I want to give a shoutout to Warren the Hero over on the Monster Monday Discord for helping me puzzle out this build and giving me somebody to bounce ideas off of. This was a really fun build to do and I think part of that was talking with somebody else while I was working on it. It's worth noting that this build and the gear for it is picked in a vacuum without consideration for what adventure it may be in, so certain options might be better in specific situations.
Now, let's get into the build for Pantheon, the Unbreakable Spear from League of Legends!
PANTHEON, THE UNBREAKABLE SPEAR
CHARACTER Atreus//Pantheon, the Unbreakable Spear
SOURCE League of Legends
GOAL Once a mere mortal born upon the hostile slopes of Mount Targon, Atreus was raised as a warrior but was regularly bested by his peers during training. He and a rival tried to ascend Mount Targon to claim the power of the Aspects and while Atreus succeeded, his will was suppressed by the Aspect of War that had overtaken him. He was able to reclaim his body when Aatrox slew the Aspect possessing him and he tenaciously clung to life. In a new battle against Aatrox, he managed to reignite the Aspect’s weapon and reclaim some of its power to turn the tide. He has claimed to battle against all manners of creatures beyond mortal ken and renamed himself as Pantheon. His passive Mortal Will causes him to gain stacks when he lands an attack or casts an ability, and once he has 5 stacks, he empowers his next ability. With Comet Spear, Pantheon charges up his spear before thrusting or hurling it upon release, dealing critical damage to low-health targets and extra damage if he has stacks of Mortal Will. Shield Vault causes Pantheon to leap to a target, damaging and stunning them normally and causing him to unleash a flurry of swift attacks if he has Mortal Will. Aegis Assault makes Pantheon invulnerable to damage coming in a certain direction while making spear strikes continuously in front of him, and Mortal Will makes him faster after recasting the ability. Finally, Grand Starfall involves Pantheon leaping into the air before crashing down upon his foes, dealing massive damage and slowing enemies in an area.
LEVEL 1 All builds start with the same thing, our ABCs – ancestry, background, and class. Atreus himself is a human that was merged with the celestial essence of the Aspect of War, so to capture that feeling, we’re going to be an aasimar human. Being an aasimar gives us low-light vision and access to aasimar ancestry feats. As a human, we get two free boosts that will be going to Strength and Constitution so that we can fulfill our role as a frontline fighter. Our first ancestry feat will be Natural Ambition, granting us a bonus class feat at 1st level. I liked this over other options because I felt like it really played into the character’s drive to ascend Mount Targon in the first place.
Choices here were pretty simple, between warrior and martial disciple and as you can tell by the font, I went with the latter. The description of it fits Pantheon better and the skill feat we receive from it is more in line with him than Intimidating Glare would be, at least to start. Our first boost goes to Strength once again while the free boost will shore up Dexterity. While Pantheon goes into combat barechested, I think we’ll actually be wearing some armor, but on the light end so having a slightly higher Dex will be helpful. We’ll become trained in Athletics and Warfare Lore, and then receive the Quick Jump skill feat so that we can leap as a single action.
The best class for a character that was once the Aspect of War is easily fighter. I think the debate could be made for a few others, but I don’t think any encapsulate the character quite as well as fighter does. We’ll take our automatic boost to Strength and then slot our four free boosts into Strength, Dexterity, Constitution, and Charisma (Str 18, Dex 14, Con 14, Int 10, Wis 10, Cha 12). Since we already have Athletics, we’ll become trained in Acrobatics automatically and then become trained in Crafting, Intimidation, and Society. From our class features, we gain the Attack of Opportunity and Shield Block reactions, and then have two class feats to pick thanks to Natural Ambition. Reactive Shield is handy for when we’re already in the midst of danger but don’t have time on our turn to get our shield up to give us slightly better protection. With Exacting Strike as our second class feat, we can make Strikes that don’t increase our MAP on a failure, which will be handy when we want to unleash a full volley of blows on a foe.
LEVEL 2 As somebody born and raised on a mountain who managed to ascend its treacherous slope, Combat Climber feels like a good skill feat to start with. For our class feat, we’ll be taking Lunge so that we can get part of the effect of Pantheon’s Comet Spear when he just makes a jab with it.
Gear: everburning torch
LEVEL 3 Our most important skill is Athletics because it covers such a wide array of uses for this character, so we’ll put our first increase there, bumping it up to expert proficiency. I feel like I take this general feat too much, but it really does fit Pantheon quite nicely, especially considering the part of his lore where Aatrox slew the aspect and left only Atreus who somehow managed to survive. Diehard makes it so that we don’t reach perma-death until we’re at Dying 5 instead of Dying 4.
Gear: +1 spear, everburning torch, ring of discretion
LEVEL 4 With that fresh expert proficiency in Athletics, we can pick up Powerful Leap to expand the span of our jumps and leaps. Our class feat will be Shielded Stride, allowing us to move at half speed without provoking reactions while we have Raised a Shield. This is a pretty good approximation of Pantheon’s Aegis Assault, especially when you throw some spear Strikes in there.
Gear: doubling rings, +1 spear, brooch of shielding, everburning torch
LEVEL 5 Four ability boost go to Strength, Dexterity, Wisdom, and Charisma (Str 19, Dex 16, Con 14, Int 10, Wis 12, Cha 14). We’ll increase another physical skill with Acrobatics, getting it up to expert proficiency. At this level, we will dip into our aasimar heritage to pick up Celestial Resistance against fire, giving us some resistance to the element. A couple different elements could work here but given his association with stars, fire felt like the best choice to me. As a fighter, we also receive the chance to pick a weapon group for Fighter Weapon Mastery to increase our proficiency to master with. That weapon group will, of course, be the Spear weapon group since Pantheon is the Unbreakable Spear.
Gear: +1 striking spear, returning weapon rune, doubling rings, brooch of shielding, everburning torch, ring of discretion
LEVEL 6 This is a skill feat that could maybe get swapped out since our hands will often be full of weapons, but when they aren’t, the Titan Wrestler is going to let us push around bigger foes than usual, which is handy when you are the self-declared bastion between mortals and everything else out there in the universe. Instead of taking a fighter feat, we’re actually going to be picking up the Champion Dedication and select the paladin cause since Pantheon is this honorable character with a strict code. Plus, we want to work towards Retributive Strike. We already have the armor feature this grants us, but we will get some skills out of it, which is handy given our low starting skill count. We’ll become trained in Religion and then I picked up Survival for the second one. It’s normally based on the deity you choose, but I’m not gonna declare one here because folks have their own homebrew deities or other stuff like that. It’d probably be better to dedicate Pantheon to a cause or ideal, but if you are going to pick a deity for him, one that presides over war would probably be best.
Gear: +1 studded leather armor, +1 striking spear, minor sturdy shield, doubling rings, brooch of shielding, necklace of knives
LEVEL 7 At this level, we’ll take a skill increase to Athletics so that we can push it up to master proficiency. Our general feat might take some discussing with the GM, but from how I read the lore, Pantheon essentially died during his fight with Aatrox and then Atreus came back. I’d say that qualifies him for the Numb to Death general feat, which heals us when we return from the dying condition. As a side note, at this level, we’ll want to look into making doubling rings a permanent part of our gear, even if its isn’t listed below. This will copy any fundamental weapon runes from our spear onto our shield boss so that we don’t have to pick that up at every level as one of our items.
Gear: lion’s shield, +1 studded leather armor, goggles of night, +1 striking spear, bracelet of dashing, returning weapon rune
LEVEL 8 That Athletics bump means we can grab Quick Climber so that we can ascend terrains quickly even when we don’t have our wings. Part of me wanted to grab Champion’s Reaction first because there’s another feat that we’ll take that we need that for, but I felt like Divine Ally – Blade took more precedence because this will let us have a returning spear without having to invest in the rune for it. It also gives us a way of dealing with ephemeral foes if we know we’ll be facing some ahead of time thanks to the handful of properties that it allows us to pick from.
Gear: boots of bounding, lion’s shield, ring of the ram, +1 studded leather armor, +1 striking spear, lesser talisman cord
LEVEL 9 My reasoning for pumping up Acrobatics here is twofold – master proficiency qualifies us for the next skill feat we’re taking and having a higher Acrobatics helps with the ancestry we’re taking, Celestial Wings. I know that Pantheon doesn’t actually have wings, but this is a good way to copy the effects of Grand Starfall – rising into the air, casting a spear at a foe, and then descending to unleash a flurry of attacks. Is it perfect? Not remotely, but I think it’s a decent way of simulating the effect.
Gear: +1 resilient studded leather armor, boots of bounding, bag of holding (type II), lion’s shield, goggles of night, +1 striking spear
LEVEL 10 This time around, we’ll take our ability boosts to Strength, Constitution, Intelligence, and Wisdom (Str 20, Dex 16, Con 16, Int 12, Wis 14, Cha 14). This increased Intelligence gives us another language as well as the trained proficiency in Occultism, so that we can better identify otherworldly threats. Kip Up is that skill feat that needs master proficiency in Acrobatics that I mentioned and this will help with action economy whenever we’re knocked prone since it allows us to stand up as a free action. Since we took Divine Ally last time, we’ll take Champion’s Reaction this time to gain Retributive Strike. I get that this doesn’t really fit Pantheon, unless you decide to run him as a support for some reason, but it builds into another feat that feels very appropriate to his lore. And it gives us more chances to smack our foes, which is always nice.
Gear: dragonslayer’s shield, +1 resilient studded leather armor, flaming weapon rune, boots of bounding, ring of the ram, +1 striking spear
LEVEL 11 We finally start looking towards some of our other skills, and we’ll start by increasing Intimidation to expert proficiency. We’ll also take Toughness, I know – shocker, as our general feat because in addition to providing us with additional Hit Points, it lowers the DC of the Dying save, making it easier for us to stabilize or even come back into the fray.
Gear: +2 striking spear, dragonslayer’s shield, armbands of athleticism, +1 resilient studded leather armor, boots of bounding, bag of holding (type II)
LEVEL 12 Pantheon arrays himself against forces beyond mortal ken, so having the Intimidating Glare skill feat to Demoralize them even when they can’t understand him feels appropriate. For our class feat, we’ll use Basic Devotion to gain Fiendsbane Oath, adding another tenet to our list of them, but increasing the damage of our Retributive Strike against fiends, befitting Pantheon’s stance against such creatures. I feel like Esoteric Oath could also make sense if that’s more your speed, but since Pantheon’s nemesis is Aatrox who is essentially a demon, I personally liked Fiendsbane better.
Gear: +2 resilient studded leather armor, +2 striking spear, moderate sturdy shield, armbands of athleticism, flaming weapon rune, cold-resistant armor rune
LEVEL 13 To help identify and hunt down the creatures that Pantheon has sworn to slay, we’ll take this skill increase to Religion, getting it to expert proficiency. Another ancestry feat from our aasimar heritage nets us Celestial Strikes, adding 1 good damage to all our Strikes, which makes us much more effective against fiends and other creatures that have a weakness to good damage. Like we did back at 5th level, we’ll select the Spear weapon group for Weapon Legend to reach legendary proficiency with those types of weapons.
Gear: +2 greater striking spear, +2 resilient studded leather armor, bag of holding (type III), moderate sturdy shield, armbands of athleticism, eyes of the eagle
LEVEL 14 Since Pantheon is a rather burly individual, we can use Intimidating Prowess to get a bonus on Demoralize checks when we can physically threaten people. We finally look back towards the fighter class feats to pick up Whirlwind Strike, allowing us to make strikes against everybody around us without increasing our MAP until after all our attacks are made. This helps create the effect of Grand Starfall – we fly up, throw our spear down, and then land in the midst of our enemies before unleashing Whirlwind Strike to hurt everybody around us.
Gear: medusa’s scream, +2 greater striking spear, greater cold-resistant armor rune, +2 resilient studded leather armor, talisman cord, winged boots
LEVEL 15 In the final stretch of this build, we’ll take ability boosts to Strength, Constitution, Wisdom, and Charisma (Str 21, Dex 16, Con 18, Int 12, Wis 16, Cha 16). We can finally put Athletics up to legendary proficiency with our skill increase and then to help us get into combat faster, we’ll take the Fleet general feat, enhancing our Speed.
Gear: +2 greater resilient studded leather armor, medusa’s scream, boots of speed, +2 greater striking spear, bag of holding (type III), greater goggles of night
LEVEL 16 We’ll grab up the Cloud Jump skill feat because if there’s instances where we can’t fly for some reason, or if you want to be a bit closer to the actual jumping part of his Grand Starfall, this will help with the idea of it. We’ll dip back into the Champion Dedication line up of feats to take an Advanced Devotion, which in gets us Second Ally so that we can make our shield one of our divine allies as well, bolstering it.
Gear: antimagic armor rune, +2 greater resilient studded leather armor, greater boots of bounding, medusa’s scream, +2 greater striking spear, greater cold-resistant armor rune
LEVEL 17 There’s definitely a few ways you could go here, but I think it makes sense to use this skill increase to put Occultism at expert to, again, help with identifying those inhuman threats that Pantheon hunts. Another possibility here that I considered is bumping Intimidation up to master proficiency so that we’re better at Demoralizing targets, which is what I had originally done for the next skill feat before I changed what I took. But our ancestry feat at this level, Eternal Wings, grants us a permanent fly Speed and made me realize that I should probably grab a different skill feat.
Gear: +3 greater striking spear, antimagic armor rune, greater flaming weapon rune, +2 greater resilient studded leather armor, medusa’s scream, boots of speed
LEVEL 18 And that skill feat is Aerobatics Mastery, giving us a bonus on Maneuver in Flight checks and allowing us to combine two maneuvers into a single action, which will be extraordinarily handy with our Eternal Wings! Back to our fighter feats, we’ll pick up Savage Critical, meaning whenever we hit with a 19 on the die, as long as we are legendary with that weapon, it’s a critical success. This helps, in part, to capture the feel of Comet Spear when it crits against low health targets.
Gear: belt of giant’s strength, +3 greater striking spear, greater medusa’s scream, greater flaming weapon rune, +2 greater resilient studded leather armor, greater boots of bounding
LEVEL 19 Knowing how to fend off fiends is important, so our last skill increase from leveling will see us reach master proficiency in Religion. I had trouble picking out a general feat, so I settled on one that was entirely for flavor (heh) and is also a skill feat – Seasoned. Because, y’know, he’s always wanted to be a baker.
Gear: +3 greater resilient studded leather armor, belt of giant’s strength, greater daredevil boots, +3 greater striking spear, antimagic armor rune, greater flaming weapon rune
LEVEL 20 We’re at the end but we have a few more choices to make. Firstly, we have four ability boosts that we’ll apply to Strength, Dexterity, Intelligence, and Wisdom (Str 22, Dex 18, Con 18, Int 14, Wis 18, Cha 16). This increase to Intelligence grants us another language and makes us trained in Arcana so that we can try to identify more threats to mortalkind. We’ll also take Cat Fall for our skill feat in case we ever get knocked out of the air, we can try to soften the blow with this. Our twentieth level class feat will be Boundless Reprisals so that we gain a reaction at the start of each enemy’s turn, meaning we can always unleash an Attack of Opportunity, or avenge an ally with Retributive Strike, or protect ourselves with a Shield Block as the situation demands.
Gear: +3 major striking spear, +3 greater resilient studded leather armor, indestructible shield, belt of giant’s strength, speed weapon rune, greater medusa’s scream
CONCLUSION This build was a blast to plot out and there were very few periods where I was struggling to decide what to pick. In cases where there was, it was usually due to an abundance of options, which I always enjoy. Skill feats are always a little hard to place for League of Legends characters, and sometimes characters in general, because they can seem kind of ancillary, but I tried to pick stuff that was appropriate. I think I’ve talked about this before, but I feel like I never have to worry too much about taking dedications with the fighter class because their Combat Flexibility class feature makes it so easier for them to shore up on fighter feats.
There isn’t really a way to copy Pantheon’s passive – that’d mostly be done through using different actions along with our combat flexibility to grab certain feats. But Comet Spear is pretty basic – he can throw his spear, which we have returning on thanks to our blade ally, or stab out with it using Lunge. Aegis Assault simply involves Pantheon Raising a Shield and then making spear Strikes, but Shielded Stride helps give that feeling of invulnerability while he moves with it. His final two abilities are a little trickier, but I managed to work in there in some form. For Shield Vault, I was looking at a fighter feat that gave the stunned condition, but it required that you have the target grabbed, so that was no good. Instead, our Shield Vault comes online regrettably late and requires an item – medusa’s scream. With Quick Jump, we can leap to a foe as a single action and then spend our remaining two actions to activate medusa’s scream to attempt to turn that enemy to stone, thereby ‘stunning’ them. Towards the end of the build, we can even make a quick spear Strike after freezing them in place thanks to our speed weapon rune. Finally, we come to Grand Starfall. This actually fully comes online the same time our Shield Vault does. While not exact, it involves us throwing our spear (and probably using its returning property) at a target, using our Celestial Wings to fly up, and then landing in among our foes. We follow that up, on our next turn, with Whirlwind Attack. It takes a bit to set up, but so does that in-game ability, so that’s as close as we’re gonna get.
Be sure to lemme know what you think of the build. Does it work? Does it represent the character? Would you ever use it? What other characters should I build?
If you want to join in on the discussion of these builds and the ones I do for monsters or just hang out with a bunch of fellow TTRPG nerd, check out the Discord server. We also have a Twitter where we try to post teasers for the blog and are trying to get some milestones made up for. Next week, we're delving back into the Darkest Dungeon to find some more heroes.
Have a fantastic Friday!
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