Boards›Gameplay

Small swain ult change

Seraphim117·5/23/2019, 9:06:11 PM·24 votes·11,611 views

Swain isn’t in a great space but riot has said that they can’t find room in his kit to buff him. After picking him up again and having tons of fun I had 1 idea that would make him much more interesting to play and play against that would buff him without breaking him.

Right now swain ult has him drain the 3 nearest enemies prioritizing champions. The first idea was to increase this number, but if that was done swain would be able to heal such a crazy amount that it wouldn’t be reasonable. He’s have the press r to get out of jail free card like old aatrox.

So what if the number of people he can drain is based on the number of souls he has.

In lane phase this is not a buff. Swain works the exact same. If you gank him with only 1 soul however, he is weaker than live. (He rarely has 1 soul by the time his ult is up tho) Similarly in skirmishes and 3v3s swain would be the same or worse than he is on live servers.

However

If swain manages to break into a teamfight with 4 souls he’ll be noticeably better than he is on live and if he manages to do so with all 5 he’ll have the best drain in the game for 12 seconds. The reason this doesn’t break him is because if he has 5 souls he still needs 5 champs in his ult to heal for absolute insanity. Additionally swain will still lack mobility. Meaning a good cc champ can neutralize a lot of his ult potency by keeping him out of the enemy team. In turn the healing on minions would be further reduced so that swain can’t abuse that. I think this keeps swain balanced and interesting while adding more counterplay and skill to his kit. What do you think senpai rito?

16 Comments

ModKnightsKemplar5/23/2019, 10:59:35 PM11 votes

I have, for awhile, wished for an AoE ability in this game that would change the amount of damage it does based on the number of targets it's hitting. This is the perfect opportunity to do that, and yes, I think it would be a lot better.

So, for instance, let's say his ult did 100% of its its damage when it hits 1 target. Then maybe it does 80% to 2 targets (each, so total 160%), 65% to 3, 55% to 4, and 50% to 5. With something like this, there's always incentive to hit more people without making you useless when you're only hitting one. And it's perfect for an DoT ability. That way, more people standing in the ult still "protects" your squishy ally, in a way, but they will still take some damage, and Swain is then pumping out more damage in total, albeit to less desirable targets.

It's a cool mechanic that has counterplay, imo. Would love to see it someday.

5050BS5/23/2019, 10:22:54 PM7 votes

Riots reason for not buffing him is based solely on pro play.

They failed on using Souls as a resource. His whole kit should be based on Number of Souls he has.

If he has 0-2 then he is weak and thats when you want to fight him. If he has 3-5 he is strong and you want to avoid him.

Thats what they should have done.

OlympusSworn5/23/2019, 9:48:14 PM5 votes

As someone who has played a fair amount of swain and realizes he sucks, I agree

Sexy Jack Rabbit5/24/2019, 4:20:58 AM2 votes

His ult only drains a maximum of 3 champions tho

radetari5/25/2019, 9:36:19 AM1 votes

interesting idea tbh

General Esdeath 5/24/2019, 7:36:06 AM1 votes

As long as the souls can fade over time, this is fine

Velasan5/24/2019, 7:17:13 PM1 votes

Yeah totally agreed.

Part of the champs thematic is to wade into combat against the enemy team, be dead center draining all of them and trying to go for that penta. He is purposefully crippled from doing that by only having 3 targets.

Idk why they changed it that way during design, but I would rather drain from 5 targets than have Demon Flare. I feel like Demon Flare was what they added on because they wanted Swain to be more accessible to the casual players of League who just want him to fit the typical burst mage style, but that was never what Swain was about. Also, running out of his ultimate drain without dying SHOULD be the correct counter play to Swain, which is totally removed if he can just detonate on the enemy trying to escape.

Remove Demon Flare, have it drain from 5 targets and do more damage instead.

Mr Mxyzptlk5/24/2019, 3:30:34 PM

This is a nerf, not a buff. It’s like changing bard ult which stuns for 2.5 seconds, to 1 second plus an addition second depending on how many targets get caught in the zone. Yeah that 5 second stun seems good but what is the chance of you landing a 5 man ult on Bard? Most of the time you’d only be getting a 1 second or 2 second stun which is a nerf in comparison to the permanent 2.5 second stun. Same goes for Swain, except getting 5 competent players in Demonic Ascension is borderline impossible. I mean, if they unplug there mouses you might have a good chance at getting that sweat 5 man heal. But for other 99% of time, that’s not happening. And then your forcing him to rely more on a team comp by nerfing his soul fragment system, which will only worsen his already weak performance in soloQ. There is no reward from this change and it will most likely kill the champ.