@Riot: Can we discuss Swains PBE nerf and his balance state?

HI. I'm Alamander. I love Swain, been playing him since release. He's awesome fun, and even through he had a really rough Season 5, I'm pretty excited about his Season 6 iteration.

Swain is my baby, but here's the problem: Swain as a champion is awesome thematically, He really feels great when he's ahead. Likewise, when he is behind it is a real struggle bus to get to a position of relative importance.

There is a game health issue here:** Swain feels really powerless when he losses, and makes his opponents feel equally powerless when swain wins.**

One of the biggest issues with swains kit is its reliability, which is one of the reasons you are probably taking away some of the CC in his kit until late game. Initially I was a bit angry when I read the nerf initially, as swain has always struggled in many respects to be useful in a competitive mid lane. My question now becomes this:

Can Swain's current kit ever be balanced?

Personally, I don't believe it can. I think his kit is awesome, but it isn't healthy. When he is ahead he lacks counter play, when he is behind he lacks the ability to effectively recover.

Biggest Issues:

**Static Cooldown on E/Q/R. **This just feels fricken terrible. No other mage is gated so heavily by non scaling ability cooldowns.

3 Abilities that are not directly skill oriented: The champion has a lot of intricacies, a lot of positioning choices, and an awesome in and out style of transforming/Damage over time poking his lane opponent down HOWEVER This is ONLY when he is even with his opponent. In the event that either side has a significant lead, the champion turns heavily into Feast or Famine mode. His Linear playstyle is the real issue here.

Forced Build Path: RoA first always is kinda mediocre. His kit demands a mana item, or a mana regen item but due to the nature of his ult, RoA is the only viable choice in a competitive environment.

**Suggested Solutions/Potential Solutions: **

**Ability Shifting: **He needs more skill shots in his kit. I would take a lower damage, stackable Torment SKILL SHOT over the 100% hit chance torment we have now. It's so important that we drop the Skill floor on this and raise the skill ceiling. TL;DR He cannot have 3 non skill shot abilities; his ult is thematically awesome, so the real skill cap needs to be decided in the other abilities.

Forced Build Path His mana cost(s) need to be evaluated. I'm totally okay with being forced into a certain build path, If i have alternate viable options to showcase my mastery with swain.

**Static Cooldown on E/Q/R: ** Give me an incentive or tradeoff on leveling one ability over the other. The only reason we currently max E is because we HAVE to due to no other viable option. I'm not saying he needs to have flexible ability leveling, but i am saying scaling cooldowns are one big way to create an incentive to make alternate choices.

**Attack Range: **500 is really poor. He is a mid range mage, not unsimilar to ryze. MOST other mages are sitting between 525 and 550. Give him the QoL to put him in line with other champions. His AA is an important part of his kit. Even kayles E is sitting at 525 Range. This is something that is a HUGE issue that is also rarely talked about.

TL;DR: Swain is too strong when he's ahead, but straight garbo when he's behind. His skill ceiling cannot be raised with his current kit, and he will never see a buff due to how easy comboing an opponent is when you are ahead as swain.

I would love to see some discussion. I love swain, I've mained him forever and I really want my bird to get some competitive Love.

Thanks.

-Alamander