In my experience, Pantheon wins the lane pretty hard as long as he doesn't make a mistake that gives a kill away.
But like pretty much every other top lane matchup, it's not extremely one-sided unless there's a big jungler influence. Whoever gets ahead stays ahead. Also, Pantheon can build full damage basically while Darius is forced to armor stack. Once Darius gets a lot of armor it's actually in his favor, IMO, but by then it should be more of a "who has a bigger effect on teamfights and map pressure" game and Pantheon wins that one pretty hard.
But yeah... I would play this lane very aggressively, maybe even with ignite to add kill pressure.
On June 19 2014 10:47 ZERG_RUSSIAN wrote: In my experience, Pantheon wins the lane pretty hard as long as he doesn't make a mistake that gives a kill away.
But like pretty much every other top lane matchup, it's not extremely one-sided unless there's a big jungler influence. Whoever gets ahead stays ahead. Also, Pantheon can build full damage basically while Darius is forced to armor stack. Once Darius gets a lot of armor it's actually in his favor, IMO, but by then it should be more of a "who has a bigger effect on teamfights and map pressure" game and Pantheon wins that one pretty hard.
But yeah... I would play this lane very aggressively, maybe even with ignite to add kill pressure.
I really dont think this is true, but I could be wrong. My experience is pretty well the exact opposite, and comes not from just my own opinion but from asking Locicero and Smash while they were streaming for tips on the matchup.
I havn't played the matchup in like two seasons, and a lot has changed since then (I think Darius has been hard nerfed a couple times, Penetration changes and itemization changes likely nudge it in Pantheon's favor as well) but my memory has it being an unwinnable matchup for pantheon.
Darius wins all the all-ins. Darius can engage an all in with Q-E-auto-W and then just auto you to death and pantheon can't do anything unless he has flash. Darius can mitigate Pantheon's Damage and Pantheon cannot mitigate Darius' (its 33% Magic, 33% AD, 33% true). If Pantheon wants to harass Darius he needs to be in melee range to farm, if he wants to farm from afar he gets shoved in.
Obviously a jungler can swing it into pantheons favour with a couple key ganks, but at the same time Pantheon can have it swing the other way just as easily with ganks early. Both champions have good gank assist and awful gank-escapes, its kind of an X-factor more so than usual but in Solo queue you can't really rely on it either way.
Haven't played the matchup from either side in ages, but at some point you have to auto the minions as Panth if you want to be on equal farm. I don't see how you can argue that Darius is just going to shove the wave with his q's if you're going to stand so far back that he can't hit you? Sure you're faster, but he can just choose to not use his q so that's not exactly a permanent solution. You can't use your spear on Darius and to farm, if you just spam it you're going to run out of mana really fast.
Also the analysis Darius vs Panth at 4 is pretty deceiving. Darius hits 6 and slams Pantheon with his ult, Panth gets a really unreliable ult that's probably better at killing other people on Darius's team and not that great in a 1v1. While I agree if Panth gets super ahead he's probably staying there, I don't think he can really get there in an isolated 1v1 without a severe mismatch in skill levels.
Other misconception is people saying stuff like pantheon has like fifteen seconds to exploit darius while his pull is down.... lol just tells me you've never played the match up.
Thing is darius only needs 1 E to get you to a point where you either died 1v1 or need to go home or you'll die if he tries it again, even if the trade was even he wins because he gets so much more Lane presence from his ultimate than pantheon does; darius does similar long term damage to pantheon, hell depending on how panth passive works panth can even win the long term trade, but darius front load burst abs the fact that you'll be fighting in darius minions every time swings it hard in his favor.
If pantheon is even in lane with darius, the darius sucks or doesn't know the match up at all.
To add to this, even if Pantheon does more damage "in a 5-7s all-in", Darius' death or retreating doesn't stop the bleeding passive, so you'll still lose a bunch of HP. (and possibly die) from it.
And since yeah, you have to last hit, it's not about "spear has more range than decimate", unless you willingly forgo some cs early to avoid decimate hitting you and build-up a health lead from spear harass, he's going to tag you with it to punish last-hitting, and hit 2 first. The lane's momentum is decided way before level 4 I'd say. Once you're near your tower he can also easily abuse Q to punish last-hits and harass you under tower (regardless of Decimate's range, Darius retains some momentum while casting, meaning he can slightly move. I've had Darius get into tower range, retreat and Q me while moving backwards, moving out of tower aggro before the tower can shoot). That's not an ideal situation at all, plus if he hits 6 first this way he can easily dive you (and you can't roam while pinned).
Pantheon may be able to win level 2-3 fights, however that's also around the time the jungler shows up, especially now that they all start near bot. Unless you get to ward the river or know that you have a stronger 2v2/faster clearing jungler, going aggro can be pretty dangerous. Even just this makes it harder for Pantheon (because Darius' Q and passive (and later ult) are very strong in 2v2s). How would you block "his 2 next autos" after a W btw? For all I know you can't prep 2 blocks in a row, so even if you already have a block ready, if you W Darius you'll still only block one auto (and W being an auto-reset for Darius with a very fast animation means it's close to impossible to time your W for the refresh between his auto and own W).
On June 19 2014 17:25 Alaric wrote: To add to this, even if Pantheon does more damage "in a 5-7s all-in", Darius' death or retreating doesn't stop the bleeding passive, so you'll still lose a bunch of HP. (and possibly die) from it.
And since yeah, you have to last hit, it's not about "spear has more range than decimate", unless you willingly forgo some cs early to avoid decimate hitting you and build-up a health lead from spear harass, he's going to tag you with it to punish last-hitting, and hit 2 first. The lane's momentum is decided way before level 4 I'd say. Once you're near your tower he can also easily abuse Q to punish last-hits and harass you under tower (regardless of Decimate's range, Darius retains some momentum while casting, meaning he can slightly move. I've had Darius get into tower range, retreat and Q me while moving backwards, moving out of tower aggro before the tower can shoot). That's not an ideal situation at all, plus if he hits 6 first this way he can easily dive you (and you can't roam while pinned).
Pantheon may be able to win level 2-3 fights, however that's also around the time the jungler shows up, especially now that they all start near bot. Unless you get to ward the river or know that you have a stronger 2v2/faster clearing jungler, going aggro can be pretty dangerous. Even just this makes it harder for Pantheon (because Darius' Q and passive (and later ult) are very strong in 2v2s). How would you block "his 2 next autos" after a W btw? For all I know you can't prep 2 blocks in a row, so even if you already have a block ready, if you W Darius you'll still only block one auto (and W being an auto-reset for Darius with a very fast animation means it's close to impossible to time your W for the refresh between his auto and own W).
iirc, it used to be that you could get a stack of your passive and then W someone and you'd retain the stack. Like, if you had 3 stacks and W'd someone, your buffs would indicate (3) stacks of aegis and also the colored in (aegis ready) icon. Or something like that, I haven't actually played Pantheon recently -.-;;
EDIT: oh, I found a video of it!
Oh, and concerning the rest of your post, the highest I've ever been was Gold I so obviously we face very difference caliber Darius players. I just don't feel like it's a hard counter like everyone here is saying, that's all. At my elo, people still fall for the "bait them into a fight at 6, blow everything and still lose because of their ulti, flash into a bush, ult straight up and down trick" which darius is a prime target for. Although now that you can't throw a spear on the way down, I don't know if that's even viable anymore.
On June 19 2014 14:55 iCanada wrote: Yeah, Zero has it right.
Other misconception is people saying stuff like pantheon has like fifteen seconds to exploit darius while his pull is down.... lol just tells me you've never played the match up.
Thing is darius only needs 1 E to get you to a point where you either died 1v1 or need to go home or you'll die if he tries it again, even if the trade was even he wins because he gets so much more Lane presence from his ultimate than pantheon does; darius does similar long term damage to pantheon, hell depending on how panth passive works panth can even win the long term trade, but darius front load burst abs the fact that you'll be fighting in darius minions every time swings it hard in his favor.
If pantheon is even in lane with darius, the darius sucks or doesn't know the match up at all.
I mean, do you have much experience in the match up? I already stated that I do so acting conceited while calling me a liar is a rather poor opening statement. Forgive me if I don't just take your word for it that Darius skilling up apprehend is a huge power spike that makes panth auto lose 1v1. I would doubt even faker if he told me what you're saying so don't take it personally.
Also, you're confused: I already clearly pointed out that Pantheon is front loaded compared to Darius and considering you think Darius steamrolls pantheon, I don't know why I'd ever be in his minion wave. Pantheon out ranges Darius so if anything, Darius will be in Panth's minion wave no? Zero even said, if I stand far enough back, he'll just sit in my minion wave trying to get into Q range. Sure i'll miss cs but it's a wave every 30 seconds and I would gladly miss 1 wave of creeps to get 4 free spears into an all-in, in the middle of my creep wave.
To compare, the range difference between decimate and spear is the same as Graves vs Caitlyn. And considering spear cast time is way lower than an auto attack animation, AND pantheon is faster than darius, I really don't know what you're planning on doing for 15 seconds before your E is back up. Assuming you didn't whiff the E because spear also out-ranges that..
To add, Pantheon has a stun which really can't be understated. In a duel where both parties do massive damage, the side with CC obviously has the upper hand. Levels 3-5, if Darius ever gets to ~35% hp, as long as pantheon has more than 10% hp, Panth will win everytime. Stun-auto-spear-auto is instant death at that range; you can't flash out of it nor do you have the time to retaliate with anything more than 1 decimate, at best, before you die.
I guess what I'm wondering as well is if Darius does apprehend Pantheon, can Pantheon just stun him and then walk away? I'm sure he'd still eat a Q at that point, but if Darius is doing an apprehend and a decimate for his harass he going to have mana problems, at least in the early levels.
And for Darius fighting in his creep wave if he pulls Pantheon, Darius will also hook enemy minions towards him, so keep that in mind. Although I agree with the point being made.
I mean at this point we might all just have to agree to disagree until we actually experience the matchup again haha. I feel like at this point we're doing theorycrafting and not actual experience.
If I do get the opportunity to play this match up again sometime soon I'll come back to this thread and let you guys know how it went.
On June 20 2014 01:02 Frudgey wrote: I guess what I'm wondering as well is if Darius does apprehend Pantheon, can Pantheon just stun him and then walk away? I'm sure he'd still eat a Q at that point, but if Darius is doing an apprehend and a decimate for his harass he going to have mana problems, at least in the early levels.
And for Darius fighting in his creep wave if he pulls Pantheon, Darius will also hook enemy minions towards him, so keep that in mind. Although I agree with the point being made.
I mean at this point we might all just have to agree to disagree until we actually experience the matchup again haha. I feel like at this point we're doing theorycrafting and not actual experience.
If I do get the opportunity to play this match up again sometime soon I'll come back to this thread and let you guys know how it went.
No, you can't just run away. The wind up on w allows darius to get cripple on you slowing you hard and also gives him the ms bonus from his passive. If he doesn't sick he'll have ms quints too. And that was when his stun had a flat duration, now it is a small stun level 1 its even worse.
The range difference on spear shot and decimate doesn't matter, pantheon will be in decimation range if you ever want to last hit. It's not like you can both harrass with q and farm with it like cait vs graves.
The stun duration hasn't been changed, that was on the PBE. It's still only a second and Apprehend's pull cc you for slightly longer than the animation so Darius will get his W in anyway, yes.
On June 19 2014 23:53 Xenocide_Knight wrote:Sure i'll miss cs but it's a wave every 30 seconds and I would gladly miss 1 wave of creeps to get 4 free spears into an all-in, in the middle of my creep wave.
Things like this you can't do against a good player. Because he'll just take the CS lead and smash your face in later. You can't really wear down a Darius if he goes cloth 5, you run out of mana first, and it's so slow he can just back long before you get him into the danger zone.
On June 19 2014 23:53 Xenocide_Knight wrote:
To add, Pantheon has a stun which really can't be understated. In a duel where both parties do massive damage, the side with CC obviously has the upper hand. Levels 3-5, if Darius ever gets to ~35% hp, as long as pantheon has more than 10% hp, Panth will win everytime. Stun-auto-spear-auto is instant death at that range; you can't flash out of it nor do you have the time to retaliate with anything more than 1 decimate, at best, before you die.
Why would Darius ever stay in lane if he's that low? He has to eat over 10 spears to even get to that point if he has health potions.
I've played this matchup from both sides this season (I went on a Pantheon binge for a while, and picked Darius to specifically counter a Pantheon once). I feel like your perception of the matchup is probably skewed by Darius's who mindlessly push to tower, stay in lane far longer than they have any business doing, and other bad habits. I mean that's 90% of Darius's, but believe it or not there are people who will do their best to freeze the lane if you refuse to get into auto range of minions. Panth is the one is on a ticking clock more than Darius in the matchup, so there's no real onus on him to do anything crazy if you're going to put yourself behind willfully.
No no, Zero all good laners let a low pantheon flash into a brush, live after burning flash to not escape and then stand in pantheon ultimate...
It's really not a big deal to put yourself thousands of gold behind to burn through the enemy lanes pots.
I don't mean to be rude xeno, but if your argument for a matchup being good is that "chances are you're opponent is trash" then you might as well be advocating 0-0-0 masteries and no runes. I mean hell, doesn't matter, chances are your opponent is trash right?
I'd also like to dispute HSS doing "huge damage" in a lvl 4 fight. The one point you have in HSS at lvl 4 does less damage then just autoattacking and is basically a waste of mana.
Darius has an interrupt with apprehend so I'm not sure why you would rely on HSS to do damage in an all-in. If you are just chucking spears every point you can and not csing at all then the Darius backs and just walks back to lane (god forbid they take teleport to follow you around the map) then you're behind because, while he will lose cs walking back to lane, he'll have items and more pots while you either took flask and likely have one charge left or you have 1-2 spears left before you're forced to back. Then this Darius proceeds to push to tower and gains the level lead while having a gold and/or item lead.
This is all ignoring the op
I take this vs champions that I desperately need to grab an early kill/advantage against. Think Chogath, Zed, Darius, etc. Their level 6 will make them unduelable without a big lead.
So Panth can try to chunk Darius down but this either leads him to trading anyway when going to cs or causes him to lose out on gold which for Panth whose power curve depreciates greatly as time goes on (harder to assassinate without something like the zed ult along with all melee champions becoming more irrelevant as ranged scale up) Darius is going to become a tank so no one dieing favors Darius even if Darius doesn't gain a lead due to the matchup.
Not really sure what a Panth will do vs a Darius who goes teleport since then you just have to deal with someone yanking you out of position for 50%-70% of your ganks.
If you can find a good way to cs while vs a Darius who started q and does not just use it out of range then please tell because it would be great to know since that's definitely something that you could use for other champs in similar situations.
On June 20 2014 03:25 iCanada wrote: No no, Zero all good laners let a low pantheon flash into a brush, live after burning flash to not escape and then stand in pantheon ultimate...
It's really not a big deal to put yourself thousands of gold behind to burn through the enemy lanes pots.
I don't mean to be rude xeno, but if your argument for a matchup being good is that "chances are you're opponent is trash" then you might as well be advocating 0-0-0 masteries and no runes. I mean hell, doesn't matter, chances are your opponent is trash right?
That's not my argument and you know it. I can't do anything more than theory craft and speak from experience to the best of my ability. If your counter argument is "well, I'm so much better than you at the game so I'll just be snarky and discount whatever you say for being bad" then clearly I have nothing to add. But most people are probably gold or below so feel free to ignore the following.
I do want to point out that Darius is in no way 1/3 magic, physical, and true damage. The lane is obviously going to be decided pre-6 since no reasonable pantheon would wait that long to all in. And early game, blocking multiple autos is at least comparable to a cloth armor. Darius is, at best, 60/40 Physical to magic, assuming he tags you constantly with Q to keep stacks up. Which will not happen if you throw a few cs, which is also not thousands of gold. It's throwing a few cs now to bully Darius out of lane.
And that's not at all how the bush Panth ult works, the point is that either they have to eat the ult damage or create a huge amount of distance burning flash (since they're dead center when the circle appears) that they can't close again before Panth stun comes back. Also, it used to be that even if you left the ult circle, Panth could still throw a long distance spear, further closing the gap in a fight.
On June 20 2014 03:44 DrunkenOne wrote: I'd also like to dispute HSS doing "huge damage" in a lvl 4 fight. The one point you have in HSS at lvl 4 does less damage then just autoattacking and is basically a waste of mana.
Well then I'll close this dispute by point out that at lvl 4, HSS does at least 120 raw damage over .75 seconds making it clearly better than auto attacking. Not to mention it's used inbetween auto attacks.
As for power curve arguments, I honestly believe Darius is absolute garbage late game. While Panth might not exactly shine, he at least has much better mobility and pick potential which I value a lot more than one of the most easily kited, 0 defense mechanism, melee champions in the game.
Concerning tele, and/or speed quints, since I'm planning on killing him straight up, that's really only in my favor. If I all in and he has to flash out, b, and tele back, there are so many ways to exploit that I basically already won the lane.
We're also talking about this in a vacuum. The really big problem with Darius is that he gets completely owned by ganks if he pushes. Cloth + 5 isn't going to help if you get 100-0'd. The real zoning threat comes from the jungle and W, not from the spears.
But I mean, I guess that would differ at each level of play.
EPT
