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Swain Quality of Life Changes

Nilous7·4/9/2016, 11:53:24 PM·4 votes·3,876 views

With the recent discussion of Mid Year mages having touched on Swain Swain a few times (specifically that he's not going to get a lot of changes, but a few tweaks), I was hoping that we could at least touch on a few Quality of Life changes for the Tactician of Noxus. None of them would drastically improve his gameplay, but would help with the horrible spot he's in. Which no one can argue, Swain needs someone love, since he's never played and his win rate is pretty low.

The first is a simple usability check that's always been slightly off for him. Can we change it that when you hover over Ravenous Flock it shows the range of his area of target selection? It's something little, but would be good to have for everyone.

The second is a bigger, and more gameplay oriented one. Swain's ult Ravenous Flock is ruled by RNG and is slightly frustrating at times. It's target priority is VERY flawed. He has no control over it, other than it "SHOULD" target a champion. Stand in the middle of a group of champions, and you have no say what you hit. Stand in the middle of minions, and you have no say. Want to hit a single champion among a crowd of minions, okay, you're good. That's the only time you know you'll hit who you want. What I'd like to see is change the target priority of his ult in one of two ways: >Either change it to prioritize the NEAREST champion, and then acquire the next 2 targets by nearest champions after that, followed by nearest minions. This would encourage Swain to literally stand on the target he wants to eat (which Decrepify's tether system also encourages), since it'd allow him to choose who he's focuses.

OR

> Have his ult prioritize the last unit he basic attacked and then ult prioritize target's by % remaining health. Low health Champions would be prioritized first, then other champions, then lowest health minions, and then remaining minions. This would not own fit his corvidae theme, but also aid him in wave clear for minions (which he horribly lacks), and help him in team fights to finish weakened targets off.

If anyone has any feedback for this, I'd appreciate it.

8 Comments

RiotShin Kazuo4/20/2016, 2:03:53 AM4 votes

Hello! (sorry I don't have red name on my NA account) - EDIT: oh wait I do!

So now Swain's ultimate shoots out 5 birds per second so you'll always be hitting all the champions around you instead of just RNG. The order you hit them will still be RNG though.

The lack of visual indication of ult range was totally a bug that no one ever addressed. It should be fixed on the mid season patch unless I screwed something badly on the code.

Hope you have fun with it!

ArcRaizen4/10/2016, 12:12:49 AM3 votes

Why no have his ult prioritize targets hit by his Q - Decrepify? Everyone has always said that Swain is supposed to be a master tactician but doesn't remotely play like one, so that change would at least make the player think about who he wants to target to get guaranteed damage onto or possibly more heals if the ult has problems targeting champions when minions are around.

ClemsonRouge4/10/2016, 3:12:42 AM3 votes

Other Swain concerns: I have played hundreds (maybe over a thousand, I'm embarrassed to admit) of Swain games and one of my concerns (especially after playing a lot of Aurelion Sol recently) is the mana dependence of Swains ultimate in the current meta. The longer it is on, the mana consumption is increased at a seemingly exponential rate. Sol's W is at a constant rate no matter how long it is activated. Swain is so heavily mana dependent and with the removal of mana pots, that puts him at a pretty severe disadvantage at level 6 when he is against any champion that will out scale his damage through HP (#tankmeta).
Played predominately in lane with mana-less counter champion options, this puts him in a pretty tough spot. Quality of life changes for this could be improved through increasing the passive percent on his mana return for minion kills (I know this was done to killing champs a while back) or keeping his ult rate constant like Sol's W. Another interesting way to solve the mana issue would be to add additional damage to each consecutive ravenous flock bird that hits a given champion. This could tweak the mana issue without having to touch the mana and engender an incentive to the player for staying on top of their target.

To answer your question I think proximity is better, but I'd be open to following a basic attack. Following basic attacks has advantages for farming in lane as well.

Lastly, "DRAGON MASTER SWAIN". PLEASE OH PLEASE OH PLEASE. This would make my life complete. I would pay any price tag.

WickedKing4/20/2016, 2:29:52 AM1 votes

Some funny suggestion, but making it more realistic.

I was wondering if the new Decrepify tether should synergize with Ravenous Flock so that all the birds goes to that tethered target, following Beatrice so it can potentially help Torment dealing more damage. It would also make targets inside AoE Decrepify reduce vision, panicking them for getting caught by his Nevermove.

[slayer-pantheon-thumbs]