Wild Rift Thresh build guide: Best runes, items, tips and more

Patch 2.4 of League of Legends: Wild Rift brought lots of changes around its metagame, with the introduction of a champion ban system, a new Wild Pass with exclusive rewards, and four new champions.

The first of this batch was recently introduced as part of the Rise of the Sentinels event, with the good looking, high flying Akshan making his way into the Rift. As we turn the page on the story about the Ruination, a mysterious character from the Shadow Isles has emerged to take over the world.

Being one of League’s most popular support champions featuring a unique and high-skill kit, it’s time to introduce you to the Chain Warden, Thresh.

Thresh’s active and passive abilities

With his passive, Damnation, Thresh can harvest the souls of enemies that die near him, permanently granting him bonus armour and ability power.

Let's move on to his active skills:

• Death Sentence: Thresh wraps an enemy in chains and pulls them towards him. Activating this ability a second time draws Thresh towards the enemy.
• Dark Passage: Thresh launches a lantern that shields nearby allied champions from damage. Allies can click the lantern to dash to Thresh.
• Flay: Thresh's attacks will charge up and deal more damage the longer he waits between attacks. When activated, Thresh slides his chain and knocks all enemies hit in the direction of the blow.
• Ultimate - The Box: Summons a prison of walls that slows and deals damage if broken.

Runes and spells recommended for Thresh

• Aftershock: Immobilizing an enemy champion grants additional armour and magic resistance, as well as unleashing a barrage of magic damage to nearby enemies.
• Weakness: Increases your team's damage to opponents slowed or with crowd control effects.
• Loyalty: You and your closest ally gain 2 armour and 5 bonus magic resistance.
• Pack Hunter: Grants bonus movement speed when near an ally. Additionally, unique takedowns will grant you and the closest ally bonus gold.

Thresh is a champion who is difficult to deal with, as any engagement he makes can easily be capitalized on a kill. With Thresh being used mainly in the bottom or Dragon lane as support, his summoner spells allow him to aid allies in combat.

• Flash: Allows you to have more entry and escape options in case your immobilization abilities are not on hand, or just if you want to make sure your opponent gets affected by your skill shots.
• Ignite: Use it as a tool to finish off enemies in case they want to escape with low health, as well as open a window of opportunity against enemies with lifesteal or healing abilities.

The best items for Thresh

As for his items, these will be focused on improving and adapting Thresh's defensive capabilities, depending on the composition of the enemy team and how you can contribute according to the needs of your allies in team fights, sieges and control of objectives.

• Zeke's Convergence: By using your Ultimate, you will activate an icy storm around you, which will slow enemies and burn them with magic damage for a few seconds.
• Protector's Vow: When you or your ally take damage, it will summon a shield of 125 fixed damage plus a share of current ability power and additional health, along with a temporary bonus to movement speed.
• Dead Man's Plate: Increases max HP, armour, and with its Momentum passive, attacks will deal bonus magic damage equal to the number of stacks collected by walking.
• Randuin's Omen: Increases max HP, armour, reduces damage from critical strikes by 15%, and the attack speed of enemies by 15% for 1.5 seconds when struck by an attack.

You can complete his comp with two variants, based on the primary enemy damage:

• Physical Defense: Plated Steelcaps with Locket or Gargoyle enchant,  and Warmog’s Armor or Force of Nature.
• Magical Defense: Mercury Threads with Locket or Gargoyle enchant, and Spirit Visage or Abyssal Mask.

Tips for Thresh’s playstyle

Thresh is a short-ranged beefy support champion who has an incredible ability to move not only himself, but his enemies and his allies, as he can bring in an ally to gank from far away, save them from peril, or dive into the action.

His ability set is mostly based on assisting teammates, while also focusing on buffing defences for the mid and late game. During the match, you should always make your best effort to collect the souls that drop from enemy minions in lane, to get the most out of his passive.

However, some enemies may make this difficult, as there are a lot of poking champions who will try to play aggressively against you, so you're better to collect them when your allied minions push up.

Many of Thresh’s abilities can be used to save allies or himself and securing kills in lane. For example, the skill you will want to level up at first is his Death Sentence, as this long-range hook will be very useful to engage with low health enemies, or even when your jungler will try to gank the lane.

The next one you will need for your combos is his Flay, as Thresh can easily reel back retreating enemies, or in case of a dangerous situation, this can push back opponents to give your allies time and space to escape.

Thresh has a ton of different uses for his Dark Passage. If you are ahead of your teammate on the way back to lane, you can toss it to help him get back faster. If an ally is killing a neutral monster, you can pull him to safety when the job’s done.

For teamfights, you can sit behind a wall or within a good distance and throw it out in the middle of your team, so if someone feels threatened, they can hop over to safety. Finally, when your jungler or other ally wants to ambush, you can throw it behind and have them initiate right after closing the gap.

About his Ultimate, this also has different uses as you can summon it to confine an enemy, stop them from advancing towards you and your team, or to intimidate enemy champions, so be very careful about how and when you activate it.

• Read more: Wild Rift Akshan build guide: Best runes, items, tips and more

Played to perfection, Thresh can become one of the strongest units on the Rift, as his chances of saving teammates in impossible situations or turning the tables of an entire teamfight are pretty high. 

Don't forget to check out more champion guides, as well as new updates through our Wild Rift dedicated section.