Thoughts on Swain so far

Short thoughts: He's great, and fun!

Long thoughts: Not even entirely sure where to begin, but I'll start with one of the bigger concerns the boards has been voicing: his damage, or apparent lack thereof? To do the high damage people want him to do, he ends up not being tanky enough to do what his kit requires, and that's getting into the thick of things. But I honestly don't think flat damage is, at all, what you should be looking at with this guy.

As it is now, I build Swain as follows: Runes: Glacial Augment, free boots, biscuits, approach velocity, manaflow band, scorch. Core items: Hextech-GLP, Iceborn Gauntlet, build boots and the rest of your kit as needed depending on enemy team comp.

With this build, you get really good early harass and any mana problems he has in lane are pretty easily taken care of. Slowing autos are great early, and will make sure you win trades against anyone who goes too aggro like 90% of the time. If they try to run, well, they're slowed AND you're sped up. Boots to save money, biscuits/manaflow for mana problems, scorch for extra damage, obv.

W is fantastic for scouting around, but I think one of the better reasons to use it is just for shards and healing, honestly. If you know you're not in a position to be ganked and don't need to be wary, try to get a proc on your enemy laner for some sweet healing. Combo it with your E and honestly, two shards for double heals is intense. These options for sustain do kinda make him a beast. I think the complaints about it are somewhat founded, but there are plenty of applications where it CAN work, and just because you CAN dodge it easily doesn't mean people always will. I've hit at least half of my Ws today.

GLP is a great first item for obvious reasons: When paired with Glacial Augment you get your slowing fields; it helps with his waveclear (instant delete a wave with a single rotation+GLP); and it gives some pretty nifty defensive stats.

Iceborn is a good secondary a LOT of the time because: CDR helps Swain put out more damage AND sustain; armor obviously helps him be tankier; sheen proc puts out a nice bit of extra damage, and the slowing field really complements your GA/GLP.

Why are these items super important on Swain (in my opinion/with how I play)? Well, because he has to get into the thick of things, and when you've got solid defensive stats and pretty good offensive stats, it helps a ton. You've now got the health and armor to make sure you're not instantly blown up, CDR to keep applying your close-range nukes and continuously pop your sustain tools, and plenty of slows to make sure that even if your damage IS on the lower side, you're very likely to get your kill.

A valid complaint I see is how soul shards don't feel super interactive and your ult is either pretty strong or just overall worthless, but I don't think it's really THAT big of an issue and it's more of a nitpicky thing than him being "weak." I don't have enough experience on him yet to say anything definitive, but this is honestly one of the most fun times I've had playing LoL in a VERY long time. In my humble opinion, Swain is fuckin' awesome.