Swain Rework Concept

Just spitballing on , trying to update him appropriately to the modern game while respecting the need to update his kit to his lore that is also a stated priority of the rework. (These abilities are without hard numbers for a reason - generally assume that they are not excessively unbalanced.)

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Passive - My Birds Are Hungry Enemies killed near Swain drop carrion pelts. Picking up these pelts recovers Swain's mana. Swain's ravens will also eat any pelt they encounter instead of Swain, which instead recovers a much smaller amount of Swain's health.

Q - Raven's Resolve Passive: Swain starts with Beatrice and gains 1 additional raven that circles around his body for each rank of Raven's Resolve. These ravens periodically attack nearby foes. Ravens doing damage to enemies affected by the Carrion debuff (see below) restore health to Swain. Active: Swain sends his ravens to a specific point to attack, prioritizing champions, but losing them around his own body.

W - Carrion Trap Active: Places a carrion trap. Swain gains 1 trap at rank 1, 2 at rank 3, and 3 at rank 5 and cannot have any more than this on the field at once. Carrion traps are invisible on the map, though they can be killed if revealed by Control Wards/sweeping effects. An enemy walking over a carrion trap loses no health on its own, but grants very brief vision, and is affected by the Carrion debuff which very briefly slows but has a longer period of causing him/her to take more damage from Swain and his ravens or minions under Noxian Meddling.

E - Noxian Meddling Passive: Friendly minions and monsters nearby gain a small damage buff per rank of Noxian Meddling. Active: Swain buffs the health and attack speed of a friendly minion or monster and up to one additional minion nearby per rank of Noxian Meddling, or curses an enemy minion, monster, or jungle monster with a damage debuff and damage over time. Noxian Meddling can also be used on turrets, causing an enemy turret to misfire its next single shot or buffing a friendly turret's next single shot. (Possibly also can be used on bare ground or bush to generate a small, short-lived ward?)

R - Don't Call It A Murder Active: Swain's ravens become enraged and converge on an area underneath a (controllable?) mystic cloud Swain creates that rains carrion, gaining extra damage. Enemies in the area are all afflicted with Carrion as long as the cloud lasts.

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To balance out the added utility in this kit, Swain becomes melee instead of ranged with a slow movement speed to reflect his crippled status, loses his hard stun and single-target steroid, and has to retrieve pelts instead of getting mana automatically on kill forcing him to risk himself more often in lane. His always-on raven aura does less damage than currently and has less range, forcing him to get close to use it, especially in his new melee form, but provides additional protection against the kind of early jungle/roaming ganks that tend to prevent his use in high-level play right now. He is still a drain tank but becomes less of a terrifying hypercarry late game without his single-target steroid and stun and ravenform buff. But he is a better pusher and sieger and objective protector all game from his E, in line with his lore as a war leader, far more dangerous when he's surrounded by buffed friendly minions or monsters - especially Baron-buffed minions or the Rift Herald or friendly monsters, which can be targeted to great effect, prioritizing taking objectives or synergizing a team the way a warleader would. He gains jungling ability via the creep debuff to give him another potentially viable role and can better shut down enemy charmed/summoned monsters. He also gets more map awareness and vision via his traps, reflecting his battlefield knowledge.

He retains enough of "old Swain" to satisfy current players, but isn't quite as binary or feast-or-famine - he's more susceptible to the non-agile melee champs he used to dominate early (Darius, Nasus) because he loses his ranged attack, but less out-of-luck versus the current hyper-agile melee champs who tend to dumpster him with dodges currently (Renk, Yas) due to his traps and always-on raven aura and friendly minion buffs. He benefits greatly from a field full of corpses during a battle that is going his way, in line with his carrion-based and warleader-based lore.

Thoughts?