Why Are We Not Talking About Pantheon?

Before I start, I just want to say that YES I did just lose lane against a pantheon(0/2 and even in cs so not horribly), but NO I am not too salty about it as I murdered him late game and we won the game

To start, Pantheon has consistently had one of the highest win rates of any top laners for a while now on every server and has not been touched in many patches. As everyone knows, pantheon has a ridiculous early game in exchange for a weak late game. The problem, in my opinion, is that his early game is just too difficult to deal with in lane. He has a passive that can block autos(VERY good against certain champions), a targeted high dmg low cd ability, a targeted gap closer and stun(also refreshes his passive), a cone that shreds armor with cleaver(also includes a passive that guarantees death at low hp from a spear), and an ability that allows him to roam. His kit makes him extremely frustrating and boring to play against as it is so simple, yet does a ton of damage, while also being able to apply pressure to the rest of the map. Your options are either playing really far back and getting no cs, or csing and tanking every single one of his spears. In most top lane matchups there are certain levels that one champion will have an advantage, but with Pantheon, levels 1-THE REST OF THE LANING PHASE are kind of hell for the opponent.

-- Note: I am not saying that pantheon is a "no-skill" champion because although he may not require many mechanics, it takes experience with the champion to lane, roam effectively, and find usefulness late game.

During the game that I just played I picked Fiora into Pantheon(I understand that this is a horrible matchup but none of the champions that I play do well against him). The fact that he has few meta counters in lane basically allows him to crush almost any matchup even when he is blind picked. At level 1, I took advantage of the fact that his spears do not do very much damage and made a very good trade with him and left him at low hp and most importantly, low mana which meant that he could not spam spears for the next few levels and I CS'ed pretty well. Once I hit level 6 (and he was still 5) I decided to go in. Typical boosted me I failed just about every Fiora mechanic possible(just gonna blame it on the nerf kappa) and sort of inted a kill (although he did a lot more damage than I expected). The real issue that I have with Pantheon showed when we were both level 8. I had a 12 Gold advantage(so we were literally even) and in less than 10 seconds, he whiffed his w onto a minion, landed about half of his e, and landed(well, clicked) 2 q's (then landing another one as I ran away). I ended the "trade" with less than 1/4 of my hp and he took little damage thanks to his passive. I did not ult here, but even if I did he would have killed me. That is also something that I think makes pantheon far too strong in early game duels. Just about every champion that he will lane against SHOULD have an advantage against him due to having an ultimate that can be used effectively in duels, while pantheon is fighting with just 3 abilities. Of course, late game I crushed him, but his playstyle in lane is too "unhealthy" in my opinion.

Obviously I am biased very much against pantheon in this post, however I do not think he is necessarily "broken". I just think that he needs to be reworked in the near future in order to make him more interesting to play both as and against. I am hoping to at least see RIOT turn his q into a skillshot seeing as they did this with ryze's q a while ago. Also, although I do like the fact that his ultimate allows him to translate his early game pressure around the map, I think the rest of his kit is too powerful to go with it. In comparison to Twisted Fate, Pantheon is much stronger in lane and will already have a lead over everyone else in the game by the time he uses his ultimate to snowball even harder.

TL(like VERY long);DR I do not think pantheon is overpowered, but I hope RIOT changes him in a way that makes him more interesting. He has not been changed since his release(a long time ago) and is still in the pool of simple champions such as nunu and udyr.

If any of you can tell me why you think I am wrong, that would be great! My goal is just to spark some discussion on this champion.