My ideas for a Swain rework TL;DR at the bottom

Hi, I'm avarageatbest and when I'm not playing I'm playing . Here are a few of my ideas for a rework, why Swain needs one and why I would make these changes. First let's look at Swain's pros and cons

Pros:

1. HEALING!!!
2. Mana regen passive
3. High ap ratios
4. Counters assassins (except fizz)
5. Good harass if he is in range
6. Spells not blocked by creep
7. Good in long fights

Cons:

1. Mana hungry
2. Terrible auto attacks
3. Not synergising with Cdr
4. Item dependent
5. Low range
6. Zero mobility
7. Feast or famine champion
8. Bad waveclear 9.

Now let's look at Swain's identity in the game. Swain is and should continue to be a mid lane Mage that has healing in his kit. I think that he has a very interesting role as front line Mage that you only get as or sometimes. thrives in long fights and should continue to do so. As well as he should continue to be good against meele assassins and weak against dot mages and long range, so assasins beat mages and mages beat and Swain beats assassins and the circle of life continues. Swain has such a unique identity and I want him to continue to be like that in the future. However it is difficult to balance the front line Mage. Swain can feel a little oppressive ahead and he doesn't have that much going for his playstyle, either you hit his w and then land all your spells and get a kill or you don't and that doesn't feel very tactical or engaging. From behind swain is a sack of potatoes. I think my changes will fix these problems.

Now onto his kit and what I would change.

Passive I don't want a change except fix his autos to stop him from having low cs and then he becomes feast or famine (but maybe keep them as a skill floor)

For his q it is currently: Decrepify, Active: Swain releases Beatrice, his raven, at his current location to cripple an enemy, creating a tether between her and his target. Over the next 3 seconds, the target takes magic damage each second and is slowed. If enemies break the tether by moving out of range, the effects end immediately.

What I want to change is I want Swain's q to be a bit like a trap or 's q where you select on the ground and Beatrice attacks champions that get into her range. It activates immediately and only stays on the ground for a few seconds before disappearing. I also want it to do more damage the closer the champion is to Beatrice. What this will do is can put his q on himself to stop someone from getting in his face cough assassins cough or put it behind a champion to trap them whenever they are getting ganked (either they fight swain or walk into Beatrice and get deeps). This will make him have more options and be more tactical and still have weaknesses (long range) (mobility).

For his w I don't want a change I think it is ok (in its nerfed state)

For his e what it is currently is

Active: Swain afflicts the target enemy with a curse that deals magic damage to them over 4 seconds, amplifying Swain's damage against them for the duration. What this does is it ensures that doesn't kill everyone with his ult. He can kill one person without killing the entire team. In short his e balances him.

For this I want an entirely new skill. What I want is a low cooldown skillshot where shoots out Beatrice, something similar to 's twin fang except as a skillshot and no healing. I want the new e to do more damage and have effects for each time you hit it on an enemy. For example if you hit it 3 times on an enemy it becomes not a skillshot and applies a dot, if you hit it 4 times you get a small damage amplification and more of a dot etc. etc. What this new skill will do is make sure that Swain takes more skill to do damage and that he fits the role of thriving in long fights. It also balances him because why would you hit your e on everybody when you should focus on one person, it is till the single target damage spell just way more tactical and fun. With a shorter cool down it feels like you are more involved and skillful instead of hitting your 3 non skillshot abilities and chunking while just walking beside your enemy. I want this skill to be Beatrice attacking the enemy like 's q Aerial assault and possibly shouldn't be able to use his q because I think it would be op with the slow and besides wtf 2 Beatrice's wouldn't make sense, this would make you make decisions as to if you can get in range and they can't escape use e if they can zone them with q.

Now for his ult, riot if you listen to anything I say let it be this IS his ult; that it is his play style and identity. With that being said I actually have a few changes with his ult.

First of all I want it to have a longer cool down, yes really, to about 10 sec to 17 sec ish. With the longer cool down I want his ult to grow stronger and heal more with every second, making sure that he is good in long, sustained fights.

Second of all I want his ult to be his period of strength, you do not want to fight him with his ult up and when it is down he is weak and there is your window of opportunity, kind of like 's passive.

Third and probably my favorite part of this is I want his ult to be a mini karma ultimate, empowering the FIRST spell or passive he uses during his ult. Remember this is only the first spell and not all of them whenever he has his ult up. Here are my ideas for each empowered ability after using his ult:

Empowered passive: lands 3 aa on an enemy champion or champions and gains a lot of mana back.

Empowered Q: gives him a speed boost when Beatrice attacks a champ. or possibly has 3 charges of q that he can place with a cool down of 1.5 seconds I want this skill to be good engage or disengage

Empowered W: has a radius around it that slows or stops dashes (ty poppy). or w has longer range. (his w is for good catch potential)

Empowered E: here's the deal, his e is his damage spell and if his empowered e just does more damage then everyone will probably pick it 90% of the time like 's r q. I was thinking that maybe there shouldn't be an empowered e and it can be used in conjunction with the ult without using up the one empowered skill or passive. (TL;DR no empower)

Empowered R: yes that's right R gets empowered. For the first 5. seconds of Swain's ult get's a big shield, that ensures that he can be good against burst damage if you time his ultimate correctly. after that gains extra healing each second but only if he doesn't use his Q,W, or auto 3 times, not e b/c it doesn't have an empower. BUT NOW SWAIN IS GOOD AGAINST BURST AND DAMAGE OVER TIME I hear you say. First of all his ult is his power time and he should be good while it is up and he is definitely weak when it isn't. Second he only get's a shield over a VERY short time and his healing takes a bit of time to ramp up, not really with empowered r but then you can't get mana back, or use your cc. So once his shield is down that is when you should fight him if you have to.

BUT STILL SWAIN IS OP HE HAS NO SKILLSHOT DAMAGE AND HEALING. Yeah well so does if they build lifesteal and it isn't even in their kit( Except kindred) and Swain's healing and damage costs a ton mana and is on cooldown.

now lets look at Swain's new pros and cons

Pros

1. HEALING
2. choices for skills and a fun playstyle
3. counters assasins
4. does more damage the longer the fight goes on
5. can intelligently and tactically zone champs with his q if used correctly
6. EVEN BETTER IN LONG FIGHTS
7. better with cdr

Cons:

1. mana hungry
2. (possibly still bad autos)
3. item dependent still (if autos are better it is lessened)
4. low range
5. low mobility
6. weak against dot mages, long range, and mobile champs
7. has a period of strength that can be played around
8. still bad wave clear 9.
9. COUNTERPLAY!!!!

------------------>TL;DR for changes (HERE IT IS BOIS)

Passive: same

Q skillshot where you select on the ground where Beatrice should go and she attacks champions that get into her range. the closer they are to her the more damage she does.

W: same

E: low cooldown skillshot that does more damage and applies effects with each time you hit it on an enemy.

R: empowers the first spell or passive you proc when R is activated (mini ult). R is on a 10-17 second CD. Swain's ult does more damage and heals more for every second it is on.

Empowered abilities:

• Empowered passive: proc 3 aa against champions and get a lot of healing back *Empowered Q: gives him a speed boost when Beatrice attacks a champ. or possibly has 3 charges of q that he can place with a cool down of 1.5 seconds *Empowered W:has a radius around it that slows or stops dashes (ty poppy). or w has longer range. *Empowered E: doesn't exist because it would give more damage and people would pick it 90% of the time like 's R Q combo *Empowered R: Gives a strong shield the first .5 seconds 's ult is up then after that gives extra healing.

with these changes Swain is good in long extended fights, good against assassins, HAS CHOICES AND A MORE SKILLFUL PLAYSTYLE!!!! He is also mana hungry, has a period of weakness, has a weaker laning phase, weak to mages (creates a rock paper scissors between assassins, mages, and Swain and other assassin counters).

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On to thematic stuff, a VU, and lore. I think it would be cool if whenever Swain used his ult he would slowly transition from to bird monster. Also for his rework he could be killed off style and come back as a phoenix and I think fire would look good with his abilites considering he is a burn mage. Also on the fire theme he could become a dragon and his skills could have any color flame like blue, green, yellow or red. THAT would be cool.

Thanks for reading all 17 pages of my Manifesto, I hope you like it and Riot I hope you implement it. Have a good thanksgiving and keep playing Swain!