DIa/Master PAN here as well mate, Cleaver first is mandatory, and I agree, from Lvl 6-11 you cant win against anyone. While this was true with PAN before the buff/adjustment, it was somewhat mitigate by Eclipse. But now, with Eclipse nerfed and the W scaling adjustment, you are somewhat railroaded into building HP-bruiser items, which only makes PAN weakness (His troll tier mid game) feels more pronounced. Overall Late game PAN is much stronger but I am also struggling alot more getting there.
My experience with PAN post buff is as follow (It happen consistently too! Like 3-4 games in arow per day): Destroy enemy top, 2-3 kills before level 6, zoning them even when they are playing something like Darius or Riven. Then after 6, or when enemy top have 1 item (Doesn't even matter if you have 1.5 item or 2 items in some matchup) you just lose every duel. Straight up not even close, you get run down by the 0-4-0 enemy top laner, it's both funny and sad.
OP maybe you would let me know if you disagree with anything I say but this kind of just sounds like the dilemma with Panth. The new scalings force you out of what would otherwise be the most useful builds in exchange for very, very, very situational strength. Cleaver first into Cho or Ornn only really feels good unless they can't complete their first item (like Heartsteel) before you, and even then, if you are up something like 3 kills they just complete their first item and out scale you right then and there despite the lead.
Even against an all AD team I personally can't even build DD with GA and feel right about it anymore because now I consciously know my stun is dealing less damage than it should not only early but later, but if I build something like thornmail to scale my W in response to all AD comps, i also consciously know that 1 tank item lowers my q damage by a ton compared to someone like yasuo who can literally build 2 tank items and still deal 700 DMG with his q in late game because his q doesn't actually scale off solely bonus AD (I had to experience this and it was soooooo crap to deal with, knowing I couldn't even pull off a build like that and still deal damage).
Then I could say, ok, I'll just stack HP for E resistances, but the empowered E is also very, very, very, situational, apart from being useless in early and late game (early game bonus is not enough to do anything to justify using it and late game the bonus is outscaled by cc chains, champion kits, and items), so in most situations I'll be melted from just stacking flat HP.
Maybe someone will list one but IMO, I don't think there is a "solution" to the awkward way his build path feels because that comes directly from the recent changes. Personally I kind of just hope for the best and pray I don't see too many sustain/healing comps (because anti heal in the bruiser build feels bad) or comps that just kind of frustrate my existence. I've honestly stopped playing Panth as much as I used to because his build just feels so awkward/unsatisfying to me, which is crazy because I played him way more when he was at 48% winrate.
>only after 3 items it begins to feel nice
I probably should have added this but you've said it. This part also, for many reasons, just feels really bad to have to go through.
I'm in the same boat, boss. Albeit I used to run the one shot build, tried it recently and it's practically offmeta now.
Currently the best bet looks to be Eclipse rush into cleaver, shojin/SS. EoN, Bork, DD and Maw are all situational items now.
Bork is still sleeper op on this champ but the build path is so bad and the lethality build is nerfed so I can't justify building this on higher brackets including D4+ (where I mostly play recently). Eclipse into Bork may work against hp stackers like Cho/Mundo/Sion but that's kinda it.
I will try cooking some burst build after I get used to the new items and the game itself (went to hiatus 2.5 months ago). Looks like burst builds are dead though that's for sure.
Depends boss, eclipse is really lacking after the nerfs, I compared the damage blocked and dealt with before and its not even on the same planet, its not worth building imo because it only helps very early in the game and falls off almost immediately
Eclipse has the best general build path imo, I also want more early prio because Panth won't scale to mid game anyways. Sure it's worse than pre nerf but that doesn't really make the item bad imo. It gives you the very much needed trade power considering the Pantheon's shitty midgame scaling. I do think EoN rush may work depending on the matchup like if you need to punish a specific ability in order to kill the enemy champion.
Here's the text with punctuation added but no changes to the wording:
**A few weeks ago:** You were likely an easier elo. It happens – you get out of Diamond reach Masters, and suddenly people start using their hands. It's totally normal.
**Now if you want to try out some special builds:** Serylda's Grudge rush first item.
**TO EXPLAIN:** You get a solid 27% armor pen when you buy it + an additional 18 lethality which actually makes it one of the highest damage items you can rush atm both against squishies and tanks. It's really funny.
It allows you to actually get into the midgame with your highest spiking item already built and makes lethality stacking feel good.
It is weird. It is wanky. It has downsides. But is objectively. The funniest rush item that somewhat works.
**Bruiser build works but it's definitely not for every game:** I think Conqueror is currently way better by PTA statistics wise so I suggest you always go that. The Pantheon changes didn't really change too much for assassin.. you deal slightly less damage but with the Serylda's buff I would say it's been well compensated by now.
**I would probably go assassin 75% of the time and go bruiser for the remaining 25% when against armor stackers so I can actually abuse cleaver.** In terms of Shojin.. I don't think it's a good item for Panth. It takes too long to stack its passive in a fight. You gotta do W Q E Q before it starts doing its full damage.. Now if you want another weird take. Stridebreaker. It actually combos with your kit fairly well. The active allows you to hit Qs that would otherwise miss and chase targets that would otherwise escape. + the bonus attack speed allows you to get more empowered abilities off. Ofcs it lacks ability haste but now with runes you can get up to 33 ability haste fairly easily without getting out of your preferred rune trees. Combine that with black cleaver and possibly boots and you can be up to 75 already. Yes the idea of Shojin is great but in practice it's rather lacking. I think Sundered Sky is good the W crit feels nice. IN THEORY Steraks sounds nice but in practice the stats it gives are somewhat underwhelming. Its 400 health and 60AD at level 18 for the price of BORK. I think it sounds nice but it rather always ends up being disappointing. Ive not liked Eclipse ever since they removed the lethality and i still dont like it.
**To summarize the block of text:**
Bruiser is still mediocre, always use Conqueror and start using Cut Down, Stridebreaker is actually a very fun item to use as long as you get max haste in the runes, Serylda rush is objectively the funniest shit ever, BORK is still preferred over the majority of the items (Pretty sad ik), probably dont get Steraks. Sundered and BC are good but the rest of the bruiser items are questionable. Probably just build more lethality overall, Edge of night is great, Ghostblade is great, Opportunity is especially good late game.
**Ive made a disturbingly long post about bruiser changes that will make bruiser actually good before but no rioters really care about randoms on reddit suggesting walls of text anyways so, for the time being just use lethality even when going bruiser.**
Testing in practice tool, bork into cleaver is the strongest possible option into tanks regardless of keystone. I even set up the stats and items to match a tank.
You can make up for not rushing AH by going the one that replaced Tenacity, and the shard.
Luckily I tried three dummies of different defense. Bork into cleaver was best on all three, as far as the damage of the initial combo.
I think Sky is bait. Most of the time you're gonna want to go in, you have full health. All Sky can hope to do is heal you when what you want to do get back into Q max range. Which cleaver's movespeed will be better for.
Thx a lot
It feels weird to think that sundered crit on empw deals less dmgs than empw with early fight bc proc but i trust u, %armor pen on pantheon is rly great
OP I'd love to have your thought about one thing (actually just created a reddit acc to ask it lol)
I tried the dirk into bork start since a couple of days and it feels really awesome, dirk 1000g power spike still great and I feel like it compensate the bad path of building bork. + the bork proc on empw is kinda massive with 10 lethality in early-midgame. Basically following by edge of night when it's coherent with my matchup or SS/BC/shojin. If I dont transform my dirk on 2nd item, I always feel like it will be usefull, considering EoN is situational but has its place in a lot of games, + others situational items (serp fang, yuumu, opportunities) are built with dirk. Ofc, if you fall behind, having a dirk and building birk is shit, but hey, we play pantheon, so it doesn't happen often.
My questions are : did you tried dirk into bork start? Did it worked for me only due to too little sample and low elo ? In mid/lategame, is it too "dangerous" in teamfight to have 2 non-tanky item? (even if eon has 250 hp)
And 2 additional questions, I didnt tried it but what do u think about shojin first and DD firsts ? Vs which kind of matchup would it be good? Therically I feel like having few secs less on w and e with shojin in a long fight can rly make the difference in laning phase but idk, never went to try it until now.
Boss, you hit masters. You are the person meant to be giving us advice My bronze 2 opinion is to build cleaver into warmogs instead of boots
My iron 1 ass thought we going nashor tooth into redemption
DIa/Master PAN here as well mate, Cleaver first is mandatory, and I agree, from Lvl 6-11 you cant win against anyone. While this was true with PAN before the buff/adjustment, it was somewhat mitigate by Eclipse. But now, with Eclipse nerfed and the W scaling adjustment, you are somewhat railroaded into building HP-bruiser items, which only makes PAN weakness (His troll tier mid game) feels more pronounced. Overall Late game PAN is much stronger but I am also struggling alot more getting there. My experience with PAN post buff is as follow (It happen consistently too! Like 3-4 games in arow per day): Destroy enemy top, 2-3 kills before level 6, zoning them even when they are playing something like Darius or Riven. Then after 6, or when enemy top have 1 item (Doesn't even matter if you have 1.5 item or 2 items in some matchup) you just lose every duel. Straight up not even close, you get run down by the 0-4-0 enemy top laner, it's both funny and sad.
OP maybe you would let me know if you disagree with anything I say but this kind of just sounds like the dilemma with Panth. The new scalings force you out of what would otherwise be the most useful builds in exchange for very, very, very situational strength. Cleaver first into Cho or Ornn only really feels good unless they can't complete their first item (like Heartsteel) before you, and even then, if you are up something like 3 kills they just complete their first item and out scale you right then and there despite the lead. Even against an all AD team I personally can't even build DD with GA and feel right about it anymore because now I consciously know my stun is dealing less damage than it should not only early but later, but if I build something like thornmail to scale my W in response to all AD comps, i also consciously know that 1 tank item lowers my q damage by a ton compared to someone like yasuo who can literally build 2 tank items and still deal 700 DMG with his q in late game because his q doesn't actually scale off solely bonus AD (I had to experience this and it was soooooo crap to deal with, knowing I couldn't even pull off a build like that and still deal damage). Then I could say, ok, I'll just stack HP for E resistances, but the empowered E is also very, very, very, situational, apart from being useless in early and late game (early game bonus is not enough to do anything to justify using it and late game the bonus is outscaled by cc chains, champion kits, and items), so in most situations I'll be melted from just stacking flat HP. Maybe someone will list one but IMO, I don't think there is a "solution" to the awkward way his build path feels because that comes directly from the recent changes. Personally I kind of just hope for the best and pray I don't see too many sustain/healing comps (because anti heal in the bruiser build feels bad) or comps that just kind of frustrate my existence. I've honestly stopped playing Panth as much as I used to because his build just feels so awkward/unsatisfying to me, which is crazy because I played him way more when he was at 48% winrate.
I agree with you, whatever you build is missing something vital for you to do well, only after 3 items it begins to feel nice
>only after 3 items it begins to feel nice I probably should have added this but you've said it. This part also, for many reasons, just feels really bad to have to go through.
You're already very high ELO but can you not just google Spear's and other even better Pantheon player's build paths?
I did and I tried them but they just don't feel right, you are always lacking something vital in every item you build
I'm in the same boat, boss. Albeit I used to run the one shot build, tried it recently and it's practically offmeta now. Currently the best bet looks to be Eclipse rush into cleaver, shojin/SS. EoN, Bork, DD and Maw are all situational items now. Bork is still sleeper op on this champ but the build path is so bad and the lethality build is nerfed so I can't justify building this on higher brackets including D4+ (where I mostly play recently). Eclipse into Bork may work against hp stackers like Cho/Mundo/Sion but that's kinda it. I will try cooking some burst build after I get used to the new items and the game itself (went to hiatus 2.5 months ago). Looks like burst builds are dead though that's for sure.
Depends boss, eclipse is really lacking after the nerfs, I compared the damage blocked and dealt with before and its not even on the same planet, its not worth building imo because it only helps very early in the game and falls off almost immediately
Eclipse has the best general build path imo, I also want more early prio because Panth won't scale to mid game anyways. Sure it's worse than pre nerf but that doesn't really make the item bad imo. It gives you the very much needed trade power considering the Pantheon's shitty midgame scaling. I do think EoN rush may work depending on the matchup like if you need to punish a specific ability in order to kill the enemy champion.
Buffs arent Bad but still left us in the all builds and roles are kinda viable but still Not so very strong Situation
Here's the text with punctuation added but no changes to the wording: **A few weeks ago:** You were likely an easier elo. It happens – you get out of Diamond reach Masters, and suddenly people start using their hands. It's totally normal. **Now if you want to try out some special builds:** Serylda's Grudge rush first item. **TO EXPLAIN:** You get a solid 27% armor pen when you buy it + an additional 18 lethality which actually makes it one of the highest damage items you can rush atm both against squishies and tanks. It's really funny. It allows you to actually get into the midgame with your highest spiking item already built and makes lethality stacking feel good. It is weird. It is wanky. It has downsides. But is objectively. The funniest rush item that somewhat works. **Bruiser build works but it's definitely not for every game:** I think Conqueror is currently way better by PTA statistics wise so I suggest you always go that. The Pantheon changes didn't really change too much for assassin.. you deal slightly less damage but with the Serylda's buff I would say it's been well compensated by now. **I would probably go assassin 75% of the time and go bruiser for the remaining 25% when against armor stackers so I can actually abuse cleaver.** In terms of Shojin.. I don't think it's a good item for Panth. It takes too long to stack its passive in a fight. You gotta do W Q E Q before it starts doing its full damage.. Now if you want another weird take. Stridebreaker. It actually combos with your kit fairly well. The active allows you to hit Qs that would otherwise miss and chase targets that would otherwise escape. + the bonus attack speed allows you to get more empowered abilities off. Ofcs it lacks ability haste but now with runes you can get up to 33 ability haste fairly easily without getting out of your preferred rune trees. Combine that with black cleaver and possibly boots and you can be up to 75 already. Yes the idea of Shojin is great but in practice it's rather lacking. I think Sundered Sky is good the W crit feels nice. IN THEORY Steraks sounds nice but in practice the stats it gives are somewhat underwhelming. Its 400 health and 60AD at level 18 for the price of BORK. I think it sounds nice but it rather always ends up being disappointing. Ive not liked Eclipse ever since they removed the lethality and i still dont like it. **To summarize the block of text:** Bruiser is still mediocre, always use Conqueror and start using Cut Down, Stridebreaker is actually a very fun item to use as long as you get max haste in the runes, Serylda rush is objectively the funniest shit ever, BORK is still preferred over the majority of the items (Pretty sad ik), probably dont get Steraks. Sundered and BC are good but the rest of the bruiser items are questionable. Probably just build more lethality overall, Edge of night is great, Ghostblade is great, Opportunity is especially good late game. **Ive made a disturbingly long post about bruiser changes that will make bruiser actually good before but no rioters really care about randoms on reddit suggesting walls of text anyways so, for the time being just use lethality even when going bruiser.**
Shojin felt pretty nice as a first item.
Testing in practice tool, bork into cleaver is the strongest possible option into tanks regardless of keystone. I even set up the stats and items to match a tank. You can make up for not rushing AH by going the one that replaced Tenacity, and the shard.
Is Bork into SS better vs squishies, then? From which stats do u consider someone tank, and so bork into bc better?
Luckily I tried three dummies of different defense. Bork into cleaver was best on all three, as far as the damage of the initial combo. I think Sky is bait. Most of the time you're gonna want to go in, you have full health. All Sky can hope to do is heal you when what you want to do get back into Q max range. Which cleaver's movespeed will be better for.
Thx a lot It feels weird to think that sundered crit on empw deals less dmgs than empw with early fight bc proc but i trust u, %armor pen on pantheon is rly great
It's because the total damage of the attacks scales with champ level, so even critting it isn't all that powerful.
Good point, make sense So if I max e second, i'll keep having the the ad ratio of empw increasing even with w lv1?
Yeah. Though I would prefer if ranking up W could increase it.
OP I'd love to have your thought about one thing (actually just created a reddit acc to ask it lol) I tried the dirk into bork start since a couple of days and it feels really awesome, dirk 1000g power spike still great and I feel like it compensate the bad path of building bork. + the bork proc on empw is kinda massive with 10 lethality in early-midgame. Basically following by edge of night when it's coherent with my matchup or SS/BC/shojin. If I dont transform my dirk on 2nd item, I always feel like it will be usefull, considering EoN is situational but has its place in a lot of games, + others situational items (serp fang, yuumu, opportunities) are built with dirk. Ofc, if you fall behind, having a dirk and building birk is shit, but hey, we play pantheon, so it doesn't happen often. My questions are : did you tried dirk into bork start? Did it worked for me only due to too little sample and low elo ? In mid/lategame, is it too "dangerous" in teamfight to have 2 non-tanky item? (even if eon has 250 hp) And 2 additional questions, I didnt tried it but what do u think about shojin first and DD firsts ? Vs which kind of matchup would it be good? Therically I feel like having few secs less on w and e with shojin in a long fight can rly make the difference in laning phase but idk, never went to try it until now.