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[Patch 1.0.0.124: Talon] General Discussion - Page 82

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Odds
Profile Joined May 2008
Canada1188 Posts
August 31 2011 11:56 GMT
#1621
smurfing with 5hit = some of the most fun i've had in LoL

atmogs veigar real terror
Odds.633, AM. Plat level currently. Would love more practice partners, add me, let's play!
phyvo
Profile Blog Joined April 2009
United States5635 Posts
Last Edited: 2011-08-31 13:14:41
August 31 2011 13:11 GMT
#1622
Zalz, I used to think like you back when Swain was OP.

Then I saw beastly Swain play on streams at DH qualifiers and realized he was actually dang good.

I think that with your *extreme* negative reaction, chances are you're just playing him wrong. I'm not a great Swain player myself but from what I've seen if your Qs are being broken in under a second all the time you're doing it wrong, especially vs Melee. Seriously, vs Melee if they attack you they *have* to eat full laser bird unless they have a imba retreat skill like Lee Sin. How could you even have trouble landing big Qs? And if they're in your Q hitting your snare is super easy, so even if they use a "gap closer" you, you can just QWE them and create space while you auto attack.

The fact that you complain about the ulti mana also seems to me to be more of a marker of bad play than a bad champ, as knowing exactly when to go in and out of ulti is what has always separated good swains from bad ones.

Even if you can't initiate on them, you can force them to come into range by positioning yourself around a last hit that they want and try to zone them from CS. If they initiate on you they lose, if they take the harassment every time you're getting harassment for free, what more could you possibly want except a more faceroll champ?

That said, I don't think he's that competitive anymore. The toplane champs he lanes against haven't been significantly nerfed since Swain himself was nerfed. His ulti isn't nearly as good as it was since against targets with more than 50 mres (every tanky DPS and frontline fighter ever that's an easy ult target) you'll heal less than before so lategame the amazing survivability I saw from players at DH just would never have happened and simply resulted in a dead bird.

Even considering a champ with no runes/items + 2 minions Swain's healing has still been nerfed by 33%. Trying to heal up on minions is more or less a fruitless exercise now as it amounts to being ignited all the time compared to before.

He might still be pretty good but I don't know about actually picking him, at least in any competitive context.
"BE A MANGO TO SLEEP LIKE A SNORING TIGER" - Monte
NSANE.hydra
Profile Blog Joined November 2008
United States644 Posts
Last Edited: 2011-08-31 14:13:49
August 31 2011 14:13 GMT
#1623
http://na.leagueoflegends.com/board/showthread.php?p=13699000#post13699000

So...what?
"fuck mech...I could 4pool and as long as he's simply PLANNING on going mech, I'll lose"
Southlight
Profile Blog Joined August 2007
United States11767 Posts
August 31 2011 14:14 GMT
#1624
Swain's considered meh by most people because

*drumroll*

people blow at playing him.

And re: about, his healing's been nerfed but that's because it was stupid. It's still pretty fucking strong, especially against melee heroes. And don't give me that nonsense about MR that's what stuff like Void Staff is for.
oraoraoraoraoraoraoraora
Sponkz
Profile Joined May 2011
Denmark4564 Posts
August 31 2011 14:20 GMT
#1625
On August 31 2011 23:13 NSANE.hydra wrote:
http://na.leagueoflegends.com/board/showthread.php?p=13699000#post13699000

So...what?


Hahahahahaha fuck that made me crank up abit. Thanks
hi
jcarlsoniv
Profile Blog Joined January 2010
United States27922 Posts
August 31 2011 14:23 GMT
#1626
I'm going to be practicing Swain top just in case I'm not able to pick my usual Singed top. Last night I played against a Garen, and it was a bit rough. If I missed my W I took a lot of damage. He got me a couple times by flashing out of the bush, silencing - spintowin - ignite - ult. His silence is retardedly long.

I find that as long as I do decently well in laning phase, I can do well during team fights. It's all about knowing how and when to place the right nevermove, and when to toggle the ult. Blue buff on Swain = amazing.
Soniv ||| Soniv#1962 ||| @jcarlsoniv ||| The Big Golem ||| Join the Glorious Evolution. What's your favorite aminal, a bear? ||| Joe "Don't call me Daniel" "Soniv" "Daniel" Carlsberg LXIX ||| Paging Dr. John Shadow
Southlight
Profile Blog Joined August 2007
United States11767 Posts
Last Edited: 2011-08-31 14:33:58
August 31 2011 14:31 GMT
#1627
On August 31 2011 19:39 zalz wrote:
Show nested quote +
On August 31 2011 19:02 Kaniol wrote:
Zalz the summary of your posts is: "Swain is bad because i said so". That's not even a way to theorycraft, not to mention that it isn't a way to really prove your point.


Swain sounds perfect on paper, but so does Skarner and im sure we can all agree he is a terrible champ.


Very few people actually think Skarner's NUMBERS look perfect. His ult is too short, plus it messes him up, except in melee range, which if you remember was Malz' problem (ult range too short) on release. The rest of his skills make him essentially Udyr lite, which makes him privy to the same issues as Udyr. Hence, no one's ever really harped about Skarner being "perfect" - discussion has mostly centered around whether he's useless or not.

On August 31 2011 19:39 zalz wrote:The fact is that your E is your only damage skill. Your W is a skill that can be dodged so it's as much a matter of your own aiming as it is the other players incompetence. The laser bird doesn't do shit for damage because it gets broken after a single second.


Targeted nukes are always extremely powerful. Just ask Malzahar, who stomps lanes via his mid-ranged E. The -25 range on Swain's E definitely hurts, but then you realize that his follow-up hits hurt more anyways, too. W is a fantastic positioning skill. If you aren't stupid, and don't waste it, you'll always either land it, prevent them from escaping LAZERBERD, land a defensive root that fucks up people trying to finish you, or makes them juke away and gives you more spacing. For a spell you can keep at level 1 this is extremely handy.

As for LAZERBERD lasting 1 second, suck less. No, really.

Suck.

Less.


On August 31 2011 19:39 zalz wrote:His range on E and Q is too low to compete with anyone.


This is because he's a combo hero that's definitively considered an anti-melee hero. Surprisingly, 550 and 625 is longer range than...

*sunglasses*

... melee heroes.

YEEEEEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA


On August 31 2011 19:39 zalz wrote:So here you have a melee on the lane, let's not specifiy. This guy, like all tops, is either gonna have a gap closer (Talon) or high sustain (Lanewick) or maybe a bit of both (Irelia).


Now you might try to initiate on them, pointless ofcourse because it would require them getting caught in the W move. Lanewick could be caught but with your damage he wouldn't give a shit. Irelia and Udyr are both too fast to be caught in W, disregarding even that Irelia can shift out of it.


Here you are doing it wrong. You piss them off with E and autoattack. Yes, if you don't suck, you can last hit with his relatively easy autoattack, and whack people too, because they're melee. And if they're a jumper and actually stupidly go after you, you LAZERBERD (holy shit, it lasts more than 1 second because they're RIGHT NEXT TO YOU omg! what a concept!), and after like a second, you can land an extremely easy W because they're slowed a mega fuckton. But really, level 1 W is usually a waste of mana in lane so you just E Q E Q E Q to your heart's content.

Why are you stupid and bad and waste W to initiate is beyond me. But hey, we were never discussing this with your skill and brain level being held in high esteem anyways.

Also, Lanewick is a bit troublesome......... until level 6, when your sustain starts trumping his in a bad way. Udyr's Udyr, he kinda fucks with everything in lane, but w/e. With LAZERBERD you basically completely render him useless in all teamfights. So who the fuck cares really.


On August 31 2011 19:39 zalz wrote:Now you are gonna try to compete with these guys on the top lane. Many people here think that because you have ulti bird you are perfectly suited for the job. Fact is that ulti bird is terrible for healing. If you want to heal half your life bar you are looking at 80% of your mana bar right out the window.

Sure Swain has that nice passive that gives mana for last hits but since you are allready low mana from ulti bird only an idiot would let you casually last hit your mana bar back.


You can hit R again to cancel it. Also mana management.


On August 31 2011 19:39 zalz wrote:The enemy will only fight you on his terms and you can't force a fight on him. Your W simply won't work on a decent opponent and your 1 second Q tick + E deals about the most laughable damage in the game.


Except E+auto does as much damage as any other point and click nuke, if you're not fucking stupid and bad you'd land some nasty long lazerberds, and the point of Swain is to farm to your heart's content and carry later, anyways. Because amazing as it may seem, he's a hero that becomes insane when he gets items, but is naturally not that fantastic.

On August 31 2011 19:39 zalz wrote:Swain can recover his damage but the cost is simply too great for him to stay competitive with champions that recover their HP at half the price without an ulti (Lanewick, Udyr, Irelia.


Except he is ranged. I know this may be earthshattering news, but ranged tends to play a bit different than melee.


On August 31 2011 19:39 zalz wrote:Low range, damage that relies on the enemy walking into your abilities and an ulti that gets completly shut down by ignite. He simply has far too many weak points to be competitive against solo tops wich are often the strongest champs in the game.

You cannot harass the enemy down, you don't have the range, the mobility or even the damage because Q breaks within a second.


TL;DR
I suck at this hero
I dunno how to play him
Therefore he is bad

Q E D


On August 31 2011 19:39 zalz wrote:The dream scenario is landing every W and running into them bird mode, tossing E and Q into their face but such a scenario is only a dream. The cold hard fact is that Swain takes it up the ass from melee champions just as hard as AP champions. Most crushing is perhaps his utter inability to harass unless the enemy wants to let it happen.

Fiddlesticks would be a great laner if people let him finish his drain every time but they we must simply be honest in stating that Swain has no place against decent opponents and higher.


No the dream scenario is maintaining lane presence with E Q, staying there farming forever with R + passive + auto, and then 20+ minutes into a game you walk out there and it takes them their whole team focus firing like mad to kill you when jungler gives you blue buff.

He doesn't NEED to harass. It's on the OTHER team to stop HIM from farming. This is why most people compare him to Morgana, although I feel they take up slightly different niches (Morg blows people up with her ult, Swain hybrid tank/damages people and really hardcounters melee heroes because he hits multiple of them at once and is inordinately difficult to kill through well timed CC and his ult heals).

Suck.

Less.
oraoraoraoraoraoraoraora
zalz
Profile Blog Joined February 2011
Netherlands3704 Posts
August 31 2011 14:33 GMT
#1628
On August 31 2011 22:11 phyvo wrote:
Zalz, I used to think like you back when Swain was OP.

Then I saw beastly Swain play on streams at DH qualifiers and realized he was actually dang good.

I think that with your *extreme* negative reaction, chances are you're just playing him wrong. I'm not a great Swain player myself but from what I've seen if your Qs are being broken in under a second all the time you're doing it wrong, especially vs Melee. Seriously, vs Melee if they attack you they *have* to eat full laser bird unless they have a imba retreat skill like Lee Sin. How could you even have trouble landing big Qs? And if they're in your Q hitting your snare is super easy, so even if they use a "gap closer" you, you can just QWE them and create space while you auto attack.

The fact that you complain about the ulti mana also seems to me to be more of a marker of bad play than a bad champ, as knowing exactly when to go in and out of ulti is what has always separated good swains from bad ones.

Even if you can't initiate on them, you can force them to come into range by positioning yourself around a last hit that they want and try to zone them from CS. If they initiate on you they lose, if they take the harassment every time you're getting harassment for free, what more could you possibly want except a more faceroll champ?

That said, I don't think he's that competitive anymore. The toplane champs he lanes against haven't been significantly nerfed since Swain himself was nerfed. His ulti isn't nearly as good as it was since against targets with more than 50 mres (every tanky DPS and frontline fighter ever that's an easy ult target) you'll heal less than before so lategame the amazing survivability I saw from players at DH just would never have happened and simply resulted in a dead bird.

Even considering a champ with no runes/items + 2 minions Swain's healing has still been nerfed by 33%. Trying to heal up on minions is more or less a fruitless exercise now as it amounts to being ignited all the time compared to before.

He might still be pretty good but I don't know about actually picking him, at least in any competitive context.


If you cast a Q at max range then the enemy is just gonna walk on out of it within a second. This alone shows that you can't even properly harass since E is your only skill that both deals full damage and is reliable.

If you Q and W someone then your more likely to land it but everyone in the top lane can either shift out of it or they can just ignore it and heal back up.

The price in mana that Swain pays to get his HP back up is simply too great for him to really be competitive. It's going to slow you down when the harassing really starts. You can't tell me it's about mana management when you literally need to stand near 3 minions and see nearly your entire mana bar flow away just to get back on full hp.

His heal is not cost effective. If you compare it to a lanwick or a laneudyr it simple pales by comparison. Sure you can turn it off at the right time and keep all the mana ready for your spells but then you won't be on full hp. You have to make a choice whilst other laners don't have to make that choice.

Warwick and Udyr don't have to decide between balancing mana and HP. They can really sustain themselves. Irelia don't have to think about saving some mana for regen. Her ulti heals just as much as Swain and it does it:

1) More range
2) 1/5th the cost
3) 1/5th the duration

You are more secure, you are paying less mana and you are putting yourself out there for a shorter period of time. Getting into ulti bird range is really dangerous depending on the lane. If your on low HP the enemy is gonna shut you down before you can even do it, Irelia can get her HP back up from a safe distance.


I am sure there are people out there that can play a certain champion like no other. There is a fella up in the 2k elo that plays Mundo. That doesn't mean Mundo is top pick or viable.

You yourself say that Swain isn't competitive. But at the same time it's my fault he doesn't work?

The truth remains the same. Swain is a very poor champion. Nobody plays Swain and they don't play him for a good reason. Some theorycrafters might defend him but you won't ever find him in a real game these days.

It's not a meta shift either. Swain just can't stand up to anyone be it melee or be it AP.
SHr3DD3r
Profile Joined March 2009
Pakistan2137 Posts
August 31 2011 14:40 GMT
#1629
Thats funny cause I still play swain every now and then, he is still strong as fuck but in certain match ups. As Southlight(Uta) mentioned he rapes almost all if not all melees (yes he does). And he certainly does dominate certain AP lanes too. I for one never ever have a problem against Malz or Vlad when I am Swain. Some Oriannas are annoying but you can still handle them. Annie and Cass are a problem for sure though (especially if they are smart) cause they easily out combo-burst you. So nothing you can really do about them.

He is still really good. Especially if you know who is strong against and what to IMO.
Hit them hard! Hit them low! - Forever a Bisu Fan!~!
Southlight
Profile Blog Joined August 2007
United States11767 Posts
August 31 2011 14:42 GMT
#1630
Indeed.

He's not played competitively because he wrecks teams with 3+ bruisers but...

... when's the last time you've seen that in a competitive game?

That's mostly all there is to it.
oraoraoraoraoraoraoraora
jcarlsoniv
Profile Blog Joined January 2010
United States27922 Posts
Last Edited: 2011-08-31 14:50:31
August 31 2011 14:50 GMT
#1631
On August 31 2011 23:33 zalz wrote:


The truth remains the same. Swain is a very poor champion. Nobody plays Swain and they don't play him for a good reason. Some theorycrafters might defend him but you won't ever find him in a real game these days.

It's not a meta shift either. Swain just can't stand up to anyone be it melee or be it AP.


It's really hard to take you seriously coming from a frequent Swain player...
Soniv ||| Soniv#1962 ||| @jcarlsoniv ||| The Big Golem ||| Join the Glorious Evolution. What's your favorite aminal, a bear? ||| Joe "Don't call me Daniel" "Soniv" "Daniel" Carlsberg LXIX ||| Paging Dr. John Shadow
Sponkz
Profile Joined May 2011
Denmark4564 Posts
August 31 2011 14:53 GMT
#1632
Today's issue in the General Discussion:

Zalz and why he isn't pro
hi
LaNague
Profile Blog Joined April 2010
Germany9118 Posts
August 31 2011 14:57 GMT
#1633
ok, considering the ae bugfix was serverside and the movement prediction is clientside, i doubt it actally does anything since the hit registering is done by the server obviously.
Tooplark
Profile Joined October 2008
United States3977 Posts
August 31 2011 15:00 GMT
#1634
Southlight SMAAAAASH
this is better than Jazriel o3o
WHAT POW'R ART THOU WHO FROM BELOW HAST MADE ME RISE UNWILLINGLY AND SLOW
Orpheos
Profile Joined April 2010
United States1663 Posts
August 31 2011 15:03 GMT
#1635
southlight laying down the knowledge hammer.
wtb more walls of text.

also
This is because he's a combo hero that's definitively considered an anti-melee hero. Surprisingly, 550 and 625 is longer range than...

*sunglasses*

... melee heroes.

YEEEEEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA


wtb more LoL CSI miami references.
zalz
Profile Blog Joined February 2011
Netherlands3704 Posts
August 31 2011 15:04 GMT
#1636
Targeted nukes are always extremely powerful. Just ask Malzahar, who stomps lanes via his mid-ranged E. The -25 range on Swain's E definitely hurts, but then you realize that his follow-up hits hurt more anyways, too. W is a fantastic positioning skill. If you aren't stupid, and don't waste it, you'll always either land it, prevent them from escaping LAZERBERD, land a defensive root that fucks up people trying to finish you, or makes them juke away and gives you more spacing. For a spell you can keep at level 1 this is extremely handy.

As for LAZERBERD lasting 1 second, suck less. No, really.

Suck.

Less.


It's a simple fact that you either fail or refuse to grasp. Q cast at max range will not last for more then a second.

Again the problem is caused by the opponents you face. Fiddlesticks is great if the enemy is retarded and so is Swain Q. The problem is you can't always rely on the other guy being retarded. At times you just need a champion that can wreck faces even if the other guy is playing proper.

No champ is going to eat a full Q duration until he actually wants to fight you. This means all you got for harassement is E. Well good luck with that.

This is because he's a combo hero that's definitively considered an anti-melee hero. Surprisingly, 550 and 625 is longer range than...

*sunglasses*

... melee heroes.

YEEEEEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA


It's also in range to get snapped by an Irelia Q followed by an E. Good luck landing that super snare when the other champ can be either at the location or your face depending on what he feels like.

You seem to picture some non existent melee champ that can't regen like crazy or close gaps at a whim.

Here you are doing it wrong. You piss them off with E and autoattack. Yes, if you don't suck, you can last hit with his relatively easy autoattack, and whack people too, because they're melee. And if they're a jumper and actually stupidly go after you, you LAZERBERD (holy shit, it lasts more than 1 second because they're RIGHT NEXT TO YOU omg! what a concept!), and after like a second, you can land an extremely easy W because they're slowed a mega fuckton. But really, level 1 W is usually a waste of mana in lane so you just E Q E Q E Q to your heart's content.

Why are you stupid and ban and waste W to initiate is beyond me. But hey, we were never discussing this with your skill and brain level being held in high esteem anyways.

Also, Lanewick is a bit troublesome......... until level 6, when your sustain starts trumping his in a bad way. Udyr's Udyr, he kinda fucks with everything in lane, but w/e. With LAZERBERD you basically completely render him useless in all teamfights. So who the fuck cares really.


See this is the problem. You are basing it all on this imaginary moron opponent that can't play for shit. No enemy will entertain your little Q at melee range.

Irelia should be the perfect victim for your little trick but even a good Irelia will just make sure she will be stun dashing you every single time till the point where she can simply take you down in one go.

I think your failing to understand Swain's weakness because you are mostly facing the kinds of people that try to auto-atack Fiddle drain at level 1.

You can hit R again to cancel it. Also mana management.


So you cancel it. Then you don't get your life back.

Again, you are making too many mistakes, you seem lost in some peculiar theorycraft zone. You need to pay a ton of mana to get life back. More mana then is feasible. You aren't a strong sustainer if you need to pay a shit ton of mana for the life you get back.

The mana cost per life regained is horrible on Swain. That's why it's a bad sustain. Mana management doesn't mean shit and you should have known that. If you conserve your mana then you are doing so at the cost of your HP, that's the whole issue, i hoped you would have understood that.

Except E+auto does as much damage as any other point and click nuke, if you're not fucking stupid and bad you'd land some nasty long lazerberds, and the point of Swain is to farm to your heart's content and carry later, anyways. Because amazing as it may seem, he's a hero that becomes insane when he gets items, but is naturally not that fantastic


Atleast now you are slowly starting to admit he's shit. But i fear it's still a long way to go before you see the light.

Except he is ranged. I know this may be earthshattering news, but ranged tends to play a bit different than melee.


We aren't talking different, we are talking inferior, try to keep up.

TL;DR
I suck at this hero
I dunno how to play him
Therefore he is bad

Q E D


Ofcourse i suck at this hero, everyone does, it's a bad hero. Unlike most here i actually went out and played him and realised he's shit.

Im a good player and if he was any good i would be able to make him work. We saw a few Swains during Dreamhack, all of them ended up being utterly useless. But perhaps Swain is such a high skill champion that not even the pro teams are up to the task of making him work.

No the dream scenario is maintaining lane presence with E Q, staying there farming forever with R + passive + auto, and then 20+ minutes into a game you walk out there and it takes them their whole team focus firing like mad to kill you when jungler gives you blue buff.

He doesn't NEED to harass. It's on the OTHER team to stop HIM from farming. This is why most people compare him to Morgana, although I feel they take up slightly different niches (Morg blows people up with her ult, Swain hybrid tank/damages people and really hardcounters melee heroes because he hits multiple of them at once and is inordinately difficult to kill through well timed CC and his ult heals).


Ooh now Swain is hitting multiple melee champions at once even. Im sorry but we don't all play "all-mid-melee-only" custom games.

You don't need to stop Swain from farming because he doesn't become anything dangerous. His lategame isn't much better then his terrible lanegame. You seem disconnected from the actuall game of LoL.

Swain is something to be feared later on? A farmed Irelia is something to fear. Your little Swain spam is a joke from start to finish wether it be 0 cs or 500 cs. Run into melee range all you like with R on, it won't produce results.

It's rather difficult to discuss a champion when you suddenly decide he has a strong lategame when farmed. Swain doesn't have a strong lategame even when farmed. This isn't really going to work if you just keep making stuff like this up because you feel like it.


Nobody plays Swain because everyone knows he is shit.
Southlight
Profile Blog Joined August 2007
United States11767 Posts
August 31 2011 15:08 GMT
#1637
You're right, I'm bad, you're good, so I should listen to you.
oraoraoraoraoraoraoraora
zalz
Profile Blog Joined February 2011
Netherlands3704 Posts
August 31 2011 15:10 GMT
#1638
On September 01 2011 00:08 Southlight wrote:
You're right, I'm bad, you're good, so I should listen to you.


Well im glad you could atleast admit to it.
STS17
Profile Joined April 2010
United States1817 Posts
Last Edited: 2011-08-31 15:45:32
August 31 2011 15:21 GMT
#1639
Swain is like...stupidly easy to play. How are you failing that hard at him zalz? Now I'm hardly the best player in the world but I've never lost* a lane as Swain when I'm solo top.

Level 1: Melee champs can't harass you because you do more damage with E+Auto attacks then they do (though arguably it's not favorable for either of you to be harassing at this level). So the two of you either trade blows once, then pop a health potion and farm up to level two, or you skip the fruitless harassment and just farm to level 2.

Level 2: Melee champions can probably win in a trade with you now, especially ones with a gap closer, but here's how you handle that. Once they blow their gap closer you put a W right under them. If they (stupidly) continue to trade with you they get rooted in place and you walk away before they can deal their full set of damage, eating your W, E and a few auto attacks from you (which against anyone with a gap closer is favorable for you and not them). You want W here if they have a gap closer (because when they are standing on you it's a free hit which lets you walk away) or Q if they don't have a gap closer (because now they can never close on you).

Level 3-5: If you took E at level 3, re-read level 2, but now you do more damage. If you took Q/W, now anyone without a gap closer can never harass you. See them walking at you? Let them get about halfway into the range of your Q then say "Hey asshole, have you met my bird? He shoots lasers" into all chat and use it on him, then land a W and E (props for getting E off before Q). Free farm with impunity. Against those with a gap closer, See level 2, but add in your slow with nevermove to ensure they can't catch you and are punished even for retreating.

Level 6+: It's all about mana management now, I typically get a catalyst -> RoA which really helps your mana in lane, especially if you're purple and don't have easy access to a blue buff. Hextech Revolver is also a good choice for the extra spell vamp (I always go for WotA in a game) but I prefer the catalyst first because the earlier RoA makes you that much beefier in the mid game which is vital, plus the bonus mana from it is great for your ult and you don't charge a tear fast enough for my liking. Itemization aside, the same principals from level 1-5 exist here, but now you have innate sustain of your own which only helps.

Udyr can do literally nothing to you because laserbird and nevermove let you kite him forever. If he goes BEARSTANCE you just hit him with your Q and walk away, and he can't catch you. If he walks at you with turtle shield active do the same, but laugh at him because he's so much slower without the ms boost from bear so landing everything is much easier (try to wait on your full combo for his shield to wear off, the slow from Q alone will be enough to keep him off of you, it's also wise to time a nevermove to land on him right as Q is about to expire so he does't just BEARSTANCE right at you when your slow is on cooldown.

WW is basically a farmfest for the two of you, since neither of you can really do anything to the other. If you don't let yourself get horribly out of position he can't use his Q on you so he has to regen off minions and your Q + W allow you to play keep away from the wolf if he tries to Q you (since they both have longer range) so just farm up knowing he can't do anything to you but also understanding that the opposite is also basically true.

Irelia's gap closer is shorter range than any of your abilities and it's fairly predictable when she is going to use it so you should never really be caught off guard. Note: I'm not saying it's impossible for her to use it on you, in fact she will, I'm saying it should never surprise you when she is going to use it so you should always be ready to use your combo to get away from her. Are you afraid of her dash stun? You know what needs to be the case for that to work? She needs to be lower health than you, so you're already winning when she does this. If she stuns you, it will even the score, but she's still commiting to eating a full combo from you since she can't get out of a well placed nevermove once Q is on her and she's standing right next to you.

You should also remember that your kit is extremely helpful for assisting ganks, so coordinate with your jungler so he frequents top lane for food and it makes the lane even easier. If your ganks are going well, pink ward the brush so they can't even ward it which makes your ganks that much more potent. If they buy a pink ward to get rid of yours, horray for you! They just put themselves even more behind then they already were and it shows you that they are scared. Don't forget that since we are assuming the most basic level of competence on your behalf you clicked on them when they returned to lane and saw the ward, so you positioned yourself in such a way that they have to eat your combo to place that ward down. If they ran through their jungle to do it, you had a ward there so you saw that, and they have to eat your combo to return to the lane.

* I define losing a lane as either getting zoned, feeding the other team, or coming out of the laning phase behind on cs. Unless you're absolutely horrible and are utterly incapable of seeing how Swains abilities interact with each other, it is extremely difficult to lose a lane with him.
Platinum Level Terran - Take my advice from that perspective
NeoIllusions
Profile Blog Joined December 2002
United States37500 Posts
Last Edited: 2011-08-31 15:52:42
August 31 2011 15:21 GMT
#1640
There are like 3+ people all saying Swain is viable and perfectly fine up top lane. Yet some how, zalz wants to continue saying he's trash and god awful. So it's time to put your money where your mouth is.

What server are you on and what matchup do you want to play? I'll ask Tojarra to come play you. He's a snarky NA player who got to legit plat with Swain for like 90% of his games. If you can't beat a Swain during lane phase, there's no chance of stopping him in a team fight. I think we can all agree that Swain's weakest point in the game is during pre-6.

Edit: the more I read your replies, the more it's starting to irk me.

I'm a level 3 Swain who's gone EQE. I'm in the middle of the lane last hitting.
You walk into range, I'm going to throw a E on you.
You try to dash onto me, I'm going to EQ and you're going to eat the full laserbird. No more of this 1 second nonsense. Your theorycraft is shit if you think a competent Swain is going to Q you at max range.

Any time you do an exchange by jumping on to me:
1. you draw creep aggro
2. I EQ you for full duration.

Tell me how you're going to counter 2 as any melee. There's no melee that I can think of that can sustain that kind of exchange. Jax QWQ will take more damage from Swain. Irelia QEE also takes more damage. Garen and Udyr can't even get into range.
AP caster burst vs early Bruiser burst. I honestly don't know why the fuck this is even a discussion.
ModeratorFor the Glory that is TeamLiquid (-9 | 155) | Discord: NeoIllusions#1984
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