My Worst Fear: A Bad Pantheon Rework

Hi, my name is Connor, but you can just call me "The Dirty Pantheon Main". I've been playing League since 2012, and the whole time my favorite champion has been Pantheon. I currently have several accounts, all having some reference to Pantheon's name, with my main account being Pantheon Blows with around 650k mastery on Pantheon, summing across accounts gets around 850k mastery. All of this is my opinion and what I've noticed over the years about the champion. I don't think Pantheon gets a fair representation in the community, so I wanted to type this up, fully prepared to receive mountains of hate. Anyways, let's get this started...

When most players hear Pantheon, they probably end up thinking some dude in the top lane chucking spears at you until you're low HP and then all-ining you for first blood with your team immediately saying "GG, noob top". This has led many people to believe that Pantheon needs to be nerfed or even wholly reworked. While I will not disagree that he is in need of an update, I would like to throw my opinion into the mix alongside my ideas of what I believe should be done for balance changes or possible changes sometime in the future.

Let's start with the thing people complain about the most, the crit. Everyone knows it. If you're low HP against a Pantheon, he's gonna crit you and you're gonna die. I think the reason people hate this so much is because they feel it's such an insanely powerful passive. I mean, 100% crit chance at level 3? Insane! But what people don't understand is this only applies when you're under 15% hp. Which means, say you have 700 HP max, Pantheon only crits when you're below 105 hp. While the crit may be enough to send you over the tipping point of death, it's very uncommon for the crit to actually matter all that much in the early game. Usually that final auto or spear throw would have been enough to finish you off anyhow. That isn't to say the crit is useless, far from it. But the primary use that I've had with it over the years is finishing off tanks or "securing" kills for my teammates. My point simply being that the crit isn't that big of a deal, and it certainly isn't that much more useful than most other executes in the game.

The next thing people hate on is his passive. Everyone has been there. Pantheon kills you under tower, but you're gonna trade kills so its OK, but just as that last tower shot approaches... "Blocked"... and he gets away without taking a scratch of damage from that hit. It can certainly be infuriating and I'm positive I've angered plenty of players doing it to them myself. I'm not going to deny how powerful of a passive it is. If you plays your cards right, you can block 4 autos in an early game fight. 4 autos! That's easily a couple hundred damage that was negated and can certainly be the deciding factor in a fight. However, I will argue that only a well played Pantheon can pull something like that off. Most of the time, they're only going to block 1, maybe 2 hits. While this may still be annoying, it really isn't any stronger than most shields.

Finally, we reach his Q. You know... That one thing where he throws a spear at your every 4 seconds? Yeah, that one. A lot of people hate this ability because it has a fairly high bonus AD scale, is targeted, and is on a low CD. They get harassed down and have to give up a lot of CS just to now get low. I'll admit, that is certainly what Pantheon players tend to do. However, did you know that, at level 1, Pantheon can only cast his Q 7 times before running out of mana? 8 times if he waits long enough for mana regen. Considering his Q has a base damage of 65 and a bonus AD scale of 1.4, let's break down some numbers. 65 x 8 = 460. So 460 base physical damage applied over roughly 40 seconds. Then the bonus AD scale, so 1.4 x 8 = 11.2 and I run roughly 11 AD in my runes/masteries, so 11 x 11.2 = 123.2, we'll round down to 123. 123 + 460 = 583 physical damage. Now for the 30% damage reduction from typical armor at early levels. So 583 x 0.7 = 408. So 408 damage over 40 seconds. Assuming you either brought at least one biscuit or a corrupting pot, you should be able to regen half of that damage pretty easily, and that's before we consider that base HP regen of your champion. It took Pantheon's entire mana pool to do that, and if you trade back with a spell, you can actually get pretty similar damage. That's also assuming you don't have a shield. Suffice to say, Pantheon's level 1 Q isn't nearly as strong as people give it credit for.

Now for what I honestly think should be changed about Pantheon. First off, I don't think his passive should be so free to stack. I would like to see it changed to require only 3 stacks, but you only have stacks while in combat, you can only generate stacks for spells and auto attacks that hit enemy champions, and the shield should only last for 10 seconds after being acquired. His Q should remain a targeted spell, but I think the mechanics of it should be changed heavily. I would like to see his Q do very minimal damage on cast, BUT be retrievable from your target. So make it do maybe 10 damage at rank 1 with a like 0.2 bonus AD scale, but if you get into melee range you pull it out of your target, dealing a big chunk of damage(perhaps 60 damage at rank 1 with a 1.5 bonus AD scale, so more total damage, but requiring you to be in melee range to make use of it), shredding their armor(applied after the damage is dealt), and giving you a small increase against that target for the next 2 seconds. I also think that, should the target be in crit range, the collection of the spear kills your target. However, you should only have 1 seconds to collect the spear, and increase the CD of the skill to 6 seconds. I think his W should still give you an instance of your passive while still allowing you to retain your current stacks, but I think it should be changed to a ground targeted ability that can only be cast towards enemy champions, stunning targets hit in a small AOE. This would allow for Pantheon to be a possible engage line while also adding outplay ability to enemies that have quick reactions and dodge the stun. I think his E should stay mostly the same, but one change that could be done is shift power into the final strike. As it stands, Pantheon's E does equal damage at each point of his E, making the final strike the least useful one. I frequently find myself cancelling out of my E to get an auto or Q instead because they do more damage. If, say, the first two strikes of his E did equal damage to each other, but the third did the damage of the first two combined, I think it would add ample incentive to fully casting E and giving a reward to those players that position their E well. One other small change that could be done to his crit is make it scale with the level of his E. This could let Pantheon have better late game scaling while toning down his early game power a bit. So instead of being a flat 15%, change it to be 10% - 12.5% - 15% - 17.5% - 20%. This would also give him more reason to put points into E instead of Q early on, which could allow for situational spell maxing instead of just always maxing Q first. As for his ult, keep it exactly how it is. Maybe I'm a bit biased here, but I think Pantheon's ult is the most enjoyable spell to use in the game. The 3.5 second cast time is my favorite part as well because it allows me to predict where my opponents will be 3.5 seconds in the future. Keeping that cast time long will let the ability retain its high damage because it is a difficult spell to land.

Anyhow, that's about all I have to say on Pantheon for this post. I could go on a lot longer about what I like and dislike, what changes I'd like to see, and just how much I'd love to see that damned W bug fixed that causes you to be unable to cast other spells COSTING YOUR TEAM THE FIGHT AND LOSING THE GAME!!!

...But, I digress. Maybe no one will read this, maybe only people who hate Pantheon will read this. I don't know, I honestly don't care. I just wanted to voice my thoughts and opinions on how a Pantheon update could succeed and what I, as a long time Pantheon lover, would like to see happen with my favorite champion.