Revert the swain and karthus nerfs?

KirbyCake··128 votes·4,555 views

Swain is just completely useless against competent players right now. If you land a max range snare early game, it literally doesn't give you enough time to follow up with e+q. Not to mention you can walk out of his snare without any shoes. It's hard for a jungler to gank a swain lane since even landing the snare doesn't do much. It doesn't even save you from getting ganked when you land a snare on both players because the duration is pathetic. Not to mention it has ridiculous mana costs with high cooldown which is why you'll never see a swain player use w in lane to try to harass. Did i also mention swain gets dumpstered on early against anybody whos not completely melee? Even mid/late game he gets kited so hard without mobility and no reliable cc. Zhonyas takes forever to get and hexdrinker is such a hard counter to him, he literally doesn't even have enough mana to all in a squishy who rushes this broken item. The only good thing about swain is his targeted burst is high, his overall sustain is high, and he snowballs really hard because of this, but competent players can easily game his cooldowns and choose winning fights because swain has no way to catch or escape his opponents.

Karthus, his jungling got nerfed so hard with the ap jungle item change. It also makes his early game ganks impossible since lvl 1 wall might as well not be a slow. In lane he now gets dumpstered on by everybody and has no way to escape or catch because his wall slow is now a complete joke.

Swain and karthus already have no chance of catching anybody with a dash, and with the cc nerf on their abilities they can't even catch another immobile champion who buys shoes. Their anti-movement abilities already have long cooldowns and high mana costs, yet you nerf those for absolutely no reason.

47 Comments

Sneakyy XD37 votes

Buff mages? This is League of AD Legends.

Blitzidious5 votes

I feel as if League of AD is catchier. Rolls off the tongue easier.

HarIe7 votes

Why not League of Long-swords? Keeps the same acronym while still emphasizing attack damage.

HeadHonchkrow4 votes

Talon intensifies

TeCoolMage1 votes

Longswords are the key!!!

Celeste Benal1 votes

I am the Lawwwwwwwwwwwwwwwng Swords!

Blitzidious1 votes

Oooh, I like it! It also (somewhat) implies that matches are early game oriented, which, they kind of are.

KirbyCake35 votes

Oh, did I also mention that merc buffs essentially makes their cc duration 0? The snare and slow effect might as well not even exist.

TaoistMaster3 votes

You did now

Champion Skin3 votes

Well Swiftness also works well Karthus only have a slow And Swain will probably have a hard time landing his snare with the extra MS and the reduced slow from his Q

TyroneWatermelon1 votes

{quoted}

Oh, did I also mention that merc buffs essentially makes their cc duration 0? The snare and slow effect might as well not even exist.

30% is still useless

PePsiLemoNN3 votes

WOW , an item that is made to REDUCE THE CC DURATION ACTUALLY DOES IT ? you don't say

MavenSong1 votes

He ment the change were merc now gives 30% tenacity as opposed to the prior 20%

PePsiLemoNN2 votes

IIRC in s5 they gave 35% tenacity

Phuc Dat Bich1 votes

{quoted}

Oh, did I also mention that merc buffs essentially makes their cc duration 0? The snare and slow effect might as well not even exist.

?? the new mercs actually is worst than the old mercs old merc was providing 35% tenacity the new 30%

So wtf are you say?

beffl13 votes

Karthus W is so pathetic now, especially after they removed multiplicative slow stacking and the boots of swiftness meta. 100 mana for nothing. at this point they can just scrap it altogether and give him a real W in the mage update

Spaceman5pff7 votes
DJ S0NA1 votes

DrMundo WELCOM TO MUNDO CHOE SHOP DrMundo

EvilMerodach5 votes

Meanwhile, in diamond Korean SoloQ-

(winrate-) 1= Kogmaw : 60.45%

2= Nidalee: 58.00%

3= Karthus: 57.13%

4= Zed: 55.81%

5= Janna: 55.45%

6= Aatrox: 55.36%

7= Ahri: 55.12%

8= Volibear: 54.96%

9= Nautilus: 54.85%

10= Swain: 54.73%

"...in masters the highest winrates with at least 100 + games are Karthus, Janna, Zilean, Soraka, TF, Nidalee, Nautilus, Gragas, Kalista, Yasuo, Elise, Alistar"

I'm a little confused myself, but: statistics.

https://www.reddit.com/r/leagueoflegends/comments/46jtyq/weekly_top_10_winrate_in_diamond_korean_soloq_for/

blfUvZ8Ybu2 votes

{quoted}

Meanwhile, in diamond Korean SoloQ-

(winrate-) 1= Kogmaw : 60.45%

2= Nidalee: 58.00%

3= Karthus: 57.13%

4= Zed: 55.81%

5= Janna: 55.45%

6= Aatrox: 55.36%

7= Ahri: 55.12%

8= Volibear: 54.96%

9= Nautilus: 54.85%

10= Swain: 54.73%

"...in masters the highest winrates with at least 100 + games are Karthus, Janna, Zilean, Soraka, TF, Nidalee, Nautilus, Gragas, Kalista, Yasuo, Elise, Alistar"

I'm a little confused myself, but: statistics.

https://www.reddit.com/r/leagueoflegends/comments/46jtyq/weekly_top_10_winrate_in_diamond_korean_soloq_for/

Only Korea diamond.Only.

EvilMerodach3 votes

[{quoted}](name=Akatsuki Deidara,realm=EUW,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=LnzYKagq,comment-id=00110000,timestamp=2016-02-28T17:19:30.660+0000)

Only Korea diamond.Only.

lol, yah, maybe. But it's still an indicator that their power levels aren't as bad as people think. At least when they are played really well.

blfUvZ8Ybu1 votes

{quoted}

lol, yah, maybe. But it's still an indicator that their power levels aren't as bad as people think. At least when they are played really well.

True.I agree.But Swain isn't strong only fine.

Tridem1 votes

And in Korea diamond, people tend to script. Just watch LS's chat with a scripter.

Silents4293 votes

Swain is fine, Can't speak for Karthus, but as far as I can tell he is fine too.

Aeszarck3 votes

Karthus got hurt, but not as badly as everyone seems to be making out. Wall still slows for a good bit for the first half of its duration, and the decaying slow is still effective. He still has his ridiculous lategame damage and can still contribute extremely well in teamfights. Though his slow from his wall isn't as potent, by lategame he'll likely have a Rylai's Crystal Scepter and can provide crowd control that way. Because he's a lategame hypercarry, he needs to have a weak laning phase. Right now, that is evident. Before the wall nerf and after Deathfire Touch was introduced, he had a moderately strong laning phase, to the point where he could extremely reliably transition out of the laning phase into middle game with a lead in farm and no deaths, possibly even some kills. He could then exert his large influence over the mid-game teamfights. Now his laning phase is weaker and his amazing late-game is no longer guaranteed to be amazing, which I think is a positive - a champion should not be able to singlehandedly win most games once the timer hits a certain point. Also, the original poster said that Karthus can't catch anyone with a dash. Yes, mobility is a huge counter to Karthus right now.

...as it always has been. However, it's okay for mobile champions to counter Karthus. Why? He dumpsters immobile champions. With strengths come weaknesses, and Karthus is no exception.

Now, why nerf him in his utility, making mobile champions counter him more? Because Riot didn't want a jack-of-all trades champion. If they didn't nerf him in his utility, they'd have to nerf him someplace else, and that place would most likely be his damage. The buffed Rod of Ages and the addition of Deathfire Touch were giving him too much damage on what was his previously (before preseason) balanced kit, and they either needed to nerf how much damage he dealt, or make it harder for him to apply it. They chose the latter, because I'm of the opinion that they wanted to maintain the Karthus's iconic lategame teamfighter identity (through his awesome damage) instead of making his damage decent and giving him an amazing slow.

Silents4292 votes

I asked Meddler regarding the changes back when they came out and he said it was to lower the early game opportunity for them to get kills.

Which is completely fair, a 2 second root, on someone like Swain who can destroy early on is overpowered. I assumed Karthus followed a similar path.

Aeszarck1 votes

Yes, his wall allowed for extremely easy ganks with a high potential for kills, especially since Karthus could top the slow from Wall of Pain with Exhaust. Karthus isn't really a champion meant for getting kills in lane pre-six because of the nature of his kit - he has no burst combo to take champions from 40% to zero. This bites him in the early game, but later game it becomes a strength, since he can almost match the damage of other mages' spells with a critically striking Lay Waste, and it has a far, far shorter cooldown. This is why he fits the hypercarry archetype very well - it's difficult for him to get kills at first, but he can snowball really hard once given some. He's sort of like a mage version of Akali. However, that wasn't entirely the case during the first preseason patch. With a strong slow on his instant cast wall, he was able to set up jungler ganks far too easily and kill his opponent before he was "supposed" to do so.

So why did this only become a problem during preseason?

Basically, the addition Deathfire Touch buffed him significantly. He was able to proc the single target duration of Deathfire Touch with a critical Lay Waste, and Lay Waste is spammable. He's able to keep high uptimes of Deathfire Touch on people, and deal a lot more damage than he is balanced around for early game. This lead to him going relatively even in the poke game for many matchups, and even being able to bully some opponents if he can hit his Q's right. Karthus is not meant to be a lane bully.

I don't play Swain so I can't say much about him, but I know that he did well with Deathfire Touch too, since he had a damage over time with his E and a constantly damaging spell on his Q. (I do play Karthus though, and if it's worth anything, I do have level five on him. He's my favorite middle laner and my the middle laner I've had the most success with.)

Count Zubat3 votes

I just don't get how jungle item change hurted jungle Karthus. Is this because he could proc sheen very often because of spammable nature of his Q? Because I can't think off any other reason.

Otherwise, I agree, these nerfs not only were completely unnecessary, especially looking at how both of them weren't even meta for fcking ages, but they also hit them in the most sensitive places, destroying their utility. A lot of times we saw how impactful the utility changes to champions can be much more meaningful that damage changes, like reducing cooldown and taking out mana cost of Kayle's ultimate, or adding movement speed buff to Ahri's Q, here, we see quite the opposite, the power of utility nerfs and how they can completely screw up champions, especially if it's their only utility in kit. They need the reverts, but seeing how Riot doesn't like to admit that they made a mistake, I doubt they will touch them soon, which is a great shame.

Robbit Mang3 votes

they did the nerfs because karthus and swain had over 65% winrates in diamond and they wanted nerfs that would hurt the highest levels of play. their winrates were barely touched in lower levels at all. Similar to the ahri dash interrupt thing they did recently

KrugLyfe3 votes

Only if they revert the sion w nerfs

NsEternal3 votes

i dont agree with that swain is pretty strong, granted he has been stronger but hes not as useless as you think.

CaveJohnson1232 votes

Riot and reverting things... This just doesn't correlate... sadly -.-

Only Play Darius2 votes

It's not going to happen.

Dengeden2 votes

Idek, Swain's lv 1 2s root and Karthus insane lv 1 slow always felt cheesy. 9 out of 10 times, against competent players, that wouldn't hit anyway.

Once Rito looks at what can be done about them, they won't need to take that early game power into account.

dEAdbUs1 votes

Rito said they won't touch Swain and Karth. nuff said.

Dengeden1 votes

I'm gonna assume you just lied for the sake of it

I can't find anything pertaining to Karthus, so we're at an impasse there.

ModKnightsKemplar2 votes

I play a lot of Swain in silver right now (was gold last season) and I have 0 trouble. What do you think the difference is? Would you argue that he is a pubstomp champ now?

Leanus Crain2 votes

Oh man Karthus Jungle, that works.

QuasarDragon231 votes

Yes please! They are my top played champions and I'm very upset with the nerfs that hit them

Earthlord Jazz1 votes

So much this

TheOvermind1 votes

Well I played a game recently and I tried to chase down a rammus for my team with a lv3 wall . Rammus had swifties and was in q, he walked right through my wall completely unaffected while saying "alright "

SexySoapTurtle1 votes

Yeah no swain is complete cancer.

Maximum Morde1 votes

No, I never want to see Swain Viable again. Sustain mages are annoying as hell.

Chuck Charles1 votes

not sure how Karthus feels lately, but swain is a champion that just needs a rework. his is super cheesy and needs to be fixed altogether before you make him strong.

iTaLenTZ1 votes

And why not revert the nerf to Malzahar as well.......seems people on the board only care for karthus and swain but malzahar has become just as useless

ZyniX1 votes

Lol? No he hasn't. He maxes w last anyways so it doesn't even touch him until level 14.

iTaLenTZ1 votes

No, sometimes you scaled W second but that is now out of the question. There is literally no incentive to max W since the scaling is now garbage.

More from Gameplay

More by KirbyCake