Is swain (rework) OP right now?

tieger05·Feb 7, 2018·2 votes·9,849 views

Need quick answers, thinking of buying him.

Thanks!

27 Comments

ModWulf HelhammerFeb 7, 20186 votes

Don't buy something for it's perceived power. Get it because it looks interesting and enjoyable for you.

tieger05Feb 7, 20182 votes

Well obviously not, I main one of the most out of meta champions lol. I just don't want to play a champ as bad as ornn at release.

Electro522Feb 7, 20183 votes

We don't know how powerful Swain will be. Someone could give a guess as to how he performs on the PBE, but there have been several times in the past that the PBE was dead wrong in their assumptions of power.

For example (I might be wron) Galio was perceived to be quite weak on the PBE when his VGU came out. Due to the feedback Riot was getting, they buffed him, and he settled into an ok spot. When he was released, everyone was ok with him........until he hit the LCS.

The reverse has also happened, where something is perceived to be VERY strong on the PBE, but truns out to be quite weak or useless.

So, until Swain has at least 2 weeks on live under his belt, it's impossible to answer you question.

AzadetheFeb 7, 20182 votes

Swain's a pretty safe bet of being powerful from day 1. His kit isn't complicated or angles or really anything hidden in the technique. He's going to be like Ekko: You pick him up and nuke with him. Q has a 2 second base cooldown. He will never suffer wave clears, has built in heavy sustain/mana recovery, he has the lowest cooldown damaging global in the game which damage comparable to Zigg's Ult at 1/3 the cooldown or less, and his ult when primed with 5 shards heals him while potentially doing about 3800 damage to all nearby enemies in a single proc.

It's a pretty safe bet he's going to start strong. The only question with Swain is, will it last once Morellonomicon is 100% Grievous wounds, or will he die before he can use this kit.

In my opinion, the main difference between the old swain and new is this: The New will do better in a team fight. The Old did fine without one. The new Swain has the strongest Vision in the game, and the ONLY duration Vision that also does damage.

Electro522Feb 7, 20183 votes

So....you seem to be exaggerating things here.....allow me to clarify.

Q does have a 2 sec base CD......at rank 5.......which, at earliest, is level 9. Rank 4 is just over 3 seconds, but before that, the CD for this kind of spell is decent

Yes, he will have good mana sustain, but his mana costs are pretty damn high. Just for Q, it's at 65 mana rank 1. Yes, I know that isn't as high as some other spells, but it quickly ramps up, maxing at 85 mana per cast. If you're spamming his Q, you will quickly run out of mana, especially since his base mana pool isn't amazing.

As for health sustain, the only time he can heal himself is with his W damaging a champ, ult, or if he yanks a CC'd champ. Since his W has over a 20 second CD, and costs 90 mana at rank 1....I doubt he will be spamming it. So, the only reliable way to heal himself is to consistently land his E, which costs 60 mana and has a 13 second CD rank 1

Yes, his W can do some pretty heavy damage, but at rank 1, it can only do 100 base damage, and does even less against minions. It is meant to be a scouting and pick tool, and supplemental damage in a teamfight. Not to mention it is HEAVILY telegraphed, and has a massive delay on it. So, with all of this, he will likely max his W last, considering how much more reliable his other 2 abilities are.

To deal 3800 damage total, he would basically need to be in the middle of the enemy team, with quite a bit of AP. If he has that much AP, he's going to be very squishy, regardless of his healing or not.

On paper, he seems ok to me. In practice.....we'll have to see.

AzadetheFeb 7, 20183 votes

You do realize his very first items will be item 3003 (20% CDR), item 3285 (10% CDR)?

CDR won't be an issue, and W is going to drop to close to 10.8 Seconds relatively quickly.

He won't have mana problems either, because those two items alone will be + 1900 Mana, and a 15% mana refund. He can even get Hextech GLP for another 500 mana, completing the 40% CDR, and 80 more AP and a powerful active that works with his Q and pulls.

And then ofc, he'll get a item 3027

That's 4 items. He might drop the GLP or Luden's for a item 3065 and get a item 3089 and boots, which would still overcap his CDR.

You do realize I play Nami? She has pretty high mana costs too. I never ever run out with a item 3070

If he builds like this, he won't be squishy ENOUGH if he has a team with him. And therein lies the difference: Old swain didn't have to worry about mages because item 3165 would never proc. Now he has to worry about ANY grievous wounds.

AlexisTheDragonFeb 11, 20181 votes

{quoted}

You do realize his very first items will be (20% CDR), (10% CDR)?

CDR won't be an issue, and W is going to drop to close to 10.8 Seconds relatively quickly.

He won't have mana problems either, because those two items alone will be + 1900 Mana, and a 15% mana refund. He can even get Hextech GLP for another 500 mana, completing the 40% CDR, and 80 more AP and a powerful active that works with his Q and pulls.

And then ofc, he'll get a

That's 4 items. He might drop the GLP or Luden's for a and get a and boots, which would still overcap his CDR.

You do realize I play Nami? She has pretty high mana costs too. I never ever run out with a

If he builds like this, he won't be squishy ENOUGH if he has a team with him. And therein lies the difference: Old swain didn't have to worry about mages because would never proc. Now he has to worry about ANY grievous wounds.

Building rod and zhonyas I still get instakilled.

You really think u can build tear then ludens lol?

Smokin PenguinFeb 7, 20181 votes

[{quoted}](name=The Wolf King,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=QdqLUT9g,comment-id=0000,timestamp=2018-02-07T06:38:42.047+0000)

Don't buy something for it's perceived power. Get it because it looks interesting and enjoyable for you.

Dude mind your business and don't tell people what to do. lol

Allahh AkbardFeb 13, 2018

Wish I could down vote this more than once

AzadetheFeb 7, 20183 votes

Swain is indeed OP, and I'd say most of it lies with his Vision of Empire.

Vision of Empire is basically a Global BASIC skill with a 3500 max range, and a pretty low cooldown for its utility once he has CDR items. 18 Second base at tier 3 = 10.8 second cooldown.

It is the exact same damage scaling as 1 half of Morgana 's Ult, And it only trails Ziggs Global ult by 100 damage (albeit it doesn't have that 50% more in the center)

What makes this scary is it gives him extremely safe Drake and Baron control. If he has 1000 AP. It's equal to an arena sized Smite that does 1000 damage to the entire ring, while Swain isn't even there. It also gives vision for 8 seconds, so you can have a Wardless Drake/Baron fight, and it's almost ready for recast by the time the vision ends. And, a Drake/Baron fight is an automatic 5 Soul Shards for Swain to use on an ult.

He can basically Vision of Empire a Known Drake/Baron attempt, half the HP of everyone there, get vision for 8 seconds, and then come in on his Ult to 1v5 the remainder while 5 Soul Shards Precharged. That gives him 12 seconds to do 210 damage per second to 3 of the champs, and then when he feels like it, Nova the entire area for 1725. That means if RNG picks tanks to siphon from during his ult, he can essentially deal enough damage to pentakill with just his Ult, pre mitigation damage, not to mention the ~ 900-1000 that Vision of Empire did prior, and the damage he can do with Q and E.

That's without his team.

Now..... ofc there's plenty of variables in a fight, and Swain can be CC'd etc. And, 8.4 is going to bring perma Grievous wounds vs him, so his sustain may end up being short lived if he doesn't rely on his team.

But the damage is there, and the sustain is there, the whole grievous wounds debate is vice versa.

His Tier 5 Q is on a 2 second base cooldown. That's 1.2 sec CD on CDR, and it does 145+40% AP, and can multi hit targets for stacking damage. The closer you are to him, the more projectiles that will hit you, and that alone can turn the fight. He basically doesn't have a range at which you can reliably fight him; Up close he can do more damage. At a distance he can pull you toward him. At a far distance he can nuke runners or objective regions.

The only weakness of his Global is it has a 2 second damage delay, so it's probably not going to steal drakes. But it can stop a take.

Amnesiac GamingFeb 19, 20181 votes

Hindsight is 20/20...

SSShutTheDuckUpFeb 7, 20182 votes

Hard to tell. Zoe had around 40% at release got nothing but nerfs since and is still considered strong, even OP by some players.

Smokin PenguinFeb 7, 20182 votes

[{quoted}](name=Awesomeasf ck,realm=EUW,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=QdqLUT9g,comment-id=0001,timestamp=2018-02-07T06:50:11.245+0000)

Hard to tell. Zoe had around 40% at release got nothing but nerfs since and is still considered strong, even OP by some players.

Zoe is by no means OP, she has a single damage ability + her steroid passive and that's it, she is extremely squishy and has no escapes either. If she tries to pick up the shard she risks getting nuked or just get her hp chunked, her 'Q' is hard to land her is E is best landed from point blank range and her ultimate returns her to her original cast position. The reason some players thought (and some still do) she was OP is because they don't know what to expect of her kit nor how how to play against it, that's why there was such a huge backlash. The only complaint that i would have for her kit is the duration of her E's aoe.

SSShutTheDuckUpFeb 7, 20182 votes

Just gave her as an example that early days not always tell the true story. I am not arguing if she OP or not, as I rarely have time to play recently

CaciqueFeb 8, 20182 votes

My first play with him was very disappointing. I really liked the old swain. This new Swain is underwhelming. He's great late game, but pretty garbage till then IMO.

Allahh AkbardFeb 13, 20182 votes

But did the old Swain's voice give you a hard on like the new one? Checkmate bud.

CaciqueFeb 24, 20181 votes

... but the new voice doesn't give me a hardon... it actually just makes me sad...

Hello FukerFeb 13, 20182 votes

{quoted}

My first play with him was very disappointing. I really liked the old swain. This new Swain is underwhelming. He's great late game, but pretty garbage till then IMO.

My first play with him was also disappointing until i realized how his passive works. No, Swain isn't garbage until late game, he has really strong early game and late game (especially if you know how to play with him). Riven is his counter, but that doesn't mean you can't play against her. If you keep attacking her and playing aggressive at early game, you may easily outfarm her and dominate her and maybe the whole game.

Short Answer: Reworked Swain is really good champion if you know how to play with him and has really strong early game.

5050BSFeb 21, 20181 votes

He shines in really small comps. He NEEDS farm or kills to be viable and can only get kills without Ult on people that are under silver.

He is goodish vs Melee and SUCKS vs ranged. His W needs to hit 1.5s faster. His Q needs to scale better on flat damage because you have to build him tanky (WITH Defs not just HPs) You HAVE to build item 3116 and item 3157 . Hit Ult needs more flat healing (again because you have to build tanky without lots of AP)

They need to make him again AP the more souls he collects (like 8/10/15/20 AP per soul at lvls 1/6/11/16) THEN he would be competitive and not OP unless fed (like about every good champ)

CaciqueFeb 24, 20181 votes

That's fair, I keep playing him because I WANT him to be good. And with the recent buffs I think he'll be in a better place.

ChiefDovahkinJul 8, 20181 votes

He definitely has stronger early game than old swain, q is super spammable for its huge damage honestly. He plays roughly the same as old swain, but way better early, his e pulls you and stuns you so any melee matchup is effortless except for maybe riven. I don't really see any power in his w, but his r heals him as much as old swain if he has the charges and it does do tons of damage

AlexisTheDragonFeb 11, 20181 votes

Boxerpete says it sucks dick.

CheshireGameFeb 21, 20181 votes

I don't know what so many people are saying in-game. I like the new Swain, he is a lot more fun with his new ult and his other abilities, lowkey he is gonna be what Galio was before his rework. Just to say I love new Galio, but the old one I could confidently take into ranked and be able to win lane and carry, yes I was a carry galio.

5050BSFeb 21, 20181 votes

Nope he is under tuned by quite a bit.

VargrjalmerOct 13, 20181 votes

well lets see, start corrupting potion, go to lane, throw w over and over and over, eventually you'll land it, when you do, press every button on your keyboard, then r and follow them under tower, as long as your r is active you can't die and you heal a lot, then when your ulti ends you deal a shit ton of damage to everything around you. thats all.