Swain rework looking back

Hello boards! Posting today looking in retrospect on the Swain rework now that it was released about 6 months ago. I am a Swain main myself (or at least used to be) before the rework with close to 400k mastery points on him. I'm still learning the new version. Checking on the Swain mains reddit yesterday I read an interesting thread about how Swain mains felt about the rework now that they had time to process it. I just wanted to talk about some of the points brought up on that thread and to clarify some points about the rework good and bad. Feel free to join in on the discussion.

The game play:

Overall, everyone seems to agree that while his game play is less unique than it used to be (where are the dot's?) the kit is much better than the old version. There is more flexibility to it, skill expression and the passive ability to pull enemies allows Swain to help more in team fights beyond running at the enemy. Similar to Aatrox there was a feeling that the old kit basically just stat checked your opponent and that the new one fixed that problem. They managed to his keep his game play relatively similar in that he still gets picks with zoning crowd control and trading oriented around tagging enemies with your E and sustain. The new auto attack has also been cited as a big improvement.

There is some concern that his early game is too weak. Most people noted that because his Q has really low damage early it's difficult to wave clear with it and some champions can push them under turret easily without any way to answer it. If the enemy gets too far ahead a lot of people shared the frustration that Swain often would get bursted down because of his short range and needing to stay near an enemy while ulting (being especially damaging because the ult is an actual normal ult now with a long cd and requiring souls). Some people lamented the loss of dot's and other unique elements of Swains kit in favor of another burst mage approach. At the point of his rework Swain was one of the last dedicated dot champions in the game. Of the ones left there aren't many champs who have kits that actually revolve around their dots, off the top of my head being with Singed being the only dedicated dot champ left.

Just speaking personally some things I would like (IMO, and I imagine other people have different ideas) are:

That the Q would ALWAYS pass through minions even if it doesn't on champions. This wouldn't really effect anything except his early wave clear, and even then the damage on it would still be low so just barely. Changing Q to always pass through minions would just be a nice change that would make it not feel as bad for the player when a single melee minion lands up eating an entire Q either while trading with the enemy or trying to get it to pierce.

Secondly, that the E not detonate on minions. I imagine it was done this way for wave clearing or possibly because they thought it would be too strong if minions didn't block it. In actual play, however, it's totally unneeded because the enemy player already has counter play to E (side stepping it, same as Ekko Q), but it is Swains only form of crowd control and he can only re-position the return by using flash or walking it. Few things are as unbelievably awkward when you are being chased during a gank as your E detonating on a random minion in the way. Just in general Swain has too many issues getting screwed over by random minions being in the wrong place.

Lastly, and I realize this is controversial, I would have much preferred if the soul stacking mechanic was infinite, but like Dark Harvest was a slow build up mechanic that added a burn to your spells. The way Swain itemizes he already wants Liandries, Rylais, and Morellonomicon all of which are better with dots. That way old school Swain players still get their dot's, but we can keep the soul gathering mechanic without tying it to the ultimate. Tying it to the ultimate can lead to a lot of awkward situations that (like the above) are just feel bads that are often outside of the players control. For example, if you don't have any current souls for whatever reason and a big team fight breaks out you can't activate your ultimate at all because it requires souls just to activate, and if you do get a soul it is less than optimal to activate your R on only one to two souls because the damage will be much lower.

All of the above things happen A LOT to anyone who plays the champion. They don't make or break the champion, but he would feel much better to play if they were changed.

Visually:

The most hated aspect of the rework taken from both the comments on the official reveal page and the reddit thread is the new look. From what Riot has said on the topic it sounded like they basically had an idea of a Noxian dictator that worked with where they were taking the new lore and old Swain didn't mix well with that idea. They weren't sure how to create this new character while keeping Swains old identity intact. Several nods are given towards the original character such as his leg brace, calling one of the Raven's Beatrice, and growing wings when he ults, however, Swains original identity was largely removed when he was reworked.

I think I understand why they decided to take him in a different direction. If anyone has watched T B Skyens take on the visual aspects of Swains update on youtube I recommend it because he said basically the exact thing I had been thinking. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ovz7rvHMZ08 if you are interested.

Let me preface the following by saying I've always been a fan of playing monstrous characters. They are more interesting than human champions. Playing as a giant eyeball with tentacles that disintegrates people is way more interesting to me than playing a similar character that is a spell slinging human (Vel'koz vs Lux) or as a living scarecrow etc etc. Like many others who are fans of some of the less human characters in League having a champion look younger or powerful is not as important to me nor what draws me to playing a character.

This relates to original Swain because a large point of the character was that in his base form he was a rather unattractive older guy with a limp and a cane. No doubt this was purposeful as Swain for the most part was one of the biggest villains in Leagues previous iteration of the lore. So, he looked villainous. Basically his outward appearance matched who the character was supposed to be in terms of personality. This also made him a more interesting character, because this old guy with a limp was also somehow one of the most powerful dark mages in Runeterra full of "terror and dark secrets" as one of the comments put it. In essence he may have been old and walked with a cane, but he had proven himself extremely capable, and was a scary guy to confront.

To add to this was the fact the he could transform into a massive demonic Raven. This dichotomy was one of the best parts of the original Swain. He would be this scary, but unassuming older guy limping around and then all of a sudden transform into this terrifying monster. That transformation was a big selling point of Swain as a character. We knew this transformation somehow was involved with his demonic Raven named Beatrice adding depth to the character because we never knew which one was really in control. Was Swain really just controlled by Beatrice and you never saw their true form until the transformation? Was Swain really in control the whole time and just used Beatrice to take control of the empire? You never knew.

Fast forward to new Swain they felt the need to make him prettier and younger (to the point that even in the preview art they jokingly have an even younger version of him that says "hey gurl" on the side on the champion insights page). His limp and cane are gone replaced by a glowing demonic hand and his hair has grown out considerably. There are several reasons they likely decided on the change. First being that they are revving up the Void as the new big villain in League lore, so that means Swain is no longer the worst villain in League. They want to make him more relate-able, likable... however you want to say it, so they make him easier to look at. They even point out in his lore that he is preparing for a new evil on the horizon and thus must unify Noxus to defend against it. He's obviously talking about the void... but I really hope they don't pull one of those "he wasn't evil just misunderstood!" nonsense that so often happens in game lore these days. Blizzard did it with the Orcs, then Kerrigan and the Zerg. It made those characters much worse for it. It's okay to have evil characters so long as you give them motivation. Seriously Rito it's alright to have a character who is willing to do evil deeds to get what they want. You can have a villain with deep and interesting motivations.

As for the cane and limp... well, if he has a big glowing demonic hand he can't also have cane. For one thing visually speaking they want to draw attention to his hand, which doesn't work if he's also got a cane in the other one. Also, from a skin development perspective it's difficult to constantly find a reason to give the character a cane and have it make sense with the skin. It does beg the question though of whether there would be a way to add a toggle for the cane or limp as they are doing with the new Aatrox wings. I would have loved a toggle for the old cane and limp or at least a traditional skin that retained those elements.

The color scheme has updated from greens to red and black, and he has a new coat. These updates to his look I think are actually a big improvement. His old look had an odd color scheme that didn't match well (Joker colors) and a mage'ish type robe that didn't blend well with anyone else in Noxus. So, the new attire and tone actually work better than the old version.

The ult... well that's a messy subject. First, the new ult is technically better than the old one. Why? Because it makes clear that Swain just went beast mode and you need to play around him. Visually they did a good job with the lightning, the symbols that appears on the ground and the hovering. When he ults you now pay attention. The bad side of it after all those nice changes the new ult completely removes the original dichotomy Swain had with his Raven form. As Riot themselves said, this form looks more like an "angel of death" than a raven demon of secrets. There is not as much transformation happening when new Swain ults. He was already a dark mage with a big glowing hand, so when he ults he just gets wings and glows more. There isn't this big transformation where he goes from a regular dude to this demonic raven. He just kind of goes into a more super saiyan version of himself. The wings also could have been made way more interesting whether that means giving them more motion (you can do it with Aatrox why not Swain?) or having them be skeletal or anything besides have them kind of hang there and go limp. This is one of the worst parts of new Swain because there is such a huge creative space with his ult that is not well used. They could have done so much with the look of the demon of secrets transformation. What would that demon look like? For now we will never know.

The audio:

Wanted to take a second to talk about the sound effects because this is one place where a big improvement was made and rarely gets mentioned. I did make a quick shout out thread when Swain was first reworked to the Rioters who worked on his sound effects. I don't know that much about sound design, so it came off as excited hype; one Rioter did reply, but only to correct me on some sound design terms lol. New Swain sounds much better than old Swain. The old voice was iconic, but sounded like Swain had accidentally swallowed a few feathers and hurt his throat. Super raspy Swain just wasn't going to last forever (like Sions old Arnold voice) and had to be changed. Secondly, the lightning sounds, the theme song that sometimes plays when you start the game and large number of increased voice lines are all very nice. A lot of people have overlooked that the "whispers" that play around Swain particularly when he ults are actually Noxian sayings, and were recorded in such a way that they will move around in your headphones if you happen to be wearing any (surround sound!). Very nice update to his sounds.

In summary:

Overall, his game play was largely improved, but the original aspects of the character that made him unique and identify as Swain were removed. Many of the changes were nice improvements, but Swain could definitely still use some attention.

Thank you for reading all the way to the end. What do you think of the rework now that some time has passed?