Hey Riot, Could You Tell Me What Swain's Strengths Are?

MortalPrisoner·Jul 25, 2014·1 votes·549 views

Because when I play him all I notice are his mountain of weaknesses. If the Champion Balance philosophy is for each champion to have certain strengths and weaknesses shouldn't there be an even amount of each to be called balanced. Here are the weaknesses I've noticed after a couple games.

-Weak early game -Mana hungry -Mana Restore Passive -Easy to Gank -Short Ranged -Immobile -Item Dependant -Nevermove is Easy to Dodge

Now I'm not a Swain expert and I'm not even a good midlaner, but I can't imagine anyone that plays Swain for the first time falling in love with the champion. Was there some point where Riot nerfed Swain because they didn't like his gameplay or has he always been this way?

9 Comments

PryotraJul 25, 20143 votes

If you know how to manage mana on him (See: last hit), he becomes incredible. Yes, Nevermove is dodgeable, but I could say the same for alot of abilities. Learn to lead with it, or use lazar crow to help if you need it. As for short range, that is fine. I usually just throw my DoT on the enemy laner for sheer zoning prowess. Why? because ALL damage you do is increased, so if they stay there, punish them with autos/more abilities. Unless you are laning against NIdalee or soraka, you should easily burn their pots and force them back.

While I will admit that early game is his weak point, it is managable. It also allows for him to win most longer games, as he becomes a raid boss on the level of a farmed nasus. It's actually funny to see teamfights when those two square off, because it becomes a matter of raid boss + minions (See: allied champions) vs raid boss + minions (See: allied champions)

YouLostMeJul 25, 20141 votes

raid boss + minions (See: allied champions) vs raid boss + minions (See: allied champions)

Laughed so hard I farted.

Sire HippingtonJul 25, 20142 votes

if he ever gets ahead, he becomes a worse version of mundo, nearly impossible to kill while dealing massive dps, and the early isn't that weak if u can play around the short range(wich is easy vs assasins).

He definitly could use some changes though, one necessary change would by a system change to GW, as it currently hardcounters any heal-reliant champ, and hardcounters are not great to have.

FyshinaTuxJul 25, 20141 votes

I would disagree, I would say hard-counters are good for the game's longevity. With the specific counter you mention (Grievous Wounds vs Healing) I would think that it's the most healthy counter; otherwise, we'd be back in the days of un-killable Mundo, Swain, Volibear, Vladimir etc.

Sneak DogJul 26, 20142 votes

Lower all heals, lower grievous wounds more. That's the intended change. Make the best-case and the worst-case scenarios closer to eachother so that the worst-cases don't feel so bad to play as anymore and the worst-case not to play against. It's not like one can dodge an ignite, nor can the grievous wounds part be cleansed in any way but by QSS, which is not much of a tank/ap item.

Sire HippingtonJul 26, 20141 votes

Those days of unkillable Mundo, Swain and co were because of GW, the heals are tuned with the potential of a 50% heal reduce in mind. With the current amount of healreduce, strong heals either are strong but kind balanced without GW, and damn useless with GW on u, ot they are op without GW, while beeing weakish but still noticable with GW.

AS Sneak Dog said, the aim would be nerfing those heals and also nerfing GW, bringing best and worse case closer to gether to make them less binary

FyshinaTuxJul 25, 20142 votes

While the philosophy of Riot is to have champions with distinct advantages and weaknesses, you can't expect them to have every champion completely pinned down just yet. This is a relatively new development in correlation to how long the game has been live, there are some champions that simply haven't been fitted for this (relatively) new philosophy. Swain falls into this list. It will be a long while yet before every single champion in the game fits in with this philosophy, simply because of the sheer number of champions.

With some of the champions that must by re-molded into this philosophy, entire kit reworks may be needed in order to bring a strength (or a weakness) into view before balancing them into this philosophical mindset can be achieved.

My thoughts.

The LexerJul 25, 20141 votes

If you build both AP and tanky he can just sit in the enemy team and heal. ROA gives him hp/mana/ap. Zhonya's allows him to survive longer in the middle of their team. SV gives heal gain and MR

YouLostMeJul 25, 20141 votes

Strengths: