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On September 05 2013 15:25 Alzadar wrote: I've never really felt that Swain was really a Vladimir counter. I've played them both extensively top lane (though not lately) and would honestly say the match-up slightly favors Vladimir.
Vladimir is manaless and has strong sustain from level 1. Swain has to wait until 6 for his sustain and it will run him OOM real fast in the top lane. You trade QEs with each other and then Vladimir heals up, Swain has no way to force the all-in (just trade Ws if necessary, just more mana lost for Swain) and heal back up. Attrition warfare is Vladimir's specialty. Swain also has a weakness to strong early pushers.
Maybe a blue side Swain has the advantage if his mid doesn't take blue buff.
Vladimir, strong sustain from level 1 hhhehehe Vladimir, strong early pushing if you can afford to risk using up a bunch of your health to push (hint: a good swain will punish a vlad spamming tides early game by just killing the guy.)
Swain is a really difficult lane for Vlad because his Q and E persist through the pool, and Swain can buy chalice and Vlad can't do a thing before he gets items, mainly being a visage and a negatron and if he dies once? Lane is over, and he becomes food for Swain.
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I don't suppose you play Swain?
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This is almost as good, as that guy in EU LP who said Riven countered pre-nerf Kennen.
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On September 05 2013 15:58 Alzadar wrote: I don't suppose you play Swain?
I do like me some birdman
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Oh hmm was going to say let's 1v1 but Dia1 vs Plat4 doesn't prove much.
I do find that even with the slightest bit of regen Vlad can easily afford constant stacks of Tides.
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On September 05 2013 16:05 Alzadar wrote: Oh hmm was going to say let's 1v1 but Dia1 vs Plat4 doesn't prove much.
I do find that even with the slightest bit of regen Vlad can easily afford constant stacks of Tides.
no
unless by slightest bit of regen you mean chugging pots and q'ing off cooldown, then yeah, if your opponent isn't hitting you at all, and if the enemy swain doesnt hit you at all during lane, then you deserve to win.
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On September 05 2013 16:08 Dusty wrote:Show nested quote +On September 05 2013 16:05 Alzadar wrote: Oh hmm was going to say let's 1v1 but Dia1 vs Plat4 doesn't prove much.
I do find that even with the slightest bit of regen Vlad can easily afford constant stacks of Tides. no unless by slightest bit of regen you mean chugging pots and q'ing off cooldown, then yeah, if your opponent isn't hitting you at all, and if the enemy swain doesnt hit you at all during lane, then you deserve to win.
Yeah it's not even close. Swain has been and always will be a bully to Vlad, and nothing but a jungler who really loves his Vlady will make him win that lane. There is 0% chance equal skill leveled Vlad vs Swain goes in Vlad's favor without Swain making a rather large mistake (tanking a tower shot or three, etc)
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On September 05 2013 16:08 Dusty wrote:Show nested quote +On September 05 2013 16:05 Alzadar wrote: Oh hmm was going to say let's 1v1 but Dia1 vs Plat4 doesn't prove much.
I do find that even with the slightest bit of regen Vlad can easily afford constant stacks of Tides. no unless by slightest bit of regen you mean chugging pots and q'ing off cooldown, then yeah, if your opponent isn't hitting you at all, and if the enemy swain doesnt hit you at all during lane, then you deserve to win.
Level 1 E costs 60hp, needs to be cast every 10s to maintain stacks. Natural regen + bead takes care of ~15hp and you heal another 35-48 from Q. So I guess at level 4 you run a slight deficit but at 5 you break even, no potions required.
At level 5 Vlad QE is 160+120+1.05*AP=~305, Swain is 177+85+1.9*AP=~309 (assumed 25 AP). This is generous for Swain since it assume the entirety of Q hits and is amplified. So Swain has a bit of an edge in trades but he really can't maintain Q+E trades for very long.
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It's really late and I am not the best mathematician but if you ever get a chance to play a competent swain as a vlad feel free to come back and tell us how that lane went for you
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Yeah... there's honestly not that much to argue. A good swain will beat a good vlad. However there are not a lot of good swains out there :D
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On September 05 2013 16:29 Alzadar wrote:Show nested quote +On September 05 2013 16:08 Dusty wrote:On September 05 2013 16:05 Alzadar wrote: Oh hmm was going to say let's 1v1 but Dia1 vs Plat4 doesn't prove much.
I do find that even with the slightest bit of regen Vlad can easily afford constant stacks of Tides. no unless by slightest bit of regen you mean chugging pots and q'ing off cooldown, then yeah, if your opponent isn't hitting you at all, and if the enemy swain doesnt hit you at all during lane, then you deserve to win. Level 1 E costs 60hp, needs to be cast every 10s to maintain stacks. Natural regen + bead takes care of ~15hp and you heal another 35-48 from Q. So I guess at level 4 you run a slight deficit but at 5 you break even, no potions required. At level 5 Vlad QE is 160+120+1.05*AP=~305, Swain is 177+85+1.9*AP=~309 (assumed 25 AP). This is generous for Swain since it assume the entirety of Q hits and is amplified. So Swain has a bit of an edge in trades but he really can't maintain Q+E trades for very long. the e cost goes up every time you use it did you account for that. I thought it was pretty well known that Swain beats Vlad.
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On September 05 2013 15:47 Gahlo wrote: I've gleamed through /r/LoLDyrus that every time they scrim C9 and Dyrus picks Vlad, they win. Makes me wonder why TSM never lets him pick Vlad.
C9 banned Vlad every single game versus TSM, so there was no chance in their games. I'm pretty sure they would have picked him otherwise, especially with C9 grabbing the Rumble.
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Swain should be played more, but I can also see why he doesn't get played much. He does need a lead to make an impact late. I find him quite safe in lane though. Enough CC to extricate himself from ganks and the sustain to ward off divers. I actually like him vs Ahri, who is quite a popular pick (dunno how viable that is at high level though).
The most underrated mid of all time continues to be Syndra though. Brings everything to the table. At least one person will agree with me :D
Beast mid laners who need to see more competitive play:
1. Syndra 2. Brand 3. Le Blanc
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On September 05 2013 20:13 JazzVortical wrote: Swain should be played more, but I can also see why he doesn't get played much. He does need a lead to make an impact late. I find him quite safe in lane though. Enough CC to extricate himself from ganks and the sustain to ward off divers. I actually like him vs Ahri, who is quite a popular pick (dunno how viable that is at high level though).
The most underrated mid of all time continues to be Syndra though. Brings everything to the table. At least one person will agree with me :D
Beast mid laners who need to see more competitive play:
1. Syndra 2. Brand 3. Le Blanc And yet again, king of midlane, Malzahar is forgotten. Shame
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King of situational teamcomps perhaps.
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Swain also gets amplified autos, and although Torment's animation is pretty shitty once he QEs he has all the time in the world to auto, esp. with a slow on his side.
Also Swain's QE combo has 625 range, slightly more than Vlad's auto and Tranfusion. From level 1 onward, everytime Vlad wants to last hit he runs the risk of eating a E to the face, and he won't like it.
(Although you can't amplify much more than 2/3rd of Q's damage because you have to cast it first or a moving target will get out of range during E's cast time.)
Swain's just not good late game. He has no 100-0 burst potential, shields become more powerful as the gain goes on and they really fuck with his damage (really, try to make any damage stuck on Lux in lane without hitting a W), while his low range doesn't let him reach the backline. Escape spells easily break his Q tether and the huge delay on Nevermove makes it easy to dodge even with just boots2 as is, so against something like Ashe, Caitlyn, or a long-range AP carry you're going to really have trouble reaching them, while it's rarely worth it to cast your rotation on bruisers for damage if you're even because they'll have MR by then and even Void Staff won't be enough.
Swain just doesn't recover when behind, even if you ignore the fact that he'll likely get outscaled by the time he catches back in farm/levels, because he's so reliant on, well, everything. Fighting at level 10 or 15 is much more crippling for him than for most mages because of how reliant he is on his ult's base damage. His range is abysmal: remember that Lissandra is considered short-range because her Q only has 725 range? Yeah. His clearing is super limited too, as his ult only hits 3 targets (more or less acceptable in lane though, imagine when you clear a 12+ wave in a side lane in the midgame), so he's not good at roaming, and he's not good at handling 1v2 either. Since he lacks escapes and Nevermove is slow to appear, he's pretty vulnerable to ganks. Karthus is too, so it's fine! 'cept if Swain is pressured by the jungle he can't do his thing and get ahead, and if he doesn't get ahead he'll hit a wall pretty fast.
Top lane he has trouble with gapclosing champs too since Torment won't necessarily stop them, and even if he waits for them to jump before using Nevermove he'll take damage during this time, so champs relying on burst (like Jax) rather than prolonged trades can abuse Nevermove's cd compared to their gapcloser. He should be able to bully them and outtrade them early, though, so it's on him to smash them before they hit their stride.
Thing is, he can't compete with utility tanks in the pro scenes, or even lane bullies like Renekton, because of how much farm he needs to be relevant, and he doesn't scale as well as them late game. On the other hand, what does he bring as an AP carry that others don't have? Not much apart from his tankiness, but champions like Diana are pretty good at this too.
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On September 05 2013 19:52 Prog wrote:Show nested quote +On September 05 2013 15:47 Gahlo wrote: I've gleamed through /r/LoLDyrus that every time they scrim C9 and Dyrus picks Vlad, they win. Makes me wonder why TSM never lets him pick Vlad. C9 banned Vlad every single game versus TSM, so there was no chance in their games. I'm pretty sure they would have picked him otherwise, especially with C9 grabbing the Rumble. I mean in the large view. He never played a single game on Vlad and I know for a fact that he wasn't banned every TSM game during Summer LCS.
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On September 05 2013 20:30 Volband wrote:Show nested quote +On September 05 2013 20:13 JazzVortical wrote: Swain should be played more, but I can also see why he doesn't get played much. He does need a lead to make an impact late. I find him quite safe in lane though. Enough CC to extricate himself from ganks and the sustain to ward off divers. I actually like him vs Ahri, who is quite a popular pick (dunno how viable that is at high level though).
The most underrated mid of all time continues to be Syndra though. Brings everything to the table. At least one person will agree with me :D
Beast mid laners who need to see more competitive play:
1. Syndra 2. Brand 3. Le Blanc And yet again, king of midlane, Malzahar is forgotten. Shame  Agree with you, malzahar is my main mid, he is so fun to play and I didn't had difficutly so far against other mid laner expect for fizz (I hate to play against a fizz).
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On September 05 2013 20:30 Volband wrote:Show nested quote +On September 05 2013 20:13 JazzVortical wrote: Swain should be played more, but I can also see why he doesn't get played much. He does need a lead to make an impact late. I find him quite safe in lane though. Enough CC to extricate himself from ganks and the sustain to ward off divers. I actually like him vs Ahri, who is quite a popular pick (dunno how viable that is at high level though).
The most underrated mid of all time continues to be Syndra though. Brings everything to the table. At least one person will agree with me :D
Beast mid laners who need to see more competitive play:
1. Syndra 2. Brand 3. Le Blanc And yet again, king of midlane, Malzahar is forgotten. Shame 
Oh don't worry, he's number 4 on the list, just ahead of Viktor and Cass.
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I'm glad I did my push for gold before the meta became ,"My mid let the enemy mid assassin (thanks regi/hai/midlaners of NA/EU/KR) get massive because they get to walk every where for free)" Lets go back to farm fests mid. They are more fun to play.
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