Have you heard of this “Swain” dude?
Because it’s rather likely that you haven’t, before Patch 6.10. I am a D3 Swainmain (it’s one word, alright) who has been playing the Master Tactician for at around 3 seasons, since my sweet days in Gold. I am not a Swain one-trick, as I am comfortable playing many other midlaners along with various other roles – yet Swain’s identity as a damage over time mage that emphasizes the management of resources and threats has always brought me to be enthralled by his playstyle. Although many may perceive this background as a source of bias, I will let you know that being ignorant of how the champion worked and interacted before Patch 6.9 is arguably an even greater source of bias. Here I will present my concerns about Riot’s recent changes to his kit that have twisted his gameplay pattern and identity into an unhealthy “invincible draintank” theme that only exacerbates on the tank itemization meta. I, as a Swainmain, am unhappy with this direction, and I am under the assumption that others, Swainmain or not, are as well.
Swain, possibly due to his niche as a DoT battlemage with consistent point-and-click damage and inconsistent crowd control, has largely remained in obscurity before Patch 6.10. op.gg (unfortunately, only evaluates Plat+ ranked queue) lists that Swain’s middle lane pickrate as of Patch 6.8 was at 1.04% (http://na.op.gg/champion/swain/statistics/mid) and leagueofgraphs.com shows Swain’s overall pickrate to be below 2% for much of the time, at times peeking above 3% (http://www.leagueofgraphs.com/champions/stats/swain/middle) - sizably beneath the majority of middle lane meta champions. This implies that Swain picks are oftentimes made when the pick effectively counters an opponent’s pick or by a dedicated Swainmain. In these conditions, knowledge of how to counter Swain may be limited, leading to exclamations such as “0mg why am i dying from these dots” and “holy shit how does he heal so much is there anything in the game that could possibly cut healing in half for 800 gold!?!?1?”, despite the fact that counterplay against Swain is amongst the simplest and obvious with even a minimal level of knowledge – Executioner’s Calling is a cheap item that effectively cuts his survivability by half, allowing focus fire from the backline to dispatch him. Swain’s mid-range mage pattern leaves him weak against CC and long range champions, especially ADCs.
The mage update patch, Patch 6.9, appeared to place a deeper emphasis on Swain’s tactical control characteristics by changing Q into a pseudo-skillshot and deemphasizing the leveling of E. But these changes substantially damaged Swain’s consistency of providing both damage and CC, and dropped Swain’s winrate in ranked to 40% - some sources listing even less, rivaling release Taliyah. Even Riot saw this as a problem, and introduced a small hotfix that slightly healed his performance into a less horrific, but still unsatisfactory level. But Patch 6.10 introduced a strength that most Swainmains did not care for, as being tankier was not in our needs; ameliorating the inconsistency and ineffectiveness of his basic abilities as of 6.9 was. Swain went from a reliable DoT damage dealer that consistently counters melee assassins and bruisers at 6.8 into an uninteresting drain tank with moderate damage that can be avoided if squishy champions simply kite away in 6.10. The spike in Swain top lane picks is a reflection of this. This patch spiked Swain’s winrate up to substantially above average while vastly spiking up his banrate, although these trends diminish at higher levels of play (http://bestbans.com/). This buff to his ultimate healing, along with the focus on it over the recent patches and the one scheduled tonight, fails to capitalize on Swain’s role as a DoT mage and moves him towards a frustrating healtank with balance and counterplay difficulties shared with Vlad, Dr. Mundo, and Soraka. As we come to Patch 6.13, the 20 second cooldown on Ravenous Flock only furthers Swain’s descent into a more selfish and avian Maokai who simply keeps his ult on for the entire fight with little decision-making – the acme of skill for a Swain player has been in managing his health and mana despite his short range, toggling his ultimate on and off only when the opportunity is right. If the greater mana provided by the modified mage items remain the same, Swain’s R upkeep cost must become higher to encourage wiser usage of his mana pool; Ravenous Flock’s low mana cost is what needs a nerf, not the cooldown. Doubling an ultimate’s cooldown is an (ironically) crippling massive nerf. Such a nerf would further diminish his identity as a counter-assassin.
Tweaking Ravenous Flock, as the patch tonight will attempt as well, is not a safe pathway in balancing Swain, compared to changing the offensive capabilities of his basic abilities. The inconsistency and lack of reward of his Q, W, and E can be ameliorated by introducing more interaction such as modifying E to amplify the slow on the Q, or even allowing the repositioning of Beatrice if he uses E on a target taking damage from Q – there is currently negligible motive in leveling E, aside from the fact that the damage output of Q is inconsistent. If Swain's identity as a determined tactical presence is to be developed on, the cooldown of his Q or W may be reduced at the cost of damage. Reverting the unwarranted nerf to W that came in early Preseason 6 or at least buffing the snare duration at early levels may also return some power to his basic kit. There are many ways to develop on Swain’s title as a Master Tactician that focuses on effects that take time and planning to come to fruition, but magnifying the emphasis on his raw tankiness is not.
I post this in an attempt to bring forth to Riot the misdirection Swain’s design is currently following. The previous Rioter who took responsibility of Swain’s 6.9 updates and actually popped into /r/SwainMains left the raw AP healing of 6.10, and left. Swain may have been an obscure champion until recently and there may not be much monetary benefit in attempting to balance or design skins for a traditionally unpopular pick, but practically adding another tank to the current tank meta is a detriment to the entire game. I expect that de-emphasizing Swain as a juggernaut and emphasizing him as a DoT mage that needs to deal damage to heal would prove to bring forth less chaotic winrate trends in the future.
tl;dr for the less-patient: Swain's current direction as a healtank is unhealthy to game balance and does not reflect on the primary focus of his gameplay identity as a DoT mage. Future patches should seek to allow both rewards for decisive decision-making and counterplay for opponents by focusing on his potential to provide damage and crowd control. Development and updates to Swain would definitely benefit from listening to Swain players' input on what draws them to this champion, and what justifiable counterplay would be.
