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Could a "Master Tactician" Swain have worked?

ModAcademy Kayn··4 votes·447 views

So obviously the idea of Tactician means you're commanding troops, and hindering enemy advances. The problem with the archetype is either he's mediocre in lane and great in teamfights, or just overall too good. So, we're looking for some effects that help overall.

1) Marking a target

Similar to plenty of games mechanics, or my favorite XCOM Advent Commander, this is pretty much telling your allies to Target the shit out of this guy, to the unfortunate result of many a Squadie. (Rip Sq. Anderson, you will be missed). In XCOM, it grants Crit-chance, accuracy bonuses, to make it an overall better target in general (with probably some AI mechanic). In League, this could be done with his current E, where he boosts damage done to a target by sources.

To stop that from getting too big from teamfight bonuses, and help Swain's laning, it could be something similar to "Allies deal increased damage to target up to X amount of increased damage taken," while Swain just does % more in... general.

** 2) Hindering enemies through plans**

Ekko's Parallal convergence is a great ability to demonstrate this, and I feel like it would've suited Swain just as much. Delayed planning, to predict where an enemy could be, and to punish them for being predictable. I don't know if this would just be a different variant of Nevermove, or a Raven Carpet bomb for all I care, but something similar to Ekko's W would be amazing for this branch of thought.

** 3) Intelligence gathering**

This one is fairly small, but noteworthy, but gathering intelligence about the enemy for use. Someone's suggested this before, but imagine a passive where Swain get's periodic glimpses of Vision on unseen enemies. Every 60 scaling down to 15 seconds, you'd get vision on an enemy for X seconds, or their general area. The enemy in question sees a circle of Ravens over head, visualized by a flock of shadows on the ground, or Beatrice circling them. That type of idea.

** 4) Economical Warfare**

For those who don't know DIME, (Diplomatic, Intelligence, Military, and Economical), those are the types of warfare you think about when attacking countries, or trying to get something you want, like how we have diplomats in North Korea, but we also have a Navy nearby. This one is finicky, and might do more harm than good, but getting more gold per tower taken, or objectives would emphasize this particular aspect of Warfare.

** 5) Obstructing fools enemies **

Be it driving hordes of elephants through mountains, or defending a ravine against an army, geographic advantages have always mattered in war and it's battles. Being able to Manipulate terrain would be very tactical, blocking off retreats or stopping advances. Only fear would be that it's too similar to Anivia's wall, but that could be switched through two ideas.

  • The wall is built one space at a time, forming into a full obstacles over X seconds

  • The wall is much more fluid in nature, and Swain could make a U formation, a line, or maybe a small circle if he can manage it.

Used for isolating enemies for focus, or to get an annoying tank off you. Obstacle could be destructible if built like Yorick's wall, or indestructible if ends don't meet. Would imagine it'd be hell on earth for the coders, but it's worth it for Swain.

** 6) Diplomatic Warfare**

Swain can make a ceasefire between the two teams, and the game ends. Both teams combine the loss and win IP, and divide spoils equally. In Rank, LP works similar. ;T

The idea is to find power that gives Swain option in lane, and also in fights, while helping out his team. Swain should act like a general, informing allies of enemy positions and being that helpful dude who tells you "focus this victim", as he watches you attack everyone else but them.

Now, this was an old post of mine from 6 months ago, and I just wanted to repost it cause a friend wanted me to. I want to use this bottom area to state a few of my own recent opinions, and to ask my own questions.

  • You chose to focus on his Battlemage aspect, Overlord Warlock theme, over Tactician. What was the thought process behind this again? I know this was answered sometime near the original post of this, but I'm having trouble finding it. Was that in overall theme direction, or just gameplay-wise?

5 Comments

Teridax682 votes

I personally think a tactician or strategist theme could have been achieved with the foundations of Swain's original kit: while real-life warfare can involve the manipulation of entire systems, amassing armies, and so on, tactical play in MOBAs doesn't really need to go to those same lengths. In practically every game, there are three different time scales that can be used:

  • On the much shorter end of the scale, there are actions measured over the course of approximately a second, sometimes more but usually less. These plays tend to be mechanical in nature, as they rely mostly on quick reaction times, muscle memory, and other skills that do not rely especially on conscious, deliberate thought.
  • In the middle, there are actions measured over the course of several seconds, but usually no more than a minute. These usually amount to short-term decisions based on the anticipation of your opponents in view of very recently obtained information, planned on the spot and executed in a sequence of actions over a similarly short (but not instant) period of time. As such, these plays are tactical in nature.
  • On the longer end of the scale, there are actions measured over the course of several minutes, usually a whole match if the game session has a fixed duration. This usually involves plans made well in advance that set guidelines for which actions to take, and which results to expect. These plans may adapt over time, but overall are mostly based on comprehensive knowledge of the match's parameters, rather than as a reaction to a given match state. This is the strategy of a game.

What this means is that, if you want a more tactical champion, you need to give them gameplay that occurs over more extended periods of time, instead of make-or-break moments that define most of League's champions. If you want a strategic champion, you might even want them to focus more on the big picture, i.e. the entire map at once, rather than the moment-to-moment gameplay of a single lane or encounter. As a DoT champion, one of Swain's defining features on his old kit is that his gameplay does not require much mechanical finesse, but instead tends to have an impact over the course of the next several seconds of play. As mentioned above, this innately lends itself to tactical play. While Swain's old kit definitely lacks counterplay, it could have nonetheless been possible to make him more tactical or strategic by maintaining an emphasis over persistent power, rather than more compressed effects. Putting more emphasis on the zoning power of his raven, applying persistent and novel debuffs via curses, or even creating more pervasive areas of CC with Nevermove would all have potentially reconciled Swain's bird mage aesthetic with his implied strength as a master tactician. With that said, Swain's new W does lend itself to tactical play by providing short-term information, even if it also requires artillery-level range to do so.

Quepha2 votes

Who cares? I want Bird Swain, Riot gave us neither.

Chembaron Yamada1 votes

I would like to have a master strategist in the game, but I always thought that it shouldn't be Swain. Simply for lore reasons.

Noxus is the biggest empire in Runeterra and we got told that they are winning many of their fights simply by numbers advantage. Now add their Grand General as Runeterras master strategist and you got a nation with basically every advantage in a fight.

The master strategist should be someone from a smaller nation in my opinion, giving them the ability to fight stronger enemies with their smaller numbers.

I know, it might sound biased, but I think that Piltover would be the best fit here. It is just a single city, but it is a natural fortress. They got technology for advanced gathering of information. And they got the technology for advanced war tactics.

Facit:

Sure, they could have made Swain the strategist, but I am glad they decided for another direction and I hope that they will give the master strategist trope to another faction.

ModAcademy Kayn2 votes

they are winning many of their fights simply by numbers advantage.

Clarify/Source that, cause that feels more about them conquering the nearby lands around them, villages and the like, than it is them facing a larger battle.

ZT Xperimentor1 votes

I think it could've worked and riot didn't bother except for his sight ability in the rework, which seems a bit too powerful but we'll see how that shakes out.

In consideration of your post, I'm most fond of 2 and 5; both seem to be the most strategic sounding for this game environment.

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