What makes him so hated and/or loved in this community? I honestly don't find him that overpowered, underpowered, or think his kit is that annoying and oppressive. Yeah his Death Sentence stuns the enemy for 1.5 seconds, but it's not that much of a pull, and when he activates Death Leap the stun breaks. The Box is annoying, but only for that first broken wall, once the 1/5 walls are broken the walls deal no damage and the slow is depleted by 50%.
Thresh is in my opinion in the best place of all the supports. He has the ability to make Offensive and defensive plays on good cool downs. His Flay is hugely useful for peel, his lantern saves lives, period. His Hook can be used to engage or disenagage and his Ult I think was designed to make plays at Baron / Dragon pit. Great Thresh players win games because of his strong peel and great utility.
I hate him because of how he warped the support meta. Before Thresh you could see literally any support in bot lane, Sona/Raka/Nunu/Leona/Janna/Taric/Lulu/Zyra/etc. Then Thresh came out and that great list of viable supports got reduced to Thresh/Leona/Zyra.
That lasted briefly until people had to bring more damage to combat Thresh and we started seeing Thresh/Leona/Annie, as Zyra got nerfed. Then it changed again when people realized Black Shield was amazing against Thresh and Leona and respectable against Annie making it Thresh/Morgana/Annie. Janna returned to prominance when exhaust came back as being a way of dealing with assassins and could reasonably keep thresh in check in lane giving us at least a 4th support into the mix.
Thresh completely warped the support meta around him and the select few supports that can compete with him. That is the very definition of a toxic champion. Its one thing to have a bar for a lane, Orianna is the bar for a mid lane mage but she does it without pushing other champs out of the lane. The same can't be said for Thresh he is the bar for supports and he dictates what is and is not viable in that lane.
I simply love him because he is a playmaker. Its not about being over or under powered, but the plays he can make are really strong. This largely is dependent on a team taking advantage of the plays though so even a good thresh can make bad plays and a bad thresh can make good ones, it just depends on how they fit into the team. This is why I love him, and that said, noting what Arliden said, I agree that he is in the best place of all of the supports.
My only issue is his wonky hitbox on Q and how much damage he does for the insane utility he brings.
I love his voice. I'm serious, his voice and his quotes and his laugh were all big selling points for me when I first tried him.
I think some people hate him because they consider his kit over loaded because of all the utility. Some say he does a lot of damage, but that's only if he breaks the 100 soul mark, which isn't as common as you'd think. He has a stun, a slow, an engage in his stun, a knock back, an AA steroid, etc, and in the right hands he can be a handful, so a lot of people dislike him for that and because he has become a sort of standard. Anyone will tell you that if you play support you have to at least be able to play him competently.
People like him because of some of the things above, but the reasons vary. For some he's a high skill cap champ that can be played as almost anything, for others he's just a charismatic character that's fun to play as, and for a few others... they just think that they're the next LCS master player who will replace Madlife.
