to all the people saying the swain rework is trash

I Main Swain··41 votes·4,510 views

git gud

in all seriousness though, i think youre playing him wrong. so far of the games ive had the issues ive had with him that arent explained away entirely by lack of experience with the new kit, poor playing in general, or other things that are unrelated to the power or lack thereof with the rework have been few and far between. his waveclear and consequential mana sustain are really good if you do it right, he got a 50 range boost to his aa's which is huge if you arent aware and ive found it makes farming and poking the enemy laner easier to a shocking extent. his damage potential is really good, his combos are very straight forward while still having some wiggle room for creativity (especially with the pull on his passive), his w has an ungodly enormous range, his heals from his passive and ult have very high potential, and his ult can make a big difference in teamfights.

give it time before you start crying about the rework, its literally been a week. if you expect to reach a full understanding of how a champion can and should be played in a week youre either playing a whole freaking lot or you need to lower your expectations. even if he were weak, again, he JUST got released. they almost ALWAYS have to do tweaking to new and reworked champions after they hit live

101 Comments

Håppy14 votes

He has one ability that only does proper damage if you're up in their face, one ability that will NEVER land unless you catch them at the tip of it or they're AFK, one ability that had 3500(0?) range and such a hilarious delay + 50% reduced damage to minions, and an ultimate that's gated behind two conditions (cooldown and soul shards, which again need to be stacked up before it does proper damage on the Demonflare).. And has the AP ratios of a DoT mage (highest is 0.4 on his Q), but not a single one of his primary abilities is a DoT.

Let's be real here. If you read that for a champion design, just on paper? You'd have a fucking stroke. And that's exactly what it feels like playing him. I just went 14/6/15 (really 5 deaths because the last was a suicide as we won) and I can STILL say that the dude is ridiculous and nothing about his kit feels good in tandem with the other parts of his kit.

I Main Swain5 votes

his q damage is fine when you consider the fact that its cooldown gets down to 2.5 seconds and even though it is a wide spread it has a solid range, restores mana when it kills a unit, and if youre point blank it gives a 60-140% damage boost, which btw is freaking huge. yes it requires point blank but again for all the pros on that ability thats a tiny blip of a downside.

his w a HUGE range so obviously its going to be hard to land by itself, if it werent it would be beyond retarded strong considering the damage that it deals and the fact that it procs his passive (ps its not meant to try to land by itself, its designed to be either essentially requiring them to be unable to dodge aka probably cc'd or to be used to scout).

his e is honestly not that hard to land. idk why people think it is, all it takes is getting used to just like basically every other skill shot in any game ever

his ult i will say i think should have a cd that scales down to like 90 seconds, but thats really the only problem with it. it has an enormous range, its damage and sustain heal are solid, the damage gating on demonflare imo is reasonable.

btw the ap ratio on his q is only 40% with 1 bold. you can get it as high as 64-96% depending on level if youre point blank. his w ap ratio is flat out 70%, his e ratio if you hit the root on them is a total of 50%, his passive pull has a 30% ap ratio, and his ult for the total duration (not including demonflare) has a 170% ap ratio on the damage and 192% on the heal. when you toss demonflare into the mix, depending on the number of soul gems you have you have another 25-135%

you were almost on the money there though, his ratio's are similar to a DoT mage because he's essentially a DPS mage, or at least thats the feel ive gotten over the past week and based on his kit. i would entirely disagree about his kit not seeming to fit with itself, everything felt very nicely ordered for me. ps, sorry if i sound condescending or anything in here, im basically just trying to make my point that hes a lot better than youre giving him credit for, and while i understand that part of it is just player preference because not everyone will find the same playstyles appealing, its still frankly silly to dismiss a champion as being poorly designed before so much as 2 weeks have gone by.

Evil Bisex Plant4 votes

[{quoted}](name=Happy Lolis,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=9LrdZRMn,comment-id=0004,timestamp=2018-02-13T19:35:51.274+0000)

He has one ability that only does proper damage if you're up in their face, one ability that will NEVER land unless you catch them at the tip of it or they're AFK, one ability that had 3500(0?) range and such a hilarious delay + 50% reduced damage to minions, and an ultimate that's gated behind two conditions (cooldown and soul shards, which again need to be stacked up before it does proper damage on the Demonflare).. And has the AP ratios of a DoT mage (highest is 0.4 on his Q), but not a single one of his primary abilities is a DoT.

Let's be real here. If you read that for a champion design, just on paper? You'd have a fucking stroke. And that's exactly what it feels like playing him. I just went 14/6/15 (really 5 deaths because the last was a suicide as we won) and I can STILL say that the dude is ridiculous and nothing about his kit feels good in tandem with the other parts of his kit.

Lmao this is exactly like every one of those Yasuo QQ threads but reversed

"Wtf Swains new kit?!1 One ability deals half your health damage on 2 seconds CD, he has two hard CCs and one of them (the stronger one!) doesn't even cost mana! It's a displacemant on 6 seconds CD!!! And then he can never be cought out cuz he can just check every bush! And he's unkillable while dealing tons of damage with his ult!!" (What I mean by tha last thing is, I was pretty fed yesterday and I oneshot Anivia with pull->Demonflare, lmao).

Terozu3 votes

The reason he has low ratios, is because he has multiple damaging abilities on low cool downs, and a DoT , like i assume you mean Anivia, Brand, are actually called Battle Magea, which fyi is also Swain's class.

Tormentula11 votes

New swain is good if you're really good at him.

From my experience, the champ is just too inconsistent, he needs a cc comp if he can't land his, and using W in combat is near impossible since you can be edge and still run out of it in time, assuming you don't just side step.

His strengths come from strategic use of his W, and his pull for amazing follow up, other then Those there are just better champs at the moment with more consistent rewards.

Oleandervine1 votes

Yeah, I like everything about him, except for the delay on his W. If that were sped up even a little bit, it would improve him a bit.

I Main Swain4 votes

imo it needs to be that long. with the power of that ability along with its range it would have to have a super long delay like that so that hitting it without using cc requires serious skill. you shouldnt be able to just dump on someone from an 8th of the map away without them having plenty of time to get out of it. heck even with the delay and without using cc ive hit plenty of them, i think the duration should stay as it is

Hey h0w r ya10 votes

The tweaking should be buffs. The rework is definitely cool but there is no denying swain is under-performing and is very weak right now

FOR JUSTICE20 votes

I don't mind a few buffs, but eventually he will just repeat ornn- once people realize how to play him, he ends up broken because now he is overbuffed.

I Main Swain12 votes

exactly, im worried about this being another one of those situations where the community says a new champ is weak, riot buffs them, then everyone figures out how to play them and now theyre super op so they get nerfed to oblivion. imo the only buff he needs is to make his ult cd scale down to like 90 seconds

Barcid2 votes

I already want his passive range nerfed. And I've exclusively been playing as him and not against him. The utility you can bring from straight up not being near anything is asinine.

Don't underestimate that pull - it's damning.

SEKAI2 votes

[{quoted}](name=Toxic Control,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=9LrdZRMn,comment-id=0000000000010000,timestamp=2018-02-14T09:30:11.764+0000)

I already want his passive range nerfed. And I've exclusively been playing as him and not against him. The utility you can bring from straight up not being near anything is asinine.

Don't underestimate that pull - it's damning.

The biggest mind-fuck Swain's opponents have to adjust to is that you're no longer safe hiding behind minions. You are only truly safe from Swain when you're outside of his major spells' (QER) range.

And even just from me playing Swain recently, I already feel like Swain's E is a bit too easy to land sometimes, and I also don't really know how to feel about the fact Swain's pull works on all immobilsation from ally sources. I guess we'll see but I do feel that at the very least, a small nerf to Swain's E hitbox is probably okay imo. But idk.

Barcid3 votes

Well so far the biggest struggle I've had with Swain is his early game if he gets all-in'd - unless you can make sure his E hits no minions when the enemy dives you, you aren't hitting the snare since it has to go the full distance and it stops on whatever enemy it first hits on the way back.

Other than that, yeah, Swain can be really oppressive in top lane. I haven't played him mid yet, but I imagine he can be solidly punished by longer ranged mages.

Baron of Bread2 votes

From my experience with playing Swain I think the AoE from the E hitting something should be smaller. It doesn't feel fair that the enemy laner can't be near the back line of their creeps or the front line, and if they are off to the side they have to be constantly ready to dodge or get chunked.

I would totally give up a bit of AoE on the E for vision buffs on the W (duration or area of vision).

I Main Swain2 votes

yeah ive been thinking the same thing, not a big one but just a little nerf to the range maybe?

Barcid2 votes

Yeah, the distance pull is fine and it's nothing massive. Most people won't appreciate it much unless they're the ones yanked forward. It's about as far as an Urgot flip, but that's enough to fuck someone over.

It's just that range. Like, there've been times where I've been incredibly late to a fight or that I'm way out of position from one of my teammates making a catch and they just happened to land a CC - and there's the indicator, just pull them forward and suddenly they're right in range of all of my other teammates. One dead champ.

I did this literally 4 different times to an Anivia in a single game. We were getting demolished by her but I just told my team "As soon as she's CC'd, dive her." Because once my tank landed a single stun on her I could just sit at safety and pull her in front of her own tank.

Lanyr1 votes

[{quoted}](name=I Main Swain,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=9LrdZRMn,comment-id=000000000001,timestamp=2018-02-13T22:06:24.304+0000)

exactly, im worried about this being another one of those situations where the community says a new champ is weak, riot buffs them, then everyone figures out how to play them and now theyre super op so they get nerfed to oblivion. imo the only buff he needs is to make his ult cd scale down to like 90 seconds

What runes do you like on him, I was comet inspiration second and have switched over to electrocute with sorcery second, (the damage is significantly higher and very reliable in his combo)

I Main Swain1 votes

i go arcane comet, manaflow band (although ive been meaning to try ultimate hat to see how it compares), transcendence, gathering storm, and then i actually go precision as my secondary with triumph and last stand. the triumph works wonders with his passive (especially in teamfights) and last stand helps give him a decent damage boost during fights and works well in team fights.

Ok sure but why7 votes

The new Swain is boring, and the only good part that came from it was the new voice

FOR JUSTICE7 votes

and not walking like cranky-kong. usually when you think general you would assume the most badass person in someone's army. aesthetically speaking, I think this is better

DragonShea6 votes

If you don't like fighting as a short ranged Mage, well.

Welcome to the world of Juggernauts bitch.

Jinx Hunter4 votes

His new kit is fine, his numbers just suck. Give them a boost and he will be fine imo.

Ashen Rider4 votes

His autos feel fucking great

no to toxic3 votes

They should buff his muscles to show that he still lifts and will soon bring Ionia under his boot(only to be thrown back and lose 30% of his former terretory due to Demacia being the Germany of Runaterra while Noxus is the Somalia)

Fear the Kayn3 votes

I think the only change he needs is some movespeed when he ults.

Teridax683 votes

Unpopular opinion: I think if a champion's success rate is mediocre in the first few weeks of their release, that is a good thing. Even the easiest champion in League has a learning curve, and cannot be expected to have a consistent >50% win rate the moment you pick them up, unless they're overtuned. If a champion is already too strong on release, they are way too strong, especially if they're supposed to be a complex champion like Camille, Ekko, Yasuo, etc.

As a community, we've already made the mistake of asking for buffs too early after release far too many times already: champions like Gnar, Ivern and Tahm Kench were all considered trash-tier on release because players didn't take the time to figure out how their kits worked (in fact, these champions were all considered fundamentally incapable of succeeding in the game at all, ever). In reaction to this, Riot buffed them, and just a month later they started to terrorize both Ranked games and pro play.

We need to learn from these experiences, and be more cautious when evaluating the balance of a brand-new kit, just as some of us here need to stop first-timing champions in Ranked. Nobody at any level of play is going to master a champion in the space of a month, let alone a week or two, and not a single person here should feel like they're so special that they will be The One™ exception to that rule.

I Main Swain3 votes

i would disagree to an extent from the angle of if a champion is too strong on release theyre WAY too strong in general, it depends a lot on the champion. there are many champions that are really freaking hard to deal with if you dont know how to play against them and because of that when theyre first released they have a seemingly crazy high power. imo you cant properly evaluate a champions balance in game until 3 weeks to a month after their release

ModKnightsKemplar3 votes

Teach me Sensei. How is his waveclear good? I struggle.

I Main Swain3 votes

well for starters the 50 range boost is a life saver, more than once ive been doing poorly in lane and i was still able to cs surprisingly well with that extra range. as far as the q goes, what ive been doing is i try to get several minions down low enough that my q will kill them and give me a solid portion of my mana back. i wouldnt say that hes ridiculously good at waveclearing or anything, but if you attack minions with the primary intent of getting several of them low enough to be killed by the q ive found i can out-waveclear most champions early game so far

ModKnightsKemplar5 votes

Hmm... I was hoping for a secret technique that I hadn't figured out yet.

I suppose "more practice" will have to do XD

I Main Swain4 votes

yeah its really just a practice thing, you gotta mess around with it and find what works best for you and how to best do that thing realistically. ps, manaflow band and triumph are a lifesaver

Kai Guy2 votes

hey Kemp, how good is your veigar Q farm? ya prep waves for it to get 2 stacks a cast? I'm kinda using that style of lane to cs, as I'm playing swain hella roam oriented so need to clear fast and hard to get back to harassing other lanes.

ModKnightsKemplar2 votes

I don't really play Veig...

I get it in theory. It's just that prepping the wave effectively against a real opponent is a real challenge. The minions are moving, my opponent is moving, I'm moving... lots of moving. I'll just have to keep drilling.

Shijano3 votes

I think Mr. I Main Swain is on the right track in explaining how the new Swain really is more late game focused. His early game could use some buffs in terms of his mana usage imo because he really does use up a lot with just one spell rotation and then when you have no mana you get bullied in lane. I was playing him top lane vs Aatrox and I got camped hard. I was afraid to leave my tower and ended up 0/7 by 20 mins. But after that I roamed around and got a few kills thanks to his rise in mid/late game power. I DID NOT DIE FOR THE REST OF THAT MATCH. With a buff to early game mana issues Swain will be perfect.

SEKAI2 votes

[{quoted}](name=Mega Pounder,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=9LrdZRMn,comment-id=0017,timestamp=2018-02-14T16:10:53.274+0000)

I think Mr. I Main Swain is on the right track in explaining how the new Swain really is more late game focused. His early game could use some buffs in terms of his mana usage imo because he really does use up a lot with just one spell rotation and then when you have no mana you get bullied in lane. I was playing him top lane vs Aatrox and I got camped hard. I was afraid to leave my tower and ended up 0/7 by 20 mins. But after that I roamed around and got a few kills thanks to his rise in mid/late game power. I DID NOT DIE FOR THE REST OF THAT MATCH. With a buff to early game mana issues Swain will be perfect.

His mana is more generous if you have manaflow band (rune), corruption potion, or presence of mind (rune), and then you build things like catalyst as your first item.

Personally, I run manaflow band and start the game with a corruption potion bottle, and catalyst first item. With this setup I find his mana management while still big, it isn't that bad and certainly manageable (and certainly not as abysmally unforgiving like something like Ryze's early game mana). I wouldn't say his early game mana is necessary.

Not to mention, since Swain is strong in later stages of the game, it also makes sense to make his early game a bit rocky. On this ground, I wouldn't call for an early buff either.

ModAcademy Kayn2 votes

Personally, I wish that Swain had gotten an ability like Echo's Parallel Convergence, having an ability that doesn't show until it's too late. But that's just me.

SEKAI2 votes

Serious talk tho,

I've been having much success building RoA, Liandry's, and Rylai's with moderate success, because these items imo serve Swain very well, it's got him damage/AP, HP, DoT, and slow from spells, which all work incredibly well on the man.

The only issue however, is that this core build doesn't have CDR, which Swain also needs. I sorta negate this build's complete lack of CDR by going Transcendence in Runes which gives 10% after 10 min (I go Sorcery + Domination for runes for the spell management and spell vamp), but as you can see, 10% is probably a bit too less for this guy.

I was thinking about building Spirit Visage (another item that works very well with Swain and also gives CDR) before Rylai's (typical 3rd item for Swain after RoA and Lindary's), or do you think Rylai first, and leave Spirit Visage as Kindlegem for the HP bonus and 10% CDR is better? I think I've got an idea of the latter, but I don't wanna delay Rylai by too much given it's a pair made in heaven with his ulti especially it also procs so well with Liandry's, but then I guess the CDR is also important on him. Kindlegem only costs 800 gold anyway, not the biggest setback ever.

All in all, I think new Swain from my experience, works really well if you build him as a mage bruiser with some emphasis on sustain and build around 3 major core items of RoA, Liandary's, and Rylai's. But that's what I currently arrive at anyway.

I Main Swain2 votes

ive been going item 3020 item 3027 item 3157 item 3151 item 3065 and for the last item ill leave as a sort of situational filler item. ive had success so far with item 3116 item 3102 and item 3165 although granted thats only after playing 1 or 2 games with each of them. i would say spirit visage is all but required for him although usually you dont want to get it until youve got boots and at least roa and zhonyas. i agree that the rylais is super useful especially with his ult. i always rush roa into zhonyas or if im really ahead and dont even need to worry about dying i might go ahead and get liandrys, followed by liandrys if i got zhonyas second, zhonyas if not, or if i could really use the mr and healing bonus ill go ahead and get spirit visage (ps the spirit visage ups his teamfighting power ENORMOUSLY because of the heal boost, lets him stay alive for much longer and thusly dish out more damage)

Trash MammaI2 votes

I once got beat up by a swain that had his duo camp me, I went 0/4 in lane. They took my tower and rotated mid, upon his return to top lane to stop me from pushing I easily solo'd him while he did 0 damage. I was playing predator boots garen. That champ is garbage right now strictly because he does no damage. Once they over buff him he'll start rampaging though because his kit is toxic with good numbers (See Ornn)

I Main Swain2 votes

actually garen is one of the stronger champions against him so far because of his tankiness, silence, and specialty at getting in your face making it hella hard to land e or w. swain can deal some really high damage, even early game if you can get your full combo off you can wreck face. ive had more than a few times where my ewq combo dealt the simple majority of someones hp from the very start of the game

stone the blacks2 votes

i don't say he's trash just the ult is more underwhelming when compared to before

VICKLIUS1 votes

[deleted]

I Main Swain14 votes

dude youve posted this on a million separate threads give it a rest. btw, he did in fact need a rework because his kit was incredibly uninteractive and didnt really fit with his identity.

ps, you cant just say "riot did a crap job with this rework plain and simple" and leave it at that with no backing

GayFluffyUnicorn1 votes

Oh yeah that new kit is really great. Let's look. A passive that literally does nothing for you. Randomly your W gives a passive stack just because? Like it is tacked onto the W so it feels like it does something. His ult is trash. His waveclear is shit, his laning is shit. His mana sustain is outrageously bad. Oh wait his passive does something. More dmg on ult and heal on champ kill. K. Very interesting soul ripping mechanic. Riot could have also just recommended me going triumph for that heal. Like his passive is not interesting it is just straight up not fleshed out trash. This entire kit feels like two different teams worked on different abilities and slapped them back together hoping it would stick and work.

His new kit is really interactive tho, it scales exponentially with the retardation of his enemy.

I Main Swain14 votes

https://i.imgur.com/pZQ8KVA.gif

i genuinely hope you dont believe your own words because theyre laughably wrong

SanKakU1 votes

Stop calling it a rework.

I Main Swain1 votes

...do you not know what the definition of a rework is?

SanKakU1 votes

Yeah, this was a smash it to pieces and make a new one from scratch. Not a rework. It's a do-over. Not a rework. It's a cancellation of the old Swain.

Binding Eclipse1 votes

It's funny how people complain about his new W being useless, but I've gotten so many clutch kills just by predicting where people are going to run away through FoW after a teamfight. Get them at a choke point so they either have to 1) try to run through it, or 2) turn back around into you/your team. It's so fun.

Also, I can't say I've really had mana problems per se. If you spam abilities to waveclear with any other champion for the first few levels in lane, you're gonna have a bad time. Obviously he's gonna get outpushed by ez-clear champs like Xerath, but with every matchup there's usually one champion who outpushes another, it's just a fact of life.

Kai Guy2 votes

It feels really natural for any one who played Bard or Xerath.

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