Pantheon Rework Idea

Multiple Disclaimers :

• These are just ideas for reworks in case Riot is planning one for the Champions I post these about. The goal of these posts is to hopefully give ideas and/or a direction for the champions compared to where they are now in the game. I sincerely hope these are at least taken into consideration as I believe they would change the champions I mentioned for the better, especially since the characters I mention usually have very one dimensional, outdated kits compared to more recent champions.

• I have not mentioned any numbers of durations, damage, or spells widths, etc. because I believe that numbers are only for balance purposes. Any champion can become overpowered or completely useless just with number changes, even the most one dimensional champions, and to assess whether a champion can be interesting to play and interact with or against, numbers are relatively irrelevant in comparison to the actual kit ideas, strengths and weaknesses.

• I would like these posts to become discussions, as I think it could be very interesting to see opinions on my ideas and how to make them better, what makes them completely unusable or anything in between, as long as these discussions involve constructive criticism.

Abilities : P : Aegis Protection : Same as old passive, but instead of blocking an auto attack, gains armor and magic resist for a while. Has a cooldown. Q : Spear Thrust : Thrusts his spear in a line, dealing physical damage. W : Shield Bash : Usable in two ways, either behind or in front.

• Behind : Lunges back, shield covering himself in a defensive posture, refreshing and granting him his passive.
• Front : Dashes shield first, dealing magic damage then bashing enemies in a cone, dealing the same damage again and stunning them. E : Offensive Stance : Puts his shield on his back, holding his spear in a two handed stance. Nullifies resistances from his Aegis of Protection, but grants him critical strikes on his Q and W. Changes his W;
• Behind : Lunges back, and dashes through enemies in front of him shortly after dealing physical damage.
• Front : Dashes a short distance then attacks rapidly with his spear dealing physical dps in a cone in front of him. R : Grand Skyfall : Same as old ult.

Ideas behind the abilities :

Pantheon in his lore and look is supposed to be a combat expert, with many ways of attacking and defending against enemies to ensure complete domination over them. To realise this fantasy without making a completely OP character, I’ve devised an ability setup that would make him reminiscent of a foot soldier but with more expertise and impactful fight changing abilities, like his ult or stance change that gives critical strikes on his abilities. With that in mind, the idea is to have an adaptable fighter with burst combos to reliably finish off his opponents or deal a good amount of damage.

When the idea of an adaptable fighter arises, a few Champions come to mind. Jax, Fiora, Irelia, Riven, and Udyr to name the most relevant to skirmishing fighters who are able to adapt to different skirmishes on the fly. Each has his/her own identity;

• Jax is a continuous onslaught of mixed damage.
• Fiora is a duelist prefering to dive one Champion to proc her ult and sustain through an encounter.
• Irelia is a Diver that relies on setups to get her passive going for optimal damage output.
• Riven is a very mobile and combo based fighter with high burst damage and CC.
• Udyr uses a mix of abilities that allow him to deal either physical or magic damage, gives him a shield and movespeed which makes him adaptable in the literal sense.

In that respect, Pantheon’s identity would be a mix between a Juggernaut and a Diver that would change based on how he uses his abilities, like Xin Zhao but without the natural sustain in his kit, making him rely on resistances more than lifesteal and a damage nullification ultimate, but dealing more damage giving him his niche.

Difference between old/new Pantheon :

Old Pantheon had this type of approach to combat especially in lane, as he was able to adapt to matchups by either keeping up in creep score with his Q, or by dominating the laning phase with Q spams and an all in when the enemy laner becomes low on health, which is more of what he does in the recent seasons, since he doesn’t scale into the mid or late game, making him an early game bully, top tier against weak matchups, but useless if the enemy manages to sustain through the barrage of spear throws.

Keeping this aggressive thematic he has, the new kit’s intent is to remove the one dimensional spear machine gun harassing pattern with more committed fighting and ability usage one that would make him risk a potion of his health bar by going into melee range to do substantial damage, or giving him the possibility to poke with his Q but at the expense of pushing the wave. This could change could also make him more of a threat midlane as his all-ins have more range and aren’t targeted like they were previously, making more him adaptable to matchup variety.

Extra Information :

I was inspired to make these abilities from two video games notably; Dark Souls 3, and For Honor with the Spear wielding Lothric Knight, and the Valkyrie from each game respectively. The stance change has elements from the Lothric Knight, and the W Behind variant of the ability was inpired from the Valkyrie from For Honor.

With regards to the W Front variation of the ability, I was inspired from Monster Hunter's Lance moveset.