Swain's Rework: Where Everything Went Wrong | League of Legends
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 27 ก.ย. 2024
- Welcome back to another episode of the Rework Retrospective! It's been a very long time since the last episode but worry not! I haven't forgotten about this series. Today we're gonna be talking about a champion who Riot somehow managed to screw up despite not requiring any major adjustments from the old one. So let's dive into Swain: The Noxian Grand General
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#LoL #Swain #Rework
I just wish that Swain could be played again as a mid/top battle-mage instead of being reduced to a support pick, same thing for Vel'koz and Xerath
Play him mid, he is way more effective trust me
@@gioisgud not entirely True. If you want to go swain as a draintank battle mage (liandri zhonyas visage boots and 2 mote items) he isnt playable since he loses to every single assasin and its virtually useless if he is behind
Plain him top was so good press r and run around
@@jogonra956 ngl, he is unplayable in the support lane, he just always steals kills with his q and r because they just deal wayyyyyy too much dmg, Swain is my 2nd most mastery, (kindred jgl first) and I always perform with him in the midlane
I play him like a Botlaner,Like Ziggs
I remember when Riot said that they made him have the limp and walking with a cane anymore was because it made him look weak and feeble. I think whoever redesigned him missed the point of that part of his character because you see Noxus, the land where might makes right and you have this broken old man leading it. It hinted at there was so much more under the surface under that sick robe.
No. They changed his lore and he is no longer an old traditional mage who happens to possess extensive political acumen. His new lore includes his mastery over demonic powers + a powerful mage + a powerful leader. If he could completely subdue a powerful demonic entity, healing a limping foot is just a trivial problem. It's completely against logic that a powerful mage with demonic powers can't fully heal an injury.
'Might is right' part of Noxus was completly erased after swain lore rework now Noxus belongs in a grey zone instead of straight up evil
@@fbiagent6456 Thing went entirely over your head. Swain having a limp and looking decrepit was playing off the trope of the man who appears weak being immensely powerful. He didn't look like that because he was injured and couldn't fix himself, he looked like that because he was a FUCKING DEMON and that was the form he CHOSE to take.
Old Swain's visuals were very consistent with his old abilities, but they didn't match the lore at all. Nothing about his old design suggested he was a leader, let alone the freaking King of Noxus. They should have changed the lore to match the kit and the visuals, not completely throw away a perfectly good champion because he looks like a drifter or hermit.
@@uxie6177 Also, I'm rather certain in his lore rn he didn't completely subdue raum. I think they made some sort of deal.
Fighting old swain and confused why the mage was building tank was one of my earliest memory of league. I then played him and managed to 1v1 the fed Zedd with ease. Those were my most memorable moments of playing league. Even tho i never mained him, i do miss the old swain
Dancing while you were being ganked, because you healed faster than they could do damage was one of my best memories with old swain.
I have sweet memories of tank raid boss swain before the rework
I remember getting my first quadra kill with him
Not Swain related, but this comment made me think about the first time my friend and I laned against a lux. And the pair of us losing our shit when she dropped her combo at 6. 😂
I was main Swain before rework. Never play him again after rework.
Kinda fun and back then my most memorable is counter ganking.
After the rework I don't feel comfortable at all. Feels like lot of thing goes wrong. Especially his ult should be something that could be used anytime i want. Now, it's kinda bad for me. The damage is good but feel like it shouldn't be this way.
Facts old swain from season 2 was one of my favorite champs
Fiddles' rework was actually pretty intensive, in terms of locking him down to a role; prior to the rework, Fiddles could simultaneously be a 1v1 nightmare with the incredible sustain on his drain (which he could always secure with his fear), while also leaning into a teamfight setting with his ult and bouncing crow, but both were somewhat awkward insofar as the skillset didn't commit to either (like a certain hero who may or not be the topic of this video). The rework put him squarely in the teamfight setting, with every skill being more effective in a multi-target scenario while also making his 1v1 potential very frail.
It was honestly kind of impressive how much of his focus they managed to shift without dramatically altering his gameplay (outside of fake-ward baits).
Fid was definitely the best rework, hands down. I liked a lot of them but his was the best- it kept the feel of the old champ and updated the abilities and visuals in a way that he fits with the modern roster. Swain feels…bad to learn. His most reliable combo essentially brings the enemy close to you. As a squishy mage early game, you do not want to bring the enemy Yasuo or Yone close to you. You need time to scale, but his kit doesn’t give him that time. So he’s relegated to support. And he doesn’t do too good there either since champs like lux and morg do the same job, but better since they don’t have to deal with his clunkiness.
I think the rework for fiddlesticks was kinda bad, I think overall the ability changes in a jungle perspective is good, but they basically ensured fiddle would never really solo lane with his new passive being so useless mid and top, bouncing crow was so good in lane and the synergy to drain to put prio on where the crow bounced was a fun interaction, an engage pre6 would be a fear for his passive, then crow then drain to keep the crow bouncing on them, I used to only play fiddles and havent since the rework
@@redspyblueworld3523 no he was absolutely broken on lane at the beginning of his rework that They needed to kill his laning completely.
Bach then he healed full from a single w on wave.
@@redspyblueworld3523 lane fiddle should never be good. The crow was always unfun to lane against, thats why they pretty much gutted his E.
@@redspyblueworld3523 fiddle too is actually decent you play with ur bushes just like rengar with ur effigy’s
I really miss Swain's Toggle ult, I think Toggle abilitys are some of the most fun in the game and it's a shame they are trying to remove them.
Because the game overall gained damage and most fights are over quicker than they were back then, so a toggle ability would have to be super OP to be useful early on in a fight (before he gets oneshot) or would be super weak unless the fight somehow does last 30 secs
@@gameplaytv1374 Swain has a very similar toggle ability and still manages to be a pretty decent champion, though does have a unique play style that doesn't suit many.
In other words, it works fine, all you need is for him to properly drain tank like his meant to.
@@kitkup8570 his r deals an absurd amount of damage and also heals him a ton. But because its all over time he can die before feeling the effects
@@gameplaytv1374 Who you talking about now?
Like what you just said doesn't make sense for the conversation.
@@kitkup8570 you say he needs to properly draintank. Does his ult not achieve that? It heals him a ton, there have been multiple occasions of him being built tanky to enhance it further. But it isn't really meta since draintanks suffer from the increased damage league now has overall. So most draintanks are too squishy and die before actually healing a lot
They should give this champ some love, he s so unique looking and has a special place in lore
Yea, fully clothed old men are rare nowadays
@@Ephior24 riots last ten releases have all been showing a lot of skin
@@gabrielantunez7642 bullshit. I hope this was a joke
He’s the overlord of noxus but the weakest person In noxus is crazy
@@Betroid well, he's not weak in the head and for tactics. He's not a grand general for nothing.
As a Swain main, I can't wait for this. I would have liked the new Swain much more if he was just a separate champion and didn't replace the old one. But it just feels like an insane downgrade with the ult toggle removed, insane mana costs, and inability to sololane
Old swain healing was insane, so fun.
Swain can solo lane it just takes more skill to do it
Inability to solo lane? He's great top and mid?
@@tastytaist9916 Is he great enough to be meta? I've never seen him top or mid.
He can solo lane. Just because it isn't brainlessly and dominating the meta doesn't make it unviable. I play neeko jungle and it isn't meta but I can carry games on it. Surely Swain mid can too.
THANK YOU. I was a Swain main from S6 (when I started playing) up till his rework, I absolutely loved how his abilities all synergized together. The rework felt like they just ripped old Swain out of the game and released a new champion in his place - and the new champion was worse to play. Old Swain's lack of popularity means that he always gets left out of the "bad reworks" pool that people like to bring up (Aatrox, Urgot, etc). On behalf of the 4 pre-rework Swain mains, thank you for making this video.
Same :c
Same
same
I loved using swain top, dude was fucking unstoppable
I was a swain main too smh
Thank you! Finally someone points this out. Whenever deleted champions come up no one mentions swain. Damn I miss old swain.
Maybe because new Swain's kit at **first glance** is a bit similar to old Swain in some regards.
But it's only when you look at it again do you notice the changes actually affect the gameplay of the character deeply.
It's understandable when people bring up Aatrox and Mordekaiser. There's like literally only 1 aspect they kept for those two champs, meanwhile Swain still has his Ult, teeeeechnically his W and E as well?
It's just that some aspects have been changed wich render his playstyle different that you otherwise wouldn't notice unless you're a main, that's propably why Swain is glanced over.
He's also pretty underrated despite being a hella simple and hella fun and satisfying Mage to combo with, one of the most "balanced" mages out there anyway.
@@mark030a I mean I don't have a problem with his current kit, I just miss his old kit.
I think the biggest thing that I hate about new swain is how he changed to a burst mage instead of a DoT mage. We have too much burst in the game now and I really like his drain mage playstyle that he had. where he was sorta tanky and dealt damage over time instead of just being another frail burst mage.
@@sorinnoctis652 Sadly, that is true. The game is much more snowball oriented now, I don't think that old Swain would even fit anymore...
@@sorinnoctis652 i'm not sure how yall are playing the new swain... but when I die and I see my death details saying I tanked 4.5k+ dmg when my healthbar is maybe 2-2.5k. That feels pretty tanky to me
@@SilverSmurfer05 I promise you, old swain could probably tank much more considering the healing was much better as well as direct spell vamp with will of the ancients.
You could be in the middle of the team fight being a tactician and controlling the spacing. New swain can't really do that. He has to kinda sit on the outskirts and play footsies.
I’ve been a Swain main for a long time (all post rework) and I think the biggest problem people have with this champ is that they just don’t understand the kit. You’re still a draintank, you still lock people down, and you still do lots of damage. They just shifted his power into teamfights instead. His E isn’t supposed to be easy in lane, but it IS supposed to be easy in your ult when you’re raidbossing a team fight.
It hurts so much to see my favourite character put here, but it's so deserved. Riot gave him (in my opinion of course) some of the best characterisation ever in the entire League roster. Turned Noxus from a stereotypical villainous empire to a region with depth rivalling the Freljord. His philosophy is sane, his methods not so much. Machiavellian to the extreme but also not an asshat, understanding strength can be developed from the weakest of people. While still being completely insane and maintaining Noxus' brutal theme.
His kit on the other hand... it just doesn't fit the character in the slightest. The only ability I like is Vision of Empires, the rest is kinda meh.
Yeah if you look at his Lore, you expect him to be this badass strong mage played in mid/top but turns out he's a support...💀
I do only play him mid and trust me, he fucks everyone except some hard matchups even tho it's a rare case. I do carry with him pretty often. Don't let the "meta" dictate what should play and where you should
From a narrative and lore perspective, he sure improved a lot, but in this video Vars is talking exclusively about the gameplay, so you shouldn't take this video as an attack to the lore swain, more like to the rift swain.
His kit makes perfect sense lol- of course his kit isn’t gonna be about his type of dictatorship
It’s gonna be about his god damn demon hand lol.
Even then his root/pull fits his theme of dominance (not only is it represented by a hand, which could be associated with the phrase “iron fist” amongst other things) but it also is all about removing choice from that player.
When you root them, it’s up to you whether they stay there, or come to you, and either way it’s a win for you
@@randomth1ngs68 well, except how it's not really a win for you. a (practically) single target, short duration root isn't a very impactful ability. his q and r nukes are cool, but it doesn't fit what he used to be at all.
Man, seeing old Tyrant Swain really made me nostalgic... As much as I say Riot keeps the whole theme of the champion after a rework, that half raven stumble he had on that skin and the way he played made him so much fun.
Old swain's simplicity was something that i loved so much, he was my main for almost 3 seasons, now he's not nearly as fun to play for me, even tho i still play him sometimes.
Glad someone talked about it. I loved old Swain and gave up on him after the rework because I felt his abilities didn't mesh as well as the old ones did
I miss old Swain :(
He was one of my first mains, I loved building him so tanky with tear and frozen heart. Drain tank for years
As a swain player that also dove deep into the lore of league, seeing his in game and lore identity completely changed when both were already in a good state was one of the most frustrating things I have seen riot do. They changed his lore from being a mysterious background soldier rising up to be a vicious general through incredible strategy and deception to..... a generic copy/paste noxian general that also has a bird thing. He was supposed to look weak and frail, not only for the deception reason, but because his first recorded record of existence was him casually strolling into a medical hut with a completely shattered leg, a raven on his shoulder, and not saying a word as he was treated, only to walk back out with a cane and a cast to rejoin the fight. That demeanor changing wildly into a bird monster fit with the thematic of weak deception and mystery from his magical bird. His bird beatrice being the center of his kit and magic made sense in and out of game. Now he is bland, with an incoherent kit, and a small playerbase left that appreciates the masterpiece that was his old self. Thank you for bringing light to an old, underappreciated champion and pointing out all the issues with his re-design.
I really liked swain post rework (i never played him before than, though). However, they changed his soul collection passive and heavily reduced his q damage to minions on a mini rework, which kind of killed him for me because he couldn’t lane anymore
I was an old swain main and it was just amazing.. after they reworked him I can't even look his way feels so sad because he's to this day my most played champion that hasn't been touched in like 5 years...
I understand because my old aatrox, Old Swain, old irelia and old akali were my top lane pool and I just can't play aatrox anymore and I don't enjoy swain anymore from the changes they dis. I don't even play akali or irelia regularly anymore because even with the same concept I don't have as much fun as before usually so I changed my core top pool after all the reworks
One of my earliest memories of playing League was being in a Coop. vs IA match against a Swain Bot. It was a rollercoaster. Sometimes, it'd be frustrating to see him tank so much damage and simply not die. Other times, it was surprising how much damage he dished out when he was underestimated.
His visual rework seems alright, but his old ultimate animation was so iconic, I think it was much better than the reworked one.
İ really miss old swain. His walking animation and dance was great. Also he was perfect to play against lane bullies in toplane. His toggle R was fun too
Yes, the old walk was great while the new has the gait of a prissy runway model. But, it was easy to read behind the lines of the developer updates and discern that a man with a cane is supposedly unsightly and offensive (I assume to a certain country's culture and/or to its government content controllers) and therefore "had to go." Unfortunately took away a huge element of his character achieving power through strategy that incorporated his disability. Compounding this is how his new character is a pure ripoff of Tywin Lanister from GOT, who despises disability and is therefore a complete betrayal of the old theme. In the end, it's extremely clear to see why the new skills were rather flat and completely threw away the strategic zone control of the old kit (which I loved): the people in charge of the update were concerned mostly with their lore and image "corrections" more than rich gameplay.
@@ChadDerekJacobson bruh what are you even talking about, you're describing him like you skimmed the spark notes instead of reading the actual book
@@vaultstar168 you sound like a troll but I'll give you a short timer; which descriptions sound like sparknotes and why?
@@ChadDerekJacobson Someone isn't a troll just because they disagree with you or poke fun at your claim. That aside, Swain specifically constructed Noxus as a pretty rigid meritocracy. Serving the state in any way can net you status and wealth, regardless of how "crippled" one might be. Swain's own story exemplifies how someone discarded can serve a greater purpose. And what's this about a model walk? His movement is rigid and stiff, visibly showing his military service and injuries from the front lines. That's not even starting on your GoT comment, you're just plain wrong there. It's perfectly fine to want more from the VGU, I did as well, but you don't have to be so bitter. Let's hope those changes they announced come through and at least shift his gameplay back to basics.
@@vaultstar168 the original Swain never "constructed Noxus" and I know nothing about his new lore since I don't care to read the in-client backstories anymore (major retcons multiple times a year make the chore boring); I'm merely going off what his in-game voice lines and animations convey while saying I miss what the same from old Swain said and you're welcome to read extra into that, but you're just fanfic-ing me, bruh
Visually, this rework is amazing and very well done. It made me a Swain main because of how cool he looks. In terms of gameplay, Swain just shines best in the support role. Almost every other mage outranges him in Mid or Top.
While he looks good, I don't think that he's better, that weird fixation people have with "he's a raven demon thing, what is this?" is so strange. Yeah, bat demon makes more sense then a raven demon because one animal is more demonic then another. Suuuuuuuure.
The only reason for this is a habit, so instead of giving Swain a unique appearance they've made him a generic old guy with long hair who's also a generic demon. It's done well, but it's all too common
Nah. He is best as situational ADC (APC). That's also where the high elo otps are the most successful on this champ. Only in low elo he is a strong consistent support, everywhere above he is meh all though playable. Agree about mid, in toplane mages are bad in general. I guess Neeko and Cass are passable but very hard to have the same impact as traditional toplaners and easily abuseable in long lane with no/low mobility. Swain himself has big mana issues in toplane and is the most free gank target ever.
He "shines" best in support because he's poorly designed. He's basically unusable mid lane unless you snowball so incredibly hard that his poor scaling doesn't matter for the first 20 minutes. He's definitely passable as a support, but IMO he's ultimately a shittier thresh. He should be balanced around a bruiser/mage role mid or top, self-sufficient.
Think of someone like Xerath. He can be an extremely potent support, but he's also a decent/strong mid laner. Swain needs to go support to even be viable.
Swain weaknesses are assassin's the most overturned class in the game. He works well mid against other makes but you use your passive you are pretty much just setting yourself up to be one shorted and saving their rash
swain actually very much hard counters divers, though I understand what you mean, it is important to learn when to utilize your passive against certain champs.
@Mao LeBron his cc is certainly hard to hit at close range, but swain wants to be as close as possible to deal his damage. His cc is actually used specifically to bring his target closer and to confirm his w.
W can be hard to predict without the cc but can be used to zone people out due to the threat of the slow.
The main tools he has as an anti diver is his q and ult. The massive aoe these abilities do is very discouraging to a diver, moreso at point blank range. Pair that with a zhonya's (which swain always takes) and you can survive surprisingly long and very often kill a diver after their burst combo.
@Mao LeBron when and only when you get to mid-late game you can't get one-shoted by assassins/divers because of your ult(let's be honest, good passive doesn't give any serious amount of hp) and your Q is finally strong, especially when on-top of your opponent, while also having a low cd. In early game, though, you get destroyed... I do play him mid, but there are no GOOD lane matchups even though there are some unplayable ones
@@manolismarinakis8444 I second this. Swain mid is kind of troll. I've seen some people here suggest you can even play him top. No chance.
Swain is just bad in a solo lane. In mid he's playable, but there are tons of better options.
Swain mid that gets far ahead can be really scary, but getting ahead is not easy.
@@alecoppeac played him top a couple games as long as you don’t get a bruiser he’s pretty safe top works well cs teemo and use glacial augment with him after a grab usually you pull enemies closer to you now they have glacial under them so they can’t run up on you….
Bruisers like garen outheal his poke tho and will eventually put sustain you in lane and take plates when you back for mana
I agree that his W particularly feels a bit out of place but other than that I quite enjoy his new kit. His Q and especially his E are satisfying abilities to land and I think the E effectively increases the optimal range of his Q as you can drag the target closer so those two abilities don't feel so at odds as it may seem. The ult is hit or miss. Against high mobility teams it can feel like you don't have an ultimate while against all in comps you feel unstoppable. I almost wish some burst damage was taken out of the ability to maybe have it slow enemies in the radius and maybe decrease resistances or something to make him feel more like a drain tank than a burst mage. Overall I think Swain feels somewhat indistinct because he does a few things quite well but nothing exceptional, which I think is fine. I think this rework falls into the Sion category where old players may not like him but he still has a good kit that is healthier and more interesting.
I do love the vision providing aspect of his W and using it to bait players into Nevermove feels good when it works. I do wish it was easier to use or more rewarding for Swain in a fight though. like faster cast time when used below 700 range or something.
I actually agree a lot with this comment. My opinion may be biased because i didnt play pre-rework Swain, but he FEELS like a general when playing. His gameplay follows his lore and the flavor is incredible. He is like most other battlemages but his unique range (with W and E) is something that i cant find in the rest of the rooster. But he shouldnt have been nerfed/moved to the bot lane, he should have been what he was pre-rework, someone that can work in mid and sometimes top
His w should have a slow on cast, once people buy boots it's really impossible to hit it.
I like this swain. Tbh looking at the gameplay of old swain just makes me feel like he was a very cancerous champ to play against. Now i think he isn’t broken yet not underpowered, and if you learn the champ you can clap people with him.
The problem with his Q and E is that when E is easier to hit the most it does is bring someone in max range/min damage Q, but if you are in max damage range for Q it is almost impossible to hit E. That is true range inconsistency.
His damage is tied to his Q and R but his E mostly helps his W and isn't practically enough to bring someone back into R range
Old Swain was know for a short cooldown toggle Ult
Damage over time abilities
Damage amplifier. Which meant if you didn't E before blowing all your abilities your damage were alot lower.
Good sustain.
New Swain has none of those abilities.
Quick fix is incorporate a damage overtime to one of his abilities as well as a amplifier. Change his burst ult to a short cooldown drain ult.
They made a champion that was fun both mid and Top to move to bot lane.
I mained swain for years until his rework. That rework felt like a personal attack
Thought I'd come back to this after his recent touch up, letting him hold his own in solo lanes again finally.
I've mained Swain for a couple years now. He does have an optimal range: Just beyond the max range of his E. Stepping forward, landing an E burst on as many champions as possible and following up with the shorter range Q is completely natural feeling because the E pulls them into the Q range. Regardless, I only max Q first when I play him as a solo laner. Unless the enemy ADC has the potential to get out of an EW combo like Ezreal or Sivir or the enemy support plays a vanguard I will always max W first. This has worked as high as Gold for me in soloqueue.
Reliably taxing your own laners as well as the mid laner with W for the entire laning phase and - most importantly - stacking crows as efficiently as possible early while keeping the appropriate mid range distance naturally builds you into an area-denial controller/ drain tank OR a bulky burst mage depending on build by the late game because of the passive health gain. Imperial Mandate + Rylai's, or full burn, or what few AP bruiser items are left are all available.
We'll see how the return of ROA shakes him up!
I feel the swain rework feels more like a tactician/general. Aside from lore and a slowing bird turret he didnt have the scope of a general adjusting a battlefield.
If you didn't get hit with old e your minions would block q, as it auto targeted closest.
W semi global presence as a general should. He touches the entire battlefield. It has solid damage and a nasty slow so it is still a great zoning tool like old nevermove.
Q&E discourage enemies from hiding in their minions, as he can easily punish you and the minions together. Something that is more normally true.
I do feel his old ult was better. As you said it meant there is constant zoning pressure in his immediate area.
So you think it was right to destroy a champion and make him next to unplayable in his main roles and shove him into the bot lane as a psuedo hook champ in the name of a theme? If they wanted to run with a tactician general theme they could have done with another faction and slap the new abilities on the new character and preserve old swain. All old swain needs to be viable and strong now a days is his q grounds targets its focusing like a stronger Cassio w. He lost his necromancer feel and is now just a bot lane cheese champ and not the dot drain mage that he used to be. His entire kit was focused around over time damage now it’s been swapped out for burst.
@@Ghosta085 i didn't say anything about it being better or not. Just that his old kit didnt feel like a general/tactician and how the new one fits that theme more.
You bring up dots vs burst, but that is not what I was discussing at all.
Hard disagree. I feel like he's just a generic mage now that doesn't commit to the theme in the slightest outside of aesthetics
Old Swain could max any ability depending on the difficulty of the lane and heavily rewarded spacing/decision making. You could tank waves exceptionally well and use this to set up slow pushes and freezes. His ult/Q gave you unique macro options and you took calculated trades based on your R/Q health and mana regen. His item diversity was huge and the reason the he was a decent sololaner was because you had far more options to deal with hard matchups. Every game was different and had to be approached strategically.
I can respect your opinion, but Old Swain's playstyle was completely strategic. I feel like New Swain is only superficially strategic.
@@draegonspawn5361 that’s not necessarily true. As a tactician his strength was knowing how to engage and knowing how to diminish the enemy’s defenses. He can’t fight melee carries anymore. And you lost the other part of his personality. He was an OLD general. His abilities matched his age. They took time to hit, but they hit hard. You slowly withered away from a withering man, who came to life as he fought. Now he’s insanely 1 dimensional, he’s a warlock tactician….
@@LeBronP every character needs to know when to engage, that isn't special.
And a generals tactics should be larger scale than "can I slap this person around."
I do agree the dots played around age. Like the adage "Age and treachery will defeat youth and vigor."
I would like to see another rework myself, kind of mix the two kits.
Current passive. The longer the game the harder to beat. He gets better with age.
Old Q bird for short range zoning/dps
Current W for mapwide presence, as a general should.
Current E to punish foes for grouping. And rooting for the bird.
Old Ultimate, maybe with mana restore per kill during ult. Base cooldown equal to duration transformed.
Would need a balance pass on numbers but I think it would be sweet.
Damn this makes me so nostalgic for the old Swain. I think aesthetically the new Swain makes more sense with his lore but as someone who enjoys “warlock” type classes in rpgs his DoT gameplay was super fun. You have that to a degree with Brand or Malz but it isn’t the same. Great vid!
It was a champion rework, there was no reason to go that far away from old Swains looks. Current Swains design could have been a different champion if riot liked it that much.
I have no experience with the old swain but he was the first champ I got a mastry 7 on so I hope the changes weren't too drastic.
Old swain was better.
Completely different. Old swain was basically a mage-draintank. Killed him like they did with my boy aatrox. Nothing wrong with liking the new one but old swain was straight up removed.
@@dubious5859 Personally I feel like Aatrox was at least necessary to an extent in terms of him being broken by design since his niche makes him either bad or OP at times.
Not sure if this was the case with Swain conceptually, and I think he could've at least been fixed while preserving his core identity.
I think it's another case of "new kit isnt bad, it's just that they completely erased the old character and made a new one" kind of rework like aatrox and sion
@@yoyochinb3742 Honestly I think they are usually either Loved (Sion, and Poppy), really Mixed (Urgot and Galio) or Hated (Aatrox).
Even if there is an inbetween, its only on the extreme side it seems.
You're spot on, I was a swain main and wasn't really satisfied with his rework, seems like they tinkered with him a lot more than they should've
I DO like new Swain, especially his new look and general theme. But lets be honesr, it doesn't keep a single pinch of old Swain. The crow part, the thing he was all about is relocated to a visual effect you'll barely notice. His base form he looked like a sick older man with some serious sicknesses to his foot, only to reveal with his ult the true dangerous beast lurking within. Now he's a mighty general giving off constant Daddy energy. It's a completely different champ.
I love nature and animal based abilities and themes, and at this point Quinn is the only one left with any interactions with animals (and even she lost most of the cool Valor interactions)
Thats basically all of the recent rework champions, to me. They look cool but they lost the part of themselves that made them 'them', yknow?
Some of the champions needed it, Poppy.... Oh, God, Poppy needed it, but others I look at and wonder why they did it other than to make money or hide a mistake they dont want to admit they made.
@@LeuvahkTrigger I love Poppy now, but I also loved old Poppy. Still somewhat mad that they completely changed her personality, her being a somewhat mean/focused yordle was unqiue
@@Ghilannugs Thats actually my biggest grief with her new design, haha.
They seem determined to make all the yordles all happy go lucky, like some kind of Kender from the Dragonlance series, wanderlust and all.
Which, in my eyes, is why Vex, as a character, just doesnt work at all in leagues world.
@@LeuvahkTrigger laughs in kled
@@LeuvahkTrigger vex works BECAUSE of how yordles are; she's miserable because yordles don't age and live in perpetual happiness, it's a meaningless and shallow existence in her eyes and therefore makes her depressed because she's also consigned to living eternally without having any real impact on the world, purely because she was unfortunate enough to be born to yordle parents
and while they're all generally happy-go-lucky with the exception of kled and vex, i'd argue that poppy is more stoic and straight-laced than anything, with her lore even saying that she doesn't really get along with other yordles because they're too fluffy and nonsensical, whereas in contrast she likes order and routine and has little tolerance for chaos
she's not the brightest, admittedly, but she takes herself fairly seriously and her quest even more seriously, which ends up being her plot foil and enables her to be a more comedic character without having to be hyperactive or deranged, and allows her to be a small parody of demacia, in the same vein that kled is a parody of noxus, heimerdinger is a parody of piltover, etc.
and honestly? looking at her old quotes, i don't see a mean character, i see a serious and straight-laced one, there's not even a mean quote there, truth be told, and i never really got that vibe playing her back in the day either; i'll admit that her old voice was uh, distinctive, and definitely doesn't have the same light-heartedness as her current voice, but i genuinely believe that she's purely a refined and polished take on her old character
I love how the more you explained Swain's current abilities the more he sounds like a champ for bot lane to me lol
while not as much as his old kit, I feel like his new basic abilities have alot of synergy with each other ontop of being good by themselves.
Q can be used solo to clear waves and poke, used with E and passive to secure massive damage
E can be used solo to simply pull for some harass and used alone to simply root wiithout pulling with passive, it can also make it easier to land W since the root duration and W cast time line up nicely
W can be used for quick vision checks and cutting escape routes, as well as providing an additional slow and helping predict movement for E
and all 3 can be combined together for one massive burst of damage With E>W>Pull>Q
Don't get me wrong, I just started to play him and I enjoy him a lot, but he IS onesided. You bide your time, do your combo, gather fragments, collect health, then go full raidboss and win off stats. This is fairly one-sided. He is not easy to play, but really no apparent variation in tactics aside from: do I play tank or burstmage or mix?
Just bring back original swain I wanna point my finger at somone and have my bird fire a laser at them over my shoulder
It's funny how a year later, they reworked mordekaiser, a champion from the same region, to have the same ability on E, but better since it doesn't stop on minions, and also made swain's ult onto mordekaiser passive
Swain was one of the best reworks in terms of visuals and theme, but so vector-less in terms of gameplay loop...
I think that his new kit does have synergy. You want the enemy to be close to you to maximize your Q and R damage, and your P, W, and E help you get them closer to you.
Or the inverse q and r push them away into a range where e and w are more effective.
Tbh he's flexible and fun.
Swain is... different. I barely played any of the old Swain, simply because I didn't have the IP for him (boy, was that a while ago). As someone who's played a good bit of Swain support and carry, it's hard to really say if he's good or bad. I'd have to disagree with Vars on the lack of synergy with his abilities. Swain's E-W-auto-Q combo alongside electrocute does a lot of damage early, and his W becomes practically undodgeable as long as you W right after the E lands, and delay your passive proc. Then you also get a free bit of damage with your auto Q as well. Though I will agree that your W is incredibly hard to land in a vacuum. You need setup with your E or other cc, or you need to be chasing someone through tight jungle paths.
In terms of gameplay, yeah, he's a bit weird. He's definitely best in the bot lane, typically as support, though he is viable as the carry as well, provided you get paired with an aggressive support like Nautilus, Leona, or (my favourite) Pyke. Swain's plan in the laning phase is to get as many E combo picks as possible in order to cripple the enemy laner, preventing them from cs'ing safely and risking an all in. Swain is especially scary during the laning phase because of how easy his E can hit when near a minion wave. The problem with Swain is that he's very weird to play. Anyone can land an E-auto-Q combo when first trying Swain support, but you've gotta be really delicate with your timing for the optimal E-W-auto-Q combo.
Additionally, his playstyle falls awkwardly between arm's-length heavy trades and ultimate-reliant all ins. That's where he feels awkward to play sometimes. I've played a bunch of Swain carry games with my friend's Pyke support, and we need to be careful with our trade patterns. We only look for trades when my abilities are up and when my E or his Q lands. After the trade, we have to hastily back off. This is where Swain feels both strong and weak at the same time. If you can consistently land your combos in lane, you're good as gold. However, the second a champion like Vayne, Samira, or Lucian jumps on top of you, your health bar disappears, because you need R and Zhonya's to keep you alive in a fight, and your Q is on too long of a cooldown early.
If Riot intended to make Swain an aggressive support like Pyke, then they did a fairly decent job, because his trades are strong early, and his ability to pseudo-tank during fights while also having *very* long range utility with his w (the amount of times you can cut off escapes in the jungle and assist the jungler and mid laner in fights is insane. Always max W second.) all make him very viable as an aggressive support.
However, his solo laning is poor, especially into assassins, who literally counter him via his passive. Remember, Swain wants to keep people at arm's length, trading with E combos until he can all in with R. However, his waveclear is poor early until you get Liandry's, and trading with your passive literally helps the assassins close the gap onto you.
TLDR: He fights from a distance without his R, and easily dies when his R isn't up. Because of this strictly medium range hit-and-run playstyle, people can blow him up very easily early game once the gap is closed, similar to Aurelion Sol. He's only a dps champion when he has his ultimate, which forces many players to always go Ultimate Hunter and Liandry's on him, for maximum ultimate cdr. But I don't think he's in too bad of a spot, just that his playstyle is hard to get used to (though not as much as someone like Azir or Asol). He also needs to play very carefully, as he needs his ultimate to stand a chance against champs like assassins and bruisers, which is why he's primarily (if not exclusively) found in the bot lane these days.
I used to play swain a lot before the rework and he was so fun, after it… he was cool and his visuals are amazing, but his gameplay felt like, as you said, just a bunch of abilities that just did their own thing. Was really disappointing
As someone who has an irrational love of drain tanking, I seriously miss the old Swain. I think he was the champ I got my first penta on, and it was always so nice to have the option of bringing some tankiness in the mid lane when everyone else on the team inevitably picked squishy champs. New Swain is kind of just a joke. New nevermove is absolute garbage as a solo laner because it's so easy to play around, and I personally really miss having damage amp in his kit since it felt like it pulled the kit together where now, as you say, his kit feels completely incohesive.
I was saltier about Shen's rework because he was my ride or die main at the time of it, and it totally removed his safety in lane, but Swain's rework was worse in retrospect. Shen still feels mostly like Shen but Swain feels so different he might as well be called Dave.
I feel you bec because drain tanks are one of my favorite roles and my s6 onward pool had aatrox and swain until their reworks. New swain sustain feels kinda lack luster but I don't feel like qwe support his ult the way old swain's kit did. As a whole I'm not satisfied with riot choices with drain tanks with swain and aatrox being reworked and vlad being forced into more burst damage since tank builds don't work anymore. I pretty much play red kayn top now when I want a drain experience.
The fact that they think this rework "kept the spirit" of old Swain, just announces to everyone that the people who reworked him have no idea what his "spirit" was.
swain is also a hybrid tank mage, due to his sustain... one thing u forgot to mention, his healing from his souls doubles when he uses his ult and his healing scales with max hp, thats why sometimes he might feel unkillable... my only suggestion would b to buff his w so the delay decreases when he lvls up that ability, because late game, when everyone has completed their boots, they can just walk past the whole ability before it hits... or they can increase its aod
W only gets more effective late game because the slow gets so much stronger and the range gets so much bigger. Having a swain on the enemy team with max W is basically like fighting against a TF, Panth, Shen, etc. Sure in neutral anyone can just react and walk out of it (they can even do so without full boots if they're fast to react) it's best used in tandem with other pressure such as when an enemy is retreating or trying to dodge a different ability. It's an incredibly useful tool to either secure a retreat or kill someone who's running, or alternatively just take their flash. Decreasing the cast duration would just mess with muscle memory.
@@johnreese5739 lol no it wouldn't and i say that as a main swain... And i would prefer the decerease in time duration over range, if that is proposed.
@@HeliusRa as a swain main i agree with the person you disagree with. Get gud.
I have barely touched new Swain outside of trying to force myself to like him after the rework, and yet he remains my highest mastery champion. I wish I knew how much I played him before the mastery system was introduced. The anti-carry video you put out really hit home for me, as it put a clear grouping to my preferred champions, but this video just hit much deeper. Pretty much explains perfectly why old Swain just clicked with me.
Objectively I can see the visuals and the lore are better, but I will never forgive this imposter for taking away my birdman from me. Rest in peace bud, I still miss you.
i like the old swain better, both on abillities and visual, the changes they made to him simply erased the old one like aatrox, but aatrox still looks like the old one in some way, Swain is a almost completely diferent character
Honestly one of better takes I heard in a while
I'd argue new swain is actually a perfect zone controller.
His W allows him to do SO much. It can scout to give your team info, it can block off escape routes, it can block off the path for a jungler to gank you, it can pick off an enemy who just ran away. And let's say an enemy is running away; if you place your W in front of them, they now have to chose: do they go through it and take the damage+slow (which may allow swain or one of his allies to catch up), do you go around it (which, again, may allow swain or one of his allies to catch up) or do you flash out of it (or use any other dashes/blinks you máy have, which then disables you from using that for a short while, which means possibly a free gank kill).
Then we have his Q, which does A LOT of damage, due to how spamable it is. Meaning the sheer existence of this ability, zones enemies away from swain. Which then brings me to his E; when you are just out of his Q range, you risk being in his E range.
Being in his E range is extra risky, cuz not only does it allow swain to pull you to him (and thus in Q range), it also makes his W basically a free hit. Which means at lv18, swain just did 250(+50%AP) + 150(+30%AP) + 324(+96%AP) + 240(+70%AP) damage in literally 1 second. Meaning with 400AP, that's nearly 2k damage in 1s, just cuz swain hit 1 E. So getting hit by his E is a big threat.
His Q, W and E all 3 also cover a different ideal range, meaning each range has it's own danger zone.
And then his ult is just an entire danger zone of it's own, rendering melee champs useless against him.
Not to mention he is the "grand general". His thematic should be all about when and how to do what and about tactical plays (meaning sometimes giving up one thing for another), which swain does really well for the most part.
Now does swain stay true to his old version... Not really. When just looking at that aspect, it's a bad rework. Does swain stay true to his identity and theme; for sure.
His different ranges mean the exact opposite, none is that good. Max range E won't pull the enemy close enough to hit with whole Q, and then also also has antisinergy with close range because of it's stupid gimmick of procing on return and good luck hitting W without snare. And lastly his Q deals max damage on the range Swain as a mage doesn't want to be because of tanks tanks lockdown and bruisers killrange, who have very specialised kill ranges in opposition to Swain. Not without reason he isn't played as often as before and not without reason he cannot solo lane as before.
@@rawen160 his playrate dropped, when they reworked his passive from max 5 soul fragments to an infinite stacking system. The issue is nit within his main abilities, but his passive.
It's kind of funny how Riot went "stat check champions are degenerate, we need to remove them", then replaced them with a gimmicky nightmare that is half as fun to verse with even less fun to play.
I don't even really agree with a "stat check", because that is literally half the game. Getting a lead through proper macro like farming is going to get you ahead through items, level up stats, and ability upgrades. If you give old Mundo a large enough lead to be able to run through you, then you clearly did something wrong. The only time it was a problem was when Riot severely fucked up the balance, and that wasn't a problem with Mundo's kit.
imagine thinking the new swain is a gimmicky nightmare or hard to play. Just throw out the 9 second level 1 hook bro, keep throwing it out and you will be doing well at the start of the game.
@@Happyjethappy I never said he was hard and yes by all means he is gimmicky.
@@zoroark522 what's gimmicky? He has a clear fantasy and gameplay that facilitates it.
Is right clicking to auto attack which does enhanced damage to ccd targets the gimmicky part? Is it the scaling? What is the gimmicky nightmare because he is just solid and clear to me
@@Happyjethappy His gameplay revolves around teammates who use CC, which is his gimmick. Gwen has her W invulnerability, Fiddle has his trinket passive, Viego has his thing, Rell has hers, Samira has hers, etc...
Being gimmicky isn't a bad thing, but when they try so hard to make a champion based solely around a gimmick, it creates situations like Aphelios or Yuumi that just serve to make the game more frustrating since nerfing Yuumi's W to be only a few seconds rather than permanent would completely destroy the champion.
If they removed Swain's ally CC pull (which is a large part of his power budget) in favour of more opportunities for himself to apply the pull, he would start to be a better champion. But they won't, and never will, because it's what differentiates him from other champions in the eyes of Riot.
@@zoroark522 disagree that it would make him better but that's fine
The thing I like about new is the theme of. A old general, that a first glance can be seen as week if you approach him, but all part of his plan to let you approach to reveal his "true" form
Beatrice (Q )ueen Laser Bird has Swain best girl has entered the chat.
If Swain never got rework it would be a joy to play on this season.
Conqueror, pressence of mind, ravenous hounter, Riftmaker, Fimbulwinter.
I actually really like his kit, and specifically his w, since I throw out my E, if it hits, I W, then pull them in, then Q them for a good amount of burst. Then if they aren't there, I can use the W for scouting or peeling. I really like how versatile the W is.
I just hope they can reduce the cd of W and gave it a bit more DMG at the cost of lowering it range. Would let him do E W combo much more and fits the battlemage team much better
@@therrogue1193 nooooo the range is so fun and cool, I'd hate that change
@@eldritchemissary4718 Agreed, new W not only fits his theme and lore as a tactician/commander but is also *easily* his strongest skill by far, the main reason being the range. That ability alone wins other people's roles turning 1v1's or preventing ganks with the slow before they are in range to engage. This should be happening not only *every* game but *multiple* times every game. If this is a rare occurrence you are not playing Swain correctly and should probably pick up another champ because you are basically wasting a skill or you must up your macro game to track jungle or understand lane matchups better so you can predict whether a fight is going to happen within the next 10 seconds and move in range to W. While his E is kinda clunky at times, it's the Q that seems the most out of place. I just hate when people dog on his W saying it's bad because it really shows their elo.
Swain's thematic and lore has absolutely been improved though and looks great
His Theme is a leader of a cut throat culture where str rules....
And he is now a support...
I miss the old Swain. Old Swain was so fun to play, specially in URF (I still remember I made an Akali ragequit because I played Swain). Now, there is no Old Swain, and it is not as fun to play as
Swain was the first champion I got a pentakill with. I loved his playstyle and the whole rework just devastated me. I wish rito could have a look at this video and try to bring some cohesion back into his kit. That stuff about effective range is spot on
In other words its a morde level rework, just putting all effort into the lore and no effort to the gameplay that's why he is accepted
I though i had come to peace with the fact that i will never play old swain again. Thx for tearing up a old wound.
I wasn't playing before Swain's rework, so I can't speak to how much or little was changed, but what I feel fairly comfortable saying is: I LOVE this Swain. Support, bot lane, mid, or top, I can get pretty consistently good results with him wherever I play him.
One thing I particularly enjoy is how he abuses default habits. When playing against something like a Morg or a Blitzcrank, you want to hide next to your minions, right? But if Swain lands his E on the minions you're standing beside, it's actually EASIER to land the root.
His E > W > Passive combo is immensely satisfying, as are those moments when you can perfectly time a W to snipe a Baron or Drake.
I have never intuitively clicked with a champion's game play to this degree, before or since. Most champions, especially when I'm so new to the game as a whole, there's a steep learning curve for ~30 games while I'm figuring things out, but for Swain, that number was closer to 5. Highly subjective, but it feels like this champion was tailor-made for the why my brain processes LoL.
I mean I play league your either not playing ranked or someone paid you to post this but ok buddy
I remember when I mostly play champs like Swain, Urgot, and Gallio pre rework. I never had any problem playing them, Imo They should have just done a Visual Update for them
I'm very late to the party yet I wanted to give my 2 cents: I never got to play old Swain, but it looks like a blast. I understand point and click abilities don't offer much in terms of outplay potential, so they had to go. However, his entire kit seems incongruent. I believe his E and his W to be the biggest offenders, E more so than W. Thus, I came up with 2 ways to remedy this, somewhat:
1) Make his E recastable to pull it back at any time, thus allowing you to root characters that are at melee range. Without it, he's so easy to dive because he can't ever peel properly, doesn't have mobility or a "get off me tool" and 2 of his 3 basic abilities have a delay, which assassins and bruisers can easily dodge/ignore.
2) Give his W damage over time and a slow while it's casted over an enemy, till it bursts for higher damage and a bigger slow. If this means reducing the range and damage, or removing the ability to proc his passive from it, so be it. His W is complete garbage in neutral and, although it fits with the tactician theme, it's usually just a combo tool after E'ing a target, which has nothing to do with his previous incarnation.
To anyone who's ever played HotS, he reminds of Alarak. Alarak has a very similar motif to Swain's, both in his own game and exemplified in HotS, albeit being a more of sarcastic douche. In game, he can combo of his abilities or allies', he has decent control thanks to a hefty Silence and the ability to play from a distance. Alarak also has a somewhat clunky kit that relies on game knowledge, micro and team comp. However, despite all of this, Alarak's W, which is a targettable shove, is what allows him to remain very unpredictable. Swain, unfortunately, lacks this unpredictability, which is what kills his playstyle for me.
To add insult to injury, they've now lowered his CDs like that's an issue at the cost of removing the damage on his passive pull; he has a serious identity crisis. I wish I had gotten to play his old self... if only he would at least get his toggeable ult back.
His ult isn’t the problem it’s his Q his Q actually makes no sense for how swain plays he should’ve kept old Q before full rework that ability was actually counterable just like all of his ability’s now except Q his W can be dodged but he has to land E which can also be dodged pretty easily swain takes a lot of skill if the enemy is smart but if there not then swain is an easy champ he’s too enemy dependent on how strong he can be
hear me out...
Swain rework
Q - one of the ravens that follow swain throughout the game will fly to a target area, dealing damage with it's voice for 3 seconds, AoE if swain is ulting, all damage the raven deals also heals swain for the first second of the duration.
W - Summons a giant Eye of the Empire, granting vision and slowing enemies hit, as well as marking them with sight. If swain is ulting, the cast time is removed and the spell changes to nevermove, instead of granting vision and slowing, enemies caught inside will be rooter for 1 - 2.25 seconds.
E - passively while off cooldown, swain regenerates mana while within 1350 range of an enemy. This is increased for each enemy he is near. Actively, swain casts an AoE shotgun that has a range of 525 same as his auto attack and ult range. This shotgun does damage based on 40% of his current mana, and also consumes that much mana. Damage is higher the closer you are to swain.
R - transforms into a bird demon that drains the health of enemies around him, after 2.5 seconds the spell can be recast for increased range and slightly increased movement speed. as long as enemies are being struck, the spell duration will be extended, the spell will end after not hitting an enemy for 2.5 seconds.
passive, the less mana swain has, the more % improved heals he recieves. this only effects healing he provides for himself.
a simple zoneing battle mage champion that has a button for all in's but is otherwise fantasic in nuetral. This is is how swain can return to being a drain bruiser, but also still keep some good things that existed in his old kit and keep the things that existed in his new kit.
oh well. I don't work for the balance team yet, so we'll just have to wait and see.
I loved old Swain and I love the new one. I've played them both, lots of matches. But they play so different from each other that they don't feel like the same champion.
The saddest part is that there isn’t any champion anymore that fills the niche that old Swain did
Used to play old Swain, Lissandra, Malz, Veigar and Annie for the mana conservation. Now all I'm left with is Annie and Malz, and I'm counting the days when they'll be changed too. Swain was my favorite because his abilitiy synergy and simplicity helped me to keep track of the enemy team, and his control helped me to contest an area against the enemy. When people would argue that I was op (cause they didn't even know his abilities) I would give them advice in the middle of the game to even the playing field. Swain really did make me feel like a grand strategist, who was just as aware as the jungler when it came to the state of each match. When it comes to league nowadays, while I understand why they are appealing to skill based players, it feels like it's coming at the cost of strategy focused players.
I love new Swain's aesthetic, VFX and let's be honest the E-Passive-Q shotgun is a little fun when it yeets the enemy ADC out of existence.
But the problem is that his kit isn't coherent. He has a short range cone attack. He has an absurdly long range W which is rather fitting for a situationally aware tactician as you can cut off escapes, stop chases etc. There is his E which serves only to trigger his passive. And his ultimate which isn't altogether different, trading low sustained damage for high burst on longer cooldown (which fits the current direction League has been heading where everyone gets to 100-0 bush wookie).
New Swain's true strength is his passive. Every single one of his abilities do not synergise with his kit bar his E (which doesn't really do anything BUT trigger his passive). Individually they are powerful abilities, and certainly his new W is thematic, but that does not make a champion.
Couldn’t disagree more, most if not all of his abilities go into each other in fairly straight forward ways while also having their own uses. E let’s you pull people in to take all bolts of a Q while holding them in place for a W nuke while still providing pick potential. W can help follow up on engage from any distance, cut off escapes, and search for vision. His Q is a spamable cone of damage allowing him to keep the damage up while in a team fight. He doesn’t need to have more ways of procing his passive since he can use it to follow up from anyone’s cc.
I know I’m a bit late, and I never played old Swain, but I think the idea is to make Swain more opportunistic. Throw E out until you land something, then all in with ult and Q spam, with W as a versatility tool that can also be used once you root someone to slow them as well. But that’s just my thoughts.
I only started playing in Season 11 but I really like the idea if the old Swain. I can say with confidence that you can miss something you never had.
I'm pretty new, so I haven't played old Swain. But I love the new one, love the look and abillities. His passive is a bit weak, I think, but otherwise he's an absolute chad!
Your opinion is irrelevant
Swain was one of my favorite champs, and during a period when I wasn't playing was when he got his rework. When I came back, ofc I wanted to try him again, but found him very unintuitive and completely janky. One of the most satisfying things playing him before was getting someone in your full combo and just widdling them down with birds and lazers. Now it's just like all his abilities are just thrown out in hopes of hitting something without much thought behind it. I know he wasn't the most fun to play against before, but it was still very satisfying to play a good mid matchup with him
I love the new Swain as a separate champ. I never got to play the old one, but i wish i had. His kit sounds so fun and I think that's the true essence of the character
His old kit was a lot of fun. Old Swain, old Urgot and old Yorik all were similar in that they were very fun to play, but rather unfun to play against.
Old Swains issues:
- Passive is a nonpassive. Swain was really easy to cs with. So basically, if you lower his mana costs and remove his passive, he stays the same.
- w was just a meme ability. People would flame you for getting hit by it.
He however was incredibly strong in lane and teamfights in exchange for rather medium duelist mid and lategame and rather short effective range for a mage. His e+q poke in lane was insane, qualifying him as a lane bully. The general acceptance of his rework however stems from his passive and w being memes more so than abilities.
New Swains main problems are a way too high power budget on his cc and soul fragments incentivizing poke gameplay.
His insane cc makes him better in duo lanes (passive) and basically a hook support (e) with his w being basically a better farscry ward.
He's too squishy with too little damage pre-9/fed to actually do the raidboss thing but you can't increase his damage as long as he got 2 strong hard cc and an insane cc tool in w. I don't even think it's possible to get him out of support unless you heavily rework parts of his kit.
this is my favorite video that you've made, i loved old swain more and my friends kept saying how the new swain was so much better
This video is pretty divisive. I think the community is split on which one is better.
I'd say in concept, I really like Swain's new Q and E. They combo super well together (I used to main Swain). As for his W., I wished Riot gave him like 2 or 3 charges on that ability. The problem I see with his w is that if you use the ability to face check, find an enemy, and then decide to fight, you are now one ability down compared to the enemy. And then, if you keep the ability to fight, you won't have anything to face check since the other abilities' ranges are a little too short.
All considered...he's so fckin fun to play. Your combo of E, w where you pull the enemy in and q with ulti being a trump card that causes chaos on the battlefield. In comparison? I think it's a rework that made the champion fun to play
He use to do actual threatening damage with his ult
also his q used to refund mana, and do not forget about his bad itemisiation since the removal or rod of ages, now he has akward power spikes and mana problems if he wants to figth.
Isn't Swain's old passive is the one that refund mana whenever he last hit something?
@@Xul-Xata his reworked Q ofered mana refund if it delt the killing blow to units, at launch it was a little bit overtuned (as usual) also it went past minions, then they gave it colision and lowered the mana gain, then removed it.
It is so sad to only be able to teamfight if ur ult is up. Previously if u runned roa, liandri rilay u were able to deal massive damage single target with old q and were also an amazing drain tank when you toggled ur ult.
I never played old swain. Got into the game around season 9 and tbh his vision of empires is single favorite basic ability in the entirety of league of legends.
The massive range on that ability allows you to exert pressure and tip the scales in skirmishes all over the map.
Your jg takes a risky invade, w can help him turn the fight or peel him with a 4 sec slow, your team is diving you can participate in the dive without even being present.
Honest communicating with your team that you can help from 7500 range is the hardest part of using the ability.
E synergizes just fine with q and w.
E locks people in place for w and allows your passive to pull people close for q.
His ultimate is used to help him build space the outer edge of his ult range is his maxe range for E forcing people to get away from you.
I honestly never knew Riot said they were trying to stay connected to his old identity... I definitely miss old Swain, and I'm especially sad they removed Beatrice.
I really like playing battlemages like old Swain, so it's disappointing to see him shifted into burst. That said, so many battlemages have been turned to burst by now, I'm not all that surprised it happened.
ASol's W became a burst ability.
Taliyah revolves around her WE burst combo after the removal of AOE on her Q.
Anivia's update when S11 started nerfed her DOT and buffed her burst.
Vladimir is pretty much a burst mage, idk what changes brought that about or if it had always been like that, though.
Honestly, I'd also argue that Viktor is more like a burst mage, especially after they changed his Death Ray augment, but I guess that's debatable.
Still, that's like half the roster of battlemages. I used to main Taliyah and Anivia, but it feels different playing them now than it used to.
Vlad pre rework was a bit of a wierd one but honestly I feel his rework into his current vertion was pretty faithfull for the most part. He did get a bit more burst but they also made him work a bit harder for it because he more or less scaled into a point and click nuke at late game. That and his cooldowns are more or less the same so once he gets his items he's gonna rotate w/q every 2 seconds or so anyways
i think reworked swain is a very well made champion. visually there is no doubt but his kit makes a unique comination in between ranged and melee playstyles, he can gather vision with his w from far away and play acording to it. he can long range root an enemy and bring him close to either secure w slow and dmg and also allows q to deal max damage. he can also go all in and if enemies try to escape short range he can bring them back to it with e and passive. there were a lot of old champions with boring kits that were all the same aoe circle dps and point and click effects like fiddle, karthus, renekton, nasus, swain and so on, that were reworked with the intention to make them have unique kits or at least differ them from each other. the only complain swain players have is that they want to play top or mid with him. that can be changed easily just propose riot the right changes and done.
hahahahah "that can be changed easily just propose riot the right changes and done." man what are you on cuz i want some.
swain is a champ that is mained by .5% of the player base in other words rito dont give a fuck about him because he doesn't sell skins.
He's really wrong with Swain's ability synergies. E + Passive gives you opportunity to land Q that isn't that short (for example you are able to land it on Darius and he can't grab you with E). Also if you use W on rooted target you gain additional heal, if you use it behind ranged champion their escape will be very diffcult to do. "Random abilities with no synergies" is wrong opinion. That video was made too poorly
Edit: I can agree with that ultimate burst, Swain should have additional damage over time instead of it
@@indrickboreale7381 agreed I think they nailed his abilitys, and they work very well together
I'm a Swain main, but I never got the chance to play old Swain, so I won't have as much weight in my words as the vets in this comment section.
But I have things I want to say.
"If you want to make a raid-boss ultimate, that champion should have a natural desire to rush head-on into the field of battle."
You're thinking like a fighter here. Swain isn't Olaf or Renekton, he isn't supposed to hit R then run towards a teamfight. He's supposed to hit R _in the middle_ of a teamfight and make sure his enemies _stay_ in his radius. His W, E, and his passive is all used just for that. W for the aoe slow, E to catch the stragglers that are just out of his R range, and his passive to hook immobilized enemies into his R.
You're making it sound like there's no rhyme or reason to his current kit, when in fact, there is. You can think of Swain's abilities like the abilities of a "shapeshifter", his W, E, and passive is for set up, and his Q and R is for follow up.
God I have so much more to say, so much more things I disagree with this video. But I'm having some awful Rhinitis and I'm pretty sure nobody is even reading this far into my comment, so I'm just gonna end it with this "Vars, you're explaining new Swain like someone who hasn't even played new Swain"
1.3Mil Mastery Swain here. Couldn't play him for a good year after the rework until someone suggested i try him as bot APC. Swain soraka, leona, nautilus, pantheon or rakan are all duo combos that led me to Plat 1 in a matter of 1 season. Safe to say i still cant play him Mid or Top or even as a support. but Swain bot is undeniably OP.
I really liked the video, and I am happy, that people still mention how they butchered him!
I was a Swain main, played him a heck of a lot, so I would like to add some points if I may.
First, he was partly a Burst Mage. If we look back the first demo video of him, he was adverstised as one.
The Q was first targeted, making it effectively a mid-range slow with high damage potental. It was more about picking out your target in a team fight or manouver in the lanening phase. However, leaving its range would stop it, meaning Swain had to commit/catch them to trade. After its rework, it became more of "focus them down" in a team fight. It gave less variability but was still ok.
The E was much more than just for Q. Its increased "all damage" meant that Ignite became extremly good, and his AA became his main Damage in the early laning phase. Many people would underestimate his Burst Potential early or even late game because of his commonly accepted "tank, sustain, controller" architype.
The W was perfect in the laning phase or later. It was just in time to get anybody who tried to farm the minions for E Q and AA spam bullying, and you could easly control the battlefield/ the team fights later on with it. Making good positioning with Swain to seperate enemies very important and profitable, even more with its Q's slow and extreme damage later on.
The R was what made him perfect for his playstyle. It essentially gave him sustain and High long term damage. For long it had no cooldown, making it togle in or off. Understanding how long you can have it on and when you need to activate/deactivate it (again) was important. I think the 5 seconds cooldown while nerfed him, actually improved on his "style" forced people to learn his methods of morphing. (less mana, more AP, rod of ages (some +hp items with ap) and zhonya was mostly enought for deff)
If you played it right, you could have less mana than most swain, but more power, making you more of a tactican than just a bruiser monster.
In the laning phase, against melee, he was just dancing around with Q and W, AA-ing and then finishing. Against assasin, had to catch them. Ranged, or mages needed to be bursted down, and the bonus on Ignite and the AA actually gave the edge against most, only stronger sustain with MR and mind or fast long range poke could deal with him.
Making me actually build some AD (or AD runes) early to win as AA was considerable(main) damage because of the E and nobody counted on that, as Swain base AA was low.
In Teamfights he was all about control/strong long-term damage, but first to bursting down the ADC and the ASSASIN/SUPPORT. Before Q change, you could easly Q one and E the other with ignite and AA while in ULT to get two of them at once if fed, or just one with full focus. (Or use Q and W to help teammates work) 1v3-4-5 was always fun to do.
They did massively butcher Swain, but the idea of "burst mage" was always there, most people just never realized. I think riot wanted him to burst down 1 champ, then survive and tank/support for his team. In my case I mostly traded a bit of tankiness for damage and overall heal, if could reduced the cooldowns, and made him even more versatile unit. I was running around, using Q and W to control, lower damage intake while damageing with R. This however made me weak against some ranged champs, that needed to be bursted down. However take my experience with a grain of salt as my best was just Plat 2, and at that time (dunno now) there was a big jump after mid/upper dia.
All in all, he was very, VERY verstaile, very good for his theme and his playstyle suited for his story and character. His skills were created to be fit for every situation, with many combinations, but it also made so, as you said, that it was very simple in design for the new League. It was a general, tactician playstyle. Simple, but versitle, strong and effective skills.
The new Swain however is stupid if we compare it to the old one, doesn't fit anywhere with him, has a design-destructive ult, and cant focus so well while jumping between ranges as he sees fit to reduce damage intake.
If you would like an "old" Swain experience, I would recommend Viktor. Doesn't have the tankiness, but has the same control, burst, "running around you" type of playstyle.
Fantastic video! I wasn't playing the game when old Swain was a champ so I had no reference to what he was. That being said I do like the new Swain he feels like he is useful at any range and his q is good at farming without being an oppressive poke tool. I would have loved to you go in to what an ideal rework would have been in your opinion, not just say that the new one has lost its way
Without rewatching the video and quoting time stamps, I feel like it was pretty explicit about what they should have done:
* give swain a consistent range (which they could keep the same as before, or change if desired)
* update one-dimensional abilities (he mentioned singed’s E as an example)
* ensure that his abilities retain synergy (he gave pantheon’s design as an example)
I don’t know how much more descriptive he could have been outside of literally doing the redesign himself (is that what you’re asking for?)
I absolutely loved his "crippled mage with birds" theme. His rework absolutely ravaged his identify and put a new champion in the game. The only thing that uses birds in his current kit is his passive, and he is just a daddy authoritarian generic commander now. I liked playing him a lot before and still like playing him sometimes in the bottom lane, but I really miss og Swain.
I am the only one who prefers the new swain
yes you are
Swain and Mordekaiser were my favorite old champs. Those old kits just hit different
First time ever seeing old swain, I didn't even know he had a rework - fairly new player! I always disliked how swain plays (currently) and he has never been a pick for me, but this old kit is almost exactly what I'd love in a champion - it's a shame I never got to experience him
This is more or less what I was thinking. I new that he had a rework but I had no idea how he played. I actually really like old swain’s abilities and don’t care for new Swain’s. In my opinion, champion’s reworks should never replace the champion and this is no exception.
God found this video randomly and brought back PTSD of having to quit do to the rework taking out all the things I liked about the Orignal Champ in the first place. And I swear if I see a comment mentioning Vlad they are not even remotely the same. Ones a Burst Mage that Heals and Requires Insane Macro to truly utilize efficiently. Where as Swain required nearly no Macro and really only Hyper Micro Management.
honestly vision of the empire is one of my favorite abilities in the game period. its got the same functionality of jhins ult(long range damage, slow, and vision), with aoe, longer range, and it buffs up the passive. its probably one of the best long range executes in the game (with sennas being better as a line with the same width). especially good to execute enemies that are trying to recall (since everyone always recalls in the same spot)
I used to love the old Swain... I played him during the infamous "Tank Meta" of season 5 (I think it was S5) because he could face-tank any CC combo that the enemy top laner or jungler would dish out and his DPS wouldn't change... everything was fire-and-forget, DoT, or a toggle AoE; none of which was stopped by any CC.
He could be locked down by a Nautilus + Malphite combo, but as long as you were fast enough to get the combo off you might even get a kill before the first knockup was done.
don't apologize for nothing brother, you hit the nail on the head. I never got to play the old swain for I am a late comer to league (end of season 8) so I only got to play him after the rework and he never felt consistent to me. I love the champion but I could never feel comfortable on him despite the buffs he got in season 10.
I really miss the old swain. He was the champion that made me fall in love with League. Out of all the reworks I think this one is the worst.
2:18 huge nostalgia moment. I dont even car about Swain, but thatLeague oh man i miss it. The League where you die in 3 to 4 seconds instead of 0,12 sec burst dmg, where people can express some skill and not just smash buttons. I know that this was not always true also back in the days, but still watching a prolonged fighting that involved a fed mattlemage vs an adc not imploding was nostalgic as hell.
I do like modern Swain's design more than the previous iteration, but I do feel his current state is not very good. He's not exactly an effective solo laner. I don't know if the removal of the mana regain really did numbers on him.
I used to be Anivia/old Swain two trick back in season 3-4 when i was a midlaner. Now as an ADC he is my favourite botlane mage, so i love both old and new Swain
I remember the time when I used to 1v1 players consecutively in a bush. The enemy team would come to me one by one and each time I killed one I would sustain myself, I would go home with a full health. Good times.
I agree with the assessment, and think he probably needs another mini rework to make him more congruent. That said, I adore new swain. Never played old swain, now he's my 3rd most played champ
as a swain main, another thing that got a hit was the amount of healing that he got due to his ultimate, he now uses the ultimate not to stay alive but to do burst damage which needs to charge up which makes no sense to me. He used to be the king of DOT right next to singed but now.....I dunno what he has become....a support, really you turned once of the best top/mid laners into a support
as someone who only started playing in the later half of S10 I can't emphasize with all the older players who have lived and experienced the golden era of League as much as I wish I could but this video did give insight into the actual reason Swain's rework is so upsetting to older Swain mains.
personally I love playing the current Swain in spite of the differing ranges, his E and Q actually do synergize with each other as a pick-off and burst combo which he can pretty much set up himself and repeat several times to get kills by himself and it can be used to zone your opponent off of minions or punish them for extending too far, but it's honestly the W that never made sense to me.
Swain as he is now feels like a close-mid range battlemage with a W that doesnt make much sense mechanically speaking. all I would ask is that they switched his W for something that actually synergizes with how his kit functions now. as for Old Swain I would've loved to play that as well but unless Riot decides to put his kit on a new champion, which I highly doubt will happen, Old Swain is not coming back sadly.
Truth be told, you're totally right. I loved Swain's rework back then before the further adjustments and tweaks which, in my opinion, made it worse but that's because he came out a time when Vladimir wasn't very good and he was essentially the new Vlad. Now that Vlad is good again, Swain feels weird. Plus, I hate that they totally removed his mana sustain. Personally, I just build Rylai's on him now cuz at least that gives me some of his old utility back while allowing me to oppressively charge in. It's not as good anymore cuz of the tweaks but, hey maybe with new items he'll feel better to play again.
Kinda want them to semi-revert him by keeping his Q and R and then making him an all in drain tank. Change his root into something like thresh hook but without the dash to enemy part so he can stay on enemies and change his E to the old nevermore but keep the soul fragment stacking. That way, at least the 1v9 raid boss part of him works as well as the whole catcher thing as well
Now, I'm not a swain main or even an avid swain player so I'm unsure if this would please any actual mains but I just think it could fix some problems he has at the moment. since things have synergy- Q for dmg, W to land Q and get soul fragments, E to keep them in R and R to raidboss 1v9 in a small area
Holy shit, Pre-rework Swain was still in the game when Kayn came out.
With the new champion releases, it's pretty wild to think that "pre-rework" champion existed when those "new" champs came out, effectively fogging your mind on how long ago this was.
As someone who played a lot of Swain bottom I think you haven't played Swain very much if you don't see his fairly simple gameplay loop and how his abilities work together. The reason that they also wanted to change his ultimate was because Swain was always powerful and his toggle ultimate meant you never really had a good time to go in on him which they've been moving away from as time progressed.