What is Thresh's weakness supposed to be?

Qsario·Feb 21, 2015·2 votes·869 views

As I understand Riot's design philosophy, champions are supposed to have clear strengths and weaknesses. What I can't figure out is what Thresh's weakness is supposed to be?

Mobility? He has a huge self-displacement (not to mention the enemy displacements).

Damage? It's not high, but it hardly matters with his lockdown CC and tankiness. He gets free armor, so he can focus on MR.

Sustain? He has a relatively spammable shield and he doesn't even have to trade shielding for dragging someone to him.

Also, after reading this, I just realized that you can say nearly the same thing about Lee Sin (though he did lose the shield when ward hopping).

11 Comments

Linna ExcelFeb 21, 20153 votes

His only weakness is people not clicking the lantern.

AlljoyFeb 21, 20151 votes

SmokingPuffinFeb 21, 20153 votes

GhostCrawler's recent post

On Lee and Thresh -- they are champions we like, but more importantly, they also resonate with a lot of players. It's not a popularity contest, but on the other hand, we believe a lot of why people play them is because they are fun to play, not just because they win a lot. Both champs have a lot of cool abilities, and arguably they both have so many that a) neither has a lot of weaknesses, and b) they compliment almost any comp you try to build. We're trying to figure out ways to make them less awesome in every situation without stripping away what is fun about them. For example, last year or so we tried to tone down Lee's mobility and ward hopping, but it felt terrible, and largely due to player feedback (intelligent, meaningful feedback, not whining and pitchforks) we reverted it.

TehNACHOFeb 21, 20152 votes

High Cooldowns.

Thresh can't suddenly halt a champion mid fight with his Death Sentence if, say early game, you abuse that 20 second window of opportunity while it's down that only scales to 12. Any missed hook on an enemy Thresh's part is suddenly a titanic advantage for yourself.

Thresh can't save allies with his Lantern if he uses it to collect souls, a 22 second window of opportunity that only scales to 16.

While Thresh (usually) won't have any real reasons to randomly use and/or misfire his Flay or Box, you can easily abuse Thresh through most any stage of the game if you remember to capitalize on his gigantic cool downs. It's all fun and games for Thresh until he realizes he can't use his Q for 20 seconds.

IcyPepperFeb 21, 20152 votes

His hook is, honestly, more difficult to land than you think. I tried him once, thinking he was BS, and that thing requires you to really lead the opponent. It's only good for ambushing and punishing bad positioning, imo.

Blitz can land hooks easier, but he has less support utility than Thresh.

Counterplay:

Once he misses his hook, poke HIM down. He can't lantern himself, after all.
Deny him souls the way you deny the adc cs.
If he boxes you, flash first if you're in danger instead of running toward the wall. 3.5. If he boxed you, but nobody is dealing damage to you, see if you can 1v1 him until the box wears out. But only if you KNOW you can.
Debuff items/spells are your friend when he uses the box.
Lulu, Janna, Alistar, and Leona are pretty good supports to go against him.
Don't pick Sona or Soraka against him.

Basically, this is how bot lane is set up: sustain outheals poke, kill/engage lanes kill sustain with massive damage, and poke beats kill by widdling them down so they WON'T engage by their own free will.

Also, take exhaust. A Thresh hook won't hurt much if the enemy adc isn't dealing damage.

SlytherinUmbreonFeb 21, 20151 votes

Knowing Rito, I wouldn't be surprised if Thresh's intended weakness was "he might miss his skill shots" But in all seriousness: to be fair, as a supportive and Utility based champion he still has the natural weakness of being significantly less useful when alone.

fiish eFeb 21, 20151 votes

In lane:

he has lower base stats than the rest of the tank supports,
long cooldowns at low levels
long AA windup time
he doesn't receive mr per level
quite vulnerable to ability power based poke
people click the lantern when you're using it to shield them from ignite and pull themselves towards you when you're standing between a vi, a maokai and a syndra
people don't click the lantern
people

Outside of lane, after he gets defenses and cdr: No, I can't think of a weakness for him.

Ice Weasel XFeb 21, 20151 votes

{quoted}

He gets free armor, so he can focus on MR.

His Damnation (soul-based) armor can fall behind easily. He gains no per-level armor like other champions. Damnation adds base armor, not bonus armor, so the Enchanted Armor mastery doesn't apply to it. If he misses a soul, it's gone. It won't increase the chances of another soul dropping so he can catch up to a par value. Units only drop souls if he's within a certain range, so hiking back from spawn means a dry period unless the fight comes to his base.

Sustain? He has a relatively spammable shield and he doesn't even have to trade shielding for dragging someone to him.

There are times when you don't want to immediately use the lantern as a shield because you can't afford to wait another 10 seconds (at full CDR) to throw someone a lifeline in a different direction. This was less of an issue pre-nerfs since the shield could protect your entire team, which could be more useful than pulling one person to safety after being caught out of position.

Maximum ZileanFeb 21, 20151 votes

Thresh is a very predictable champion with high cooldowns similar to Blitzcrank.

Basically if you can bait out his grab, he has a huge window of weakness for a good 20 seconds in lane which gives you plenty of time to poke him down super hard. His lantern also has a high cooldown early on and if he uses it to grab souls, poke his carry down.

He also gains 0 armor per level, and has to grab souls to remain tanky. Deny him those by poking him down if he goes to try get some. If he uses his lantern to farm them. See above.