I think I've finally figured out what bugs me about Pantheon

SleepiestRobot·Nov 5, 2016·1 votes·858 views

To start off with an appropriate preface, I fucking LOVE playing Pantheon, dominating the laning phase wherever I decide to curse the enemy team, and using his situational kit to try and stay relevant late game to get the win if I've somehow let the game go on for longer than, say, thirty minutes. To me, his late game reflects what he is: A Spartan, a literal artisan of war that died out in our actual world because of how outdated he became.

However, this isn't to say that I don't feel like he's badly designed. His mechanics are kinda lame. Point-and-click to either throw an undodgeable spear or jump-stun the enemy? Not really my idea of how Spartans kick ass, but I love his HSS. I feel like Pantheon would be more fun to play if his damage output wasn't focused on chucking spears all day.

I want to propose some adjustments to how panth's kit works mechanics-wise. I'm also pretty sure some of these ideas, specifically the Q ideas, were proposed once upon a time by Riot. I also found the basis of my idea for the e change from Reddit. They go as follows

Resource - Mana bar I would consider switching it with an energy bar. Maybe give him 120 max energy , and make his costs 60 for the Q and 40 for the W and E. It would force Pantheon to play around limited resources, the way Spartans did. He either can chuck only two spears in a row, or go close-quarters and give up his range for the time it takes to recharge the twenty energy.

Q - Starstone Spear Either make it a skillshot or increase it's cooldown timer, possibly both. The e passive makes it an awesome execution tool, and I feel it should be used as the final nail in the coffin of an enemy you just outplayed, not your main source of cance--- I mean damage. If an energy mechanic wouldn't work on Pantheon, then i would increase the mana cost for it.

W - Aegis of Zeonia Make it a skillshot aoe ability that either slows or stuns based on where enemies are in the area. Also, it has to stun to charge his passive. If he slows an enemy, I'd make the slow amount 30-40%

E - Heartseeker strike I'd tweak this by giving him slowed movement speed, somewhere between 50-70%, instead of being rooted for the duration. It can still be effective if he only slows an enemy, but the enemy can counterplay it with an escape ability while also providing more interactivity for the Pantheon player.

R - Grand Skyfall Keep it the same. I personally like it just the way it is. It gives him more versatility objective-wise: Pantheon has to know when to use it and where. He can use it as a strong initiate tool, a semi-reliable tp substitute, or a method of contesting drag/baron.

So, what do you guys think? Is Pantheon fine as-is, or is some change necessary?

3 Comments

dakota saturnNov 5, 20162 votes

I just posted this exact thing here

His point and click binary statcheck nature, falling off late game, and feast or famine gameplay that they're trying to steer away from - he encompasses all of this.

But yea you'll prob get downvoted. Sry.

invisiblecat1Nov 5, 20161 votes

He relies on being strong early and if the laner plays safe you can't do ANYTHING later and having the highest base movespeed is really annoying for also having a stun gap closer

SleepiestRobotNov 6, 20161 votes

I don't guess you caught where I said I don't mind him falling off late game. That's part of his appeal to me. You have to pubstomp the enemy team incredibly hard to win games with him, and with no escape mechanic currently, it's easy to single out a Pantheon and abuse his late game weakness after hes had his fifteen (maybe twenty) minutes of fame. Every champion's strengths and weaknesses go hand-in-hand with the meta, and I'm not trying to break Pantheon out of his current position in said meta because Riot will do it eventually in whatever way they see fit. I just see a lot of potential to make Pantheon feel a bit more unique, and I wanted to present some ideas that I had after poking around through the forums and seeing what other people had to say.

My issues arise with how lackluster he tends to feel. There isn't much interactivity to pantheon. Chunking health by chucking spears is satisfying, yes, and the ultimate is really damn cool to look at, but there's not much else there besides his shield passive that helps cement him into his early game powerhouse/late game towel boy position. The only reason panth's e ever gets used is because it's in the meta to stack BC's armor shred on targets, and I feel there's a missed opportunity by not expanding on such a cool concept for an ability. I also figured it would be refreshing to break away from how few counterplay opportunities there are to panth's kit other than outscaling him. I don't want my early-game dominance to feel like it was just given to me by point-and-click mechanics.