How to Play As Thresh on League of Legends

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Thresh, "the chain warden", is a very versatile support champion in League of Legends. Having the possibility to put down a great amount of crowd control on your enemies and have the possibility to build up a potentially infinite amount of armor and ability power, Thresh is a good addition to almost any team composition.

Steps

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  1. If you do not own Thresh already, you will want to buy him or you will need wait until he is on the free champ rotation list. Thresh can be purchased in the in game store for either 790 RP or 3,150 Blue essence (when not on sale). A friend can also purchase thresh as a gift for you using 790 RP. Blue essence is earned over time by playing the game and RP is bought with real money in the shop.
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    • His passive is Damnation: Thresh does not gain armor per level. Instead, he collects souls of dead enemies by approaching them or placing Dark Passage's lantern nearby. Each soul permanently grants 1 armor and ability power.
    • His Q ability is Death Sentence: Active: Thresh throws out his scythe in a line and forms a tether with the first enemy hit stunning them for 1.5 seconds. Thresh can reactivate the ability to pull himself to the bound enemy.
    • His W ability is Dark Passage: Active: Thresh throws his lantern to the target location where it remains for 6 seconds. Thresh and the first ally who touches the lantern will gain a shield. An ally can right-click the lantern to be pulled to Thresh. Immobilized, grounded, or silenced allies cannot take the lantern.
    • His E ability is Flay: The passive effect of this ability causes Thresh's basic attacks deal bonus magic damage with the attack damage ratio increasing over 10 seconds when he does not attack. Activating the ability sweeps his chain in a target direction Knocking enemies back and slowing them for 1 second.
    • His R ability is The Box: Active: Thresh summons 5 walls around him for 5 seconds. The first enemy champion to touch a wall takes damage and is slowed by 99% for 2 seconds. Remaining walls deal no damage and slow for 1 second.
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  3. The runes you use will change depending on a variety of things such as game updates, play style, and what characters your opponents are playing. At the time of writing this a decent rune page consisting of the resolve tree is aftershock, font of life, bone plating, and unflinching. The secondary page being under inspiration, consisting of biscuit delivery and cosmic insight. Finally the stats you want to pick are adaptive force, adaptive force and health scaling. The reason behind developing this rune page is that Thresh is squishy early game due to his lack of passive armor gain by leveling up but these runes help him be a little more of a tank early on.
    • Bear in mind that Thresh can be played in a variety of ways and experimenting with various set ups can be beneficial if it complies with your playing style. One such rune page setup to experiment with is under the inspiration tree: Glacial Augment, Hextech Flashtraption, Biscuit Delivery, Cosmic Insight. The secondary tree being Resolve: Bone Plating and Unflinching. The stats you want to pick are adaptive force, adaptive force and health scaling. This rune page provides Thresh with even more crowd control and mobility while still having some tank stats.
  4. Playing in the "co-op vs ai" mode is advised when first learning a champion. Due to Thresh being a support champion by nature, you will usually play in the bottom lane to support your attack damage carry.
    • When playing any support role, it is important to let your attack damage carry (ADC) gain as much gold as possible. This can be done by helping your ADC get minion kills, champion kills and helping destroy towers while also keeping them safe. It is important to let your ADC get the finishing blow on enemies if possible, this is crucial during the laning phase in order to increase your teams damage output as your ADC will be able to buy stronger items from the shop.
  5. Collecting souls for Threshes passive is a key element to his effectiveness. Thresh unlike other champions, does not gain an armor bonus upon leveling up, meaning that Damnation is his only means of passively increasing armor. You do this by walking near the souls or throwing Thresh's W ability on the souls.
  6. Your Q ability can be used in numerous ways; not only is it a basic grab to slow and control your enemies but it can also be used to navigate across terrain due to it's secondary active component which allows you to rapidly close in onto the ensnared victim. For example, as an escape mechanism, you can cast your hook on any minion in the jungle, again press Q and you will find yourself launched over the wall. You can also use your q to get vision, for example if you think they might be on dragon you can throw your q from over the wall to get vision of the dragon.
  7. Dark Passage is a great way to save your teammates, provide a shield to allies and also to safely harvest souls at a distance. Bear in mind, that when attempting to cast Dark Passage to save allies, enemies can deliberately block the click such as standing on the lantern since the ally must be within a close proximity of the lantern in order to click it and use it. Using his lantern will require some accuracy and possible movement prediction on your part.
  8. The reason that you should be sensible in your usage of your active component of your E ability is that in the majority of the time in the laning phase (especially) the passive damage boost is more useful than the active. Flay is best used once you have successfully hooked and enemy and once they are free, use Flay to further slow and disable them. Holding the enemy is key to letting your teammates put out as much damage on them as possible. Also remember that this ability can interrupt enemy dashes (e.g. Leona's Zenith Blade and Lucian's Relentless Pursuit ) if timed correctly, it cannot however interrupt blinks (like Ezreal e or the summoner spell flash)
  9. Although The Box doesn't have an incredibly long cooldown, it is still significant. Due to The Box being cast upon your position, positioning is an important factor to this ability. The Box is best used in team fights to damage and slow the majority of the enemy team, this will provide the chance for your team to retreat or to use the impairment of the enemy team to their advantage.
  10. As Thresh is a generally considered a support champion, some essential items include a starting support item such as world atlas. Following the "recommended" tab in the shop when still learning about Thresh, your opponents and developing your own unique play style is a good way to learn about different items. Throughout the game some good support items could be locket of the iron solari, knights vow, zeke's convergence. As you develop a play style you may like some support items over others and different items can be bought in different situations.
    • Keep an eye out for what the enemy team purchases and build to counter them (for example, if the enemy is focusing on magic damage, buy into magic resist over armor). Another potential item choice is the item Redemption but do keep in mind that it is a more advanced item as it requires you to manually activate it and that requires superb game knowledge and some communication to use at full effectiveness.
    • If you believe that the game will extend into the late game, buy into health as by this point in time, it is likely that you will have amassed quite a number of souls providing a good amount of armor and ability power to sustain you. Due to his high amount of free Armor in the later stages of the game, Thresh is one of the few champions where, under certain conditions, thornmail is one of the most effective armor items without requiring any other bonus armor item.
  11. Playing bot games can help you develop these skills and get a feel for your own unique play style. Don't be afraid to test out different items in game and rune pages while you experiment with different play styles. When you start to feel more comfortable playing Thresh, don't be afraid to play against real players in Swiftplay or Draft pick.
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      Tips

      • Due to Threshes team saving possibilities, he can sometimes be the best person to not be involved in a team fight to ensure that allies don't die.
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      • Threshes Q ability is a great way to focus a single enemy in a fight. Try to focus the most squishy enemy champion or their main source of damage to gain the upperhand in a team fight.
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      Warnings

      • Thresh is somewhat squishy early game due to not gaining armor passively upon leveling up. Be sure not to overextend during the laning phase and focus on harassing the enemy and supporting your team.
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