Small discrepancy in Swain's abilities

Tuss·10/14/2015, 1:45:24 AM·1 votes·502 views

Since it's his free week, I tried him out, and noticed something odd about how the damage of his abilities is explained. Both his Q and E deal damage over time, but they're described differently:

Q - Deal X damage every second for 3 seconds

E - Deal X damage over 4 seconds

His Q is the more confusing one of the two, forcing you to do not-that-simple math to figure out how much damage you'd end up doing (Base+AP bonus)x3, and it gets tougher when figuring out which between his Q and E gets the most damage out of a level, which might be important to players new to the champ and don't know which order they should level abilities.

TLDR: I'd like to request that the tooltip for Swain's Q say how much damage it would do in total over the duration like his E does instead of saying how much damage it does per tick. Alternatively, have his E use the same style as his Q just to be consistent.

10 Comments

EndlessSorcerer10/14/2015, 2:42:22 AM5 votes

They described Q on a per-second (per-tick) basis because people can walk out of the range. If it gets cancelled after 1 second, then you won't be dealing 3 seconds worth of damage and describing it as such would be misleading.

Once E has hit a target, it will deal its full damage unless the target enters stasis, becomes invulnerable, or QSSs it (IIRC it counts as a debuff, but I may be wrong). It isn't going to be ended prematurely in most situations, so they give the total damage.

Nahui10/14/2015, 1:53:08 AM2 votes

You can't just multiply by 3?

Also, you always max E.

Mistikal10/14/2015, 2:47:46 AM1 votes

You always max E because E increases the damage of your other abilities for free and doesn't increase their mana costs - giving you more dps and keeping your mana pool healthy enough to lane effectively.

Posui Gart10/14/2015, 12:54:01 PM1 votes

First, Q usually deals damage for lower duration because enemy can break out of tether range, 3 sec is maximum, usually its more like 1-2 sec, it varies based on lane situation, so you can notice how long it actually works and multiply. Having "X damage per second" is easier for this. E deals its total damage regardless of anything. Usually E is maxed because of this+it increases all your damage on affected target (except IIRC ignite as it is true damage).