Pantheon needs a rework (Top Lane Solo Q analysis)

ABlueQuaker··2 votes·187 views

Brief Introduction/Context He's an extremely oppressive Top Lane Champion against Melee champions - even if they have a gap closer. And lets face it, it's pretty easy to counterpick someone in Solo Q where Role Priority is based off Pick Order (thanks for that by the way Riot).

Levels 1-5 Constant Spear harass. By the time you have the strength to retaliate, you're too low to stand a chance because his Passive will start proccing and he'll start getting guaranteed Critical Strikes. On the off chance that you have even health, you have to first Pop his Aegis Shield, get into Melee Range of him, survive all of his Point-and-Click damage that he does for the duration of his Point-and-Click stun, Pop his Aegis Shield again THEN you're on even footing with him.

Level 6 Level 6 Pantheon can then freely roam with Teleport and Ultimate with a cs lead he's probably happy to sacrifice a little bit, and 1-3 kills under his belt. You cannot counter his roam because you are still unable to go head-to-head with him, and (if he's used his Ultimate to roam) you'll end up sitting at mid/jungle while he's already TPed back to Top Lane and is continuing to build his lead.

Late Game Late game I'll admit that he falls off with a scaling pattern that resembles a cliff face - but that really doesn't help when you're still stuck at the bottom.

What would I change? Change his oppressive tools - point-and-click stun-gapcloser/100% Crit Chance vs. low HP targets/Aegis Shield. All of these abilities basically say "I can poke you for free and if you attempt to trade damage back, you're probably gonna die."

8 Comments

UberAffe1 votes

I agree with change but do you have any suggestions what to?

ABlueQuaker1 votes

{quoted}

I agree with change but do you have any suggestions what to?

Usually if a point-and-click is causing issues, Riot change it to a Skill-Shot or a proc (i.e. Pantheon jumps to an enemy champions and after 3 Spears/Auto-Attacks the target is stunned).

EDIT: Even if the jump itself slows, and then after 3 Attacks/Spears it stuns.

UberAffe1 votes

True but personally I think they have been adding too many stack to stun abilities/passives. What if it was naturally a slow and only a stun while his shield was up. This would also call for either 1. an increase in what it took to get his shield back or 2. reduce what it takes to get his shield but throwing his spear or the rapid spear ability would break his shield.

1 would force him to pay attention to when his shield was coming up so that he could stun, or risk it getting poked off 2 would force him to choose between poking and losing his hard engage or hard engage knowing that you havent poked them down.

ABlueQuaker1 votes

{quoted}

True but personally I think they have been adding too many stack to stun abilities/passives. What if it was naturally a slow and only a stun while his shield was up. This would also call for either 1. an increase in what it took to get his shield back or 2. reduce what it takes to get his shield but throwing his spear or the rapid spear ability would break his shield.

1 would force him to pay attention to when his shield was coming up so that he could stun, or risk it getting poked off 2 would force him to choose between poking and losing his hard engage or hard engage knowing that you havent poked them down.

Something along those lines. I primarily I just don't like that he has a guaranteed point-and-click stun, so either the guaranteed part, or the point-and-click part needs to be changed.

Renaille1 votes

Or you could play defensive and watch him become useless late game because you didn't give him kills.

ABlueQuaker1 votes

{quoted}

Or you could play defensive and watch him become useless late game because you didn't give him kills.

I agree that you can play defensive and even win lane with a little help from the jungle, but it really doesn't happen in Solo Q - especially with so much importance placed on controlling the bottom side of the map nowadays.

Renaille1 votes

[{quoted}](name=Red Arrow,realm=OCE,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=ImsZ74Ae,comment-id=00010000,timestamp=2015-01-22T06:18:56.922+0000)

I agree that you can play defensive and even win lane with a little help from the jungle, but it really doesn't happen in Solo Q - especially with so much importance placed on controlling the bottom side of the map nowadays.

You don't need jungle help to win your lane. As long as you aren't playing Darius or Renekton, you will be more useful by just scrapping up what farm you can get and not feeding kills.

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