With Swain's newfound health scaling and regeneration/draining, he needs lower innate resistances

Frontline Fury·Jul 26, 2019·1 votes·1,078 views

Swain is just way too tanky through base armor/magic resist and scaling. Given how all his items provide a mix between health and ability power, he, like release mordekaiser, needs low resistances to compensate. He gets far too bulky when not actively itemizing defensively.

Given how high his health can be scaled, he shouldn't also have innate damage reduction from high scaling armor and magic resist.

4 Comments

PhieldworkerJul 26, 20194 votes

His resistances are pretty in line. He isn't impossible to burst down and with the health per level nerf he doesn’t really get benefit from passive gains until he collects 18 souls.

Just compare someone that gains health passively like Vladimir. Swain does have lower base armor than him but has bettter armor growth. Their MR is identical.

SchenixJul 26, 20193 votes

Mordekaiser, even on release, was average; people in NA just play on 30+ ping and can't easily dodge his slow abilities. Can't speak for EU, but I'm sure they fluctuate. That's a different issue, and I'm sure it's not one a lot of people have even considered if they aren't listening in on professional commentary. The hard numbers and timing of his abilities should already tell you it's not that great, just feels bad to play into without the proper ping.

As to Swain, he deals very little damage. He's an attempt at a ranged AP bruiser, who cannot perform well at either of them. Same thing, if you actually run the numbers, he gets like 2 ruby crystals at 40 minutes if you've been hitting an abundance of CC. That's not very amazing considering he lost Ult damage, auto range, and needs to be basically melee range to get damage off on Q now, both as a poke or as a shotgun. What he needs is hp/mana scaling on abilities as well so he fulfils a balanced fantasy that doesn't fail at both without being an overpowered CC train. Otherwise, there needs to be a choice to just make him an AP CC tank, gut his AP ratios, and give him % damage and ratios.

Frontline FuryJul 27, 20191 votes

[{quoted}](name=Useless Jhin,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=JnK9zb7m,comment-id=0001,timestamp=2019-07-26T20:56:38.907+0000)

Mordekaiser, even on release, was average; people in NA just play on 30+ ping and can't easily dodge his slow abilities. That's a different issue, and I'm sure it's not one a lot of people have even considered if they aren't listening in on professional commentary. The hard numbers and timing of his abilities should already tell you it's not that bad, just feels bad.

As to Swain, he deals very little damage. He's an attempt at a ranged AP bruiser, who cannot perform well at either of them. Same thing, if you actually run the numbers, he gets like 2 ruby crystals at 40 minutes if you've been hitting an abundance of CC. That's not very amazing considering he lost Ult damage, auto range, and needs to be basically melee range to get damage off on Q now, both as a poke or as a shotgun. What he needs is hp/mana scaling on abilities as well so he fulfils a balanced fantasy that doesn't fail at both without being an overpowered CC train. Otherwise, there needs to be a choice to just make him an AP CC tank, gut his AP ratios, and give him % damage and ratios.

Mordekaiser had absurdly high base armor when his rework was initially released. It was Pyke-level, and quickly hot-fixed.

Swain's basic attack range is pretty fair for a battlemage, i'd say. It's not at Neeko's level where she can safely basic attack you from outside minion aggro range, at the same time he can still safely poke champions with lower ranges than him.

And honestly, his Q SHOULD be short range given his ultimate is essentially designed around fighting in melee range, in the middle of the enemy team.

SchenixJul 27, 20191 votes

Yeah, past the hotfixes, his base armor was a bit too much with the shield. Doesn't mean he was particularly useful though if he still has the issue of not being able to apply damage well. basically a tank without meaningful CC until he clicks R on a support or carry and either kills them or tanks. It's just whatever unless you're not in a position where you can dodge not just his abilities, but a lot of other ones too.

Swains basic range now is whatever. It doesn't do anything for him as a champion, glad it's being buffed. His Q being short range, coupled with an E that has the same issue as Morde does, but only hits the backend, makes Swain even worse and scaling with bad ping. He cannot lane into anything with medium to long range at all, and he cannot outdamage or stick to anything melee in top because of their sustain and base numbers, or their engage.

In all essence, Swain is not allowed to be a champion in either niche unless he makes use of a chaotic teamfight, because his tools are lackluster to try and fit both instead of just one. He's just "ok", bordering on wasted pick when other champions are far better off in the spot for the use. If Swain couldn't pull off of anyone's CC, he would actually just be garbage, and that can tell you a lot about how his actual power is distributed otherwise.