Swain @ Riot

I have a love hate relationship with this particular version of Swain.

Theme wise, I like all the birds, but where exactly is Beatrice the "Darkin/Demon" or whatever you want her to be now? She's nowhere to be found, even though she's the "actual" demon.

I feel a lot of the "dot" theme of Swain is now gone, and now he's just another version of a burst sustain mage that will be made irrelevant anyways because of the existence of Morellos. He'll be overpowered vs team comps that don't have it, and underpowered vs ones that do. Kind of where we're at right now.

I'm not understanding the sith lord/ thundah/ vampire noble aristocrat look. Doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me in the long run to be honest with you.

A lot of the bird theme abilities are no longer present, and it no longer looks like he transforms into an actual bird, but instead a weird Sephiroth person. I'm not going to lie, I expected to see a monster ((Since the lore hints that he's thousands of years old, and just appears out of the blue.))

As a military individual, I don't like his long hair. I expected him to be more short hair with a bit of a 3 week shadow, similar to generals of old, rather than clean shaven with long hair. That's just my take on it though.

Why is he no longer a cripple?

Things I like:

Again, all the birds as a hidden passive.

I like that he has a unique pull mechanic.

I like his scouting capabilities.

I like the general skill cap attached to him.

I like the whispers, and shadow bird animations, and his ult.

I like that he has skill shots, hence a skill cap.

I like how crisp most the animations are.

I like that he's immobile which encourages macro play which fits his lore.

All in all, I feel like the people that reworked this just kind of looked at star wars sith lords, and then at DND/Warhammer mages and sort of ripped them off and threw it in there, instead of doing what they did with Warwick and attempting to "enhance" the kit and further accencuate the theme. I guess what I'm trying to say is . . . you could have thrown the name "Bob" onto the character, and I don't think anyone would have known any better.

I'll play it, but in general I guess this is what I have to rate it.

Passive ((birds)) 8/10 ((Lack of Beatrice costs you two points.))

Abilities: 6/10

Design: 6/10

True to theme: 5/10

Appearance: 3/10 I honestly hate the way he looks now.

All in all, It's an okay "rework" but it's no Evelynn, or Warwick rework.