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Just a reminder, a traditionally mid top champ was reworked into a support SWAIN

PhantomGG·12/14/2019, 10:41:36 PM·5 votes·2,502 views

So as someone who was a huge fan of swain on the first day of the rework to the point when I got plat for the first time, I literally paid for a commission of a swain drawing for myself to use on discord. It greatly saddens me to see Swain reduced to this pile of shit that he is now. Now I know very well Riot didn't turn swain into a support on purpose and it was a accident, but fact is, Swain is best on your team in his current state as a support. I am also aware riot is very afraid of buffing Swain further, because Mid lane Tanks are a very toxic style in general for game balancing, for they do a lot of damage while tanking a lot of damage.

But right now Swain isn't very effective at doing anything in the mid lane, and whenever I feel like I play Swain in the mid lane I feel like the priority is on me to wait for my opponents to fuck up and punish them, instead of me being the ones putting them into bad situations. I never feel like I am in a position to be the aggressor. Now why is that?

Now what is causing this

LACK LUSTER RANGE

Swains Range is actually greatly out shined by most mages in this game, because of this whenever he faces his most typical opponent who is very common and meta right now. Syndra, she just greatly out shines him in every lane, from better range, to reliable cc, to more reliable and easier to pull off burst. Honestly if the Syndra plays this match up perfectly, the match up is mathematically impossible to win, you will be zoned from CS, you will be stunned whenever you wish to farm, honestly the only real way to win this match up is basically to get hit on purpose so she steps to close to you so you can stun and combo her. Which is so toxic, you are literally saying to yourself that the only way you win, is to hope the Syndra messes up and simply walks to close to you, when in all honesty she never has to, and many other match ups resemble this story. And this is all due to blame for Swains beyond poor range in his Q, while sure E can make up for it partly since it has okayish range, that is only an ability you have access to every 13 seconds while the enemy mage just spams you over and over again with there projectile q that greatly out classes our own.

Why on earth is Q cooldown so damn long?

I remember they gave Swains Q the ability to hit all minions to "buff his wave clear" but in the same patch they gutted it's mana, and increased it's cooldown heavily. Riot later did a full revert of the mana nerfs realizing this was a HORRIBLE idea, but they never undid the Q cooldown nerfs. The whole point of a "wave clear" ability is to use it for "wave clear' So please tell me how can I use a ability with beyond tiny range that does mediocore damage with a ten second cooldown to kill minion waves, also lets not forget that W does only 50 percent damage to minion waves, so it's not like we can fuse Q and W to be reliable wave clear either. This champion by all means and purposes has horrible wave clear management, when he is suppose to be in a lane where it's ALL ABOUT wave clear.

9.14 Cooldown increased to 10 / 8.5 / 7 / 5.5 / 4 seconds from 7.5 / 6.25 / 5 / 3.75 / 2.5.

9.15: Target range increased to 725 from 625.

And that was the last time Riot did anything to address any of Swains problems. I really wish for the old Q cooldown back, and honestly it was this nerf alone that in my opinon took him away from the mid lane role and top lane. I know riot nerfd the CD afraid that "him being ab le to go through all minions is to big a buff" but I wish they would just give him back his old cooldown and just SEE for themselves if this breaks Swain, and than revert the buff if it ends up being to strong.

Other complaints

-The Bonus health you get off souls is beyond tiny and unoticable, this part of his toolkit legit doesn't even matter until 35 minutes, it's probably even worse for high elo players, where you are in a elo where people can actually dodge a fucking skill shot.

-His mana problems and play style basically forces him to build rod of ages every single game first item, which deprives him of building every AP champions favorite item, Ludens Echo, or going into the new mage play style people discovered a while back, the glacial augment GLP route.

-Even if you are a highly skilled Swain player, landing W feels more like luck in the enemy team being a idiot vs you actual being good at it, basically only use this for checking pits, or if the enemy is ccd.

-E is to easy to play around and can be blocked by minions for the stun part

-R just feels like it does no damage

-When I do R, I feel so damn slow, wish I had something like Aatrox where my R automatically speeds me up

-Honestly you want to go phase Rush on Swain, but if you do that, you lose out on so much damage that you get from elec or grasp, which makes lane phase harder to win

-No key stone actaully feels GOOD on him, never has, never will, but that's the bare minimum of his problems

And honestly even if you disagree with everything I said here, there is one thing that is true, Swain was built to be a mid/top champion, which means the OG swain fans are most likely mid/top mains, so having your favorite champion just thrown into a completely different role that doesn't even resemble that, is just a major feels bad. Please bring him back to the mid lane glory days.

9 Comments

ZephyrDrake12/15/2019, 6:43:13 PM2 votes

just a reminder that he can still go top and mid and that you being bad at him doesn't make those roles bad for him

On My Kill List12/15/2019, 3:47:54 AM2 votes

just increase swains scalings. reduce his base damage to near 0 so his support is killed. problem solved. make his snare scale with ap like how pykes e scales with lethality. its not rocket science. radical changes like that are whats needed to push back mages from support and back into mid or top.

HP Crookshanks12/14/2019, 11:45:11 PM1 votes

Just like Brand Karma Morgana Zyra

Sire Hippington12/15/2019, 5:21:57 PM1 votes

a traditionally mid top champ was reworked into a support

Galio tell me more about it...

lawnninja55512/16/2019, 3:28:51 AM1 votes

{quoted}

I am also aware riot is very afraid of buffing Swain further

They are not afraid, I bet the skin department told the balance team that they where coming out with a hextec skin, and they panic reworked him. So his buffing depends on 3 things.

  1. Did his Hextec skin sell enough of the bag packs that have the hex gems. If not expect a buff before one of the bag sells, if not during.
  2. Will competitive pick him up. if so, expect a Nerf after a month after one of those bag sells, so they can sell more.
  3. How "toxic does riot think he is" . this fact can change number 2's time line, or how fast they react to low-elo player's cry that Swain support is toxic.

But ya, only reason he got a rework is cause of that hextec skin. If it sells well, he may stay as is, until he is flavor of the month and low elo cry about him being toxic, or competitive takes him for a stroll. But if they did not make enough money, expect a buff some time soon. If they buff him, they will not address his support, instead in-brace it, and just make him overpowered support, with the selling tag lines of helping his mid/top.

Also this is Christmas. They tend to take about the whole month off, so expect nothing till the new year.

I never feel like I am in a position to be the aggressor. Now why is that?

Legit reason, Old OG was a lane bully, and that is the only reason they did a full rework. So they made this version that sits in lane and hope he does not die and gets enough CS. So all he got was "d L0kcuc" for his re-work. Spell that backwards to see real word

I remember they gave Swains Q the ability to hit all minions to "buff his wave clear"

Jokes on Riot, all it did was buff his support, his E.W and passive remain mostly the same, just now he can put more damage on a caught victim, and due to its low damage, it helps wave clear with little risk of stealing cs at the same time. All cause he does not have to worry about as much minion block. Funny, he was one of the few champs that can not truly punish a champ, if they sit in the middle of their minion wave, likely in range to auto Swain if they are range. Unless you are the god swain player who knows exactly where his E turns back.

there is one thing that is true, Swain was built to be a mid/top champion, which means the OG swain fans are most likely mid/top mains, so having your favorite champion just thrown into a completely different role that doesn't even resemble that, is just a major feels bad.

Your joking right? No OG Swain fan thinks this is Swain. They wanted a DoT mage, old man and raven themed, and his Ult turned him in to a Giant demon bird. None of that applies to New Swain. The people that you are talking about, are those that got on the band wagon that was the first mini rework. A rework Riot made solely in order to get new people on board to drown out the true mains views on the horrible rework they did. If you think it is a good rework then tally this. Swain lost his Theme, game-play style, and game-play identity. Old Swain players agreed to throw away his identity as a lane bully, not the other 2. Also only reason he went top was cause of how old he gotten, and top was where he could downright abuse melee champs, the only thing he was really good at up to that point. No OG saw him as a top lane.

I know I am Mean, however look at my post history on how bad I despise this rework. I could say more, but in the end, I just hope, Riot admits they messed up, and going to give the real Swain rework. Not this mess of a champ. Not going to happen, but I can dream and hope, the new mains, like you just leave Swain in the dump, cause Riot is. And guess what, Support roles is the dump for Mages.Brand Zyra KarmaFiddlesticks all agree.

I would be nicer, however I have only Vitriol for what the Champ now call Swain. So I can't hide my hate.

Z3SIeeper12/15/2019, 4:05:06 PM1 votes

I agree with buffing him for solo lanes, but you gotta nerf him for support too otherwise he's just gonna be even more of a pain in the ass bot lane.

nm101012/15/2019, 2:46:26 PM1 votes

Swain had so many tiny mechanisms built into his kit to make him feel bad to play it is ridiculous. Why such a long cast time on a spam ability like q? It makes kiting or chasing feel like shit. Why is r the only tether in the game that doesn't target without vision? Good luck laning against stealth assassins like Akali. Why does e stop on minions/monsters? This is a double fuck-you as it hurts his waveclear and his teamfights. Like, Ryze gets to clear a wave in ~5-10 seconds post tear, why does Swain struggle to waveclear for 90% of the game?