scaling entirely with AP. It's pretty good at allowing us to get assists since we aren't really heavy AOE.

⤷	Ulting in late-game to get three kills kinda

Indepth

doesn't have many complicated combos. I'm hesitant to even write combos because pantheon's combos are very free form to suit your needs.

Note, I only wrote combos that start when you have 4/5 Stacks. But, often times in fights you don't have the luxury of having maxed passive stacks, you typically want to plan out what you want empowered and how you get there (either using other abilities or by using AAs)

5-Stacks
(Optimal for Press the Attack)

Quick Lane-Trading

➞

This is great for a short trade (mainly used in lane). The enemy often can't even counter-attack, allowing us to get a free trade off. You don't need to use E sometimes if you don't need it (or save it for when they are able to use their abilities). Can transition into an extended combo

Extended Combo (Emp-Q Finisher)

➞

Hold E AND/OR AAs until cd for is up

➞

This is generally the best long trade, used for all-ins and when you want to get the kill. The E hold allows you to tank almost all of their damage before you end it and kill them with a Q. The higher level of your Q, the shorter time you have to wait for your 2nd Q. After level 9, you can typically have no downtime after holding your E the whole time and using your 2nd Q.

More Examples of this combo here(click on the Pantheon trade/all-ins spoiler)

Extended Combo (Emp-E Chase)

➞

This is if you need the movement speed from ending Emp E to chase down to finish them off with Q.

Combo is slightly different in the clip. Here i shouldn't have used charged Q since i have the movement speed boost to get into range. As you can see she didnt need an emp Q since shoot took 2 tower shots.

4-Stacks

Burst Trade

(Optimal for )

➞

OR

Not as good as 5-stack combos as you only getting 1 stack from your W (whereas emp W gives 4-stacks). This combo is meant for instead of . But, has increased damage to low HP opponents. Also, Q does hit multiple enemies unlike the AAs from Emp-E. In addition, empowered 's AAs locks you in place allowing enemies to get free hits on you.

0-3 Stacks
(Not Optimal)

Trying to Get Emp-Q

3-Stacks:

➞

OR

➞

nothing here yet. WIP.

2-Stacks:

➞

1-Stack:

➞

Not optimal, only done when you can't get more stacks. The combos are quite flexible, you can swap the E with an AA(s), or the AA(s) with an E. Its basically just trying to get to 5-stacks to go a emp-Q.

Invading

When invading I recommend you don't level up any ability. Why?
_{_{(this is for those who level abilities with hotkeys and not clicking, otherwise just start W or learn to use hotkeys)}}

🔶	If no fight happens, you don't need to start with Shield Vault in the lane. Against melees, it's usually not great, but against ranged it's almost completely useless and makes us not be able to farm at all.
🔶	If five enemies appear out of the bush and try to burst you, you have the option of levelling Aegis Assault to tank everything and then flees with your increased movement speed. You could, however, just Flash instead.

If enemies do show up, start Shield Vault and try to get an engage on an enemy (Try to target an enemy that wouldn't have a dash away (it's fine if they have a targeted enemy dash) so they would have to flash instead of levelling their dash and leaving)(But typically you just the first person in range) and have your team burst them or at least have them burn a Flash.

You want to be leading (i.e. walking in front) because of your engage/guaranteed CC with and anti-burst .

Do not get pressured to engage as allies often try to pressure you into engaging, but don't get pressured if you don't think it's a good idea!

Time Warp Tonic Trick

Example1

Laning

General

🔶	Don't use the charged form often, especially when piercing through minions (unless u are using it to cs and hitting him at the same time) as its cd is a lot longer and we lose a lot of pressure until it is up.
🔶	Be careful when you use your abilities (on the wave or enemy), especially if you end up using your passive stacks. We are an ability-reliant champion, using them gives enemies windows where they can trade onto you.

Vs. Melees

🔶

His gives him a really good poke against melees. Against assassins, we generally want to reach LVL 3 (sometimes 2), before we do our emp w-->q-->e away combo. Against some bruisers or people that can punish the trading pattern, continuously poking with Q is good before getting them low enough for the W engage kill.

Vs. Ranged

🔶	Use your Q to farm safely. Don't be afraid to give up a bit of CS if it means taking too much damage. When CS'ing, try to bait out abilities by walking towards them making the enemy think you are going to CS/hit the minion while instead you walk back and dodge their abilities. Punish enemies using their key cooldowns, if an Ahri uses her Charm, then she has no peel pre-6. Don't be afraid to play aggressively.
🔶	One strategy that often works well is conditioning enemies. What I mean is, I'll play pretty defensively and let myself get bullied by the enemy (not on purpose but because I can't do much anyways), and they will often overstep and allow themselves to get into a vulnerable position, allowing for us to Shield Vault onto the enemy. If they play super aggro, they can end up taking minion aggro, especially if you add in a Q hit or something. Then we even have kill potential early on (usually done by flashing in after an ability has been used). They also might get themselves ganked by our jungler for overextending.
🔶	You can look for solo kills around LVL 6–9, when our Q CD starts getting lower, allowing us to run them down the lane and finish them off with a Q (although you can definitely get solo kills earlier, I'm just talking about killing someone from 80–100% HP). But another route is playing for our ultimate; when it is off CD, try to look for a roam top or bot with it.
🔶	One thing we like is getting early ganks. Early on, we don't often have enough DMG to burst/all in them. Shield Vault is a really good setup tool for junglers, especially those who need/want to hit a key skillshot (ie. Elise, Taliyah etc.). So make sure to communicate with your jungler. You usually start the gank with a Flash--> W combo.

Wave Management

🔶	Freezing/Keeping wave on your side. This is the main wave state that I like to have on Pantheon. We can zone enemies from CS'ing (unless they have very long-ranged abilities). We can't get chased down by DPS-champs either (ie. Irelia, Cassiopeia). While allowing us to instead chase enemies down, often allowing us to get a 2nd Q up after our initial combo (As we often can't kill in one combo) (Remember: Q does more damage when they are under 20% hp, so good at killing).
🔶	Fast Pushing- We aren't the fastest at clearing a wave. Typically we just use our Q. One thing to note is that our Q has a small hitbox to the side of us. So, when the waves are crashing in the middle, you can often drag them and use your Q to hit the majority of the front and backline. You can use your E to clear minions (don't hold it, just fast release), but only do that if you know for certain that you aren't going to need it later as it has a long CD. Also, it has quite a high mana cost, so it is usually only used to base faster. Depending on what you want to do next, prepare your passive stacks accordingly (i.e., if you are going to base or roam with your ultimate, you don't need stacks, whereas if you are going to roam without your ultimate, then try to have 4-5 stacks ready).
🔶	Slow Pushing - Great to survive ganks. If we are fed or the enemy laner is decently chunked, we can often 1v2 securing a double kill, or sometimes just a 1-for-1. Warning: Please do not have the wave stall in front of the enemy tower (ie., freeze position), as this makes pantheon vulnerable to ganks and makes it difficult to wave clear (as some of their minions are under the tower and we will get aggro if we try to clear, and our q often cannot kill them). And when we do try to wave clear it, enemies get to have free trades onto us as we can't engage because they’re under the tower (or even possible jungle gank)

LVL 1

🔶	His LVL 1 is decent, but not that good at all-ins, he doesn't have enough DPS to beat things like Lethal Tempo Irelia, Yone, Yasuo, etc. Try to just farm and poke with Qs, be careful after you use your Q, strong LVL 1 champs could try to trade even in your wave.
🔶	Against weak Lvl-1 champs (ie. Katarina, Qiyana, etc.) or champs that may try to all-in or get a long trade by jumping on you (ie., Irelia, use it defensively when they jump on you), you can instead start with W.
🔶	Mid-lane mages are accustomed to AA'ing melees to gain an early advantage. If they do this, it isn't too bad, as we can just use Comet Spear to trade back. Adding in the minion aggro dmg they take, we generally end up winning the trade.

LVL 2

🔶

Level 2 allows him to potentially engage. Against melees, you try to hit minions so you get a level-2 advantage first so you can instantly use empowered into . If you are both LVL 2, then trading is mediocre, it is okay, but not our strongest (although it depends on the mu). Against ranged, you may be able to do it, but without , they can just hit you when you are walking away. Also, against ranged, you're unlikely to have to push on the wave because they'll bully you off the wave. Try not to take too much damage cs'ing vs. ranged, it's fine to give up some creeps.

⤷	Power of Lvl 2 vs Lvl 1 The opponent wasn't a very good player here, but you get the idea.

LVL 3-5

🔶	LVL 3-5, he has all his abilities and is very strong now. Starting a trade with Mortal Will Shield Vault into Comet Spear and Aegis Assault if he needs it allows him to win 95%+ of the trades.
🔶	However, if you're afraid to jump in (for example, against some top laners), you can just keep poking them with our Q.

Considerations

🔶	Don't use Aegis Assault if you don't need it or if they can easily cross you up. Champions like Irelia can Bladesurge through you and hit you while you're running, avoiding your Aegis Assault.
🔶	When trading, remember that E costs 80 mana. This is almost the cost of 3 Qs! If you don't need it (i.e., they used all their CDs, they are a passive player etc.), then don't use it, or else you'll run out of mana way too fast.
🔶	Since you are a melee, if you engage onto a ranged champion, they can run you down the lane if you don't kill them.
🔶	Be careful of Bone Plating, it negates a lot of damage. Try to poke it off with Comet Spear.

Basic Pantheon Trade/All-in

Basic Pantheon Flash W kill

LVL 6+

🔶	LVL 6+, now 1v1s are a bit more dangerous depending on who you are facing as the only combat buff you got from Grand Starfall is the 10% armour penetration. One trick you can do is go out of vision and engage with Grand Starfall if you need the engage.
🔶	His ideal situation right now is that he dominated his opponent early, and now is always looking to extend his lead to the rest of the map. If you dominated the opponent early, you get free push then Grand Starfall towards top/bot. More about in ability section

Running to lane to get LVL 6 before joining fight

Warding/Jungle Tracking

This is a very complex topic that, I'm not an expert at. This is a general mid-guide rather than a pantheon-specific guide. so feel free to skip this section if you wish.

Stealth ward Locations

What each Dot Means

Control Ward Locations

What each Dot Means

General

🔶

Placing wards cannot be done whenever you want. If you leave the lane at a random time to place wards, you will lose CS/XP. The ideal time to do it is when you have crashed a wave into the enemy turret. You can then rotate to provide a deep ward without losing anything (except pressuring opp). This isn't a hard rule though as dying to a gank is generally worse than losing a bit of CS/XP due to warding.

🔶	If you do not have the chance to push in the wave, you can just do a quick ward on the Yellow dots.

🔶

Placing wards towards the winning side (Top/bot). Allows you to hover on that side to pressure/provide more safety. Also makes it harder for the enemy to clear it (ie. they risk getting collapsed on)

🔶

Think of your jungler as a moving ward. (ie. If your jungler is in the river taking scuttle, the chances you get ganked from that side and don't see it is quite slim (but not impossible!)). Also makes it so your jungler can counter-gank faster as well.

🔶

Place the ward on the side with your jungler and opposite to theirs and hug that side. If they come from the other side u go to your jungler, if they come from the warded side, u will see it.

1st Ward

🔶	Enemy raptors (Red Dot in 1st picture above) - Can be placed before mid-wave meets or after crashing the 1st/2nd wave. If you feel like you are going to get pressured and pushed in (ie. you are a scaling champ vs. something like Lucian, etc.) then placing it on raptors before 1st wave is usually the way as you won't get any priority to place wards.
🔶	Putting ward in pixel brush of opposite side of where your jungler starts(Blue Dots in the river in 1st picture above) (ie your jungler starts bot, and u place it top to catch invades from the enemy jungler). Do against strong early game champs or if they warded and know your junglers location. Less important in lower ELOs.

Wards for 1st Scuttle

🔶	If your mid-jungle is weak early (LVL 3-4), just ward opposite jngl start to ensure they get crab
🔶	If your mid-jungle is strong early (LVL 3-4), you can ward the side your jngl starts to get both crabs

Jungle-Tracking

🔶	Look at whether top/bot comes to lane late. Usually, this means they leashed (in higher ELOs it isn't strange to go leashless because of this, or the laner doesn’t leash because they don't want to give up pressure). Sometimes they have the other side that didn't leash show up to lane slower so the enemy can't tell either).
🔶	Try to keep a general track of which side of their jungle is spawning. You can tell if they started bot and did a full clear into a gank by looking at the CS numbers: 24 CS is a full clear; each camp is 4 CS (yes, even krugs and raptors). Most likely, what will happen is that they will go back to the side they started on again because those camps are respawning.
🔶	Because mid laners hover on the side of their jungler, you can sometimes tell which side the jungler is on by their hovering (note: this is highly unreliable because many people do not follow this rule or they are baiting you to hover to the side of their jungler for easy ganks as most people prefer to be on the opposite side to the enemy laner).
🔶	If all else remains constant, there is a higher chance the enemy jungler is on the side of the objective (i.e., the drag is up but the rift isn't).
🔶	If your allies are playing extremely aggressively (i.e., hitting T1 tower while at 20% or diving/in between T1 and T2 towers) and the jungler isn't ganking them. Most likely, they are on the other side. Even if they are on the side of the aggressive teammates, playing aggressively yourself right now is fine because if the jungler ganks you, they can't gank the overly aggressive bot or top laner. Vice Versa.
🔶	You can press on the enemy, and you can see the durations of the blue and red buffs on them. It helps you track when they did the camp, if they stole your side's buff, etc.

Getting Tower Dove

🔶	With your Shield Vault stun and your damage negation from Aegis Assault, tower diving you is a risky move.
🔶	If you want to prevent them from even attempting (either because you think/know you will lose in the trade/not confident), then try to clear the wave either before it crashes or right as its crashing. Although be careful as if you end up using your passive stacks/Q and don't instantly clear the wave/enemy still dives, then you have used some very important cooldowns.
🔶	Allow them to aggro the tower first, then use Shield Vault to damage, proc PTA, and stun them. Then you Comet Spear them (remember, it deals more damage if they have less than 20% HP). Then after they come out of the stun, you use Aegis Assault. Ignite if you need. This is just a very general sequence.
🔶	If you are low enough health, you will instantly die. Either just back off and cut your losses and reset, or try to one-shot them before they can hit you.
🔶	You should ideally wait for their dashes to be down before you Aegis Assault. (Not all dashes, just the ones that can get behind you easily, such as Bladesurge and Phase Dive. Things like Talon Q are fine.) You can Flash behind them to reposition your shield if they get behind you.

⤷	Examples Pre-patch 12.7 vids so moving backwards with E made me move super slow.

Tower Diving

🔶	It is usually recommended to just walk close to them before getting aggressive, as this saves your mobility and makes it harder to miss their abilities. But with Pantheon, W is point-and-click and ccs into a free Q; starting with emp W is the most damage because of PTA/Conq. Also, we have lots of burst damage, so we often don't need to chase.
🔶	Before diving, try to think of your spell rotation and which ability you want to empower, as well as what the enemy will do to defend (ie. Flash, Exhaust, Barrier, CC, movement abts, etc.). Also consider where the enemy jungler is, since we are mid, the opposing jungler can often gank us.
🔶	Even if you trade 1-for-1 when you have a wave crashing, it is usually worth it as they miss out on a lot of CS/XP.

Remember

🔶	Aegis Assault doesn't block tower shots!
🔶	Your Q does bonus damage when they are under 20% hp
🔶	There is a hotkey to make it so you can't AA non-champions. AA'ing the tower/minion instead of the opponent feels pretty awful
🔶	toggle in settings pic

Escaping Ganks

Turning

🔶

Pantheon has insane burst early, so if the enemy mid/jungler is under 60–70%, it isn't strange to be able to one-shot them before the other can even react (this is assuming that the other can't CC you and negate your combo). The jungler is often lower level, so it will be especially easier to kill them. Usually, the enemy mid walks forward allowing you to them (as they usually will stay out of range), but burning to finish one is also an option.

⤷

Examples

🔶	Do note minions early on pack quite a punch.

⤷	power of minions early

Running

🔶

If the enemy comes from behind you (i.e., you are pushed up and they loop behind you). You can them to travel closer to the tower as well as CC'ing them. Do note, when you have stacked, your will be locked into a longer animation but will do more damage. But if you don't care about the damage (i.e., your jungler isn't close and you don't see the possibility of 1v2ing), then you should cancel your empowered AAs by immediately clicking off their champion after ing them (do it while you are travelling mid-air). This makes it so you don't do the AAs (but the next time you AA in the next few seconds, you do the triple auto), saving you more time. After using , you can path towards your tower and use towards the enemies now, as they both should be in the same direction.

🔶

Your empowered gives 60% movement speed for 1.5 seconds after you end it. You can use and immediately recast to get the movement speed, but be careful, as if they do catch up to you, you have used one of your most important defensive tools. Only use this when you use the movement speed to prevent them from getting on top of you, if you think they can get on top of you, don't use this for the movement speed (you can use this to block and get the movement speed after).

Stalling for Teammates

🔶	Sometimes you just can't run away, or if you know you and your jungler will win the 2v2, you can stall them with Shield Vault and Aegis Assault. Often, you can 1v2 if enemies aren't at full HP.

⤷	Getting ganked and teammates countergank

Skirmishing

🔶	We are quite good at skirmishing, and it is something we want to partake in. We'd like to try to get a priority target with Shield Vault and then have you and your team burst them down to gain a numbers advantage.
🔶	We often take Triumph or Presence of Mind, so if you need HP or Mana, try to get a takedown.
🔶	Press the Attack, when procced, increases damage to that target, even from allies. Because of this, we often start with Mortal Will Shield Vault
🔶	Note: Don't hold Aegis Assault against enemies when they aren't targetting you/you aren't getting hit, all it does is allow enemies to kill your allies instead. You do more damage with AAs than holding the shield, (+ you get more Mortal Will stacks with AA'ing).

⤷	Target Priority/Low health opponents first

Roaming

🔶

Most of the roaming is done by . See more in ability section

🔶

Some other key points to take note of:
- Our W is both the cc lock engage/followup, as well as our mobility and our PTA proc. Many times you will just use it right away when you get into range to proc PTA and set up CC for allies to follow up with. However, you do end up in a situation with no mobility if they flash/avoid the W (even if they dash/flash, they will still get stunned despite moving away). Often, if you get to loop behind them, holding your W can be good too.

Split-pushing/Getting Picks/1v1s

🔶	With our semi-global ultimate, Grand Starfall, it naturally makes split pushing an appealing option. Whenever a fight breaks out mid or at an objective, you can use Grand Starfall with barely any delay.
🔶	Do note, our 1v1 in the mid-game can be a bit weaker compared to many bruisers so you might want to instead just draw pressure to the lane before ulting towards mid to fight a 5v4.
🔶	Our late game (once you get a few items) 1v1 isn't too bad depending on the opponent, you still have to play the fight quite smart, but he starts being able to 1v1 a bit better.

Hovering Carries

You can hover in two ways.

①

Close by. Eg. if your team has a fed ADC, and the enemy has a good chance of jumping on them, you can hide out of vision (behind a wall or in a bush) and then instantly punish them if they go for your teammate. Beware of the possibility of the enemy having more opponents there than you can see. Make sure to Scan/pink ward your location.

⤷

Examples

②	Close enough to instantly ult while farming/splitting/warding etc. - Better when you don't want to waste time and you know your teammate(s) won't die instantly before you ult.

Teamfighting

🔶	Not our best aspect, but a necessary one. We want fights to be scrappy, disorganized and separated instead of a 5v5 facedown in mid. We want to ideally try to split up enemies by pressuring the side lane and using our ult onto/behind them to start and engage and fight with a numbers advantage(or have someone else engage first, which can be communicated by using on my way pings along with pinging your ult).
🔶	Before a team fight, we want to identify our role. If there is a fed Master Yi or Samira etc., consider not using our Shield Vault until they show up. If they have a fed Kog'Maw or another ADC, consider using ult on top of them for the extra engage range or you can even use flash to close the gap. If you are one of your team's only frontline, consider just using Shield Vault to peel and Aegis Assault to tank + shred their armour with Black Cleaver.
🔶	Due to the increased CD on Q, I rarely, if ever, utilize charged Comet Spear in a team fight. I only use it to finish a long-distance target.
🔶	You can also engage with Grand Starfall in the middle of a 5-man as long as he gets his Aegis Assault in the right direction. I typically use w right after landing on a priority enemy on the side so I can immediately use E after facing the whole enemy team while also dodging the mistimed abilities of my landing. You can also just E immediately after landing (Do note if you do this, it will proc Eclipse's Shield while you are behind the shield, potentially allowing for you to waste it). This allows him to tank the opponent's important CDs. You often end up dying, but not before putting the opposing team into chaos, dealing decent AOE damage and having them burn a lot of important abilities on you, great for when you are behind and aren't that useful in fights anyways (Note. This ability will be less effective in higher ELOs because people know not to waste their CDs and time abts better after we land etc.). It also does surprisingly high damage despite the shockwave scaling entirely with AP. It's pretty good at allowing us to get assists since our abilties aren't the biggest aoe effects.

⤷	Ulting in late-game to get three kills kinda

⤷	Start fight with Ult Yes, you do need to ping that many times. I've gotten into the habit of spam pinging and even doing it when my whole team is dead...

⤷	Example1 This is a very weird fight since my team was on the other side and I should've waited a tiny bit longer for seraphine ult to be up faster and Lillia to be closer.

Assassinations

🔶	Despite not being the best assassin, in some games, we need to kill a priority back-line target.
🔶	The main tools for this are either trying to hit the spear slow from our ult onto the enemy or landing behind the enemy (thus pincering them, usually more reliable as our ult is a long animation).
🔶	Other ways to get on top of enemies include Flash Shield Vault, Mortal Will Aegis Assault (for the movement speed) --> Shield Vault, Youmuu's Ghostblade --> Shield Vault. Or some combination of them.

⤷	Flash W Tristana was super fed this game, if we killed her, it was a won fight.

🔶	Another way is by doing bush cheese or having someone else set up the pick.

Why we aren't the best assassin

This is not saying you cant learn higher lvl/tiers of stuff earlier on, but that you should start working on those compenents if you haven't already and so that you don't need to stress too much at the beginning, especially since my guide is quite long.

Beginner (0-10 games)

🔶	Basic Combos
🔶	Trading patterns in lane
🔶	Roaming with ult
🔶	Macro mid-late game - Side laning, when to ult,

Intermidate (10-30games ~)

🔶	Ult placement - whether u want to pincer, hit whole enemy team for damage, slow with the spear compenent.
🔶	Itemization - has flexible Itemization that you should change depending on the game.
🔶	Your role in the game - assassin, peel, splitpush, carry, etc.
🔶	How you want to play waves - (ie. wave position)
🔶	Who is your win-con - Whether to play for the lane or for top/bot. Whether to pressure and get enemy mid behind/you ahead, or roaming top/bot to help and get them fed

Experienced (30 + games)

🔶	Advanced MU plans - Wave management, key powerspikes, etc.
🔶	Mortal Will Management - Conciously thinking which abt you want empowered (not just your first ability use, but the ones after too)
🔶	Running away with ult - if you arent cced/die, you can ult away.
🔶	holding W for priority targets
🔶	Considering fog of war and enemies out of vision your target that you want to ult
🔶	When to cancel the triple AA from W and when to do it
🔶	Knowing your limits, how much burst you do, who you can 1v1 and at what items (ie. can 1v1 champion X after 3 items or can 1v1 champion Y before they get Z item)
🔶	Optimal E usage

🔶	holding it until they use all their mobility.
🔶	holding it till you get into a better position (against a wall/when all enemies are on one side of you)
🔶	knowing when to hold or let go of E -
🔶	Flashing to reposition E 🔶 Even predicting their flash, as if you react to it and then flash, it might be too late.

This section is for making your MU pool. Pantheon is mainly a counter pick, so some ideas for other champions in your pool. That doesn't mean you can't OTP Pantheon! Especially in lower ELOs.

These champions are recommendations based on if you are Two-tricking and that champion. Not to worry if you play more though! It just means your champions can maybe cover the weaknesses mentioned.

4/5

Ekko
Pros
- An Ap champ allowing for both AD/AP in pool.
- Great against those ranged mu's that sucks at (ie. , , , etc.)
- Good blindpick
Cons
- His good MUs still require lots of skill and he plays a bit different than most other assassins
- Can't one shot until 2-3 items unless fed.

4/5

Kassadin
THE hyper-scaler of mid-lane. It may be jarring going from 's oppressive early game to 's terrible early game.
Pros
- Hyperscaler
- AP
- Can just win vs mages by out scaling and chilling under the tower
Cons
- Terrible Laning
- Some games may be lost before you can do anything
- Terrible Blind pick
- Hard counters some champions, so oftentimes they just ban

3-4/5

Akshan
Pros
- Similar style to , oppressive laning, good roams that wards don't really work against. Early game focus but still useful late game.

Cons
- AD champ
- Relatively harder champion to pick up and master.

3-4/5

Xerath
Pros
- AP champ
- Hyperscaler
- If you can't beat them, then join them. His bad mus tend to be assassins and we counter that.
- He wins the majority of the mu's against other long-ranged champions. His scaling and range is insane

Cons
- Very different Playstyle
- Neither is a good blind pick

4-5/5

Fizz
- Similar game plan to Pantheon. While dominates lane like Pantheon, he destroys mages instead of assassins. Using his allows him to dodge cc, as well as having two dashes and lots of damage.
Pros
- Ap champ
- Counters long-ranged mages really well.
- Similar early game power
Cons
- If you get counter picked (ie. tanky opponent that has good wave push) or camped by jungle, it can make your life miserable as he has no way to CS from ranged.
- Both champs are forced to make plays early (And sometimes your team just doesn't want to do anything early game (ie. top, etc.). But sometimes you might be what they need to carry them through the early game so they can scale into late.

Play for improvement instead of rank

If you are good at the game, you will naturally climb. But what about if I get +10LP/win and -15LP/loss? Well you can chose to start a new account, but what i recommend is just get better. Like if you are Faker level, there is no way you aren't going to climb. Sure you could be a Platinum player but have terrible MMR and get stuck in gold, but then you acknowledge this (don't blind yourself into thinking you are a higher rank than you actually are though!), and try to improve even more (to maybe low diamond level) and you'll naturally climb to your rank.

Stop ****ting on Riot

People like to joke about Riot and their bugs and being a small "indie company", but all this will do is make you frustrated and maybe complain about things that you shouldn't be and/or pushing your mistake onto Riot.

You don't know enough about running a big gaming company - Lots of people complain and say they can do ____ better than Riot. But you have to consider that they are 1- a business, 2- have hired a **** ton of employees, many of which who play the games, 3- You don't know everything that is going behind the scenes, may they don't want to do a certain thing bc 3rd party influence or maybe bc of a new event or bc of a new champion

Lots of small details that you aren't aware of (ie. Complaining about missing a skillshot when you don't know the concepts of how hitboxes are at people's feet and that different terrain has different elevations etc.)

Complaining won't do anything. Unless League was suddenly sold to someone else or someone rewrote the whole code, won't can't really do much about things like bugs in the client, bugs in game etc. Complaining just makes you more angry and annoyed.

Another way to think positively is comparing to some other companies.
you'll instantly think that they are so much worse than __insert big gaming company here ___, but they offer a lot of free skins, very frequent updates, gamer feedback, rich competitive scene, not too hard on computer specs. The game also has basically no hackers/scripters.

Games I used to play that had big problems

If someone runs it down, just think of it as playing hard mode

Like if you are playing Elden Ring, you don't expect to beat it until after many deaths. Just think of it as someone adjusting the difficulty to a higher setting.

If you made a mistake, then don't complain too much

Focus on improving that mistake and you'll have a better chance of winning in that situation.

Don't yell at your teammates because you aren't in the perspective of their champ/role/situation

(eg. Your Full ap burst goes to hit raptors when dragon is spawn and you think she's trolling. Have you considered her rage bar? Full ap shyvana is pretty useless with ult, so its often worth to just ditch your teammates and do what seems like a "troll" move but isn't. If you are flaming at her, you are just doing it in ignorance.)

You don't know everything. Similar to above, but if u are like getting pushed in by a Vel'koz under tower every wave and are mad that jungler isn't ganking. But they are often getting value elsewhere, whether than is better than ganking mid then idk. But brodden your perspective.

Stop watching raging Streamers/Ytubers

You contribute to the toxicity by supporting content creators like Tyler1. People claim he's entertaining to watch, thus league players associate toxic rage with enjoyment and normalcy.

Some good mindset LOL gameplay channels are

Ultimately this is a game

If you are getting frustrated and raging every game, then maybe take a break. If this happens all the time, then consider if you still want to play league in general.

Some other resources related to mentality

Stop caring about winning
Stopping Self-sabotage
BEST MINDSET FOR SOLO QUEUE AND IMPROVEMENT

Thanks for reading, if you have any questions/anything to add, any corrections, etc. feel free to comment. If you have nothing to comment on, comment your favourite food and if pantheon would like it or not

Want to learn more?/Other Pantheon Resources

[13.24b] Pantheon Mid - The Versatile Anti-Carry (Make Assassins Cry)

[13.24b] Pantheon Mid - The Versatile Anti-Carry (Make Assassins Cry)

Recommended Items

Runes: Vs melee

Spells:

Flash

Ignite

Flash

Teleport

Exhaust

Flash

Flash

Ghost

Items

Ability Order Standard

Mortal Will (PASSIVE)

Comet Spear (Q)

Shield Vault (W)

Aegis Assault (E)

Grand Starfall (R)

Mortal Will (PASSIVE)

Comet Spear (Q)

Shield Vault (W)

Aegis Assault (E)

Grand Starfall (R)

Mortal Will (PASSIVE)

Comet Spear (Q)

Shield Vault (W)

Aegis Assault (E)

Grand Starfall (R)

Mortal Will (PASSIVE)

Comet Spear (Q)

Shield Vault (W)

Aegis Assault (E)

Grand Starfall (R)

Threats & Synergies

Anivia

Annie

Akali

Akshan

Ahri

Aurelion Sol

Azir

Cassiopeia

Diana

Corki

Ekko

Fiddlesticks

Gragas

Illaoi

Irelia

Kai'Sa

Kassadin

Karthus

Katarina

LeBlanc

Lillia

Lux

Malphite

Malzahar

Fizz

Heimerdinger

Neeko

Nunu & Willump

Nocturne

Orianna

Pyke

Samira

Sejuani

Swain

Sylas

Syndra

Talon

Teemo

Tristana

Tryndamere

Vex

Viktor

Veigar

Vel'Koz