Greetings, I'm Cupkek.

I'm an eclectic, casual League of Legends player on the NA server. I play pretty much all roles, but particularly enjoy Jungle.

With the update (4.20) to Summoner's Rift and the Jungle, a lot of jungle champions have fallen out of favor while others have rocketed up to the top. Pantheon had his place in the Jungle beforehand, however, now he's considered better than ever due to his faux-sustain in the harsh new jungle. Pantheon is easy to play, easy to master and absolutely brutal if underestimated. The big lug does incredibly well with the snowbally nature of Preseason 6's Summoner's Rift.

If you're looking for a powerful jungle bruiser-assassin who is easy to play, and can carry like a madman in solo-queue, then look no further Pantheon is your man!

Let me start this guide off with a quote:

"This isn't duelling pistols at dawn, this is WAR. You NEVER want to fight fair. You want to sneak up behind your enemy and club him over the head!" - Starbuck, Battlestar Galactica


That is how you want to view Pantheon.


Pantheon is an Attack Damage Caster, bruiser-assassin combo champion. He's eclectic in the fact that he can, and should, be played with 2 separate mentalities.

1st mentality - Who can I jump on and kill?

2nd mentality - How can I set up a play for my team?

Pantheon features a very easy and safe kit. 3 of his 4 active abilities are point-and-click, meaning there's very little mechanical skill involved in playing him. He has a hard crowd control ability that doubles as a gap closer and a semi-absorb. Your build and play focus should be that of an AD Caster. Lowering your cooldowns is your first priority so that you can deal damage and shred armor as quickly as possible.

Given his relatively easy basic abilities, his ultimate Grand Skyfall requires a bit more precision and timing. Within seconds it can spell death for your enemies or death for you depending on how and when you use it.

Patch 4.21 - Slight reduction to Pantheon's base attack speed, however his attack animation was sped up slightly. Additionally, Aegis Protection no longer eats Dragon attacks for you. No more level 2 dragons :/

Patch 5.1 - Stalker's Blade has been nerfed, it no longer slows the target but instead steals the affected unit's movement speed rendering it nearly useless. Jungle item has changed to Ranger's Trailblazer - Warrior.

Patch 5.10 - Changes to how Black Cleaver functions has made it even better on Pantheon than it was before. Buffs include:

- Its passive effect stacks up to 6 times, allowing the Pan Man to shred even more armor.
- An extra 20% CDR, allowing you to max out your CDR with this build by your 2nd item.
- Extra 200 HP added, allowing you to survive more.
- Added phage passive effect, allowing you to stick to your intended victim easier.

Patch 5.20-5.24 - Oh God, where to begin... Um... Well, AD marksman items have changed dramatically. Some of these items are incredibly useful for Pantheon. In addition, Juggernaut items have been introduced, giving the Pan Man a bit more survivability while not compromising much of his damage output.

Pros
- Passive gives him a sort of 'sustain'
- Piece of cake to learn
- 75% point-and-click abilities
- Passive "execute" on basic attacks and his Q
- Jump on people to stun them
- The Michael Phelps of turret diving

Cons
- Once his combo is blown, he can't do much til his cooldowns are back.
- Timing/aiming ultimate requires some practice.
- His scaling drops off quite a bit late game. Change playstyles.
- Can no longer solo dragon @ level 2, thanks Rito.
- When he goes all in, he goes ALL IN.

Marks - Greater Mark of Attack Damage x9
Pretty simple really, he's an AD caster. Avoid scaling AD as the peak of his power is early to mid game when he roflstomps the laners.


Seals - Greater Seal of Armor x9
While Pantheon is innately tanky due to Aegis Protection, he would still get bludgeoned to death by jungle creeps if he didn't have any extra armor. You must have these.


Glyphs - Greater Glyph of Scaling Magic Resist and Greater Glyph of Cooldown Reduction
Extra MR never hurts. You can use regular MR glyphs if you feel confident you can end the game early. The added 5% cooldown reduction helps Pantheon reach 40% in the early stages of the game. The shorter the cooldowns, the quicker you can output Pantheon's obscene damage.


Quintessences - Greater Quintessence of Attack Damage
Once again. AD. No active brain cells required.

Passive - Aegis Protection
Aegis Protection is the one thing keeping those nasty monsters and turrets from tearing you a new one. Every 4th basic attack or ability use will activate Aegis Protection, making you immune to the next champion (or monster) basic attack or turret shot. Excellent for turret diving!


Q - Spear Shot
Spear Shot is your bread and butter ranged attack. Featuring direct targeting, low mana costs, low cooldown and moderate damage, it's advised that you use this ability off cooldown when fighting enemy champions or jungle monsters.


W - Aegis of Zeonia
Aegis of Zeonia is a direct target ability that causes Pantheon to spring at his target with a mighty "HWOAH" exclamation and bop them on the head with his shield. This will cause minor magic damage and stun the target. Additionally, Aegis of Zeonia will immediately activate Aegis Protection.


E - Heartseeker Strike
Heartseeker Strike is a two-part ability.

Part one is its passive. Basic attacks and Spear Shots against targets with 15% HP or less remaining will ALWAYS critically strike. It's pretty much a soft execute. Best combined with Spear Shot for maximum damage and range.

Part two is the active. Pantheon begins a .75 second channel and strikes all targets 3 times in a 700 coned area in front of him. Damage dealt to champions is doubled. This ability is great for checking brush. However, it is mana costly and doesn't deal that much damage to monsters or minions, so best not to use it against neutrals or creeps, for the sake of mana expenditure.


R - Grand Skyfall
Grand Skyfall is a tricky one. Pantheon channels for 2 seconds. If uninterrupted during this time, he will launch himself into the stratosphere and come crashing down upon a selected area within 5000 units after 1.5 seconds, dealing heavy magic damage and slowing all targets within the area. The closer to Pantheon's 'Ground Zero' that an enemy is, the more damage and slow they receive.

This is the ability that makes Pantheon so hilariously fun. There is nothing quite as satisfying as killing an enemy champion simply by falling on them. Its range is massive, allowing you to jump almost from one lane to another in mere seconds which can allow you to split push effectively. However, it takes some practice to land it at the right time for a gank.

Use Grand Skyfall to:
- Get back to lane
- Contest/steal Dragon or Baron
- Nuclear strike an enemy champion
- Escape an unfavorable fight
- BM the enemy

Ultimately, making use of an effective Grand Skyfall is more about coordinating with your laner so you know when and where to drop in. Often times, it's best to jump in behind your target, rather than on top of them, so as to cut them off from any potential escape routes.



---Stat Ratios---

Spear Shot +140% AD
Aegis of Zeonia +100% AP
Heartseeker Strike +60% AD per strike (180% AD total)
Grand Skyfall +100% AP

PS, if you get a chance to play Pantheon in One-For-All mode and go AP, coordinate your ultimate with your teammates so you can effectively napalm an entire lane and its unfortunate inhabitants.

Pantheon excels as a safe and aggressive jungler. If played correctly, he takes relatively little damage from the neutral camps. This makes him a hard target for roaming assassin junglers such as the infamous Lee Sin or Kha'Zix.

Going after a Pantheon in his own jungle is akin to committing suicide.

That said, people will still do it, particularly Lee Sin players.

Pantheon goes well against slow or squishy early junglers such as Amumu, Shaco, Sejuani and Evelynn and can absolutely bully them early game so long as he isn't caught.

Pantheon should stay away from mobile targets such as Lee Sin, Rek'Sai and Kha'Zix due to their get-in-get-out nature. This trait makes them very hard to catch should they attempt to escape. You will most likely kill yourself in the process of trying to catch them.

If you feel confident in your abilities with Pantheon, go hunt down the enemy jungle. If you catch them off guard, you can flat out kill them or at least get them to burn their flash.

Jungling as Pantheon

Pantheon is one of those junglers who can pretty much start off anywhere in the jungle and be able to get his camps cleared equally effectively.

That said, it's best to go with the following route:

Blue -> Wolves -> Gromp -> Gank or whatever

After thorough testing, I've come to find that starting at your buff camp tends to be the safest clear route currently. You come out of the jungle at level 3 ready to gank with the most health if you have started with a blue or red buff camp. Ask a laner to help leash it down to 1,000 HP (approx the same time as a Gromp leash). You should be able to take it from there with no problems.

Once you've got your buffs and your level 3, go ahead and gank a lane. Avoid lanes that have blink champions such as Katarina Ezreal Kassadin Zed as they will tend to just mess with you. Additionally, your Aegis of Zeonia stun only lands when you do, so if the animation begins and they blink away, they'll be stunned at the blink endpoint rather than before.

When ganking, try to put yourself between your target and the escape route they are most likely to take. It will force them to either burn a mobility spell or get stomped by your W+E+Q combo, often causing them to hesitate or make a mistake. Similarly, if you have your laner handy and your target is low enough, go ahead and turret dive them. Begin with Aegis of Zeonia for a quick turret shot block, then pummel your target with all you can to get another Aegis proc up.

If your target hasn't wet their pants by then, it's probably because they're dead.

Pantheon's big thing is his ability to lock down and just MURDER a target.

When built as a bruiser, he excels at *literally* jumping into team fights, scattering the enemy deathball, doing an AOE armor shred, all while singling out and beating up a squishy. Ultimately, he's a multi-tasking play maker.

Pantheon initiates well against pairs or single targets due to his natural defensive bulk and effective single target combo. However, in teamfights, your goal is to just wreck enemy armor, stun channelers and be generally obnoxious. Is the enemy Ahri trying to escape? Lock her down with Aegis of Zeonia so that your mid laner or ADC can pick up the kill.

Pantheon is very much an all-in champion. Once you commit, you're committed. Especially with Grand Skyfall. Be wise about when you initiate and pray to the powers that be that your teammates decided to follow up.

There are a few tricks to playing Pantheon to his fullest potential. Mastering these neat little quirks can greatly affect how the game plays out for you.

Tricks:

1. The "Noob combo"

Pantheon's signature move combo. Aegis of Zeonia > Heartseeker Strike > Spear Shot. This allows Pantheon to put out the most damage in the small window of time available to him when ganking a target. This combo's power escalates incredibly well once you have Black Cleaver as each tick of Heartseeker Strike procs the item's passive. Follow Heartseeker Strike up with Spear Shot for heavy damage and (hopefully) an execution.

2. Shield stalling

This trick manipulates the effects of Aegis Protection and Aegis of Zeonia to further improve your already silly amount of 'sustain' in the jungle or when diving a turret.

Your W, Aegis of Zeonia acts as a on-command duplicate of your passive when used. By timing it in tandem with the stacks of your passive, Aegis Protection, you can mitigate a lot more damage than if you didn't.

It's worth noting that while Aegis of Zeonia's effect is active, you will not gain stacks for Aegis Protection. It is best to use Aegis of Zeonia right after you've acquired your 3rd stack of Aegis proection, so that you completely block out the next 2 hits. This kind of pre-emptive thinking can mitigate a LOT of large monster damage and can block up to 3 turret shots should you choose to dive an enemy under their turret.


3. Kill Stealing

Pantheon is a kill stealer. His execution passive makes that abundantly clear. However, don't feel sorry for stealing a kill. Ever. Here's why:

You're a early/mid game powerhouse. Pantheon functions well during this time and can roflstomp a game with ease, making for a quick victories. Your main focus is to be such a nuisance that the enemy team will want to surrender.

Your Vayne ADC gets mad and has a blubbering temper tantrum when you steal her kill?

Tell her to shut up.


Pantheon is a champion for quick and decisive winners. Not for long-drawn out fisticuff matches.


4. BLAST OFF!

You can, in rare situations, use your ultimate to escape sticky situations. If you can go 2 seconds without being hard CC'd or killed, you can ult out and away from a bad fight. It's hilariously BM. However, if it saves your skin when death timers are long, who cares?

In order to do this, you need to bait out any hard CC that would prevent a channel. This means stuns, knockups, suppression, silences or displacement effects. Slows and roots will not break Pantheon's ultimate takeoff.

In short, Pantheon is a wonderful easy-to-play champion with a lot to offer aspiring or veteran junglers.

If you haven't tried Pantheon yet, I would encourage you to try him when he's on free rotation or flat out buy him. He has a strong early and mid game presence that can completely demoralize the enemy team. Very few weapons are as effective as that.


Thanks for reading my guide, please feel free to comment, rate, or criticize!