Pantheon Will Be the Next League of Legends Champion Rework
By Wyatt Fossett ·
The champion development team at Riot Games has been very busy with new champions and the reworking of old ones. Next up is Pantheon, the Artisan of War.
In the latest edition of the League of Legends’ Champion Roadmap, Riot’s Lead Producer of Champions, Reav3, detailed a whole ton of stuff on the horizon for the game’s line-up.
Once the new visual and digital FX updates for Mordekaiser get released, the internal champion development team are going to turn to another one of League of Legends’ oldest champions in Pantheon.
Recently, Akali, Nunu, and Evelynn all got full reworks that update the champion’s visual effects, in-game models, and even change some of their abilities.
This “modernization” of older champions has been the team’s attempt to make stale and unplayed champions relevant again.
Pantheon, who saw a whole lot of play four years ago on the pro stage, was released in 2010. Lately, he has nearly dropped entirely off the map in regards to pick percentage. In order to refresh a once-proud king of ganks, Riot will throw a bunch of time into a full re-work.
The Pantheon update will include a refresh of the champion’s visual FX, a rework of his key abilities to work better with the modern version of League of Legends, and even a bolstering of the champion’s lore. The latter of which has been a pretty large focus for the narrative and champion development teams.
“For Pantheon’s gameplay, we’re looking to modernize his current kit rather than completely re-imagine it. We plan on preserving the aggressive, reliable nature of his play pattern while also adding a deeper set of options and decisions for him to play around with,” writes Reav3 on the League of Legends blog. “We also want to really sell the hoplite fantasy by making Pantheon’s shield feel more integrated into his kit.”
That last bit is intriguing because Pantheon has always had a giant Spartan shield. Currently, the shield is only used in a stun attack, which also blocks the next attack from enemies. It also worked as a passive shield. By the sounds of Reav3’s wording in the blog post, Riot may be looking to rework how much of an impact Pantheon’s shield can have on the rift, or giving players more control over using it.
With new feline champion Yuumi just revealed, and the Mordekaiser rework still yet to hit the game client, it may be a month or more before we get this proposed Pantheon rework.
Which of the older League of Legends champions would you love to see Riot Games rework and revitalize?