How Swain Wins Lane: An In-depth Guide

E+Q+AA

I don't say things like this often, but...

OMFG FUCK SWAIN! HE'S FUCKING CANCER OMGWTFBBQ!111!!!!!111!!1

But seriously, how do I counter the bastard? Nothing I do on any of my champs seems to work.

Please, let's not talk about Swain. The last thing I would want is for him to become popular.

Shhhh, don't talk about Swain. First rule of Swain: Don't talk about Swain Second rule of Swain: Don't talk about Swain Third rule of Swain: Don't talk about Swain In all seriousness, don't let people know about him, let them bitch about everybody else, while meanwhile i am over in mid, like IM A BIRD MOTHAFUCKA!

Swain isn't even performing well in Diamond and this meta is the antithesis to his kit. He burns mana quickly and excels vs squsihies (who die before he runs OOM). Tanks couldn't care less about him. His winrate went down a lot as the meta has changed.

another detailed guide for swain post 6:

r + zhonyas

Been awhile since I've seen these threads lol.

lol phane sorter ur a false prophet

#gutWukin #440BlazeIt #hailDuckinSicks

teach me how to swain because i seriously have no clue

I've had trouble laning early against vlad, though that lane goes in swains favor around 6.

Swain has trouble trading with ezreal.

Swain's waveclear sucks, so push him under tower, and he can't get last hits. You don't beat swain by trading with him on most champs, you beat him by starving him. Champs with health sustain do well. Champs with naturally high defense or with damage mitigation spells do well. Swain needs last hits to keep his mana pool up early. His snare cooldown is 18 / 16 / 14 / 12 / 10 and will almost never be maxed first. Laser bird is on an 8s cooldown, and that is his shortest cd. Torment is the usual first max, and is on a 10s cd. If he uses torment on something that isn't you, you can trade with him pre 6.

Torment is the bulk of his damage output in lane, so if it's on cd, his trade potential is limited. That said, if try to trade with him when he has torment up, you're asking to get killed. Swain has extremely high kill potential from level 3 onward. Many swains will run AP quints with AP/lvl blues. They're more defensive in top lane.

At level 1, swain has strong auto trades due to torment. At level 2, swain adds decrepify to his trades. This is another powerspike, as these 2 spells make most of his damage. Decrepify scales higher than torment, and has higher base, however, torment is a better max because it also increases decrepify's damage, as well as its own, and everything else. At level 3, swain has kill potential with nevermove. If you get snared at 75% hp or less, you're probably going to die. At 4 and 5, swain adds ranks to torment. The damage amp increases from 8% to 11%, and then 14%. This adds a lot of damage. At 6, he gets ult, and you can't trade with him. Any fight that involves you taking full damage from decrepify is 4-5 ticks of his ult which is, at that point, the biggest damage source in his kit, as well as his health sustain.

That said, he's got big mana costs. His basic abilities average around 70 mana per cast in lane. His ult can't stay on for long without sucking his mana pool dry. If you see him with less than 200 mana, you can guess that he can't sustain a fight.

Pushing him under tower is also smart. Since his mana sustain relies on last hits, and his last hitting sucks under tower, he'll either miss a lot, or use spells (like his e hint hint you can trade with him if he's doing this) to get last hits. This results in him not only having lower cs, but less mana to trade with. If you survive the laning phase against swain, odds are, he's underfarmed, and not going to be able to do much in teamfights.

Oh, and grievous wounds helps deal with his healing, though it won't do shit to his damage.

Honestly, if he gets to engage on you, he'll win. Keep in mind. He has no sustainable wave clear. He's immobile. He's low range aside from his snare, which is his lowest damage spell. His mana sustain sucks if he's not getting last hits. He's dependent on his healing after lane phase. With this many weakness, it makes a lot of sense that he has godly trades, kill potential, and sustain. Swain needs to be a lane bully to be able to lane.

Statistically, Cho, ori, ahri, annie, and diana, cassio work against him. wu, nasus, sion, garen riven, renekton, and malph work in top lane.

Funny, I made a post about Swain not long ago that got downvoted into oblivion. Where were all you people when I needed you :'[

hes hard to farm with

Go on