Swain Ulti Adjustment: MORE SOULS (Concept)

INTRODUCTION

Lately I feel as a community our ability to convey our desires to the riot balance team has been quite poor and resulted in numerous unhealthy gameplay problems in the past couple of months. When we complain, too often most of our complaints result in champion damage changes or survivability changes, resulting in actual core issues (clunkiness, itemization) of champions never being properly adjusted or changed. I like the potential of new Swain a lot honestly; his concept makes for a fun and durable bruiser-type mage more so than he already was, something league is lacking heavily in. However, if we as a community simply complain to Riot about the inherent unplayability of Swain as he remains right now instead of offering constructive feedback, he’s going to follow suit with and receiving overbuffs making him pick or ban for several months, then return to the unplayable mess he is right now with the same nerfs. So to encourage the community to be as constructive and coherent about changes as they can, I thought I’d propose a change to his ultimate to utilize his new passive while also having a little more recollect of what his original ultimate brought to the table.

THE CHANGES

Firstly, the cooldown of his ultimate would be significantly reduced, not to what the original ulti cooldown was but somewhere in the middle of that and what it once was now and to cast the ultimate would still require a soul fragment. The duration would now last three seconds and the lifesteal would be increased while also decreasing the amount of bonus health added to his pool. Now here’s the cool part; after the three seconds end Swain would consume one soul fragment and emit a wave of % health damage, refreshing the duration Swain’s ultimate. This effect chains until Swain either recasts his ulti to cancel it or runs out of soul fragments. The % health damage each wave deals could increase slightly based on the number of soul fragments Swain has consumed while his ulti is active. Swain would also be able to collect soul fragments while his ultimate would be active; meaning he could potentially stay in the ultimate form for indefinitely as long as he can collect souls. This would, of course, be very referent to the original Swain ultimate; however instead of just having your ultimate up as long as you have mana, you can hold the ulti up that long and even longer if you have the skill for it, making for a champion that rewards players generously for the time they put into learning and practicing with it.

The changes to his ultimate would make Swain’s ultimate a hell of a lot more terrifying than it is right now with its scaling potential and would help to fit the ‘war of attrition’ playstyle his old ultimate used to have. It would also help to solidify his identity as a ‘bruiser mage’ with damage that scales up in his favor as the fight progresses. Landing his e would also prove way more rewarding than it is right now considering how difficult it is to pull off; consistently landing it would be the difference between having the ulti or losing it in some cases.

That’s all I have to say about my concept except ‘e’ could also use a recast similar to or ’s q; pressing e would pull it back immediately which would still make it challenging to land but not impossible if your laner buys one movement item. Lemme know what you guys think, or if you might have other ideas!