I’ve been battling the hellish fever my girlfriend was kind enough to give me, so this is the first time I’ve logged onto the official forums today. Imagine my surprise when at least half the posts were about Pantheon. I was thrilled – finally his anti-fun design was being discussed. Unfortunately, that wasn’t the topic of discussion. Instead, people were complaining about Riot offering a promo code to unlock Pantheon and the Perseus Pantheon skin to inactive players.

Yup, you read that correctly. Players who stopped playing the game are being compensated some 1950 RP worth of store goods for their…absence. While I understand the idea – a lot of game companies offer some kind of teaser to bring you back after quitting a game – this was both poor timing and the wrong offer. Dedicated players have been restless for months now, wondering when we’ll see a new map or new game modes. To offer up freebies to the people who jumped ship is a big slap in the face. Granted, Tryndamere has already posted on the forums, saying:

We greatly value our loyal players and will have more info on this soon.

I can only imagine that means everyone will be getting the free champion/skin bundle, but who knows.

I also think Pantheon is the wrong champion to do this with. Do it with someone that’s sort of an even keel, not really at risk for serious developmental change in the coming months. Maybe I’m crazy, but I think Pantheon is one of the least fun characters to play against in the entire game. Heartseeker Strike is probably among my top five most poorly designed skills. At some point, I think Riot’s going to have to address that. Then again, the whole point of the dowry for returning to the game is to give the player a positive experience, and I think Pantheon will do just that. He’s a pretty easy guy to figure out, and when you get a good farm, you shred people.