In-Depth S13 Pantheon Jungle Guide
How to win games as one of the most underrated junglers
WardTheSky
Who am I?
Just some guy with 3,116,495 mastery points on Pantheon. My highest rating was Platinum 2 and was on my way to Diamond I think. But that's the past. All that matters now is the present and future. I originally started playing Pantheon when Dominion was a fun game mode and mained him in Jungle and Top Lane since. I am happy to see that he is once again a viable choice in Jungle, despite being out of meta play completely. I do stream sometimes as well on my channel.
Quick Pantheon AD Jungle Build
Summoner Spells
Starting Items
Best Overall Build
Runes Explanations
PTA is absolutely the best choice for jungle Pantheon. His empowered W will proc it fast and allow for easy ganks and will get your teammates free kills from its bonus damage.
The attack speed from Alacrity allows us to skip the attack speed and instead take double Adaptive Force runes, which gives raw damage for Pantheon's Q taps.
Conqueror makes sense for Top Lane, but not for jungle. It's a greedy rune choice for any jungler that can prioritize PTA better. It just fails to get your teammates free kills via ganks, etc. Not much else to say about it.
Runes (Loadout)
- Jungle
Summoner Spells & Items Loadout
- Jungle
Skill Path
- Jungle Skill Path
Pantheon
Starting Comet Spear is pretty standard in most games, sometimes starting W for an invade works wonders. Level 2, always get E and use it on Wraith Camp or Gromp, depending if your on blue/red team. Then we max Q followed by E and W lastly.
Jungle Routes
Always start on the bottom side of your map for first buff. This lets you get the most damage early on and have the fastest clear speed due to having your ADC and Support to leash you. Also, never ever, ever, use smite on the first buff spawn. It will either be used on the Large Wraith or Gromp ONLY. Likewise, we will hold our Health Potion for after first clear and use it when we are done with the clear.
Red Buff Start:
After taking Red, walk to Wraith Camp and attack it either with an auto or Q tap. You will want to use your E shield to do AOE dps to the camp and follow it up with an Empowered Q tap. You will use Smite here on the large monster as soon as you can too.
Then walk to wolves and clear them, then Blue Buff followed by Gromp. You can either smite Gromp or save it for the Crab spawn. After we clear Gromp, now we have some time to either gank Top Lane or Mid Lane or look to counter gank Top Lane.
Lastly, take the River Crab and look mid for a potential gank or just run through to the other Crab safely.
Blue Buff Start:
Take Blue, then go to Gromp and Smite it immediately and use your E shield and Q taps. Next take Wolves, followed by Wraiths, then Red Buff. We usually skip the Krugs because they are a bit of a time sink and an early gank Top/Mid Lane is vital instead of them.
Pretty much the same thing here, go for the River Crab(s) and look to achieve 1100g for Dirk to recall for it.
Dragons/Rifts:
This is where most junglers fail in the game and cause their team to ultimately lose games. Yes Dragons are extremely important and very meta, despite junglers acting like they don't matter or make a difference. Clear the Dragon Den after you grab a Dirk early game, and just take it like a man would. Don't screw around with random useless ganks until you have secured the first Dragon if you are allowed to do so.
If the enemy jungler took the Dragon Crab, then simply use the Blast Cone Plant to hop the wall and clear/take Dragon. Be mindful of the enemy jungler/mid/bot laners locations in-case they all start disappearing, they might be ganking you! You can do the same with the Rift Herald, hop the wall and take it, even if the Crab was taken by the enemy, they do not have vision on you unless its warded!
Control the Dragons/Rifts and you will in turn control the outcome of the game. Only send Rifts Mid Lane because Mid Lane is the easiest lane to shove mid/late game due to Baron shoves etc, everyone runs to shove mid usually. So the less towers mid has, the higher percentage you have at winning the game.
Baron/Elder Dragon:
The two best buffs in the entire game. These decide the outcome of games by themselves. When 2 or more enemies are dead and your team is around level 12+ take Baron after clearing the den. Capitalize on early Baron's because they are unexpected, but only when the enemy team is half dead, they can still run across the map even if they are Bottom Lane sometimes, don't risk it unless it's absolutely safe!
Elder is in its own right sometimes better than Baron. If you have a choice to do either Elder or Baron, go for the Elder every time. Then fight at Baron or anywhere for that matter. It gives an extreme advantage to its buff holders. Likewise with Baron Buff, ALWAYS shove mid lane down first, then either work on the side lanes or just end the game.
Ganking:
This is why you jungle. To give ALL of your laners a lead. Not just Mid Lane or Bot Lane, don't forget to gank your Top Lane early and every now and then. Top Lane is one of the most forgotten lanes that some junglers will refuse to gank. A fed Top Laner will sometimes win you games alone, don't ignore them!
After our first clear, we look for an early top gank immediately. If it won't work, don't sweat it, just wait for the Crab to spawn and proceed Mid Lane/other Crab. Also, EXPECT the enemy jungler to either gank Top Lane before you or even just wait and setup a perfect counter gank on them Top Lane.
After we hit level 6, no longer do wards work versus our ganks, because we come from the sky! Most of the time we will try to donate the kills after PTA procs to our teammates, but make sure you do take some of the kills and prevent enemies from escaping at low HP.
The Ward Trick:
Yes we start the game with the regular yellow trinket ward, but we will perform the classic "Ward Trick" every game. Basically start yellow, then run to your Red Buff location, you can either place the yellow ward on the Red Buff den or near it (at 55 seconds)to have eyes on a potential enemy invade on Red. If you start Red, then place the yellow ward on a jungle entrance leading to Red instead of the Red Den.
Make sure you start your recall at about 55 seconds after the game starts (drop the yellow ward right before your recall animation ends) to base and quickly swap the yellow ward for the red Oracle. Then proceed to ALWAYS start on the bot side of the jungle with your bot lane to leash you, easy.
NOTE: Sometimes your team will want to invade and the ward trick is not an option, so just play the coin flip meta and hope it goes well lol. You can still run to Red location if you can get there at 55 seconds in or just drop your ward somewhere else and recall for Oracle. The reason why Red is so highly guarded early, is because it's stronger than Blue Buff all game for AD champs, don't just give it up for free!
Item Notes (click each to expand)
- Jungle
Thanks for reading my guide.