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Swain's flexibility is gone

Hibeki··5 votes·787 views

This isn't a new thing, there's no recent patch that promoted this, but the rework and total gutting of every single ability really changed why I liked him.

Pre-Rework Swain specialized in Skirmishes. He could use quick trades or just simply EQ harass and zone an enemy while he does his business, He could W EQ and Ult for a couple seconds, and leave, or, he could commit, which would ultimately be much harder to 100-0 unless he had a large lead.

Now all of that is kinda gone. The Root was absolutely destroyed many many patches ago, so any sort of tenacity means they can get away.

His kit is way to linear now. They gutted the hell out of E as well and shifted all the power onto Q (Since it's a unique ability look at this!) which means he has zero flexibility. Either you just toss out Q for some zoning harass or you go all in, there's nothing else you can do.

I got really really sad when I saw the ult cooldown increase, It didn't fix any of the supposed problems he had. The problem was the huge damage and sustain right? Swain is not going to be toggling his ult mid fight, hes gonna keep it on the whole way, so what's the point of raising the cooldown? You just hurt another tool Swain could have used in lane for his skirmishing.

All in all, Swain still isn't a BAD pick (In that patch where all of his damage was garbage and his ult had a cast time it totally was) but he really just was made too linear and isn't that much fun to play anymore (at least for me)

Thoughts?

14 Comments

OurLestrade2 votes

Agreed. If you ask me the rework somehow made Swain LESS interactive to play. You sort of throw your Q and let it do whatever the hell it wants. Then they realised that the rework was so ineffective and dull that the only way to make it viable was to give it ridiculously high numbers, which is why he suddenly become the month's OP pick. He's the next Mordekaiser.

Hopefully when they do that full scale rework they'll make him enjoyable again, because I stopped enjoying Swain post-rework (And he was my main mage pick and all time favourite champion in terms of character!)

Terror131 votes

{quoted}

Agreed. If you ask me the rework somehow made Swain LESS interactive to play. You sort of throw your Q and let it do whatever the hell it wants. Then they realised that the rework was so ineffective and dull that the only way to make it viable was to give it ridiculously high numbers, which is why he suddenly become the month's OP pick. He's the next Mordekaiser.

Hopefully when they do that full scale rework they'll make him enjoyable again, because I stopped enjoying Swain post-rework (And he was my main mage pick and all time favourite champion in terms of character!)

Same, exactly, he wasn't even op before the rework, but now hes just totally trash in al ot of ways.

DemoGuide2 votes

Mage rework was a total mistake. They destroyed Malzahar and Brand for me. Only good thing that came from it is Xerath buff.

KirbyCake2 votes

i hate the new playstyle of swain. honestly new swain is really why i don't play league anymore.

its not even the same champion, new swain is just another typical spam wave clear mage while old swain was trading off wave clear for high single target damage.

the build isn't even the same, new swain is more tank oriented since healing is no longer based on the actual damage you deal on people. if i wanted to play a tank i would have just played any bruiser + lifesteal item.

honestly playing him feels like trash atm, he does no damage now and executioners just completely shuts down his healing. also you can still easily disengage from him and after he turns ult off you have a giant window where you just dumpster on him.

asamu1 votes

He's way stronger than he used to be now. His snare is weaker at rank 1, but that was changed prior to the rework. His numbers are pretty similar to what they used to be (Q is stronger; E is weaker, but has a higher AP ratio, and his mana costs are a bit lower), but the changes made him more consistent/flexible in the early-mid game, and he scales better into the late game.

His ult can hit 5 people instead of 3, which is a huge deal in teamfights and when fighting near minions.

His E gives 20% damage amp at all ranks, so you can max laserbird, which now stays instead of disappearing when it kills a target and does double damage to minions, so it's actually pretty good for wave-clear, makes farming under tower reasonable, and if you place it properly, it's basically the same as before, but also does damage to things if the main target gets out of range.

The only nerf was his ult going from a 8 second cooldown to a 20 second cd, but it's not usually a big deal. Waves come every 30 seconds, so you still have it up whenever you need it to clear minions; you just can't turn it on an off in fights to prevent it from draining your mana too quickly.

Hibeki1 votes

{quoted}

He's way stronger than he used to be now. His snare is weaker at rank 1, but that was changed prior to the rework. His numbers are pretty similar to what they used to be (Q is stronger; E is weaker, but has a higher AP ratio, and his mana costs are a bit lower), but the changes made him more consistent/flexible in the early-mid game, and he scales better into the late game.

His ult can hit 5 people instead of 3, which is a huge deal in teamfights and when fighting near minions.

His E gives 20% damage amp at all ranks, so you can max laserbird, which now stays instead of disappearing when it kills a target and does double damage to minions, so it's actually pretty good for wave-clear, makes farming under tower reasonable, and if you place it properly, it's basically the same as before, but also does damage to things if the main target gets out of range.

The only nerf was his ult going from a 8 second cooldown to a 20 second cd, but it's not usually a big deal. Waves come every 30 seconds, so you still have it up whenever you need it to clear minions; you just can't turn it on an off in fights to prevent it from draining your mana too quickly.

I'm not denying that his numbers are higher, but it makes him much less flexible in his playstyle and less fun to play

asamu1 votes

I don't see how getting better wave clear, zoning, and more damage with more options for what order you pick skills makes him less flexible.

There is nothing he could do before the rework that he can't do now, but there are things he can do now that he couldn't do before the rework. That makes him more flexible, not less. He can actually do things like check bushes with a spell and zone people away with a laserbird.

His play style wasn't flexible before the rework anyway; e+laserbird->snare-> run at them with R. Laning is played almost exactly the same, except that it's easier to farm now, and his E poke is a bit weaker.

Hibeki1 votes

{quoted}

I don't see how getting better wave clear, zoning, and more damage with more options for what order you pick skills makes him less flexible.

There is nothing he could do before the rework that he can't do now, but there are things he can do now that he couldn't do before the rework. That makes him more flexible, not less. He can actually do things like check bushes with a spell and zone people away with a laserbird.

His play style wasn't flexible before the rework anyway; e+laserbird->snare-> run at them with R. Laning is played almost exactly the same, except that it's easier to farm now, and his E poke is a bit weaker.

He does those things in that order. Q is his primary source of damage now and pretty much his only source of damage outside his ult.

Swain used to decide when he wanted to commit instead of an enemy, now his kit playstyle means you either deploy q for poke, or you go all in entirely.

Terror131 votes

{quoted}

I'm not denying that his numbers are higher, but it makes him much less flexible in his playstyle and less fun to play

The only "number" that is higher is Q, which is impossible to get anyone, even 0 mobility champs to be in for more than 1 second.

His R dmg and healing are drastically lower after nerfs.

Hibeki1 votes

Congratulations you managed to necro a thread over a year old and didnt realize this was before any of the post rework changes.

Fucking moron.

Terror131 votes

{quoted}

Congratulations you managed to necro a thread over a year old and didnt realize this was before any of the post rework changes.

Fucking moron.

Well seeing as they didn't change any of the numbers at all and swain wasn't touched as a champion for years except the rework, how was I supposed to know?

If anything its whoever wrote that for imagining changes that didn't happen, you can see his full history on google.

Like those people that say "aatrox was good before the nerfs" (years before the mini-rework that actually screwed him) when he never actually got any nerfs or buffs and wasn't touched since his release.

It was instead just a bunch of fools remembering how before he was released thinking his passive was gonna be OP and just imagining in their heads at one point he was good.

Blåbæret1 votes

Swain was a mistake anyway. Should just get deleted. Also you're clearly overreacting. Swain is in a good spot.

WoonStruck1 votes

Old Swain's E was numerically broken, and that's all that carried him.

New Swain sucks unless he's numerically broken.

They didn't really change anything about him outside of scaling and his Q, and nobody really liked the old Q anyway.

Swain's needed a dedicated VGU for a long time, and this 'rework' pretty much shows it.

Sion-level would have WAY more potential, but poppy-level wouldn't alienate the people that already enjoy him. What his kit, overall, sets out to do is cohesive and not a balance issue in itself. Poppy-level is probably more appropriate.

Impius Deluge1 votes

The last swain nerf on the ridiculous R cooldown just made him total trash tier. His playrate is at its all time low which is a fact that swain has been turned into a turd. What is he good at right now? They should of atleast let the R cooldown scale at high level if they wanted to take away early sustain.

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