Aesthetics:
Good Thresh do have his own intro song, I was afraid Vi would be a one time deal. And then I would have to complain on that. Well it don't feel as cool as Vi's song ,but I guess its more aesthetically correct with the chanting song Thresh has.
Thresh looks good, I really like how he walks (especially compared to how Vi walks). And all his ability got good animations. And good voice acting, so I dont have much to say in his regard.
Except that he do reminds me of an angler fish.
The resemblance is eerie is it not.
9/10.
Gameplay:
Thresh is a support role character, but to at least to my experience he can be pretty good as mid or top and then building tanky/attack speed.
Thresh got a lot of displacement mechanics and is a heavy control character, controlling the battle by pulling or pushing away opponents. He can also pull in allies and lastly his ultimate creates walls, which are not real walls but for most users they revere them as walls.
Passive: Damnation
I
like the idea of this passive but I think its not implemented well
enough in the regard of the numbers and value what it gives.
What Damnation does is that nearby enemies(creeps, champions etc) that dies drops souls which Thresh can pick up.
What is important to know with Thresh is that he don't gain any armor
when leveling up instead these souls gives armor and ability power. So
the idea is that the user has to walk and pick these souls up, the user
can also use Thresh second ability to pick up close soul to where the
lantern summoned by the second ability lands.
In theory this will make it an interesting gameplay as the user has to
take risk going after souls. However, from almost any game I have played
as a support it is rarely a problem to take up souls. Only time it is
hard is when the lane is completely lost e.g 6.0 to the opponents etc
and then the game is kinda lost anyway. Furthermore, I have been trying
out Thresh in all lanes and he works good as top and decent in mid(more
on this later) and in a 1v1 situation it is very easy to take up souls.
Unless as in 2v2 when the lane is really, really over but as that never
happened in a 1v1 (for me as Thresh at least) I can only assume it would
be hard then.
But the main problem is that every soul is not worth that much, this
is what I mean with the value. The souls drop very frequently and they
don't give so much alone meaning it is OK to skip a soul which spawned
in a really bad location and stil reach a really high armor and bonus AP
in the end game.
This passive should be changed so it spawns less frequent souls and
make them be worth more. This will enforce the user to go and get the
souls. Which then will create more of the gameplay I assume Riot games
want Thresh to have.
Because as I said, in theory good passive but not well in practice.
Hmm I guess one bad thing with it is that makes him be unplayable in jungle as the soul spawn will be to few.
Death Sentence
- Cooldown: 18 / 16.5 / 15 / 13.5 / 12
- Cost: 80 mana
Passive: Bonus Magic Damage: Souls + up to 80 / 110 / 140 / 170 / 200% AD
Death Sentence has both a passive and an active effect. The passive is that when not attacking he builds up damage for the next attack and then its all gone in 1 attack. Makes him really strong as a support champion as its a very lethal poke for his normal attack.
-Personally I do Thresh with flat AD runes as support and it becomes a very powerful normal attack.
Active: Magic Damage: 80 / 110 / 140 / 170 / 200 (+50% AP)
The active one is a hook type of game mechanic, its kinda a mix between Blitzcrank’s hook and Nautilus hook.
But actually its more of a Goblin Clockwork mechanic from Dota.
When the user hook someone with Thresh they can by pressing q again fly to the opponent, so its more of a safe version then Nautilus and Goblin Clockwork has. Furthermore, when the target is hooked they will be pulled towards Thresh but its not like a Blitz pull (or Butcher for that matter) but a small in pull and then once more, and if he hits them next to him they cant leave then. So its clearly like a light version of the more standard hooks. Which is reasonably as it gives t hat passive increase of damage and the possibility to move to the target.
I do found Thresh pretty hard to play (compared to other champions not to other games -_-) as this ability has a very long cast time. It takes some practice to get used to when one should start throwing it, it also makes it kinda annoying as its almost impossible to hit anyone in close vicinity as they will just dodge it. It is much more applicable at long distance if one has predicted the movement,.
However, this also makes it more fun to play Thresh he clearly emphasize a strong control gameplay style. Of course I am very bias here as that's my favorite gameplay in basically all games.
So this is a pretty neat ability altogether but it has one thing I am really annoyed with. And that is that the target is hooked Thresh wont auto attack! This might be for balance reason in a 2v2 at bot lane. The main problem is that it makes the hook almost pointless in 1v1 laning, expect for jumping to them. The major benefit of hooking someone at for example top lane is that it might then be able to flay(third ability) them into turret range. The damage is simply lower then just auto attacking. I really think this should be changed.
Dark Passage
- Cooldown: 22 / 20.5 / 19 / 17.5 / 16
- Cost: 40 mana
- Shield Amount: 60 / 100 / 140 / 180 / 220 (+40% AP)
This
is Thresh most interesting ability by far. Thresh throws out a lantern
that shield allies and himself from damage, it picks up souls and 1 ally
can press it and then get teleported to Thresh.
This
is one really nice designed ability. First of all it also gives map
vision so the user can throw it in bushes etc, the damage reduction can
be very useful and stack of course with other shield e.g Iron Locket
etc. And then its a great ability to have and it can be used in so many
different ways.
It can save people from ganks, it can be used in conjunction with an
initiating tank e.g the tank jumps in and can then TP out by pressing
the lantern. Another good part is how the lantern distance works. The
user can move freely on a 1500 range from were the lantern was placed.
Meaning the user can throw the lantern to the east then flash to the
west and still be in range for the lantern and the result is then that
the user has gained a pretty long distance from the lantern so if an
ally press it they will surely be saved from the opponents.
Overall I really like the lantern as I can place it and then move
around for a while a lot of the times I throw it a place I believe will
be the later location for my carry. Usually at a bottom bush and then
the carry can chase for a bit into that bush and then get TP out to
safety. Doing this also gave us vision over the bush, deflecting
surprise visits from other people and helping the carry not lose focus.
Its a really awesome ability and it feels great using it. It really feels like you are supporting the team
Flay
- Cooldown: 9
- Cost: 60 / 65 / 70 / 75 / 80 mana
- Magic Damage: 65 / 105 / 145 / 185 / 225 (+40% AP)
- Slow Amount: 20 / 25 / 30 / 35 / 40%
This ability is ridiculously annoying to use, I would go so far and say its has the lowest usability in the game. What it does its very interesting. Thresh Flays the ground and either pull people towards him or away from him, the distance is pretty short but it interrupts them and displace them, so its a very potent ability. But using it is very frustrating, the user has to kinda move around the mouse while doing moving to get the Flay in the right direction as normally the user want to Flay and hit the opponents behind Thresh to make them move towards him = move towards his team.
- I do it by moving with Thresh I constantly twist around the moue to get a good angle, or when i do a Hook hit I quickly move the mouse so it becomes a in pull. It toke me quite some practice to get it smooth for that combo. I like the ability on paper but its very bad implanted, I also think that leveling it should rather increase the distance they move or the distance the Flay in itself moves as many, many times hitting with a Hook is not actually leading to hitting with Flay(I am excluding the cases the user hit Q again to move to the target).
Its a very good ability in 5v5 team battle and in conjunction with using it after a dive by Hook or just by walking in and initiating but, its really hard to use it as the user wants, the reason it works fine in 5v5 is mainly because its a lot of targets so hard to not get hit even if its a weird cast choice and the way it is improved by leveling does seem slighytly weak.
The Box
- Cooldown: 150 / 140 / 130
- Cost: 100 mana
- Magic Damage: 250 / 400 / 550 (+100% AP)
The box looks really cool, Thresh creates several walls creating a box. Each of these walls can only be walked into once by any opponents then it disappears but the rest of the walls stays. An opponent that goes into a wall get slowed and I mean slowed 99% for 2 seconds. It also does damage but that damage is kinda indifference to the battle. I might not be if anyone ever build an AP Thresh but that seems bad, so the damage is kinda whatever. However, an opponent can only be slowed by 1 wall if they walk into 2 walls they get damage from both but only slow from the first time. So in theory 1 person can take huge amount of damaging if they walk into each wall.
It’s quite a strong AoE ability for team battles. It is pretty shitty as a support ability in 2v2 situations and in 1v1 it don't do much expect maybe letting the user run away. Rarely will it secure kills alone or for the carry at bot, but it is a good ability for team battles. If Thresh can get it of hitting several opponents it can Cc them good but mainly what it does is a Ccing thorough existing. It creates a wall between the opponents. The best use I have observed from this ultimate is not to actually hit anyone but to it being placed splitting the opponent team so that they don't dare touching it. Its a nice control ability.
Its interesting that Thresh clearly is similar to Goblin clockwork as he can pull himself to the enemy and then trap them with this ultimate(However, Goblin is better as he walls them in). Still it don't actually feels like that so much, I believe this is mainly because of the difference in cooldown. While Thresh can use his Hook frequently,but its a 2.5 min CD on his ultimate. So the user cant do the hook to wall very often.
And this actually makes me wonder about his coherency as a character while the hook also pulls the target to him, meaning it is not useless just because the user cant jump in and wall. It still means the user very, very rarely will ever fly to them. When I play him, so far the only time I fly in is when I have ultimate or when I am diving a turret(in the support role) to tank the turret for the carries.
Because of this the fly in feels kinda bad especially as it seems his hook effect is nerfed because of the possible fly mechanic.
Furthermore, the user can of course use it to escape. Which is never worthless but because it has such a long cast time it is actually quite hard to use it effectively in combat. It is mainly only applicable when the user is kinda safe already (having enough distance from the enemies to use it properly).
Thresh is a nice addition to the support champion. Its nice how he is not about healing or empowering the damage out put. Its about displacement mechanics, either displace the enemies or displace the allies with his lantern.
But there are is one huge problem with playing Thresh is the allies and especially the adc. While this shouldn't really be an issue that is counted for how good Thresh is, by that I mean it shouldn't be a minus of the allies are to stupid to use the lantern. Problem is they are a lot of stupid people, this will surely be less frequent when people have seen him for a year. But right now every game I play there are always at least 1 teammate that cant use it.
And its really, really annoying I am playing him on rank mainly and as with any support the team has to have some level of skills or you will lose as the player cant carry as a support. With Thresh then it becomes even more obvious how the support cant really do anything if the team mates cant play. So while this shouldn't be a minus for a character, but Thresh is the most highly reliable on his team support champion and its extremely frustrating playing him many games so be warned.
In the end I quite like Thresh but he do have many minor issues, as I mentioned the passive should be better enforced the hook removing his auto attack the really troublesome use of his third ability and that the teammates really has to be good. The ultimate might need to last a little longer as well.
7.7/10 - I like Thresh more then most other supports but he has a lot of minor problems and the system for using Flay I hope will be changed.
