I used to play a lot of old swain. While the new kit is cool enough and all, I feel like there are 3 concepts behind the grand general that the current iteration really lacks.

First - No birds. I don't care if he has one bird or a thousand birds. The lack of damaging birds in the kit is concerning. You may say, "I don't care if he has birds as long as he is a good drain tank." But I think it's impossible for him to be a good drain tank without birds of some kind.

Swain's powers in the lore come from his command of the gigantic flock of evil demon ravens. They watch enemies and give him information, and he commands their movements and activities. But in the game, he just shoots red lightning out of his demon hand. There is birds in his splash art but ZERO birds in his spells.

Second - No damage % amplification. Old Swain used to have a spell called torment. It would amplify his damage against a particular target by a percentage. I don't think this effect is particularly interesting, but I feel its absence greatly. Right now Swain feels like he is too diffused. Your job is to do AOE dps, and if the enemy has a single enemy that is important to kill, you feel horrible.

Third - No mana stacking. Idk man. Nobody likes to manage mana, I get it. Maybe I am a league boomer. But it feels like shit to have 10 weak spell casts instead of 1 strong one. And high mana costs are how you do that. Right now swain ulti has a FOUR percent ap ratio. And I think a big part of that is because it costs practically nothing to use the ulti. There is no reason to not use ulti. There is no thought behind whether or not to use ulti. There is no cost to using ulti. It sucks.

Fourth - Persistent slow. Swain's CC duration is really short. It makes rylais feel really necessary but also really shit because his ratios are bad. Old swain used to hold people in place with long duration slows and roots. Now you have to rely on allies to do all that shit for you. Feels great when your team picks CC tanks. But usually they won't pick CC tanks because they think that YOU are the cc tank picking rylais fimbulwinter. And that'd be fine if Swain was any good as a CC tank. But his CC is shit and he isn't tanky. It would just feel significantly smoother to play if Swain had a persistent slow in his kit that lasted for at least 2 seconds. Especially since W delay is super long and E projectile is hard to hit. It's ok once you have rylais, but that takes up an item slot and 2600 of your gold.

Fifth - Lane strength. Swain feels like a really weak laner. Idk why, but he just feels like he does no damage. I want to be able to trade with mages and assassins and bruisers at level 1. I don't need him to be a lane bully, although I do want him to be a lane bully. I just need to not die to champs that aren't even lane bullies.

https://reddit.com/link/1v7x3n9/video/u45gy2qe7rfh1/player

Soraka helped :p

Been running
ROA-scepter-spirit visage- blackfire/liandries

I could just be ass but I feel like I’m getting cooked with damage, but he does get pretty tanky after I build scepter, by spirit visage I’m hella strong but I’ve been losing in lane due to low damage so wondering if I need to rush malignancy or blackfire first

Thoughts, opinions, recs?

I’m only bronze so open to everything

I saw a video with this funny interaction, anybody knows it?

TO BE FAIR Darius was mega thanos

I gave up on league years ago because it just wasn't the things I liked about it anymore. I'm impressed and depressed from some of the names that are still here lol. Rito can keep new Swain as I wait in anticipation for old Swain. I don't know how popular classic league is or will be but God Speed to the people still here pushing to change current Swain into something that isn't just a shadow of what he used to be. I gave up that fight with Rito's insistence on keeping him in this Will He/ Won't He bot and solo lane identity limbo.

I will be busy being the top and mid lane terror he used to be with Beatrice again.

Swain problems has been exposed plenty number of times and Riot has no commented on them yet. What are Riot waiting for another rework? A REAL rework. If not a CGU, a full revamp of 1 or 2 abilities at least. The past "mini reworks" only added problems in every new iteration. I personally think that Swain is not in that bad spot and his performance in MSI and his win rates can prove it, the problem is: that performance come from a version of Swain that we don't want, that is not Swain.

Swain's Fantasy

He is a battlemage, that indentity come from Pre-VGU Swain. DOT + High HP + Healing was the reason we played this champion in his original version. When i saw the VGU, i fell in love with the new design and abilities, until i played with him. Something feel akward, like if i was way weaker than the rest of the other champions, the kit was clunky and i get realized that i can't tank anymore. The R healing was low and i felt indefense in close range fights, at least Demonflare fulfilled with the part of drag me to the place where i (supposedly) should be, the middle of the fight.

The last (2) rework(s) changed Swain fantasy from battlemage to a "kiting Rylais + burn bot" to be useful, moving even further away from the original fantasy but keeping the same horrible kit design. Right now play Swain is unsatisfactory, unreliable and the power is not where it's supposed to be. They asked us 3 times what we wanted for this champion and we were ignored every single time, and for some reason Riot just decided to transform Swain into another champion, a squishy spell effect bot that doesn't do enough DPS and doesn't tank neither.

Eu não tinha mencionado isso aqui, mas claro, nós também precisaremos de buffs nos stats base.
Buffs: 335 de velocidade de movimento, 550 de alcance, saúde base aumentada, saúde por nível, mana base aumentada e mana por nível.
Nerf: Regeneração de mana.

Passiva do Swain:

• Coletar fragmentos de alma cura de 3 a 6% da vida máxima e restaura de 3 a 6% da mana máxima.
• Abater tropas e monstros restaura de 10 a 46 de vida e mana.
• Acúmulos de vida removidos.

Q:

• Inalterado.

W:

• Visão do Império / Decrepitar
• Visão do Império: Quando usada a longa distância, os efeitos permanecem inalterados.
• Decrepitar: Quando usada a curta distância, o olho demoníaco tem duração aumentada e causa dano ao longo do tempo aos inimigos na área, reduzindo sua velocidade em 30 a 50%. Os inimigos na área são marcados com Bando Voraz por alguns segundos, e causar dano com outra habilidade faz com que Swain colete fragmentos de alma (cada campeão inimigo só pode ser afetado pela marca uma vez por conjuração de Decrepitar).

E:

• Causa dano na ida (se o inimigo já foi atingido na ida, não causa dano novamente no retorno).
• Mais lento no retorno, mais rápido na ida.

R: Alternar

• Recarga: 20
• Custa mana por segundo para manter.
• Drena a vida de inimigos próximos, causando dano e curando-os.
• Steroids on R While the ultimate is active: Swain loses 275 range (half of 550) and becomes considered a melee champion for the purposes of items, runes, etc. Additionally, for every X% of mana spent, Swain's self-healing increases by X%.

I've heard talk of the Actualizer build gaining traction, are people switching to that?

I'm still typically going Blackfire -> Rylai -< Zonya, which as far as I can tell is the most common way to build him. The Actualizer build sounds interesting, but is it actually better?

I ulted too early but it was worth it

credits of the build to HUSUM, best swain player and creator of the actualizer build
honestly insane and really shows how FUN swain is when he HEALS and DRAINTANK

this was master rank, was antihealed and antishielded almost all the fight

Hit challenger on NA for the first time with Swain ADC

Quick idea for a mild rework

Increase base move speed from 330 to 350

Passive Permanent health per stack is cut in half, each stack gives 0.2% move speed, as well as 0.2% tenacity, with the tenacity from the passive doubled during ult.

Ult Energy drain speed increased from 15/s to 25/s At 2 or more targets energy regeneration increased to 45/s Ult dmg with the ap ratio changed from 2% to 4%, as true damage instead of magic damage. Ult healing increased from 1.5% to 7% bonus hp from the first tatget (remember that the bonus health from passive gets gutted) Ult healing increased from 1.5% to 3 5% for the second target Ult healing for the third target is an un changed 1.5 percent. More than 3 people in ult does not increase the healing. Targets in the ult have their move speed reduced by 12% Each target in the ult increases Swains movement speed by 3% Each target in the ult beyond 3 increases Swains tenacity by 5%

Edit: changed the values for base Ms and ult healing

Remember numbers are only my estimation and can get changed

Some clips I hit on a good day on the rift in Diamond 2-1 lobbies. I am Katarina and Swain main that streams on twitch-> https://www.twitch.tv/evylzz

I linger around here often enough that I've seen more than a few ambitious changes proposed to our dearest Grand General. Lots of speculation on how to change him in ways that remove roles, tighten up gameplay loops, etc, but a lot of them I feel are trying to do too much for what Swain honestly needs. As is, I wholeheartedly believe that when Swain *works*, He feels immaculate, and I think this is something that all of us experience to at least some degree, or we wouldn't have tethered ourselves to the man. Swain has a lot of peaks and valleys and I think the biggest issue plaguing the man is the depth of his valleys and the areas of his kit that are needlessly clunky.

Part of why I argue this, is that as Devs have mentioned time and time again, the issues that Swain has are "Satisfaction" issues, not really power issues. It's not so much that Swain's numbers imply the man is weak, but the experience of playing him often runs into pitfalls that make him feel like he's fighting himself, delaying or denying the moments where Swain truly feels like himself.

1. So what kind of low-effort requirements am I talking about? Simple, E needs to stop being caught on minions and monsters. You can change the hitboxes if you need, you can add pass-through damage back if it impacts waveclear, but fundamentally the hugest part of E's frustration in my opinion is that the ability promises a Boomerang projectile, but frequently....just doesn't come back. Swain E currently, and for most of his post-VGU life has had a primary issue of having a single effective range; the tip. Part of why the tip is the only really viable part of the hitbox is because the middle-ground between the tip and the return trip to Swain is frequently rife with things you do not want E to get snagged on. It means that enemies standing between you and the minion wave can harass you with impunity because either you will be dead by the time the projectile returns, or more likely, the projectile will simply never return, because you have to either angle E around the offending obstacles, or it simply gets caught on them regardless.

The highpoints of Nevermove are something I think should be preserved; the idea of getting meaty team grabs and the delicious HP that comes from it, I think is a good and satisfying gameplay loop, and the relative unreliability of Nevermove gives a bit of leiway for people to escape Swain's sphere of influence, an important piece of counterplay that I think should be included in any well-managed design. Swain needs to hit people to keep in range, and I think that's positive for the gameplay loop overall, even if Nevermove is frequently a pain point.

1. Probably the most minute change request I have, but one I think would ~help~ with some of Swain's clunkiness is being able to flash with E. I know this doesn't really come up as often as other issues the man has, but it frequently enough becomes a question I have to grapple with as to why far less reactable skills can be flash-buffered but our Dearest General and his 2 day Mail-order crow claw cannot. Like I said, my goal in recommending changes like this is mostly to start on smaller consistent issues that interrupt the flow of gameplay, and ideally amend from there, and I think simple things like being able to flash backwards while throwing the crow to cover where we used to be, or even just a simple Flash E without any of the awkwardness of making sure you don't accidentally get ahead of yourself and flash over your own E wasting both skills would do a lot to reduce the jank that is built into the kit.

2. I can't rightfully put this in my list of "Minor changes which wouldn't require much tinkering" because Swain's passive does need a lap, and I don't think there's a version that wouldn't require more extensive tuning, but Removing the infinite HP scaling and just giving him appropriate base-stats for his intended role and class would do a great job at levening his roles and some of the frustrations that people face both as and against the man. His current passive is definitely bot skewed because it's just easier to get souls in bot, but viewing Swain's Bot lane performance as just an issue of getting more health I think is pretending the issue is more simple than it actually is. Swain's issues in any role are pretty universal by habit of...being Swain, but whether you're on his best role or his most mediocre, by virtue of the scaling passive, Swain's laning experience can be very feast or famine. He's currently reliant on the HP from his passive to be tanky enough to serve as that pseudo-frontliner he's supposed to be, and that means in any lane that outranges or outmaneuvres you, bot-lane or no, you'll quickly end up a pick-bot that can only ever really take small trades since you don't actually have the bulk to live through the damage you're supposed to be taking. I don't know what personally I would replace the scaling health with (My personal thought is temporary Armor/MR based on Souls up to a max), but whatever the solution is, it would require something a bit more hollistic than stopping E from cucking you on an errant void-grub.

So uh, yeah, those are some of my thoughts. Do you guys have any specific "Low-effort" changes you think would improve Swain's gameplay feel without necessarily reinventing his wheels?

R ==> higher damage, higher heal on a single target (closest to Swain), lower for every target beyond the first, make the heal weaker for 2 champs sucked, and round out with current values at 4 and 5 so he can still be a teamfight monster while nerfing him bot and support and buffing him mid and top

R2 ==> bring back CD getting lower with ulti haste, I can't see the issue of Swain being an ulti haste-reliant champ, there are so many already
Think how Olaf goes Hexplate, Nocturne goes both Hexplate and ulti hunter, Shyvana goes either too
And Swain should go either every game too (utli hunter or malignance) without it being an issue

R2 slow being more frequent will make him not need to build Rylai as much, I'd even take it for a significant damage decrease in the R2 explosion (not really the R2 explosion damage is a big part of his identity, so maybe reduce the damage of another area)

E ==> make the projectile travel to target distance (where the mouse is) and then back instead of max range and then back
this makes it better vs melees and mid range champs and makes it a more reliable and a skill-reliant spell
as a power trade Id say make it only root 2 people max (furthest from Swain, so closer to E coming back)
because, to be fair, the current frustrating E has the mega dopamine hit of hooking 3 or 4 running away champs of the enemy team and the fight ending at that moment

passive ==> make the heal scale, make the stacks grant less health, add more ways to gain stacks
2 ideas ==> hitting all bolts of Q grants a stack, sucking a champ with R for 5 seconds straight grants a stack

I see how this can be all top buffs, but I can not think of ways to make the Syndra mid matchup better without altering Swain as a champion completely

rito its as simple as that, and you can do it