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Swain buffs/changes and general discussion

Phoenix X Tiger·2/12/2018, 9:24:04 PM·6 votes·640 views

Just thought I'd make a thread to see what or how people think the champ needs to be changed/buffed since everybody seems to think there's place for changes.

According to op.gg I have 26 ranked games, 17 of which are wins so from my experience he's very much playable but I feel like we could have a couple of quality of life changes to make him good or even competitive.

I'll start with a couple of obvious ones, the first one is his E not being a fixed range. I think we all thought this at some point during our games when we had a melee champion all up in our business. It makes sense considering his Q does more damage the closer you are to the target but not being able to use your E to catch them sooner to stop yourself from being stabbed to death feels really awful, especially when his kit seems to be made around being close to someone. I think they figured his E would be used to drag people back into you and not to defend yourself, but when your Q has a 10 second cooldown early, your W costs 100 mana and takes so long to cast, you should have SOMETHING to defend yourself.

Another thing I have an issue with is his 5 passive bars that really don't seem to do anything particularly important. I figured they put it below your health bar so it would be more obvious but it leads people into thinking they do something special for his kit, which is where I think all the complains come from. It would feel nice to have them do something and if there's any changes coming, I feel like his passive adding something to his kit would be great but that's just because it so in your eyes that it feels like they need to do something more impactful.

Despite popular opinion, I think his W is fine. In competitive it would be exceedingly useful but in casual it serves the purpose of giving you more healing, a stack of passive, massive healing in teamfights if you can land a good one in combination with an Ori ult or something, a way to peel off some melees. I think the only thing that would need to be changed if Swain becomes more of a casual champion is his W mana cost since it feels like he has no W in early laning phase due to the huge mana cost and just how much that can ruin your flow. Personally, I only ever use it for gank setups and to cancel recalls (probably why it has such a high cooldown). For those complaining it's so hard to land, try not dragging people out of our E until the last moment, that helps a lot (anything besides that is up to your teammates CC and hoping the enemy just runs into it, no use just throwing it out).

I think the worst thing about the champion is the ultimate cooldown. It's 120. That's it. 120 seconds and it doesn't decrease with rank, meaning that in an era where you have Lux ults at 26 seconds and Ori ults at 50 ~, you're stuck with an 120 cooldown on an ultimate that makes your champion good. Having your ult up is essential for every engagement and I feel that with how vulnerable he is without it, this is the most immediate change he needs.

That's about it from me, let me know what you guys think. I think he's pretty good, I've been winning a lot of games around platinum 4 and I definitely love feeling like a nazi emperor whenever I run around the rift, especially with his theme. The fantasy is good, he just needs a little push to make him really good.

4 Comments

ModCaliCoastReplay2/12/2018, 9:43:27 PM4 votes

W is not fine. Anyone with any kind of reflexes can dodge it. I feel like I have only two abilities to lane with regularly, Q and E, and that's just not fun. I do agree about the ultimate cooldown, however.

I don't think he's completely terrible but his winrates are pretty bad right now. For me it's his waveclear nerfs that are the hardest to live with. His abilities were deliberately made horrendously weak against minions, and I have no idea why. It doesn't feel good seeing a Q completely blocked by a single full-health melee minion AFTER I have Rabadon's built, nor to see a W at near max rank hit caster minions for, say, half health.

It's a design decision I truly don't understand. I'd argue that he is substantially weaker against minions than any other full-mage champion in the game right now. I can be level 15 with 500 AP and still need almost ten seconds to optimally clear out a large enough wave, and that's just wrong. He's not quite Malphite or Maokai on waveclear, yet, but the fact that a burst mage even enters into the discussion with those two is telling - Riot, why was his waveclear nerfed to pieces in this incarnation?

I think his W needs 1/4-1/2 sec shaved off the animation delay, and his ult cooldown and charge time need to be reduced, and that his ability debuffs versus minions need to be strongly reduced.

VICKLIUS2/12/2018, 10:56:04 PM1 votes

swain didn't need rework, he just needed an update adjustment, such has having his pass gain him mana or hp based on which is lower based on dmg dealt, q (animation Beatrice pecking interact w/ e Beatrice animation beam and hits multiple targets in her aoe marked by e), on either q/e 1.2/1.4/1.6/1.8/2x dmg on q while marked by e instead of 1.2xdmg e aoe "WHILE marked dmg to swain is reduced by 20%"increase range so can lead w/ it w when snare enemy champ gain ms, 10sec cd all ranks R when hit send out another raven at attacker(increase mana cost/for current mana cost) to counter that he can only send one every other second

I came up w/ the pass to help deal w/ the mass healers an he was dot so kills didn't make sense an only mana, q I hate abilities that get adjusted dmg based on target type like(or less from repeated hit) X2 just cause minion,so added e interact for the X1.2-2 dmg an to make it hit multiple also for his pass w gain ms so he could either go in or leave, an such long cd for reason idk(honestly hate cd go down, just make constant, more fun, more consistent playing) plus they are rooted, him gaining ms because of that is going to affect much e an help vs assassins an to go w/ pass , r I already explained

VICKLIUS2/12/2018, 11:26:07 PM1 votes

they made a new champ, plain and simple, and they did a crap job of it.

Kai Guy2/13/2018, 3:37:25 AM1 votes

Id like to see some MP regin from soul shards, pref from soul shards after your at 5 so there's some loss in power after R besides the Next R is weaker, and for the passive Yank to count as an auto and apply on hits.