League of Legends - Pantheon Guide

Pantheon is a strong early-mid game champion with powerful nuking power. His skills are all physical based and thus apply armor penetration and attack damage, making these core stats for Pantheon to build. Pantheon packs a short duration and low cooldown stun as well as a long range ultimate that allows him to jump on top of his enemy.

This Pantheon guide aims to be a basic and simple introduction on basic strategy that should be adopted when playing Pantheon, it is recommended for people just starting to use Pantheon.

Abilities

• 
  Aegis Protection (Passive) This skill turns Pantheon into a dominating lane force as well making him a strong melee champion. You should always try and have your shield up especially during laning phase. It can also block tower hits, giving Pantheon some tower-diving capabilities.
• 
  Spear Shot A great harassment skill with a low mana cost and low cooldown. It also deals strong damage mid-late game. Combined with Pantheon's combo this skill is great to finish off fleeing enemies and also applies the passive guaranteed critical chance of Heartseeker Strike.
• 
  Aegis of Zeonia Allows Pantheon to close the gaps between him and his enemies, allowing him to land Heartseeker Strike, the stun also aids Pantheon in ganks. During the laning phase you can camp in the brush and use this to zone out your opponents.
• 
  Heartseeker Strike The passive helps Pantheon finish off low health enemies, while the active gives him great area of effect damage in team fights and considerable single target burst damage.
• 
  Grand Skyfall (Ultimate) Pantheon's ultimate is hard to hit and takes some getting used to. Its best used to tower dive enemies and save your towers but is also a great teamfight asset if you are able to land it.

Ability Order

The best way to level Pantheon's abilities is:
Ult > Spear Shot > Heartseeker Strike > Aegis of Zeonia

Spear Shot is leveled up first as it is a very powerful lane harassment tool and also allows you to last hit if you are being dominated in your lane. Grabbing an early point in Aegis of Zeonia is a must for the stun it provides, but is not maxed until last as the stun duration does not increase with levels. Because of this you want to max Heartseeker Strike second to increase its base damage.

Runes

Red (Marks) - Armor Penetration
Yellow (Seals) - Mana Regeneration Per Level
Blue (Glyphs) - Magic Resistance
Purple (Quintessences) - Armor Penetration // Health

This rune page focuses on giving Pantheon maximum armor penetration to apply to his abilities aiding his already strong early game damage. Mana regeneration seals are a must on Pantheon giving him mana to harass throughout the entire game. While magic resistance Glyphs increase his resilience to magic damage which is vital as a melee fighter. Alternatively you can run Health on Quintessences if you don't have armor penetration available to you.

Summoner Spells

 

Best Summoner Spells:
-Flash
-Ignite

Flash and Ignite are very powerful on Pantheon. Flash gives him a strong escape and initiation ability while Ignite boosts his strong burst damage and gives him the extra power he needs to secure kills.

Other Good Summoner Spells:
-Exhaust
-Cleanse

Pantheon can also run Exhaust to aid his strong 1v1 abilities and is particularly a good choice if nobody else on your team has Exhaust. Alternatively you can pick up Cleanse to help you get out of crowd control effects.

Masteries

As a melee based burst champion Pantheon requires strong defenses so a 0/21/9 setup is a solid choice.

The defensive tree offers you armor, magic resistance, dodge, reduced minion damage, reduced physical damage, improved starting health and reduced overall damage.

While the utility tree offers reduced death timers, improved experience and a small boost in mana regeneration.

Don't forget to place points in Cleanse and Exhaust if you take them as summoner spells.

Item Build

 
Final Item Build:
-Mercury's Treads
-Banshee's Veil
-Youmuu's Ghostblade
-Frozen Mallet
-Atma's Impaler
-Bloodthirster

Steps/Reasoning:
-Pantheon has two starting item options, you can start with a Doran's Blade, this gives you enough staying power through life steal and some extra damage, aswell as bonus starting health. Alternatively you can start with Boots of Speed & 3 Health Potions, giving you a strong movement speed advantage and some sustainability.
-First trip back you want to build towards Mercury's Treads and grab a Brutalizer giving you three key Pantheon stats: cooldown reduction, attack damage and armor penetration.
-From here you want to build towards your Frozen Mallet, giving you a strong slow and a nice health boost.
-Now you want to start looking at some defensive item choices, consider a Banshee's Veil to protect against magic damage and an Atma's Impaler to increase your armor while also boosting your damage output.
-When you are in need of more damage consider finishing your Youmuu's Ghostblade and building a Bloodthirster for a big boost in raw AD damage, while also giving you some life-steal.

Alternatives:
-Last Whisper (A must have on heavily armored teams).
-Randuin's Omen (Boosts your armor and gives you a strong active ability).
-Guardian Angel (Boosts both your resistances).

General Pantheon Tips

• Pantheon's basic combo is Aegis of Zeonia > Heartseeker Strike > Spear Shot, after your GhostBlade is finished the cooldown on SpearShot is low enough to often lead with it and finish with it.
• Heartseeker's passive effect makes you an incredible finisher, an auto-attack should always kill a champion under 15% health.
• Pantheon is fairly squishy for his role (thus the 21 points in defensive masteries) be sure to time carefully when you enter team fights.
• Your ultimate is best used to save towers and push towers as you can be sure enemies won't move.
• Try to predict an enemies movement for your ultimate, you will slowly get better as you play Pantheon more often.

Early Game (Level 1-6)

• Spear Shot should be used to harass and last hit, keeping you out of harms way.
• use Heartseeker Strike sparingly as it will quickly drain your mana.
• Use the brush to your advantage, Aegis of Zeonia will help you control the lane.
• Keep your passive up as much as possible, it is incredible at preventing harassment.

Mid Game (7-12)

• Your combo really starts to hurt now, combined with Ignite you should be looking to pick up some kills at this stage of the game.
• Pick on the enemies squishy characters as much as possible when they over commit in team fights, you can quickly destroy them.
• During this stage your ultimate is great to tower dive enemies.

Late Game (13-18)

• Your combo is starting to reach its full potential, you will start seeing an increase in the damage provided by Heartseeker Strike. It can also be used to farm and push lanes if necessary.
• Be careful about overcommitment when you unleash your combo, Heartseeker Strike leaves you vulnerable with minimal escaping options.
• Stay to the back of team fights, pick off their squish champions, or hit multiple enemies with Heartseeker Strike if the opportunity arises.
• If you can land your ultimate on a team fight it can be devastating. 

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