Hello steemions! Well here I bring you the first guide I do about League of Legends, specifically about my favorite champion, Thresh. My main role since I started playing was "Support" and after giving all support champions a try, I chose Thresh as the main champion thanks to how much fun it can be to play it and how comfortable is his skills kit for different situations.
For those who do not know or have never played as Thresh I will describe to them what each skill does (I will not include the statistics of damage and cool down reduction since they may vary in the following patches).
Thresh collects souls from enemies who die near to him (minions, jungle monsters and enemy champions), by obtaining them he obtains armor and ability power permanently.
Thresh throws his scythe, if he hits an enemy this is stunned by 1.5 seconds and he will be pulled two times towards Thresh. If reactivated can pull Thresh into the enemy.
Advices: from the moment you press the Q until it reaches its maximum range, it takes approximately 2 seconds, therefore, when you use the Q, try to calculate and aim the hook at where your enemy will be 2 seconds after you have pressed and not towards where it is exactly. You can also use it to escape an enemy chase by pulling monsters from the jungle.
Thresh throws out his lantern to a point. If an ally clicks on it, it will pick it up and travel to the position where Thresh is located. The lantern grants a shield to an ally if they are close to it. The life of the shield increases according to the number of souls that Thresh has collected.
Advices: When you throw the lantern to an ally you can standby to the maximum range it allows, when your ally grabs the lantern and he goes towards you, then you can use Flash to both travel an extra distance to the enemy (or escape the enemy), something that they don't usually wait for. Also throwing the lantern at a bush where you’ve no vision will grant it while the lantern is present inside the bush, quite useful to checkout a bush and don’t get caught by surprise. By throwing the lantern on the souls that the enemies release when they die they will be absorbed, I don’t usually do this unless there are many souls that will be collected, so as not to spend so much mana unnecessarily or in case the allied jungle is nearby to perform a gank to the enemy, in conclusion use the lantern wisely either offensively to enter a fight or defensively to save an ally.
Passively Thresh auto attacks are enhanced, inflicting more damage the longer you wait until your maximum load (if you perform an auto attack it is reset and you’ve to wait a short time for it to load again). When activated, Thresh sweeps the area with his chains and knocks down all the enemies hit in the direction of the blow, and they are slowed down for a brief time.
Advices: In the line phase, poke the enemy AD carry with your auto attacks when full charged, every time you can, trying to zone it and deny him minions and experience, this without putting you in a risky situation in which you can lose more life than you inflict on the enemy. With the active Flay you can cancel mobility abilities/travels of the enemies (like the jump of Tristana or Kha'Zix for example) reacting quickly in the exact moment that they use their ability.
Thresh raises a prison of walls around him, which slows down and inflicts damage on enemies by breaking them.
Advices: Hold the definite ability after the enemy has used their Flashes, or in case you are absolutely sure that the enemy doesn't have Flash, use it quickly when you hit your Q or E.
Builds
I always buy this items in the figure below with a priority from left to right. Of course you can buy other items and play it differently, I want to clarify that these are usually my ealy game purchases most of the games with Thresh.
Relic Shield it is the classic item of tank support champions, it will offer you a small sustain when killing minions at the starts in the line phase and it will help you to obtain the necessary gold for the start of the game.
Movility Boots, This item for me is mandatory for Thresh since it can take advantage of it at the beginning of the game, rotated from level 3 or 4. You can also buy lucidity boots in case you do not plan to rotate to other lines, which I don’t recommend.
Rechargables Potions, to heal a bit of the constant confrontations that tend to be in the bottom line. It is preferable to buy the 3 normal potions first and when you run out of those potions them buy this item, you can sell it when you need the slot to buy other items.
Sightstone and Control Wards, simply mandatory for the support role, for team vision against the enemy, to farm, fight and defend objectives in a safe and strategic way. It is highly recommended that you always have a control ward on the map, it’ll never disappear for a time limit and denies vision to the enemy by just placing it.
Face of the Mountain It offers everything Thresh may need, mainly life and cool down reduction, as well an active that when applied to an ally generates a shield to both.
Ruby Sightstone very convenient for its passive that offers a 20% cool down reduction on the active of your items such as Face of the Mountain and Locket of the Iron Solari. And you get an extra ward charge.
Knight’s Vow, excellent item to diminish a little the damage your AD carry receives in the team fights, also, you heal while your AD carry inflicts damage to the enemies.
Locket of the Iron Solari, Useful when there is a lot of magical damage in the enemy team. Its active offers a shield that is increased according to your maximum life, very useful to make peel to your carries.
Gargoyle Stoneplate, I recommend this item for when the enemy team has a lot of crowd control, or when your team does not have tanks, because Thresh does not scale as much life as a Leona or Alistar would.
Situationally it is preferable to buy some of these items:
Mercury’s Treads or Ninja Tabi: In the late game I always sell the mobility boots since I don’t usually rotate to other lines alone since you always walk (or should be) with your allies. So I change them for Mercury’s Treads if the enemy team has a lot of crowd control, or for Ninja Tabi if it has a lot of physical damage.
Warmog’s Armor In case you are not enough tank for the teamfights and your life goes down very fast. If you win a team fight you will heal quickly and you’ll not need to immediately recall what allows you to continue helping your team in a goal, of course without overextending too much.
Redemption, I do not currently use it very much but sometimes in team fights it can have a great impact by curing your allies with your active.
Frozen Heart, for when the enemy team has several attack speed champions, apart from their marksman as would be a Master Yi, Yasuo, Tryndamere. I almost always buy it against marksman like Vayne or Twitch due to their true damage.
Mikael’s Crucible, for when the enemy team has a lot of one-target-stuns like Twisted Fate, Pantheon, Morgana.
Runes
These are the current runes I use personally, since the Aftershock branch combines very well to apply the damage with Thresh. I also want to point out that Cosmic Insight suits you very well since you can get extra cool down reduction in both Thresh's ability and actives of the items. Future’s Market also comes in handy for the early purchases that support champions usually make.
Summoner Spells
Flash: basically it is mandatory, it can be used to perform a surprise game aggressively or to escape an imminent death.
Ignite: very useful to ensure deaths at the start of the game in the line phase.
Exhaust: In case the enemy team has a lot of burst champions, usually assassins like Zed, Le Blanc or Kha'Zix etc.
Laning Phase
Usually at the start of the game I never get a skill immediately, first try to call your team quickly when everyone enters the game to verify if they want to invade the enemy jungle, in case they follow you and invade the jungle enemy, just at the moment when the opportunity to catch an enemy you should get the Q and try to hook it, if it is very complicated or your allies are not with you, don’t even try it.
In case you and your teammates don’t invade the enemy jungle it is preferable to get the E at the beginning and always try to make a move when you level up to level 2, which consists of trying to go up to level 2 before the enemy support and marksman does. This is achieved by helping to lower the lives of enemy minions in the second wave, at the death of the first three minions of this wave you will rise to level 2 along with your marksman, then you have to approach the enemy and put yourself in sufficient range to use the E and then try to hit the Q (to get the Q quickly without losing time you have to press Ctrl + Q), if you hook it put ignite too, this way the first blood will be secured for you or your shooter 90% of the time.
After this, simply try to hook the enemy marksman (or support it is not a tanky one) if you think you have enough advantage to kill them, with the certainty that you will not end up dying from a surprise ambush of the enemy jungle. Before starting a play, always analyze the situation and verify the following questions: Does my marksman and I have Flash / Heal / Ignite available?, Does my shooter and I have enough or more life/ mana than the enemy? Do we have definite ability available? If the answer is no, it is preferable to wait for a better time to fight.
Something peculiar to throwing a hook (and almost any skillshoot) is that the enemy usually tries to dodge the skill the moment you press it, knowing this, just try to aim a little behind them so that the enemy itselft get hooked. As seen in the next gif, Tristana is moving away when she sees me approaching towards her, the moment I press my Q she tries to avoid it, which I anticipated she would do, so I aimed the hook a little behind from her:
Teamfighting
Thresh's skills are perfect for a 5v5 teamfight initiation, but keep in mind that for all support champions your priority is to peel your marksman trying that he or she survive at all costs. Therefore you must be close to him at almost ALL times protecting him from enemies when they have it on target. When you are sure your marksman is safe you can help the other members of your team to finish with the remaining enemies.
Conclusion
Finally I want to emphasize that Thresh is an early game champion, therefore you have to try to look for action in the first minutes of the game to get a bigger impact in the late game. Mastering Thresh is not an easy task, you have to spend a lot of time (like any mechanical champion like a Lee Sin or Riven) to gain experience and know how to react in each situation as the game progresses so if you want to learn to play Thresh I hope this guide helps you. Thank you very much for reading this guide, leave your doubts, advice and critics in the comments too!
Note: Absolutely all the images (except for the first) and GIFs used in this post are screenshots and videos edited by me, for this reason I do not put the source of these. The information are also analyzes and conclusions of my authorship after having played this fun champion so many times :). My League of Legends profiles are eycer10 and Clavismil on the LAN server
http://lan.op.gg/summoner/userName=eycer10
https://lan.op.gg/summoner/userName=Clavismil