Pantheon

Detailed Tips

1. 01

   Play For Sustain Early - Pantheon’s early game is practically a nightmare for Renekton early, as his low Q CD and overall damage completely supersedes Renekton’s early aggression. Pantheon’s ability to stack towards an empowered ability also makes it a lot harder to contest, mainly due to Renekton’s hard to stack passive into low CD and high damage champions such as Pantheon himself. Within the early game, playing with D Shield and Second Wind will allow you to outsustain his early damage, giving you the sustain needed to survive until your first back. If you’re able to keep your health up by playing out of range, while side stepping or avoiding any of his empowered attacks, this will present you the ability to look for fights back against Pantheon.

2. 02

   Avoid Pantheon Q - Pantheon’s Q allows him to poke in a line against his targets, allowing him to safely apply damage outside of Renekton’s Q range. Pantheon’s Q when lightly tapped is around 6 seconds early, allowing him to spam it and synergise around his other abilities to help reach his empowered Q faster. When playing vs Pantheon, we must always try to avoid his Q, as this can allow us to look for our trades as soon as he wastes his empowered Q. To dodge his Q, simply use short in and out clicks of his range, allowing you to potentially bait his Q and avoid his damage in the process. We can also use side to side clicks to help us easily evade his Q, giving us another angle to avoid his damage.

3. 03

   Avoid Pantheon Stun Combo - Pantheon’s W allows him to stun his target for 1 second by jumping on to them, allowing him to generate a stack of his passive. When empowered, Pantheon’s W allows him to deal 3 additional hits after his stun, applying any on hit effects such as PTA, Conqueror or item passives. Pantheon W engage will most often be his way to deal high damage trades, as he’s quickly able to apply his damage and force out extended trades. As Renekton, we should make sure to play around his W by preventing ourselves from walking into his range, denying Pantheon’s ability to chunk us out. If Pantheon uses his empowered stack, Renekton can look to trade right after and force him to use regular W and lose out on additional damage. Pantheon will most likely use W when Renekton dashes in, so make sure to use your E2 to further gap close on him if you’re stronger, or simply use E2 to dash back after baiting his stun. Post level 6, Renekton will be able to use Pantheon’s W engages as his own detriment, allowing him to easily stay in range and force Pantheon’s own E out.

4. 04

   Respect And Outplay Pantheon E - Pantheon’s E allows him to block all incoming damage from the opposite angle of him, allowing him to hard peel against any heavy damage attacks such as Renekton’s W. When his E is empowered, Pantheon gains additional HP, armour and magic resist, while also gaining 60% movement speed after using it. Pantheon’s E is a core ability to play around, as one bad E will put his ability on a 22 second CD, providing you the ability to look for fights after it's on CD. Most of the time, if Renekton engages onto Pantheon, Pantheon will stun you then use his E if you’re trying to E2 towards him, or if you’re walking up with W activated. Most of the time, you hard punish Pantheon’s own E after he jumps on you, as he will do is regular W > AAx3 > Q > AA > E - This trading pattern provides him a regular damage combo, however Renekton can use his E in close range, to help E behind him, allowing him to unload on the rest of his damage. We usually exploit this around the level 6 mark, as our ability to use our R will entirely help us stat check and beat Pantheon throughout the rest of the game.

5. 05

   Rush Plated Steel Caps - Plated Steelcaps are a giant buy into Pantheon, as it allows you to negate his auto attack and empowered W hit damage with Plated’s 10% reduction passive, as well as providing you additional armour and movement speed to help play around Pantheon’s damage. This is by far the safest approach you can take into the Pantheon lane, as this match up is basically playable from level 6 in combination with our R powerspike.

6. 06

   Play Waves Accordingly - Simply assess whether or not you want to play for freeze, to help you deny XP and CS, while presenting yourself more opportunities to create fights. Or, play to shove waves to create proxy angles, tempo resets or create a dive opportunity. Renekton has all the cards to do whatever he wants with wave management. Also respect that if your laner tries to proxy, simply proxy back or coordinate a kill on them with your jungler.

7. 07

   Quick Trades - E > Q > AA > W > AA > E Out / E > Q > W > E / E Q E - These combos allow for Renekton to get quick damage off in being able to keep health up and whittling his opponent down, use these to get your laner low and look for a low HP kill with flash. When playing vs Pantheon, make sure to wait for his abilities to be on CD before doing these, or use short combos like E Q E to help force Pantheon’s abilities out and waste his mana.

8. 08

   Abuse Renekton's R Powerspike - Prior to this point in the match up, if Renekton has farmed safely and rushed defensive boots in the match up, Renekton is now ready to fight his opponent in an all in. Renekton's high base damage and stats from his R, allows Renekton to completely stat check his counter match up. Simply wait for the enemy to make a mistake, then go all out and kill your opponent.

9. 09

   Ping Pantheon’s R - Pantheon’s R is pretty great for creating skirmishing and flanking opportunities, allowing him to easily engage on his target of choice to help secure kills or one shot in the process. Pantheon R is a giant ultimate, which can entirely dictate certain scenarios within the game. If Pantheon is missing, try to always respect the ability for him to R. If you’re shoving up a wave, try to hold your E to help you disengage away from Pantheon’s R. If Pantheon is missing without a trace, make sure to always spam ping your overextended or low HP teammates of his potential R, allowing them to have time to walk away and avoid being caught out. If Pantheon uses his ult anywhere else on the map, try to abuse that by crashing your wave to take plates, while also denying his ability to receive gold and XP.

10. 10

    Build Eclipse, Black Cleaver or Death's Dance - Go Eclipse for consistent power through mid game and damage mitigation with the shield. / Go Black Cleaver for additional CDR and other versatile stats for utility based gameplay. / Go Death’s Dance to help take away his 1v1 power, allowing you to stat check and survive against his damage in an extended fight.

11. 11

    Mid Game + Teamfighting Tips - Pantheon’s overall power falls off within the later stages of the game, however his ability to create flanking angles or catch out targets is a giant strong point towards his role within the game. Trying to always take smart fights is pretty essential against Pantheon, so any deep skirmishes where your team is unable to follow you, or your own teammates will be severely punished if Pantheon manages to join the fight. Try to always take fights the correct fights, by playing around team members when a major fight or objective breaks out, or avoid being over extended on the enemies side of the map if there is no vision. As long as you can deny Pantheon getting any kills, while playing smart enough where he cannot use his kit, Pantheon will not really have an answer for this style of gameplay. Within the side lane, Renekton’s power surpasses Pantheon’s kit if he’s able to stay even or get ahead, allowing him to easily make work out of Pantheon within the mid to late game. Renekton’s overall teamfighting role also works a lot better into Pantheon, as Renekton can fulfill many different roles within a teamfight that Pantheon simply cannot do. For instance, bruiser Renekton can protect carries, be a frontliner or a back line diver, while Pantheon is suited towards being a diver style champion. Within teamfights, try to immediately protect any of your win conditions from Pantheon’s engage, using your stun to help lock him down, as well as using your R or empowered E to shred any of his armour to help him become easily one shottable. If pantheon is omega weak, you can simply just force fight his backline and kill any of his high profile targets.