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Swain is unplayable (read everything before raging on me pls)

SantiTheKing·2/9/2018, 9:54:30 PM·9 votes·1,919 views

Alright, so I recently wanted to main Swain because he was getting a rework and I thought his new skins looked sick and his kit overall looked great. However, upon playing his rework, I've noticed that his kit is absolutely disgusting. Here I'll be describing why he's become such an unplayable champion along with some potential buffs to fix him. Now as a disclaimer, I'm aware he's fairly new, and therefore understand that he will get patched along the way.

Anyways, I'll start off with his passive. His passive heals for almost no health at all. In addition, it serves a huge nuisance in terms of his ultimate (more on this later). His passive also requires you to hit skill shots. Which are nearly (if not extremely skilled and gotten used to) to hit. Otherwise, you'd have to be next to an enemy that has died recently. Making Swain jungle seem promising. However, the fact that it is required for Swain to hit one of two skill shots which are incredibly hard to hit in addition to having to be around dead champions or having someone else snare an enemy makes his passive almost useless.

Moving on, his Q. His Q restores mana if it kills an enemy. However, it restores almost no mana at all. Old Swain simply had to kill a minion or an enemy to restore a small portion of his mana. Now Swain is forced to use an ability that barely has range, barely has damage unless used in the face of an enemy, and restores almost no mana upon killing a unit. Q does ultimately scale in damage and has almost no CD, but in landing phase, Swain's Q is just as useless as his E and W. Making him have to rely on auto attacks to yield most of his damage from.

Next, Swain's W. This ability is an interesting one. The idea of it is really neat, but it takes almost an entire century to explode which allows enemies to dodge it easily and Swain players to lose mana and their will to live. It's just a bad ability that I'm pretty sure it's only purpose is to check up on whether rift or dragon is being taken. Even when ganking top or bot as Swain mid, this ability falls short in all regards.

Swain's E is an ok ability. Although it's quite hard to hit it, it's much easier to than his W. But, the fact that it does minimal damage as well as hits the first enemy when returning to Swain makes it a little useless. The only beneficial part of wasting your mana on this ability is in order to collect souls.

And finally, Swain's ultimate. The pinnacle of absolute uselessness. As I've mentioned above, Swain's ultimate requires him to collect souls VIA his passive. And as I've also mentioned, it's nearly impossible to collect these souls with the requirements set up. Swain also barely heals anything from his cult compared to the healing he had in his old kit. The damage is also much lower. But back to the healing, it practically makes using Zhonay's not worth it while using your ultimate simply because of the close to nothing of health that you will receive. The ability doesn't allow Swain to sustain at all in a team fight as well as only truly pays off if you have all souls and you're able to activate demon flare. At which point, it barely is useful if your team already killed everyone off or you end up dying much earlier.

Overall, Swain also has very bad lane survivability. Compared to other mid laners such as Annie, Fizz, etc... who get their ability cooldown as well as mana refunded to a good extent if they kill a minion with it, Swain gets almost no mana back from his Q passive. As mentioned above, Swain also gets no healing from his E and Q, and he barely has any damage on either of these abilities to compensate for his lack of mana and health. Swain is also no longer as tanky as he used to be. Making his lane sustain meaningless.

Now for some ways this could be fixed... If you don't agree on these fixes, let me know your suggestions, but I truly believe Swain needs to be buffed one way or another.

Passive: Revert it back to when you kill a unit (minion, enemy, or jungle camp) he gains some mana back. You can keep the healing from the soul collection the same.

Q: Remove the passive that lets him regain mana if he kills a unit. It's absolutely useless. Also, either increase the damage, increase the range, or allow it to pass through minions. Swain's poke as of right now is horrible.

W: Allow the explosion to go off faster. Keep the rest the same.

E: Keep it the same.

R: Maybe increase the healing on it? Also, maybe find another way to collect souls besides using your E, W, or having a teammate snare / stun them. Make Swain more independent.

Anyways, hopefully someone from Riot considers this (if they even read my thread). I know I've said a lot, and I hope Swain really gets these necessary buffs. He's become so useless that almost any mid laner / top laner is able to stomp him in lane. Even if Swain gets ahead in the beginning, it's incredibly hard to keep the lead due to the fact that almost nothing in his kit scales.

15 Comments

Dragon Master2/9/2018, 10:06:54 PM7 votes

I have to agree. Swains kit just doesnt mesh well in practice. He doesnt seem to be able to function in mid or top lane. It makes me sad as a Swain main.

Bârd2/10/2018, 3:27:57 AM4 votes

Yeah, no. It just seems like you're bad at Swain. None of the points raised hold up.

His passive is more than just a heal. It's a displacement that plays into the rest of his kit, and some good damage on top of that.

His Q mana restore is more than enough. With even a single mana item, clearing 2-3 creeps will give back about as much mana as your Q cost. The point of the mana sustain is so that you can waveclear with Q, not so you can mindlessly spam all his spells.

If his W were reliable, it would be retarded. It's already easy to land when you set it up. It's area denial, follow up on your E, scouting, and a tool to last hit ranged creeps under tower. It's pretty easy to land if they're being forced through a choke.

His E is great. Learn to use it.

His R does a lot of sustained damage and gives you enough durability to get off multiple rotations, but only if your positioning is good. Demonflare is good, but not the centerpiece. The point of the R isn't to be the big flashy spell, it's to enable him to spam Q.

HelpOrIFeed2/9/2018, 10:12:43 PM3 votes

The problem is you are used to being able to tank the entire enemy team and now you can't as much.

Kai Guy2/9/2018, 11:50:42 PM2 votes

I think swains gonna end up on the strong side, especially once AP items hit.
Currently I'm doing Inspiration keystone Domination 2ndary. Kelpto for good lane matchup, swains auto range is solid and he wants to use abilitys regardless. Then spell book or glacial if its not realistic depending on enemy comp. Stop watch for item cdr + 600 gold, demateriallizer to make Q wave clear better and mid to late start generating MP gain rather then loss off Q passive. Then CDR cdr cdr crd off insight. Cheep shot triggers off passive every time, tend to run that but can be swapped out for TOB or Vision ones if you preff. Ing Hunter for more item Cdr. Maxed Get something like 56 second hourglass, 23 second protobelt and 110 Archangles. not the exact times but rough estimate.

Pick up Tear early, start prepping waves for Q clear to stack it, that way by the time Q is maxed and cost 85MP a pop I am not hurting for MP. Grabbing item 3152 first, Sets up his E passive WQ, helps position for R pop and keep folks in range, or to just gtfo from a gank. Given that his R alone does 420 / 600 / 780 (+ 170% AP) per target over its duration I cant really agree its usless or weak. Even if you keep some one only half its duration that's still a solid 210/300/390/ 85%ap... in a 3 person aoe. Its pretty strong long as you keep people in range, and can survive its duration. Not difficult to keep up 5 stacks for the Blast, which does 225 / 300 / 375 (+ 135% AP) best case + aoe. so even a 6 second duration should net you 435/600/765 with 220%ap in an AOE which is respectable damage.

Lot of damage on R, heals Meh compared to old swain so don't try for any dramatic tank plays. Use item actives to compensate for lower heal rather then try to all in for the heal (needs AP scaling to really matter.) item 3003 active allows for some durability, item 3152 keeps you where you need to be and item 3157 will buy you time for the Blast as well as give you 2.5 seconds of healing and damage. Key is to use the items with his abilitys.

anyhow you round build out with a item 3100 to really get that front line battle mage feel going and there are several fantastic situational picks such as item 3089 item 3151 item 3102 item 3116 to finish build.

By using the right active you can threaten their back line, punish them for focusing, and keep a very solid threat in DPS aoe for teamfights. Lanes a bit weak but with item 3070 item 2403 your goal is mostly to farm for mid game and teamfights where you can shine.

W is hard to land solo, but great vision tool, combos easy with E and passive yank, pretty simple to land it in a teamfight as well. Don't think it needs buffs, just use it solo exclusively for vision or as part of a combo where its follow up. Basic combo EWpassive auto hectect Q auto back out befor the 2.5 slow from W ends. If R is primed and they have lost health Go ham with the R and stick to them to win the fight, don't aim for drain tanking, don't aim for 100 to 0 in duels.

Just my 2 cents, Ill keep playing him and might entirely change how I build + play him if I find something I like better or works better. As is this seems to be something exclusive to swain and viable on him.

5050BS2/10/2018, 4:03:10 PM2 votes

I wish they would reward his Q with a you hit all bolts it does something extra Like Talon three stacks

I would make people not want to get in his face

W needs to be a 1s delay and lower CD the farther way from him he uses it. It also should show more area instantly. Too often I will hit my E in a bush and cant pull because I dont have vision.

His E should pull farther so you can Q with all bolts to get that extra something.

His R Heal should be more flat healing and +%hp healing scaling off AP

Moonscourge4/5/2019, 1:32:42 PM1 votes

The moment you said his Q mana refund is "useless" you lost all credibility.

Learn to last hit with it and learn that mana pool is the best to rush early on. Get Catalyst + Sapphire Crystal or Chapter + Crystal and last hitting 3 minions with Q will be mana neutral/mana gain. At that point using E puts casters into Q kill range, you should auto attack melees, get at least 4 last hits per wave with 1 Q. Easy.

Ahri Baka2/10/2018, 3:12:02 AM1 votes

I partly agree and disagree To be honest , I started playing the game 9 months ago so didn't have the chance to play him much , just played him 4 matches before his rework to say good bye in mid and top and had a yasuo instalocked in a match so went apc instead of adc in bot and carried in every single match of them and could easily 1 vs 2 when I get ganked with the ols Swain , his skillshots were pretty easily to hit , his w might be a bit dodgable simetimes but had some ways to hit it and here's my opinion

I really love the new swain design but looking at the old Swain , I feel like I could do a lot more with him the reworked one has few problems that are bothering me the passive about grabbing someone is amazing his laning is really strong when you hit all skillshots , but , you can hit q but q can be blocked by minions q is short ranged and it isn't cool as the old q , but the low cd is good but you know

the w , it's cool but , really hard to hit when you need it

e is a cool ability but more like the key of the whole kit , you need to hit and it's hard

R , I don't understand why it has a very high cd and and it doesn't even make you tanky at all ? the old Ult , allowed me to tank a lot with high damage , the new one doesn't feel like doing damage or healing at all , thought I love the animation and effects

Devinatiol2/10/2018, 7:03:40 AM1 votes

So I feel swains passive is incredibly strong, like crazy strong, and arguing against a displacement heal with long range and good damage is kinda crazy, especially when he doesn't even have to be the one to do anything. However I do feel Swain has some issues,

His Q seems odd and Ill choke it up to not fully optimising its potential, its stuck in the ground where I feel like I should be spamming it in a fight but always wait because he cant move while casting it and it can screw up my ability to stay on targets with my ult, short as that stop may be (much like an AA) as a AP champion with 0 mobility in his kit it can be hard to stay on top of people (that super low movement speed makes Righteous gloryitem 3800 fun though), Ryalis item 3116 helps but it just shifts his power into a weird place which is not really healthy, its strong but not in a fun way or in a way that makes swain more intuitive to play. Otherwise I like the Q and it has some fun unpredictability when harassing

Second his W is a fun concept, but I feel like its stuck trying to be two things, a utility tool and a combat tool, and I don't think it really works for either, Id love for it to have a larger vision AoE since the duration is so short, either that or have it leave a crow that acts as a ward for a small but persistent vision window, then the crow could fly back when it is spotted, either that or make it more combat oriented by increasing the slow or damage or add some other effect and reduce the utility functionality of the ability

As for the E, I think his E is fantastic, It works well with his kit, it has a great learning curve, playing as and against him, and feels fair, a great CC tool that rewards good players

His ult is much like his old ult but with better counterplay, not much I can say about it other than its a shame it is limited to only 3 targets but I mean it would be pretty busted if it were all five, the burst is kinda meh imo, he isn't really a damage centric champion, he has CC and utility and can widdle people down, the need for a big burst is kinda frustrating as it reduces his ability to do his other jobs in the power budget, but It looks cool and feels fun when you can get it off, the healing limitation to be able to detonate is frustrating haha, makes me feel like Galio's Old ult without the taunt

DaddyDarkín2/20/2018, 2:00:38 AM1 votes

It's not Swain's fault that your poor gameplay makes him look bad. Considering you take zero criticism from anyone who tries to help and keep on saying that it's Swain's fault that your performance is lacking, maybe you should either A. start taking criticism, or B. stop whining about how bad Swain is. At this point, you're just a meme. Also, the next patch will do nothing for your Swain performance. You literally have no idea how to play Swain. Yes, he's not really a tank or a mage, but he's a HARD zoner and chaser. You have to learn to mage kite with him and not whine about how bad he is.

Especially since I've been told that a first timer did a better job than you have done in the period that Swain's been released. TAKE THE CRITICISM and stop crying.

AlexisTheDragon4/5/2019, 1:14:51 PM1 votes

I agree, but they won't fix it cuz riot.