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![[image loading]](http://i52.tinypic.com/2rdi2af.jpg)
http://leagueoflegends.wikia.com/wiki/Swain_The_Master_Tactician
+ Show Spoiler [Patch Notes] +v1.0.0.121 - 2011-07-08
Ravenous Flock now heals Swain for 75% of damage dealt versus champions, and 25% versus minions
v1.0.0.120 - 2011-06-22
Ravenous Flock now heals Swain for 50% of the actual damage he deals (instead of 50% of the raw damage he deals), but the heal is not reduced if the damage is shielded
v1.0.0.107 - 2010-12-14
Carrion Renewal now restores mana instantly
v1.0.0.105 - 2010-11-15
Decrepify leash range slightly increased
Torment range increased to 625 from 600
Ravenous Flock cooldown decreased to 10 seconds from 15 seconds
Updated Swain's recommended items
v1.0.0.103 - 2010-10-18
Decrepify
Ability power ratio increased to 0.9 from 0.75
Fixed a bug where Decrepify would slow through Highlander or Ragnarok
Fixed a bug where the damage portion sometimes would not stop after leaving the area
Nevermore ability power ratio increased to 0.7 from 0.5
Torment damage increased to 75/115/155/195/235 from 72/110/148/186/224
Torment ability power ratio increased to 0.8 from 0.6
Carrion Renewal regen increased to 300% from 250%
+ Show Spoiler [Swain's skills] +statistics courtesy of leagueoflegends.wikia.com![[image loading]](http://images.wikia.com/leagueoflegends/images/5/5c/CarrionRenewal.jpg) Passive: Carrion Renewal Whenever Swain kills an enemy unit, he recovers 9 (+1 per level) mana. This is what gives Swain a lot of his staying power. Pretty simple. Learn to last hit and you don't need much mana regen. ![[image loading]](http://images.wikia.com/leagueoflegends/images/e/e6/Decrepify.jpg) Q: Decrepify (also known as Laserbird) Swain sends his raven to cripple an enemy, creating a tether between the enemy and the raven, which stays on the same position Swain was upon cast. Over the next 3 seconds, the target takes damage each second and is slowed. If enemies walk out of the tether, the effect ends immediately. Cooldown: 8 seconds Range: 550 Leash range: 900 (estimate) Cost: 60 / 70 / 80 / 90 / 100 mana Magic Damage Per Second: 25 / 40 / 55 / 70 / 85 (+0.3 per ability power) Slow: 20 / 23 / 26 / 29 / 32 % Inexpensive, good damage gains with levels, and really frustrating for people trying to chase you or get out of close range. Casts almost instantly, so you can safely Q people while running away. ![[image loading]](http://images.wikia.com/leagueoflegends/images/d/de/Nevermove.jpg) W: Nevermove Swain marks a target area. After a short delay, mighty talons grab hold of enemy units, dealing damage and rooting them for 2 seconds. Range: 900 Radius: 250 - 275 (estimate) Cost: 80 / 90 / 100 / 110 / 120 mana Cooldown: 18 / 16 / 14 / 12 / 10 seconds Magic Damage: 80 / 120 / 160 / 200 / 240 (+0.7 per ability power) Horrible cooldown at low levels, and the mana cost is too high to justify in lane most of the time. If you're desperate, this can be a long range farming tool, but usually you should pick up just one point in this for ganks (both yours and your enemy's). ![[image loading]](http://images.wikia.com/leagueoflegends/images/c/c5/Torment.jpg) E: Torment Swain afflicts his target, dealing damage to them over time and causing them to take increased damage from Swain's attacks for 4 seconds. Damage increase applies to summoner spells and items used by Swain. Cooldown: 10 seconds Range: 625 Cost: 65 / 70 / 75 / 80 / 85 mana Total Magic Damage: 75 / 115 / 155 / 195 / 235 (+0.8 per ability power) Extra Damage Taken: 8 / 11 / 14 / 17 / 20 % This is where most of Swain's damage comes from. The damage increase boosts Swain's autoattacks, his other abilities, Ignite, Deathfire Grasp, Lizard buff... It's a cheap, guaranteed nuke that gives you most of your lane domination and should be maxed first every game. ![[image loading]](http://images.wikia.com/leagueoflegends/images/d/d3/RavenousFlock.jpg) R: Ravenous Flock (Toggle) Swain transforms into the form of a raven. During this time up to 3 lesser ravens strike out at nearby enemies each second, one raven per enemy. Swain is healed for 75% the damage dealt to champions and by 25% of the damage dealt to minions and monsters. The cost to sustain Ravenous Flock increases every second. Initial cost: 25 mana Cost increase per second: 5/7/9 mana per second per second Cooldown: 10 seconds Range: 700 (estimate) This is what makes Swain Swain. The healing has overall been nerfed, so now it IS possible to force Swain to recall. However, with careful positioning in fights (and also in ganks) you should almost never die. This continues functioning through the Zhonya's active, so you get two free seconds of regeneration. Combine with Quicksilver Sash for an easy SAFE button.
Pre-game setup:
Masteries are a choice between 21 defense and 21 utility. This is mostly a matter of personal preference - utility gives you cdr, more Ignites, longer blue buff, and faster level 6; defense makes you much bulkier.
Red runes are magic penetration without many other options. Yellow runes can be armor, scaling hp, scaling hp regen, dodge, or scaling mana regen. Armor is my preference. For blues, take scaling AP, armor, scaling mana regen, scaling magic resist, or flat CDR. I use scaling magic resist, since my build is fairly light on MR. Quintessences are the most varied, and just about anything already mentioned will work. The best choices are movespeed, magic penetration, armor and flat AP.
Summoner spells are Ghost or Flash and Ignite. Ghost vs Flash is personal preference; you need at least one. Ignite is non-negotiable. Not only is it practically necessary for someone with as much DoT as Swain, but it's also amplified by Torment, meaning it's a 600 true damage nuke late game.
Items:
What items you buy at any point depends largely on what enemy champions are most threatening and how fed/farmed you are. With that said, here are my recommendations:
Come to lane with a Doran's Shield or Doran's Ring. The Shield is my preference, since Swain's passive gives you the mana you need.
The HotshotGG opening is Faerie Charm, 6 hp pots and 2 mana pots into Philo Stone. Less health, but the pots make up for that quickly. I haven't played this myself.
Your second item should be Tear or Catalyst.
- Catalyst is immediately safer, lets you boss your lane around more, and builds into a lot of useful things.
- Tear of the Goddess is riskier, but a charged Tear will give you several life-saving seconds longer to ult in teamfights. Archangels is also a wonderful lategame item.
Your core AP items are Deathcap and Hourglass. The order in which you get them is primarily determined by the enemy team. Hourglass if they have champions like Kennen, Vladimir or Nunu whose ults often need dodging; also Hourglass if you need the armor. Deathcap if you can afford it.
Late game, upgrade Catalyst to Banshee's Veil and Tear to Archangel's. Pick up Tear if you went Cata first (you can do this post Deathcap, too, if you feel the lack of mana) and Banshee's Veil if you went Tear. The importance of Banshee's is also heavily dependent on the enemy team - get it to stop things like Ashe arrow, Amumu bandage/ult, Blitzcrank pulls, and strong initiation in general.
The core items should be supplemented/replaced with the following
Guardian Angel if you are public enemy number 1. Never buy this before Hourglass.
Spirit Visage as a catchup item or if your team has lots of heals they want to use on you.
Quicksilver Sash to deal with pesky suppression, ignite and other nuisances. This and Hourglass combine to make you truly frustrating to deal with.
Mejai's Soulstealer is a nice late game item if you aren't getting crushed in teamfights, and a nice early game item if you are dominating everything. Don't buy it too early though. It's usually better to get Deathcap a little faster than to get this.
Void Staff should show up as your sixth item, if not before, especially if the enemy team is tanky.
Skills:
Maxing ult is your highest priority, of course.
Of Swain's basic skills, Torment should be maxed unless you need to max Nevermove and Laserbird to win lanes. Torment is where the vast majority of Swain's damage comes from.
For Laserbird and Nevermove, you have some choices.
Maxing Laserbird gives you the most reliable damage, at the expense of some CC.
One point in Nevermove but otherwise maxing Laserbird is the best option, though you can't throw out Nevermove wildly.
2-3 poins in Laserbird, then maxing Nevermove is better when you need Laserbird to dominate your lane but really like Nevermove. The shorter cooldown is extremely noticeable.
Finally, maxing Nevermove should only be done if you are in a lane where landing good Laserbirds is difficult.
Swain in Lane:
Before level 6, you have no health regen advantages at all. You do have nigh-unlimited mana as long as you can last hit and stay in creep range, so I like to open Doran's Shield and be a fat meaty brick.
Swain in a duo is about as strong as Cho'gath, but this gimps him mid- and late-game with his lower levels and reduced farm. Try at least to duo with someone who has reliable CC, and max Nevermove and Torment.
Harass people with QE. Your casting time is minimal and you have 650 range, so most heroes can't stop you. Swain hard counters almost every tanky melee, since they usually have to eat an entire Laserbird if they want to last hit.
Against ranged AD, try and calculate how well you trade against them. Don't get too aggressive, since if they don't force you out before 6, you become a godlike force of laning. Laserbird is less effective, especially against those with a blink (Tristana, Ezreal, et cetera). I rarely encounter solo top ranged AD though so you should be fine.
Against nukers, you outdamage 95% of them at level 1, thanks to Torment boosting autoattack damage. You may need to max Nevermove to last hit safely. Try to last till 6, because you basically autowin then.
Once you hit 6, push the lane out when you get the chance and buy Tear, Catalyst or Spirit Visage. You now are immovable from lane short of mad ganks or possibly Vlad or something. Now that creep healing is reduced, you aren't quite as godlike, but you still heal up quickly enough that you shouldn't be in any danger ever. Your goal is to farm up an Hourglass or Deathcap before teamfights start.
Swain in Teamfights:
Your priorities are, in order from most to least important:
1) stop their assassins/tanks from getting to your squishies
2) draw fire
3) stay alive
4) throw birds at as many enemy champs as you can
5) DoT down squishies
0) /all CAWCAWCAWCAWCAWCAW
Try not to turn on ult until you've started to take some damage - it really doesn't do very much damage until you have ~200 AP and it WILL suck up a ton of mana if you aren't paying attention. You want to be able to activate Zhonyas and have it last for the full two seconds when you're low health. Positioning for this is very important - it's tough to hit only the champs you want to with it so make sure you know the birds' range. (It's actually quite generous - you don't need to hug them Garen-style.)
In this thread:
Page 2: discussion of how to lane vs Swain.
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Given that Swain's AP ratios are basically poo, is Zhonya's really worth it? Why not do something like SV/Warmog's/Soul Shroud or WotA and at least provide some utility for your team? I guess I could see abyssal for the mres and team-helping aura, but pure AP items like void staff seem silly. Alternatively, you could go even tankier with SV/Mog's/FoN/GA, which gives you pretty good regen even without your ult on.
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Actually, Swain's AP ratios are pretty good: Q 0.9, W 0.7, E 0.8, R 0.2. Of course, his ult makes up for the worse ratio for hitting three times every second.
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Zhonya is for the 2 seconds of invulnerability during which your birds keep attacking and you keep healing. Also, remember that E boosts the damage from all your skills. Basically, rush Zhonyas for the utility.
Warmogs no because Swain doesn't farm particularly well and doesn't really need health or hp regen.
GA is good, FoN is mostly a waste (QSS/Bveil for mres), Leviathan and Mejais are surprisingly good because you get lots of assists generally. I'm still working out exactly how to play him though, so don't take this as word of god.
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You should mention that Chalice is broken right now (passive stacks) so get 3-4 of them and you'll never have to turn your ult off. Ever.
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haha I was about to. It's SO FUNNY. You kill a minion and for the next 3 seconds +1000 mp5 or so
After empirical testing, chalice sucks on Swain. What's the problem with Chalice? You're spending 900 gold on mres and mregen. Does 4 chalices address that problem? Nope. Just stick to SV Zhonyas.
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Really, Z-Ring -> SV -> Mejais (maybe) -> More tankness is all you need on Swain. If you get blue you can keep your ult on for a surprising amount of time while your build gives you good mitigation.
If you decide to play Swain, you aren't a damage dealer you're tank. I can't stress that enough to people.
I do like your guide, but I wouldn't say the champion sucks
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On November 20 2010 03:05 Celestial wrote:
Actually, Swain's AP ratios are pretty good: Q 0.9, W 0.7, E 0.8, R 0.2. Of course, his ult makes up for the worse ratio for hitting three times every second.
Ah, I misread Q and thought it was 0.3 (it's 0.3 PER SECOND for 3 seconds!). I also was apparently out of it this morning when I checked his champ page. His AP ratios are:
Q: 0.0035
W: 0.0029
E: 0.0034
R: 0.0022
Which are actually really, really high. So AP stacking is pretty worth it.
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Especially when you consider that Torment amplifies damage by 20%, so for 3 seconds the AP ratios are 1.08 .84 .96 .24(/second, x3).
From my further Swaining, I have determined that Archangels might be a good followup to Zhonyas. Otherwise you have to be extremely cautious with your ult. A boosted mana pool and imba regen is nice. Chalice is the other item I'm considering to solve this, but SV Boots and Chalice is half my inventory for ~3k gold.
The downside to Archangels is that Swain is really slow at charging Tear.
Also, I think Swain can beat or at least break even against Sion solo top. Torment/Lazerbird will pop the shield of an equal level Sion and do a little damage beyond. Of course, I haven't played any really good Sions yet. None of them have really abused brush camping. But Sion will push a lot more than Swain will.
Also, at level 6 Swain can stay in lane forever. Zhonyas Ho!
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On November 21 2010 06:13 Tooplark wrote:
Especially when you consider that Torment amplifies damage by 20%, so for 3 seconds the AP ratios are 1.08 .84 .96 .24(/second, x3).
That doesn't really make sense. Torment makes your skills better, but it makes them better no matter why they're good. For example, CDR works just as well with Torment as AP does.
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Yeah... but when you're comparing Swain's AP ratios to "good" theoretical AP ratios, then you have to take Torment's damage amplification into account.
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On November 21 2010 10:01 Tooplark wrote:
Yeah... but when you're comparing Swain's AP ratios to "good" theoretical AP ratios, then you have to take Torment's damage amplification into account.
A good AP ratio is a per-AP-point bonus which is high relative to the base damage of the spell. For example, a +2/AP ratio is crap on a 1200 damage spell. You're better off with CDR/utility.
Swain's AP ratios are quite good, because he has two that are over .003. You can do the math on other heroes -- that's quite rare.
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On November 21 2010 11:43 oberon wrote:Show nested quote +On November 21 2010 10:01 Tooplark wrote:
Yeah... but when you're comparing Swain's AP ratios to "good" theoretical AP ratios, then you have to take Torment's damage amplification into account. A good AP ratio is a per-AP-point bonus which is high relative to the base damage of the spell. For example, a +2/AP ratio is crap on a 1200 damage spell. You're better off with CDR/utility. Swain's AP ratios are quite good, because he has two that are over .003. You can do the math on other heroes -- that's quite rare.
This isn't entirely true - you have to consider periods of utility. For instance, cooldown reduction on a ~20 second skill won't really help because you won't really get two uses per teamfight, but the 8 seconds saved won't be a big deal generally. It's not quite as linear of a relationship as aspd/damage on a DPS. Point taken, though - but swain has pretty low CDs as is so I dunno what's more effective.
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just tested quadruple chalice on swaim
combined with blue buff, i was able to withstand a focus fire from a 4man gank for like 10 seconds while i waited for my team to arrive to help, while dealing a surprising amount of damage back
pretty op
go meki->double chalice->mercs->chalice->visage->zhonya->armor item and you're set for the game
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Back to Swain, and back with more thoughts on #2 BEST BIRD.
Most hasn't changed. 9/21/0 or 0/21/9. I now like Sapphire + 2 pots opening for a faster Catalyst, though you'll have to be a little more careful.
There are two 'paths' that I feel are more or less equally valid
Catalyst, for a quick RoA, then Deathcap or Hourglass
Visage, Tear, Hourglass, Archangel's
In either case you generally want Merc Treads; Sorcs and Lucids are valid alternatives but usually inferior. Standard caster boots-theory.
Other items that are good later considerations are DFG, GA, BVeil, QSS, and WotA.
Now the advantages and disadvantages of each: Catalyst is still pretty much the best laning item in the game. RoA will give you cost-efficient bulk and AP, as well as an acceptable mana pool. Deathcap is still imba and will make you do ALL THE DAMAGE, but Hourglass will make you much more resilient to those nasty phys. deeps and the active is glorious.
On the other hand, Spirit Visage looks like a perfect item for you. More heals while ulting, more bulk, and a side of CDR. The disadvantage to SV, I've found, is that you don't have any mana pool at all. That's why you need a tear. Now, however, you're quite short on AP. It's your call whether you need more damage now or the Zhonya's active and armor.
Generally, pick the first when the team could use another nukerish type, when you're curbstomping noobs, or when you have the time to farm a lot. The second is much more tanky but gets AP 1k gold later. You won't be putting out the hurt, but you're better able to offtank and hold people off your carry.
A brief list of notable lane matchups:
Sion loses or ties with you. He has to stun to get shield off, thanks to tether, and maxing EQ lets you pop his shield before he reaches you most of the time. You win the mana efficiency war and you can kite him around indefinitely.
Garen beats you. Either you have to root him every time he spins (maxing the rather suboptimal WQ) or lose 1/4 your health for not that much of his. Also his passive is ridiculous. I need to test this more and see if it can be won.
Most melee champs lose to you thanks to birdkiting. I think Xin could beat Swain but I'm not sure. Not many people will let me solo top :'(
Cho'gath loses to you unless he can consistently hit ruptures. Silence will hurt, but if he gets offensive you can EQ him. Again, I need to fight a good Cho (5HIT <3) and see which way it goes.
Ranged carries generally beat you. At the very least it's hard to harass them. Ashe will just volley at you and you can't get close enough to bird her for long. Maxing WE is your best bet, or giving up and going QW.
Badimir will get zoned so hard solo top. Why would you put him solo top. I don't know if they were just terrible (which they were) or if it's really a hard matchup for Vlad, but they got curbstomped.
Runes: I've switched to flat armor with mp5 blues. Mostly because that's my Taric page. Still fiddling with these (will mpen boost damage enough? will mp5 yellow and mr blue be better?).
Surviving with Swain: There is an incredible urge to 1v5 the enemy team all the time as Swain. Fed Swain is definitely top 10 most frustrating heroes to fight (at minimum, fed Nasus, fed Mundo, fed Vladimir, fed Poppy, fed Olaf, fed Xin, and fed Irelia are worse). You should try to stick sort of near your carry, though. First, he should be safer than your team. Second, you're an offtank that doesn't have the combination of speed survivability and cc-resistance to actually get to the enemy squishies. Third, if their anticarries get close, you can Q them for much longer. Do not miss W. Combo it with guaranteed stuns. Use it like Rupture, really. Try to ensure whoever you're hitting with your skills is Tormented at the time - not a problem for Q but harder with W. Your ult is the hardest skill to use well, since it's a serious source of damage but also survivability and the cooldown/manacost is enough that you can't frivolously toggle it/keep it on all the time. Don't get right next to people, but stay about 400 range away in the direction they most want to go. Watch out for CC because nothing sucks more than being bursted down before you can turn ult on.
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on a side note, swain absolutely crushes singed
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Swain's been the latest of my heroes to give a shot and he's a rather hard hero to itemize for because you benefit from both tank and AP items really well.
Currently I been going:
Cata - Boots - Tear - Rod --- CORE
Veil-Deathcap-Arch-Void --- Leaves me low on armor but gives me near best magic damage
Veil-FrozenHeart-Arch-Void --- pretty damn tank misses out on AP from deathcap
I've tried the pure AP hourglass builds but I'm not a fan of it as Swain's strength lies in his ability to sit in fights forever and be a huge dick. Other than that I'm still working on different ways and will update with what works.
Runes: Flat HP Quints, flat Armor, MagicResist/lvl, MagicPen Red 9/0/21
Pretty set on those. Need armor versus aggressive ranged carries and i love magic resist. Tried out 9/21/0 that loco said and couldn't stand how short my blue buffs felt and missed the cdr.
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Replace Deathcap with Hourglass in first build
profit
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United States37500 Posts
Agreed. Zhonya's need to be a part of Swain's arsenal.
I'd drop either Archangel's or Void for Zhonya's from the first build. Again, the idea of Swain is to outlast everyone else. Zhonya's invul lets him dodge some really threatening ultimates.
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Can anyone confirm if torment's 20% damage increase really applies to all swain's sources of damage, or only to his physical attacks? It seems as if posts in this thread assume that it applies to AP as well, while the description only states the damage increase on Swain's 'attacks'.
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I'm pretty sure it works on not only auto attacks, his abilities, but also ignite, so abuse it.
Also catalyst-->deathcap-->zonyas-->bveil pretty standard swain build atm I think, just hog blue buff as much as possible.
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If your lane isn't too hard, get Tear instead of Catalyst. You don't need the health regen so much once you hit 6.
Banshee's is a good pick if you got cata but other options are:
GA (when snowballin' out of control and they need to focus you first)
SV (if you need cheap survivability and more healz)
QSS (Ignited? Suppressed? Disabled before you could ult? QSS-R-Zhonya)
My favorite is GA because it lets me play far more recklessly than I should.
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yo, someone tell me how to beat swain in lane. I feel like it's literally impossible to beat this fucker in lane.
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If you can't smack him around early, you're not gonna do much.
Melee heroes in general are kinda screwed, since they're usually gonna eat a full laserbird to harass.
Garen is tough for Swain and forces him to max his root first.
Long ranged champs generally beat Swain. Annie and Tristana especially.
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United States37500 Posts
On May 17 2011 02:03 Mogwai wrote:
yo, someone tell me how to beat swain in lane. I feel like it's literally impossible to beat this fucker in lane.
Gotta harass him before he hits 6. Otherwise after that, you is pretty fucked. Debuff healing like Kat or Trist is nice. He just heals way too much off siege creep waves. Your jungle/roamer must be persistent. Swain can normally get away scot free by Q+W the ganker, especially if the gank doesn't come with a jump skill to close the distance.
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On May 17 2011 00:50 Slayer91 wrote:
I'm pretty sure it works on not only auto attacks, his abilities, but also ignite, so abuse it.
Also catalyst-->deathcap-->zonyas-->bveil pretty standard swain build atm I think, just hog blue buff as much as possible.
That's the thing, i thought i was pretty sure it worked on abilities and ignite, but it's really pretty hard to say. Once you get some AP, the increase in damage might just as well be because of that, rather than torment's supposed effect on abilities. I'm really confused because the spell description so clearly states that it only boosts 'attacks'. Attacks, as opposed to the more general 'damage', which is so often used in other contexts.
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maybe I just play too scared of him or something, but like, even with Xin/Jarman, I feel like I lose the burst trades at level 2 with that fucker and I seriously think that's retarded as shit since the whole reason I like to play those fuckers is that I can kill the shit out of people at level 2, yet swain seems to end up ahead always and then when he hits 6 he's like a level 9 vlad with 73 hextech revolvers due to his goddamn ult.
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On May 17 2011 02:03 Mogwai wrote:
yo, someone tell me how to beat swain in lane. I feel like it's literally impossible to beat this fucker in lane.
tell your jungler to gank top. Even better if you get like a shaco. Get a roamer too, since they just f up any lane.
How to really beat him: Keep spamming taunt. He's gonna get real pissed off hearing some annoying phrase over and over and over again, then when he wastes his nukes and gets out of position, gank him. That'll make him real mad. Imagine you dominating a lane, and then you get ganked by like 2 people with 10 globa stuns and you're like wtf how am I supposed to win vs 2 10 sec global stuns, like that takes no skills. That's real rage inducing. Then when he comes back, rinse and repeat.
Gaming is not always about skills
Oh yeah, reading the post above, it means all the swains got you psychologically. Time to get them back with mind games.
Also, nidalee can do well vs swain because she can dodge those gay roots and heal vs any early harass type shits. Don't trade hits with nidalee though pre 6.
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Well if you lose in exchanges pre-6, you're fucked unless someone else comes or he makes a mistake.
Ignite, dodge root if you can. Nothing special can be really done other than dodging root (which smart Swain players won't rely on chance anyway) since his damage is point-and-click.
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On May 17 2011 03:00 Wala.Revolution wrote:
Well if you lose in exchanges pre-6, you're fucked unless someone else comes or he makes a mistake.
Ignite, dodge root if you can. Nothing special can be really done other than dodging root (which smart Swain players won't rely on chance anyway) since his damage is point-and-click.
Am I crazy though? Like, I play characters who are very good at pre-6 exchanges so you'd think I'd be able to just dump on him up until 6, but I swear Swain always ends up ahead vs. me.
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United States37500 Posts
Pre 6, you need to constantly attack/move/attack/move. Level 1 Q slow isn't that bad. It's when you get caught in his snare that he takes a dump on you.
Xin, Charge (E) in and auto attack once, then disengage. When you back off, strafe left or right. Moving towards Swain is ok if there isn't too much creep aggro. Be careful to walk back towards your tower. That's usually when Swain will try to snare you. Obv don't be predictable in your movements. The main point is to bait either Q and/or W, so you can combo Swain while his CDs are down. If anything, Swain's level 1 Q and W have pretty long CD, more than Xin or Jar. So capitalize then. Swain is not someone you want to trade early combos with. His E bonus damage will rape you. Playing vs Swain takes patience and finesse because of his slowing/snaring kit.
Post 6, only engage Swain after your creep wave has been cleared. Don't let him be a 97 revolver holding bird.
TL:DR
Xin: E+auto normally. E+Q only when Swain's Q and/or W are down (you can combo him, his skills on CD)
Jarman: Q harass normally. Q+E only when Swain's on CD.
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On May 17 2011 03:20 NeoIllusions wrote:
(...)
Jarman: Q harass normally. Q+E only when Swain's on CD.
I think q->e is fine, just e-> q not 
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Gentlemen... AS Swain.
Torment stacks with auto attack
You have a slow and a snare, and your ult gives you survivability
Great troll build, fun to play with.
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Updated with new thoughts and pretty picture.
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I don't think i will ever understand what people see in Swain. I consider him a very bad champ. I can't play him for shit and i never have any problem facing one.
Either they go tanky and do laughable damage and i /ignore or they go caster and you can literally just kill them before even a single flock of ravens go back and forth.
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You can E -> Q out of Nevermove with Jarvan. Working as intended?
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United States47024 Posts
On May 18 2011 06:26 zalz wrote:
I don't think i will ever understand what people see in Swain. I consider him a very bad champ. I can't play him for shit and i never have any problem facing one.
Swain has extremely good lane matchups against a lot of popular champs. Particularly against tanky melee solos, Swain can just shit on many of them in lane.
On May 18 2011 06:26 zalz wrote:
Either they go tanky and do laughable damage and i /ignore or they go caster and you can literally just kill them before even a single flock of ravens go back and forth.
If Swain is putting himself in a position where he gets burst down like that, then he's playing terrible. He's an AP carry--he's still squishy when it comes down to it, but compared to other AP carries, Swain is pretty damn hard to anti-carry because of how quickly he'll heal back up, and because of how most of the beefy anti-carries like Irelia don't have the means to burst him down like that alone.
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On May 18 2011 07:49 Shawngood wrote:
You can E -> Q out of Nevermove with Jarvan. Working as intended?
You can EQ out of pretty much everything with Jarvan. Not related to Swain, just Jarvan being OP.
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On May 17 2011 02:03 Mogwai wrote:
yo, someone tell me how to beat swain in lane. I feel like it's literally impossible to beat this fucker in lane.
Ignite. The passives/abilities that negate his health regen, (gankplank,tristana, kat, Miss Fortune).
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On May 18 2011 19:05 HeadhunteR wrote:Show nested quote +On May 17 2011 02:03 Mogwai wrote:
yo, someone tell me how to beat swain in lane. I feel like it's literally impossible to beat this fucker in lane. Ignite. The passives/abilities that negate his health regen, (gankplank,tristana, kat, Miss Fortune).
You must be a genius. None of us ever thought of that before.
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So I need some help playing Swain, mainly just exactly HOW to play him. I understand his combo and I build him as most guides suggest but I get targetted in team fights and generally get shat on because I'm under farmed.
Yesterday I was in a duo lane, it was Chogath + Swain (me) vs Mordekaiser and Sona and I couldn't do much without wasting my mana pool to absolute zero, then when I hit level 6 I was so underfarmed and zoned that I never recovered.
So I guess the issue is, how2earlygameSwain?
I have the Northern Frontier skin, so it's an obligation to me that I become godly with him.
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United States37500 Posts
Swain needs solo. His spells cost a lot so he needs just about every last hit to keep his mana up with his passive. If you're going to lane bot, try Brand.
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Step 1: get a solo
Step 2: be careful with your mana. Only harass when they can't break Q tether easily and BOTH Q and E are up.
Step 3: become good at last-hitting minions
Step 4: get mp5/lvl blues or yellows (OR right now just rush philostone)
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Swain officially one of the only champs that can beat rigged as revolver vlad in lane.
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Swain is not easy to play unless you solo. I suggest to not auto attack. League of legends is about teh micro. U MUST MICRO HARDER
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Did I miss anything or is there a 3 page Swain thread without anyone mentioning skilling order?
Btw I think Hotshot is going something like 1 or 2 philostones -> cata -> RoA -> deathcap ?
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Its in the OP....
And I don't really think getting philo stones on AP carries is really viable. But on Swain it sounds like it would be really useful. (Manahog that he is).
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On November 19 2010 14:01 Tooplark wrote:
Skills: R>E>Q>W wins lanes against anyone who has to get close to you or who you have to get close to. Take a point in W as you feel appropriate. Max EW if you can't get good Qs ever. Max EW in a duo lane if you're partnered with someone with a good slow or stun.
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On June 01 2011 01:47 ManBearPig wrote:
Did I miss anything or is there a 3 page Swain thread without anyone mentioning skilling order?
Btw I think Hotshot is going something like 1 or 2 philostones -> cata -> RoA -> deathcap ?
Yes, he opens Faerie Charm, hp pot x6, mana pot x2 and then builds it into a Philo. The idea is to never leave the lane.
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I recently played swain on a friends account, he was a lot of fun, but do you think he is viable at higher elo play (1500) cos I rarely see swain on ranked games. He is on tier 2 on elementz tier list, but like half of the champions are on tier 1. Recently got my 10 friend referral, thinking about buying him with the RP.
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On August 21 2011 01:17 godemperor wrote:
I recently played swain on a friends account, he was a lot of fun, but do you think he is viable at higher elo play (1500) cos I rarely see swain on ranked games. He is on tier 2 on elementz tier list, but like half of the champions are on tier 1. Recently got my 10 friend referral, thinking about buying him with the RP.
Every champ is viable at 1500.
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On August 21 2011 01:32 crate wrote:Show nested quote +On August 21 2011 01:17 godemperor wrote:
I recently played swain on a friends account, he was a lot of fun, but do you think he is viable at higher elo play (1500) cos I rarely see swain on ranked games. He is on tier 2 on elementz tier list, but like half of the champions are on tier 1. Recently got my 10 friend referral, thinking about buying him with the RP. Every champ is viable at 1500.
Frankly, every champion is viable in Solo Queue.
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On August 21 2011 01:34 Qualm wrote:Show nested quote +On August 21 2011 01:32 crate wrote:On August 21 2011 01:17 godemperor wrote:
I recently played swain on a friends account, he was a lot of fun, but do you think he is viable at higher elo play (1500) cos I rarely see swain on ranked games. He is on tier 2 on elementz tier list, but like half of the champions are on tier 1. Recently got my 10 friend referral, thinking about buying him with the RP. Every champ is viable at 1500. Frankly, every champion is viable in Solo Queue.
Thats great to hear, just bought him, swain so much fun! Anyways would you recommend getting a frozen heart on him, since he is a fairly tanky caster who relies on staying close and needs a lot of mana.
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Hourglass should cover your armor needs and the active is amazing on Swain.
Tear/Cata should cover your mana needs and build into more useful items on Swain.
Cooldowns aren't really the limiting factor on Swain, and you should always have blue buff which gets you to 40% cdr with masteries and blue elixir.
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Just had the most boring lane ever.
Swain vs Vlad. You can probably already guess, but there was only 1 kill (came close to killing him a few times) done by me thanks to the help of GP's ult.
Then I didn't even go back till around 15/20 minutes in. Had 4.8k gold and went straight for RoA and Sorc boots.
After I killed him, the lane went back and forth forever. We both sustain so well. Ran into mana problems a few times, but I usually got back to 1/2 if not mostly full.
My tower didn't even go down the entire game, about 35 minutes total before they surrendered.
Swain OP? 
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On November 11 2011 07:47 Cloud9157 wrote:Just had the most boring lane ever. Swain vs Vlad. You can probably already guess, but there was only 1 kill (came close to killing him a few times) done by me thanks to the help of GP's ult. Then I didn't even go back till around 15/20 minutes in. Had 4.8k gold and went straight for RoA and Sorc boots. After I killed him, the lane went back and forth forever. We both sustain so well. Ran into mana problems a few times, but I usually got back to 1/2 if not mostly full. My tower didn't even go down the entire game, about 35 minutes total before they surrendered. Swain OP?
Swain vs Vlad is def a boring lane, but if you can land your W before he pools and unload your combo, it shouldn't be too hard. Once he hits level 9, it is basically a farming contest, but if you can get a kill or two before that it is no problem.
W>E>Q>Ignite>R> Walk with him until he is dead or the tower forces you back
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Depends. I know I build to be a little obnoxious (and ask to get ignited) with RoA sorcs into Will/SV, which makes me a bit frail in the first teamfights, where I generally get burst down fairly quickly. Then I get Will, some charging on RoA, one or two more levels, and once they can't get me down in a single burst I mainly try to bait them to chase me (spells on CD but the ult helps contributing and not dying) so the rest of my team focus them.
What I found is that most of the time people still try to burst me after I become really hard to kill, wasting their potential to pin someone down. If you can't burst Swain and he's not fed, just ignore him for higher priority targets, since it takes so long if he survives the engage phase.
He's really weak against other casters early though, I find. Low range, need to autoattack to make torment win trades or be efficient damage-wise (so you take aggro to harass), and ranged champs are hard to keep in Q for full. He's a better solotop against gap closer champs, but I don't see many people accepting to send an AP top.
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And here I thought that Swain shuts Vlad down pretty hard at early levels...
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Swain wrecks vlad hardcore in my experience o.o;
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Swain v Vlad is heavily a matchup in swain's favor. Sadly, Vlad has been nerfed so many times that he's a pretty rare sight. Swain has some of the strongest harrass early levels while Vlad's sustain isn't anything special nor is his damage. So you just patiently wait for him to go in for that creep kill then eq auto like the nasty birdman you are then watch his hitpoints go away. As long as you get your cata in a fairly early timing window this early advantage will last for awhile until he gets his spellvamp and MR. Then you will sit there with your blue farming away and he will keep farming away.
And Rugfeeder is a liar, Frozen heart is a boss item on swain =)
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Man swain shits on sion so hard lol.
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Because he is strong, strong like bird.
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On November 12 2011 02:28 Sponkz wrote:
Man swain shits on melee so hard lol.
FTFY
Actually, are there any melee lanes that Swain loses?
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On November 12 2011 02:56 dnastyx wrote:Show nested quote +On November 12 2011 02:28 Sponkz wrote:
Man swain shits on melee so hard lol. FTFY Actually, are there any melee lanes that Swain loses?
I can't even see kassadin being able to last hit vs swain. Lasers too good!
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On November 12 2011 02:56 dnastyx wrote:Show nested quote +On November 12 2011 02:28 Sponkz wrote:
Man swain shits on melee so hard lol. FTFY Actually, are there any melee lanes that Swain loses?
I could see him going about equal with Galio that gets his shield early.
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Can't Sion wait for his shield to be ready to explode and then just OS the wave? Or is Swain that good at disrupting his farm before he gets enough AP?
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On November 12 2011 03:19 Alaric wrote:
Can't Sion wait for his shield to be ready to explode and then just OS the wave? Or is Swain that good at disrupting his farm before he gets enough AP?
E+(w)+(q)+Auto attacks hurts considerably.
If you go E>W>E>Q>E>R, then yeah you can do a ton of damage with just E+aa
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I meant cast the shield, go back at the edge of exp range, and then rush in to make the shield explode whenever the 4 seconds have passed. But that still doesn't make his first levels comfortable.
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Does he actually beat Akali?
I can see him going even with her. His ult will make it so hard to kill him, and you can't even hide in shroud.
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Pre-6 Akali will be slightly ahead because she gets healing so much earlier.
Post-6 will depend if Akali has ignite or not. If she does not, Swain will beat her. If she does, Akali will win the lane
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On November 12 2011 02:56 dnastyx wrote:Show nested quote +On November 12 2011 02:28 Sponkz wrote:
Man swain shits on melee so hard lol. FTFY Actually, are there any melee lanes that Swain loses?
I shat on a Swain pretty hard with Wu Kong in one game. It may have just been a bad Swain though.
EDIT: Then again, I was knocking off like 1/2 of his HP with each of my E/Q combos in the early game. Not sure what he could have done.
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On November 12 2011 09:00 xDaunt wrote:Show nested quote +On November 12 2011 02:56 dnastyx wrote:On November 12 2011 02:28 Sponkz wrote:
Man swain shits on melee so hard lol. FTFY Actually, are there any melee lanes that Swain loses? I shat on a Swain pretty hard with Wu Kong in one game. It may have just been a bad Swain though. EDIT: Then again, I was knocking off like 1/2 of his HP with each of my E/Q combos in the early game. Not sure what he could have done.
I hope he wasn't going 9/0/21 for Mastery.
Helps in terms of damage output, but you're pretty squishy if you go it. 0/9/21 is what I (and hopefully most Swains) go. Ult that constantly heals you+tanky? Yes please.
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On November 12 2011 09:08 Cloud9157 wrote:Show nested quote +On November 12 2011 09:00 xDaunt wrote:On November 12 2011 02:56 dnastyx wrote:On November 12 2011 02:28 Sponkz wrote:
Man swain shits on melee so hard lol. FTFY Actually, are there any melee lanes that Swain loses? I shat on a Swain pretty hard with Wu Kong in one game. It may have just been a bad Swain though. EDIT: Then again, I was knocking off like 1/2 of his HP with each of my E/Q combos in the early game. Not sure what he could have done. I hope he wasn't going 9/0/21 for Mastery. Helps in terms of damage output, but you're pretty squishy if you go it. 0/9/21 is what I (and hopefully most Swains) go. Ult that constantly heals you+tanky? Yes please.
He probably was 9/0/21, but I didn't check. I just remember hitting him VERY hard. I think I killed him two or three times before he hit six and more times afterwards (yay ignite). It was a stupidly lopsided lane.
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On November 12 2011 09:08 Cloud9157 wrote:Show nested quote +On November 12 2011 09:00 xDaunt wrote:On November 12 2011 02:56 dnastyx wrote:On November 12 2011 02:28 Sponkz wrote:
Man swain shits on melee so hard lol. FTFY Actually, are there any melee lanes that Swain loses? I shat on a Swain pretty hard with Wu Kong in one game. It may have just been a bad Swain though. EDIT: Then again, I was knocking off like 1/2 of his HP with each of my E/Q combos in the early game. Not sure what he could have done. I hope he wasn't going 9/0/21 for Mastery. Helps in terms of damage output, but you're pretty squishy if you go it. 0/9/21 is what I (and hopefully most Swains) go. Ult that constantly heals you+tanky? Yes please.
I'm always torn on masteries for Swain.
9/0/21 vs 0/9/21 is honestly only really a difference of 6 armor and mres when it comes to defensive stats. SoS is nice and all but honestly I feel that after the nerf it's not quite as big a regen boost as you'd like. 15% mpen and 3% cdr vs 6 armor and 6 mres doesn't feel like a huge decision. I'd be hard pressed to say it makes you "tanky"
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United States47024 Posts
Given that R is post-mitigation damage now, it's arguable that 15% MPen contributes considerably to your mid-lategame tankiness in fights now as well. 15% MPen is something like a 10-15% damage increase (higher vs. high MR targets, something like 12% damage increase vs. like 150 MR). 10-15% more damage dealt = 10-15% more healing from R, which is probably more significant "tankiness" than 6 armor and 6 MR.
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On November 12 2011 09:41 TheYango wrote:
Given that R is post-mitigation damage now, it's arguable that 15% MPen contributes considerably to your mid-lategame tankiness in fights now as well. 15% MPen is something like a 10-15% damage increase (higher vs. high MR targets, something like 12% damage increase vs. like 150 MR). 10-15% more damage dealt = 10-15% more healing from R, which is probably more significant "tankiness" than 6 armor and 6 MR.
Haha, I hadn't even considered that. Very good point.
Shit, what are the best masteries for swain? I always run 9/0/21 or 0/9/21 depending on how scared I am of the early game.
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SoS is definitely not needed on swain cause he's #2 best bird and the magic pen mastery is a massive increase to your damage. No brainer.
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United States47024 Posts
On November 12 2011 09:44 Haemonculus wrote:Show nested quote +On November 12 2011 09:41 TheYango wrote:
Given that R is post-mitigation damage now, it's arguable that 15% MPen contributes considerably to your mid-lategame tankiness in fights now as well. 15% MPen is something like a 10-15% damage increase (higher vs. high MR targets, something like 12% damage increase vs. like 150 MR). 10-15% more damage dealt = 10-15% more healing from R, which is probably more significant "tankiness" than 6 armor and 6 MR. Haha, I hadn't even considered that. Very good point. Shit, what are the best masteries for swain? I always run 9/0/21 or 0/9/21 depending on how scared I am of the early game.
That's probably the best way to decide, given that SoS is the deal-breaker in that decision most of the time. Personally I think 9/0/21 actually seems to be the better way in most cases right now. Boots+3pot is going to be a way more common start than Blue Crystal+2pot, meaning SoS doesn't kick in to a significant amount of hp5 for a while. Hp5 becomes a significantly less useful stat for you after level 6, and if you're not starting with Blue Crystal, the level 1-5 value of SoS just isn't that high (2 Hp5 at level 1, to about 4 Hp5 at level 5--not going to make or break that many matchups).
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On November 12 2011 09:11 xDaunt wrote:Show nested quote +On November 12 2011 09:08 Cloud9157 wrote:On November 12 2011 09:00 xDaunt wrote:On November 12 2011 02:56 dnastyx wrote:On November 12 2011 02:28 Sponkz wrote:
Man swain shits on melee so hard lol. FTFY Actually, are there any melee lanes that Swain loses? I shat on a Swain pretty hard with Wu Kong in one game. It may have just been a bad Swain though. EDIT: Then again, I was knocking off like 1/2 of his HP with each of my E/Q combos in the early game. Not sure what he could have done. I hope he wasn't going 9/0/21 for Mastery. Helps in terms of damage output, but you're pretty squishy if you go it. 0/9/21 is what I (and hopefully most Swains) go. Ult that constantly heals you+tanky? Yes please. He probably was 9/0/21, but I didn't check. I just remember hitting him VERY hard. I think I killed him two or three times before he hit six and more times afterwards (yay ignite). It was a stupidly lopsided lane.
What item did he start with? Or rather, how much armor did he have at the start? He was probably bad anyway
I like 9/0/21 better on swain most of the time, since it helps my harassment/nuke be scarier. Offense is the best defense after all.
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I don't know - but I love 9/21/0 even more esp for ppl like swain and rumble. And it has been working for me greatly though. Only problem that I have with it is the movement speed loss and buff duration. But I use Movement speed quints now so the only prob now is the buff duration.
Just sayin'
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Go 9/9/12 if you scared with swain, problem solved y0
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The whole utility tree is just too good on swain. Lower summoner CD on your ignite gives a huge boost to damage (e+ignite is so much free damage).
The buff duration super useful since you are probably the best target for blue buff after the first couple.
Movespeed always good and it lets you kite melee forever with q
Mana regen lets you open boots + pots which is much safer than crystal + pots.
I personally wouldn't ever take anything but 21 in utility on swain.
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9/7/14 lets you go deeper into util
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On November 12 2011 09:53 TheYango wrote:Show nested quote +On November 12 2011 09:44 Haemonculus wrote:On November 12 2011 09:41 TheYango wrote:
Given that R is post-mitigation damage now, it's arguable that 15% MPen contributes considerably to your mid-lategame tankiness in fights now as well. 15% MPen is something like a 10-15% damage increase (higher vs. high MR targets, something like 12% damage increase vs. like 150 MR). 10-15% more damage dealt = 10-15% more healing from R, which is probably more significant "tankiness" than 6 armor and 6 MR. Haha, I hadn't even considered that. Very good point. Shit, what are the best masteries for swain? I always run 9/0/21 or 0/9/21 depending on how scared I am of the early game. That's probably the best way to decide, given that SoS is the deal-breaker in that decision most of the time. Personally I think 9/0/21 actually seems to be the better way in most cases right now. Boots+3pot is going to be a way more common start than Blue Crystal+2pot, meaning SoS doesn't kick in to a significant amount of hp5 for a while. Hp5 becomes a significantly less useful stat for you after level 6, and if you're not starting with Blue Crystal, the level 1-5 value of SoS just isn't that high (2 Hp5 at level 1, to about 4 Hp5 at level 5--not going to make or break that many matchups).
Yeah, and if you're scared enough of your lane matchup to pick SOS over mpen, what are you THINKING opening with mana crystal+2pot anyway? 9/0/21 99% of the time imo, because of how Swain's R works.
I don't like 9/7/14 because deep utility is too good. 6% CDR, summoner CD (doubly so for flash CD), 3% MS and 3MP5 are all good and keep you safe in lane more than ~4HP5 will.
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On November 12 2011 09:00 xDaunt wrote:Show nested quote +On November 12 2011 02:56 dnastyx wrote:On November 12 2011 02:28 Sponkz wrote:
Man swain shits on melee so hard lol. FTFY Actually, are there any melee lanes that Swain loses? I shat on a Swain pretty hard with Wu Kong in one game. It may have just been a bad Swain though. EDIT: Then again, I was knocking off like 1/2 of his HP with each of my E/Q combos in the early game. Not sure what he could have done.
WuKong lane is pretty annoying and I think it might be secret OP. He just does so much god damn damage early. Regardless, Swain should've went cloth + 5 pot or else played a bit more passive if he was boots + 3 pot.
I don't think WuKong beats Swain in lane though. But I haven't played that particular matchup enough to know. That Swain was definitely bad if you say he died three times in lane. I wouldn't assume WuKong > Swain from just a single game (especially since the Swain was obviously bad).
The most fun part of Swain is just how fuckin' aggressive you can get in lane and how nearly every melee can't really punish you for it.
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On November 12 2011 17:03 overt wrote:Show nested quote +On November 12 2011 09:00 xDaunt wrote:On November 12 2011 02:56 dnastyx wrote:On November 12 2011 02:28 Sponkz wrote:
Man swain shits on melee so hard lol. FTFY Actually, are there any melee lanes that Swain loses? I shat on a Swain pretty hard with Wu Kong in one game. It may have just been a bad Swain though. EDIT: Then again, I was knocking off like 1/2 of his HP with each of my E/Q combos in the early game. Not sure what he could have done. The most fun part of Swain is just how fuckin' aggressive you can get in lane and how nearly every melee can't really punish you for it.
Swains harassment in lane is like a speedshuttle with a reaver and 2 dts in it :D
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How does Swain fair against Kass?
I've played the matchup from Kassadin's side, and the first time I had difficulty and barely killed him (both low HPs). Second time I completely roflstomped Swain.
I know Kass is a huge anti caster, but how can you really kill someone who sustains as well as Swain? Swain just needs to play passively until lvl 6 imo, then he can go out and farm till his heart is content without being that afraid of Kass.
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From the little experience I had against LB/Kassadin, knowing when you risk getting bumrushed and pressing R preventively can help quite a lot around level 6-9 since if you're both full HP they shouldn't be able to overkill you enough to pass through that healing. But that was more threatening to kill them too in the process that really tanking their aggro that made them hesitate.
Also, thoughts on new masteries? 21-0-9 looks like it'd be quite strong on him (choice between flat mana pool and ms tho, but I think my inner MS whoring will speak).
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The other day Chauster said on his stream that Swain owns Kass and he proceeded to win toplane quite easily. Q/E-harass any time Kass went for lasthits. Later on he didn't even have to preemptively hit R when Kass would go for his combo. Just heal back up afterwards... Then again that Kass went for Philostone first so I doubt he played it right. 
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On November 12 2011 22:50 Shawngood wrote:The other day Chauster said on his stream that Swain owns Kass and he proceeded to win toplane quite easily. Q/E-harass any time Kass went for lasthits. Later on he didn't even have to preemptively hit R when Kass would go for his combo. Just heal back up afterwards... Then again that Kass went for Philostone first so I doubt he played it right.
Without any sustain items or blue buff, kassadin will sit there oom, while swain just dicks him out of lane with full hp and mana.
As for the new masteries, spellvamp cdr and +experience, vs ap, damage and more ap. And 15%cdr on summoners vs 6% more damage against targets below 40%.
Since the ap and damage increase will increase the healing too, it should be much better than the spellvamp. CDR and experience gain is nice, but I'm leaning towards 21 offense.
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So you can trade E+Q with Kassadin's Q?
Q is so annoying as my enemies have told me, haha.
Edit: Was just looking at the new Mastery tree, and I'm thinking about a 10/10/10 build for Swain. Key is to get magic pen, +30 health, and +3% spell vamp.
Dunno how viable it is, but just an idea so far.
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I wouldn't like that. Too few spellvamp considering it's already reduced to a third by the fact that it's AoE, just getting more AP from the offense tree would be more effective post-6. Probably viable, but not the best available.
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On May 17 2011 00:50 Slayer91 wrote:
Also catalyst-->deathcap-->zonyas-->bveil pretty standard swain build atm I think, just hog blue buff as much as possible.
Won't this build leave you too squishy? On Malzahar I like it a lot, because he isn't nearly as big of a manaslurper as Swain, and in teamfights he can just sit back and cast his crazy AoE damage from afar, whereas Swain needs to close in more to get the most out of his ultimate. These two factors make rushing Rod of Ages seem more attractive, because Rod gives you the health and mana much earlier than Cata->Dcap->Bveil.
Would it be reasonable to conclude that the amount of bulk you need on Swain depends on how well your team can protect you, and the amount of mana on how much you can see yourself getting Blue buff? This fledling bird would love to hear the opinion of experienced Swain players on this matter .
Speaking of mana, all of Swain's spells cost are fairly expensive and have fairly long cooldowns, making Tear seem unattractive to me unless as an emergency measure in case you can't get blue buff enough. Any thoughts?
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Wukong should only beat swain if swain
a) commits to early trades or tries to bully wukong at level 2
b) doesn't react fast enough to EQ wukong while he's nimbus striking you
If Wukong nimbus strikes you he is GOING to eat a full EQ combo unless he manages to Decoy away before you get him.
Swain doesn't need much survivability at all once he gets zhonyas. If you're getting focused down early either your team sucks or you're way out of position. (It's usually the second.)
Your team's job isn't to protect you. It's to follow up when you catch someone with a nevermove, or kill people while you kite them in birdform, or to clean up after you almost kill the enemy team. AP helps you do all of these things better than tankiness does.
Catalyst -> DCap -> Zhonya -> BVeil is about the safest, most durable swain build.
Tear -> DCap -> Zhonya -> QSS -> AA gives you more damage, a bigger mana pool and a GARENteed ult->zhonya in fights, especially useful if they have some jerk with suppression, but at the expense of a health pool, spell block (can't qss blitz hook!), and early laning durability
Glacial -> DCap -> Zhonya if you're fighting a physical dick and having trouble, and/or the enemy team is heavily phys.
If you need more survivability than this, usually it means you're playing wrong. Some games you actually do need it (fed melee dps that you can't kite, etc) and you should get zhonya's first and delay deathcap for Guardian Angel or Randuin's. Deathcap is such a juicy power boost though that I strongly recommend getting it second.
How do the high costs of his spells make tear less attractive? Blue buff regeneration scales with mana pool, so the more mana you have the sooner you'll have enough for a spell if you carelessly ran yourself out. Blue buff will never let you ult indefinitely, unlike with, say, Anivia. It just adds to the duration. Tear is good because the bigger your mana pool is the longer you can safely ult.
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Thanks for the swift response, that makes a lot of sense.
Regarding high spell costs and Tear, I figured that such costs combined with high cooldowns would make it take forever to charge up the Tear. High CD being the most limiting factor if one has Blue. Furthermore, Lazerbird is cast immediately after E, within the cooldown of a charging Tear, so out of those two spells you only get one charge.
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I think you can cast 2 spells in the window and get charges for both.. at least when I've done it and looked at the mana bonus after each cast, it goes up both times....
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Is it ok to get hourglass before deathcap in some situations, or should it be a mad dash for the cap as early as possible?
I played a game yesterday against morgana mid, but luckily she wasn't being agressive early and it got to the farm-fest point. I went Boots+pots > dring > Boots2 > hourglass > deathcap , and in that time between when I had hourglass and not deathcap, the active saved me at least twice.
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What masteries do people put on him? Now that SoS is gone, no more def points?
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On December 07 2011 03:45 57 Corvette wrote:
Is it ok to get hourglass before deathcap in some situations, or should it be a mad dash for the cap as early as possible?
I played a game yesterday against morgana mid, but luckily she wasn't being agressive early and it got to the farm-fest point. I went Boots+pots > dring > Boots2 > hourglass > deathcap , and in that time between when I had hourglass and not deathcap, the active saved me at least twice.
Of course it is. You sacrifice damage for survivability, but it's ok. If you can make good use of the active its worth it.
On December 07 2011 04:31 nosliw wrote:
What masteries do people put on him? Now that SoS is gone, no more def points?
21/0/9. Offense tree is too strong to pass up on and the buff duration is a must have on Swain.
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Does anyone else have enormous difficulty last hitting with Swain? I have to run AD runes+Quints and take AD+Minion damage masteries just to last hit with the consistency I do with other champions.
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Nop. His damage is quite low but his animation's actually smooth for an AP caster. I actually have more trouble last hitting when I'm pushing and my ult won't target the minions I need it to.
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Also in lane don't focus on csing. Focus on trading with your opponent. (This is fairly general advice.) When you're going for a creep, cover it with an aggressive move. If you can get into a position where your opponent has to walk past you to get to the creeps, good. You want to put yourself where your enemies want to walk. Laserbird is REALLY REALLY SCARY.
Put people at the range where they're weakest. Kite melees and stand next to ranged. Flash-QEWignite does so much damage, it's pretty dumb.
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I guess it's something to be expected, but just to make sure: is Swain supposed to lose to Annie? Had one that started with boots, runes for 35 AP, same movespeed (362 vs 367, she somehow always managed to catch up, really frustrating when even with 10+ advantage I sometimes can't seem to get to people) so she'd just cast a max range Q, possibly W if she had her stun, then just go back before I could retaliate with auto-attacks or even use Q.
I could always last hit under tower but then she'd just zone me. That range felt kinda unfair, plus the 5ms advantage meaning I could never harass her (except when hitting W for obscenes amount of mana per trade, still less efficient than hers due to runes).
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I have a friend who swears by Tears -> Archangel Staff over Catalyst -> RoA. Is he full of crap or does his core build hold some merit?
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Baa?21242 Posts
He's full of crap and is laning vs. people who don't know how to properly abuse tear.
I mean Tear is not -awful- inherently, it just opens you up to so much abuse in lane since it gives you no sustain and no damage and no survivability.
On January 25 2012 10:54 Alaric wrote:
I guess it's something to be expected, but just to make sure: is Swain supposed to lose to Annie? Had one that started with boots, runes for 35 AP, same movespeed (362 vs 367, she somehow always managed to catch up, really frustrating when even with 10+ advantage I sometimes can't seem to get to people) so she'd just cast a max range Q, possibly W if she had her stun, then just go back before I could retaliate with auto-attacks or even use Q.
I could always last hit under tower but then she'd just zone me. That range felt kinda unfair, plus the 5ms advantage meaning I could never harass her (except when hitting W for obscenes amount of mana per trade, still less efficient than hers due to runes).
Lead with W, if it hits follow up and you will always outtrade with your full combo against QW. When Tibbers is a factor just make sure you can't get bursted from full. Invest in MR early if it seems like it's gonna be an issue. W range is long enough that Annie shouldn't realistically be able to do much, and if she is being super aggro, just land a W. Annie is real squishy early bully her around a bit.
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Tear is a great item on Swain... if you don't need catalyst to bolster your laning. Cata is safer and gives you more hp pool and a nice extra source of healing.
I don't like RoA on Swain, and will usually do Cata -> DCap & Zhonya then upgrade to a BVeil.
Swain vs Annie isn't something Swain is gonna win, but it's not something he should lose either. Play defensive, max E W, take trades if you can land EW, threaten her if her stun is down an try and swing the lane with some jungle help. Remember, Annie has to stop you from farming. You just have to stop her from getting super fed and minimize her ganking ability.
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Well what bothered me most, apart from her range, is that with a 4s cd on her Q, and myself an initially 18s on W she's going to be the one abusing my cds, especially if she knows I can't trade one spell for one because of less AP. I guess I should try laning more aggressively to try and make her step back right before I go to last hit.
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Baa?21242 Posts
Just take some flat MR runes, survive till 6, then trade at your leisure. Annie's kinda screwed at that point.
1-6 might be kinda rough but you should still be able to farm and if she gets super up in your face you can still dish out good damage and trade evenly/threaten kills if she's stupidly aggro. annie is squishy if she wants to do any damage.
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On January 25 2012 12:42 Hyren wrote:
I have a friend who swears by Tears -> Archangel Staff over Catalyst -> RoA. Is he full of crap or does his core build hold some merit?
Archangels is a terrible item. It's less cost effective than buying a tear and then just buying an NLR, when your tear is less than something like 3/4 charged.
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Experimenting with a 9/9/12 build with Swain.
I get mage pen, +30 health, and +3% spell vamp. Anyone have some thoughts on this? I've gone 21/9 pretty much every time on Swain, but I figured I would mess around a little bit.
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How do you folks deal with his lackluster ability to push the lane without his ult?
If an AP carry such as Malzahar or Brand pushes the lane towards your turret, you're stuck with last-hitting with your auto attack. Simply practise last hitting under said turret while having your jungler gank your eager-to-push opponent?
Edit: In a pinch, I suppose Nevermove + a few seconds of ultimate can also help out a good deal already
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On February 08 2012 17:58 Cloud9157 wrote:
Experimenting with a 9/9/12 build with Swain.
I get mage pen, +30 health, and +3% spell vamp. Anyone have some thoughts on this? I've gone 21/9 pretty much every time on Swain, but I figured I would mess around a little bit.
I think offensive tree is too good to pass up. But I think that Swain is a weird exception where alternative masteries and runepages that take away from his offense can work.
On February 09 2012 01:40 Malderon wrote:
How do you folks deal with his lackluster ability to push the lane without his ult?
If an AP carry such as Malzahar or Brand pushes the lane towards your turret, you're stuck with last-hitting with your auto attack. Simply practise last hitting under said turret while having your jungler gank your eager-to-push opponent?
Edit: In a pinch, I suppose Nevermove + a few seconds of ultimate can also help out a good deal already
One of Swain's weaknesses is how he can't handle strong pushers very well. Even when he has his ult he struggles pushing back against a Malz, Morg, or other strong pushers. But yeah, if someone is pushing hard to your tower then your jungler should come for a gank. Just make sure you call mia if they leave 'cause lots of people will push to your tower and then leave to gank.
Last hitting as Swain is easy imo, I like his auto attack animation. Just remember it's two tower hits for melee minions and one tower hit for mages.
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On February 09 2012 01:40 Malderon wrote:
How do you folks deal with his lackluster ability to push the lane without his ult?
If an AP carry such as Malzahar or Brand pushes the lane towards your turret, you're stuck with last-hitting with your auto attack. Simply practise last hitting under said turret while having your jungler gank your eager-to-push opponent?
Edit: In a pinch, I suppose Nevermove + a few seconds of ultimate can also help out a good deal already
W+ult are really all he has to push a lane. If I see that a lane is going to be pushed towards my tower, I try to get at least the caster minions set to last hit. Hit them once and then hit them again after a turret shot.
Melee minions are a little bit harder. Hopefully you last hit all of them before you get pushed, but if not, try to use E/Q to last hit them. Its pretty hard since both skills are dot, but I've found myself killing a minion with Q before.
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On January 25 2012 12:42 Hyren wrote:
I have a friend who swears by Tears -> Archangel Staff over Catalyst -> RoA. Is he full of crap or does his core build hold some merit?
Swain needs the health from ROA. Getting tears early on Swain is stupid because he has a terribly weak early game to begin with, so vulnerability that occurs from getting tears only amplifies. Swain does need a ton of mana but you should be getting blue buff 24/7, but even in the case you don't catalyst is better than tear for the health alone, which Swain begs for. ROA isn't good on a lot of champs because they don't make use of all of the stats it gives, but Swain is one of the champs that is in dire need of every single stat it gives. It's just too good on Swain to pass up.
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United States37500 Posts
Swain is an AP Bruiser. You don't build him glass cannon like you do most AP that go mid. He shines in Top Lane for a reason.
RoA, Rylai's, Zhonya's are all better than Deathcap (Archangel shouldn't even be in his final build)
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How is chalice on swain? I find it really helpful to ult forever for pushing power (which seems like a major weakness of swain) and more sustain, and Swain should scale better with resists than HP because of ult, but I have hardly any experience with him... and maybe the infinite mana wouldn't be as important if I was better at last-hitting. Also, getting tears at all on swain doesn't make sense to me - i'd think it would be really hard to charge it because swain has relatively long cooldowns, and tends to use spells in a combo rather than spreading them out.
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How does Swain fair in lane against Ziggs? I played against one earlier, and it was a pretty close matchup (I am still a bit rusty with Swain >.>), went even on kills with him a bit higher in CS (I got a kill with a lucky W that trapped him in tower range, he got a kill with a malphite jungle gank).
I had a bit of trouble pre-6 since he has strong harrass and area control, but I couldn't tell if it was the character or just me being rusty
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With W being a root and Lazerbird being a slow, isn't the slow on Rylais kind of wasted? Feels like either Spirit Visage + NLR, Abyssal Scepter or Zhonya's would be more useful if you want to be more sturdy and get AP, for roughly the same amount of money.
I can imagine however that it makes it easier to keep up with a fleeing enemy whilst your ravens (Q and Ult) eat away at them, I am just wondering if it is worth it?
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On February 09 2012 07:18 NeoIllusions wrote:
Swain is an AP Bruiser. You don't build him glass cannon like you do most AP that go mid. He shines in Top Lane for a reason.
RoA, Rylai's, Zhonya's are all better than Deathcap (Archangel shouldn't even be in his final build)
Most Dcap+Zhonya's build go straight tanky after those two items though. If you go RoA+Rylai's+Zhonya's then you're not going to be as tanky as a Swain building Dcap+Zhonya's who then goes straight tank. You also will be getting very little additional AP with a build of those three items.
For 6700 gold you're getting 312 AP and 50 armor with Dcap+Zhonya's.
For 9240 gold you're getting 1130 HP, 260 AP, and 50 armor with RoA+Rylai's+Zhonya's.
While the health boost is significant you're going to get cata and build that into Bveil if you don't go a RoA path. So with a Dcap+Zhonya's build you're going to end up later in the game with more damage and be tankier as you're going to have more resistances and you'll be getting them quicker than if you built all three of those items. If you just build two of those three that you mentioned then I'd probably go with RoA+Zhonya's because Rylai's effect isn't that great on Swain and for the cost I'd rather just build a defensive item.
I don't think anyone is advocating building him like a glass cannon but I think that cata -> Dcap -> Zhonya's -> tank items is probably the strongest build that he has because you're going to be getting resists a lot faster which is, imo, a lot better than health on Swain. I think RoA -> Zhonya's or Rylai's can work but you're gonna end up doing less damage (and honestly the active on Zhonya's is way more useful than the Rylai's imo).
I think the biggest factor in making the choice between the two paths is whether you're mid or top. If I'm having to mid as Swain I'll usually go Dcap after cata but in top lane I think it's significantly better to get more tanky items sooner because you already have a squishy mage who's mid. So like, solo top going RoA first and then some sort of tanky item (maybe just a Glacial Shroud or a Negatron) makes a lot more sense. But I'm in no way a pro at Swain, just saying that I don't think you absolutely have to build RoA or Rylai's on him.
edit:
Also, maybe I'm just being a fanboy, but I really think that Swain might be one of the strongest AP picks a team can make. You get someone who shits on melee champions and most teams are gonna have at least two of those. You get an AP carry that does significant damage albeit not quite as much as others. You get a champion who can tank damage and sit in the middle of the enemy team effectively zoning the enemy carry at times. So my question is, why don't more people play him? Am I just biased and think that he's a lot better than he is or does he suffer from the Anivia problem where you're reliant on your team and there are other APs who can carry harder in solo queue? I don't find him to be particularly difficult to play so I'm at a loss for how underplayed he seems.
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On February 09 2012 08:04 Malderon wrote:
With W being a root and Lazerbird being a slow, isn't the slow on Rylais kind of wasted? Feels like either Spirit Visage + NLR, Abyssal Scepter or Zhonya's would be more useful if you want to be more sturdy and get AP, for roughly the same amount of money.
I can imagine however that it makes it easier to keep up with a fleeing enemy whilst your ravens (Q and Ult) eat away at them, I am just wondering if it is worth it?
sick aoe slow in teamfights + tankiness is the reason you get it i think(aoe slow off ult)
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I just find it hard to pass up on ROA because there are going to be times where you won't have blue buff because either your jungler sucks and doesn't get it to you timely, or the enemy team is counterjungling so hard that they are taking your blue buffs, or even in the simple cases of you dying and losing the buff. ROA gives you a pretty sizable buffer zone, and even in the case that you have blue buff it'll allow you to sustain your ult for a significantly longer amount of time. I don't think Rylai's is a must have item either though, and I think that after ROA it's better to get NLR and build according to the situation from there on.
Also, Swain's lvl 6 burst is a lot more substantial than most people seem to think. You can easily get kills if you land a W and then dive them bird mode with EQ+ignite.
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I find RoA - Zhonyas - DC to work well, I don't really like Rylais on him. After DC I usually like to get Abyssal and BV
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Been playing around with WOTA. On the one hand, it's quite fun pretending to be the old Swain (I wasn't there, but how on earth was he not considered overpowered?), plus the heal on Q and E is fairly substantial. Not really sure if it's worth 2100 gold out of Hourglass or whatever though.
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On February 09 2012 12:12 ManyCookies wrote:
Been playing around with WOTA. On the one hand, it's quite fun pretending to be the old Swain (I wasn't there, but how on earth was he not considered overpowered?), plus the heal on Q and E is fairly substantial. Not really sure if it's worth 2100 gold out of Hourglass or whatever though.
I refuse to run WOTA unless I have another mage top/mid that will benefit from it like Kennen/Vlad/Kat.
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My initial build was RoA-->WotA->SV on Swain, or something silly like that.
Then I did the math and realized that RoA->DC gave me more healing (on the ult, didn't calculate with QWE thrown in), as well as more damage. Welp, no brainer for me now.
Isn't Swain a bit weak in the laning phase right now tho? Champs with strong ranged harass like GP probably outharass him, he can't really stop a Nasus from farming (and will get killed later if he ever tries to commit because of Wither), and there are more and more popular bruisers with gap closers (Riven, etc.).
Which popular top picks is he strong against now? I heard Kennen, there's also Tryndamere, Shyvana and perhaps Udyr (can't catch him, but he can turtle even after getting it and mitigate a lot), who else?
Also, sorcs vs mercs? Against champs like Annie getting 40+ AP with a dring opener, I feel like flat MR blues + mercs is better than scaling AP blues+sorcs.
And I think Ziggs should shit all over Swain. Huge gap in range between the two, mana efficiency at clearing for Ziggs, his passive makes it undesirable to trade hits with him while Swain would like too because of Torment, also Ziggs pushes really easily while Swain doesn't really. If you can't burst him he'll just lay his minefield and use his bump to prevent you from following him.
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On February 09 2012 18:35 Alaric wrote:
Isn't Swain a bit weak in the laning phase right now tho? Champs with strong ranged harass like GP probably outharass him, he can't really stop a Nasus from farming (and will get killed later if he ever tries to commit because of Wither), and there are more and more popular bruisers with gap closers (Riven, etc.).
Which popular top picks is he strong against now? I heard Kennen, there's also Tryndamere, Shyvana and perhaps Udyr (can't catch him, but he can turtle even after getting it and mitigate a lot), who else?
I thought Swain was one of the strongest top laners? At least that's how it seemed when I used to play him alot, granted I have not played him much recently.
I still take him vs melee mid champs such as grag and sion and do very well as it is hard for them to retaliate vs your harass, I would imagine it the same for top lane. The weakness of playing swain top lane would be the lack of escape and that you would be pushing lane vs these melee champs if you are denying them, making him more susceptible to ganks.
I'll have to play swain a little more now to get back to you on matchups, this thread has revived my interest in him.
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It's not that his harass isn't effective, it's that what good will your Q slow do to Riven if she can just E->W to you then wreck you with some aa? Udyr possibly wouldn't be able to reach you (But bear cd beats crow cd, and turtle's shield negates your DoT), but champs with instant gap-closers would ignore your slow and doge your snare, so I'm wondering how good he's supposed to still do against them.
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"An enemy, has been SWAIN!" every time after swain gets a kill.
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Well you can drop a nevermove in their path which will either trap them or you can kite from their gapclose. For instant gapcloses you can drop a snare on yourself and then q and kite. Again, I'll have to test him out soon and get back to you on that.
Also yeah the wordplay on slain and swain is always a good one for TS
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I prefer the Swain Train. It runs off my Swainger and Blue Buffs.
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I'll be practicing some swain over the next few days and posting my findings for top/mid lane here. Duty caws.
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On February 10 2012 00:12 ManyCookies wrote:
I prefer the Swain Train. It runs off my Swainger and Blue Buffs.
So you are basically saying to not be cRaven.
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On February 09 2012 23:28 Alaric wrote:
It's not that his harass isn't effective, it's that what good will your Q slow do to Riven if she can just E->W to you then wreck you with some aa? Udyr possibly wouldn't be able to reach you (But bear cd beats crow cd, and turtle's shield negates your DoT), but champs with instant gap-closers would ignore your slow and doge your snare, so I'm wondering how good he's supposed to still do against them.
Riven is pretty annoying since she can move through Q fairly easily. I would try to snare her during her combo so she is stuck eating the entire Q.
Udyr doesn't have that big of a mana pool. If he wants to constantly switch stances to try and hurt you, he can go ahead and try. Turtle shield won't negate all the damage from an E+Q combo either.
Champs with insta gap closing need to be handled a bit more differently. Irelia and Renekton, for example, need to be hit with E and then Q if they try to jump on you. I always try and hit them with Nevermove first, and then tag lazorbird on them, so I have plenty of time to walk away while they sit there eating plenty of damage.
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Swain can't stop Nasus from farming? I don't understand why you think that. Once you're like level 4 or so Nasus should be eating EQW any time he moves in to last hit and he can't retaliate at all.
On February 09 2012 23:28 Alaric wrote:
It's not that his harass isn't effective, it's that what good will your Q slow do to Riven if she can just E->W to you then wreck you with some aa? Udyr possibly wouldn't be able to reach you (But bear cd beats crow cd, and turtle's shield negates your DoT), but champs with instant gap-closers would ignore your slow and doge your snare, so I'm wondering how good he's supposed to still do against them.
Riven shouldn't be getting close enough to Q combo towards you. If she gets too close you EQW her. But yeah, you have to be more careful against her and other melees who can close gaps but Swain still does fine in lane against gap closer melees.
Udyr will take damage he just has lane sustain. But you're Swain, you have lane sustain too and post-6 I think Swain's lane sustain is a lot better than Udyr.
I think that GP is scary early but once you have levels Swain can handle GP in lane imo. Just have to be a bit more pussy at early levels.
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Ok, RoA is bad on Swain imoimoimo. Swain gets a HUGE amount of healing from ult, which scales off of AP, plus Zhonyas gives you a guaranteed 4 seconds of additional damage and healing.
Let's weigh the items that people are discussing:
Rod of Ages
Gives you a solid hp pool, a nice mana pool, and a decent amount of hp, as well as a good passive for laning.
Archangel's Staff
Gives you a vast mana pool and beefy regen, and a large chunk of ap.
Will of the Ancients
Gives you AP, spellvamp, and aura for comparatively low price.
Rabadon's Deathcap
Gives you buckets of AP.
Zhonya's Hourglass
AP, armor and a totally godlike active on swain.
The problem with RoA is you already have a supr huge health pool if you don't get bursted down immediately, it takes a while to stack up and isn't even that great when stacked, and you aren't going to do enough damage to be a target.
The problem with Archangels is that it lends itself to you being bursted down immediately. (and you're not getting nearly enough AP for the price).
Deathcap and Zhonyas both leave you with too low of a mana pool.
Solution: Catalyst or Tear into Deathcap/Zhonyas!
But, if I get catalyst and don't build it into RoA first thing, isn't that SUBOPTIMAL?
No, because you build it into Banshee's for the MR or, if they have nothing that you really want to block with banshee, sell it to buy Quicksilver Sash.
Is Catalyst really enough hp to stop me from being instagibbed?
Yes.
You're wrong, I keep getting instagibbed!
Stop being out of position or get an actual tank to absorb damage. If they have chumpsassins like Talon or Akali, rush Zhonyas and as soon as they jump on you QWERzhonya them. In an emergency just RWZhonya.
My spells are so short ranged, how do I get close enough to the enemy ranged carry to burst them?
Pick a different mage.
I keep getting ignited and/or stunned before I ult or zhonya and then I die and get sad!
Buy QSS.
The enemy team keeps killing me with their combined dps!
Use zhonyas better, position yourself better. Focusing Swain should both be a bad idea because he'll just heal it off with ult and necessary because he does so much damage.
I WANNA WANNA SPELLVAMP
You can buy WotA instead of Deathcap, but you won't do ludicrous amounts of damage. You want to do ludicrous amounts of damage, right?
More seriously, I like running swain in a double AP comp with someone who doesn't need blue (Kennen, Vlad, Rumble) because 1) they're usually better at picking off carries, 2) they pick up wota for you, and 3) you get all the buffs. I don't like buying WotA myself because deathcap and zhonya's are just too good
What about Spirit Visage?
Good item, gives you a nice hp pool and some valuable cdr. Problem is, it delays your zhonyacap by quite a bit. Only get it vs a heavy magic lane or if you opened tear and feel like you can farm a lot.
Why do you recommend tear as a first item, that's really stupid.
Well, it pays off in the long run, so do it if you're dunking your lane. Trust me, Swain is one of the few champions that can use that entire 1400 mana even with blue buff.
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United States37500 Posts
Tooplark's tl;dr: RoA's bad. Go Catalyst => Deathcap + Zhonya's. Use Catalyst to build into Banshee's.
Not that I agree with Tooplark but holy wall of text...
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On February 10 2012 05:35 overt wrote:Swain can't stop Nasus from farming? I don't understand why you think that. Once you're like level 4 or so Nasus should be eating EQW any time he moves in to last hit and he can't retaliate at all. Show nested quote +On February 09 2012 23:28 Alaric wrote:
It's not that his harass isn't effective, it's that what good will your Q slow do to Riven if she can just E->W to you then wreck you with some aa? Udyr possibly wouldn't be able to reach you (But bear cd beats crow cd, and turtle's shield negates your DoT), but champs with instant gap-closers would ignore your slow and doge your snare, so I'm wondering how good he's supposed to still do against them. Riven shouldn't be getting close enough to Q combo towards you. If she gets too close you EQW her. But yeah, you have to be more careful against her and other melees who can close gaps but Swain still does fine in lane against gap closer melees. Udyr will take damage he just has lane sustain. But you're Swain, you have lane sustain too and post-6 I think Swain's lane sustain is a lot better than Udyr. I think that GP is scary early but once you have levels Swain can handle GP in lane imo. Just have to be a bit more pussy at early levels.
I haven't played versus a swain in a while but are you saying Swain without blue can zone any champion in the game? I feel like nobody can retalitate against swains eqw anyway but nasus can outheal it.
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On February 16 2012 07:01 NeoIllusions wrote:
Tooplark's tl;dr: RoA's bad. Go Catalyst => Deathcap + Zhonya's. Use Catalyst to build into Banshee's.
Not that I agree with Tooplark but holy wall of text...
Yeah I'm tired and typing a lot.
Different playstyles, too. I like doing lots of damage. I never feel dangerous enough with rod.
On February 16 2012 07:04 Slayer91 wrote:Show nested quote +On February 10 2012 05:35 overt wrote:Swain can't stop Nasus from farming? I don't understand why you think that. Once you're like level 4 or so Nasus should be eating EQW any time he moves in to last hit and he can't retaliate at all. On February 09 2012 23:28 Alaric wrote:
It's not that his harass isn't effective, it's that what good will your Q slow do to Riven if she can just E->W to you then wreck you with some aa? Udyr possibly wouldn't be able to reach you (But bear cd beats crow cd, and turtle's shield negates your DoT), but champs with instant gap-closers would ignore your slow and doge your snare, so I'm wondering how good he's supposed to still do against them. Riven shouldn't be getting close enough to Q combo towards you. If she gets too close you EQW her. But yeah, you have to be more careful against her and other melees who can close gaps but Swain still does fine in lane against gap closer melees. Udyr will take damage he just has lane sustain. But you're Swain, you have lane sustain too and post-6 I think Swain's lane sustain is a lot better than Udyr. I think that GP is scary early but once you have levels Swain can handle GP in lane imo. Just have to be a bit more pussy at early levels. I haven't played versus a swain in a while but are you saying Swain without blue can zone any champion in the game? I feel like nobody can retalitate against swains eqw anyway but nasus can outheal it.
If Swain has to EQW he runs out of mana too fast, especially versus someone like Riven. He can keep up EQing for a while off just passive and natural mana regen. In my experience, EQ hugely outdamages anything Nasus can heal off. Don't even bother with W. Udyr with magic resist can basically ignore you thanks to turtle, but he can't aggress on you too well, even though bear stance has a low CD.
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So what sort of runes and materies does everyone run on swain nowadays?
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On February 28 2012 19:08 Skithiryx wrote:
So what sort of runes and materies does everyone run on swain nowadays?
Magic pen reds, mana regen/lvl yellows, flat mr blues and flat ap quints for mid. 21/0/9 or 21/9/0 and maybe scaling ap blues, depending on the enemy
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Valhalla18444 Posts
The same works for top lane, but i run armor seals against ad top laners
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Which champs does Swain do good against now, anyway? His harass and sustain his good, his cc keep melee chars off him... the problem being: which melee champs that go top lane now don't have either powerful ranged harass (GP, Olaf) or gap closers (Wukong, Irelia)?
Of the top of my head, that leaves:
- Blitzcrank (skillshot)
- Mundo (skillshot)
- Garen
- Lee Sin (kinda)
- Malphite
- Nasus
- Nautilus (skillshot, depends if you count Dredge Line on terrain as a gap closer)
- Renekton (he's got a double gap closer but I heard Swain crushes him, because his range still beats Croc's E I guess?)
- Singed
- Shyvana
- Sion
- Skarner
- Trundle
- Udyr
- Volibear
Hm... written like that, that's quite a lot. But there's a lot of them that we don't see top or that aren't popular at the moment, so...
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Even gap closers don't threaten swain that much, since even if they can get next to him they also have to get away from him. EQ does an absolutely absurd amount of damage to anyone who eats the full Q.
So here are some lanes I remember:
Garen (a while ago) beat me pretty hard. He ran at me with Decisive Strike and Judgemented as soon as I Lazerbirded him. Courage and his passive meant that even EQ didn't outtrade him. However I think QW, possibly EW, could at least tie the lane. (Haven't seen a Garen in a long time though.)
Wukong lost to me 3 times out of 3. It was a little hairy early but my EQ traded very closely with his EQ even at level 2. At level 4 he only outtraded me if I didn't react fast enough to his dash to EQ him before he went invisible. At level 6, he can kill you if you aren't careful but if he goes in on you and doesn't kill you you are almost guaranteed to come out ahead.
Mundo I've played from the other side, and it's basically a stalemate that usually ends up at Mundo's tower, where he just last hits. Not sure which is scarier with farm. Swain gets free farm and Mundo gets close, depending on his cleaver skills.
Singed never gets near creeps.
Nasus never gets near creeps.
The one time I laned against Shyvana I got totally dunked. No idea what black voodoo magics she was working, but she could just run right up to me with burnout on, even through lazerbird slow, and auto-q me for stupid stupid amounts of damage. By the time we reached 6 I was down two kills and it was already over. I need to play this one out against someone to see if it was a fluke, I played it badly, or what. I think leveling W>Q and ignoring E would let me tie the lane at least.
Sion is dumb but unless you play it badly you should win. You can either stop him from farming or damage him, but he gets to decide when he wants to pop his shield and it might be that he can
Malphite maxing Q gets no farm but starts to bully you around level 5.
The only GP I remember facing, I traded Torment for Parrrley quite comfortably. I was running armor on everything except reds, though and I don't know what he was running for runes. I suspect it was crit reds and he only got one crit in lane. Gamble and sometimes you lose.
Olaf loses to you pretty hard. He's not gonna land enough axes to make up for EQ if he ever gets close to creeps. At level 6 he can be a threat but he should be pretty behind by then and your ult should keep you alive until Ragnarok wears off.
Udyr can easily turtle off any damage you can do to him, but there's no way he can get close to you, even with bear stance. You're scarier with farm, so just get as many creeps as you can and try not to get ganked.
People that I've lost to are Nidalee (of course) and Ryze. Haven't played any Rumbles or Yoricks that I remember.
But yeah. Swain beats at least 90% of top lanes, scales super hard off farm, and is one of the few that can 1v2 jungle ganks if the jungler is scrub or the laner is like half health.
Theorycraft against some of the others you mentioned:
Nautilus shouldn't be able to tickle you.
Blitz, even if he lands a grab, probably gets outtraded by EQ.
Skarner no chance.
Volibear no chance.
Lee Sin could go either way. I'd need to play it out a few times. He'd have a hard time farming, since you can just autoattack harass. He'd definitely fare better than most others though.
Trundle no chance.
Renekton I can see doing well. EWQE probably trades well with lazerbird and he has no mana to worry about. He's still guaranteed to eat almost a full EQ though, so who knows.
So yeah. The real threat to Swain is jungle ganks. Buy. LOTS. of. wards.
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Ahh, the amount of wasted Summoners and double buffs from junglers who think they can gank a full HP Swain.
I've always been rather iffy on what to build after ROA. I usually build Tanky AP against the main damage threat, meaning Hourglass or Abyssal Scepter. Then I sometimes build WoTA, sometimes don't, sometimes get the other Tanky AP item, sometimes don't, etc. I've never really tried Deathcap in a non-stomp game, though I don't see why it couldn't be good. I'd say I'm situationally adapting to the current game phase, but really I'm just building what sounds decent at the time. Any suggestions?
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Always get Hourglass as your first or second item. It is pretty much the best item on swain and lets you do a lot of stupid things like towerdive, tank the first few hits, zhonyas to deaggro and heal up; bait the enemy team and pop hourglass; FlashQEWIgnite their squishy then hourglass when they start to focus you; etc. It basically makes so many more options safe.
Quicksilver Sash is better than Abyssal IMO. Unless a significant fraction of their team has low MR or a significant fraction of your team does magic damage or their team has no ignites or low cc, QSS is very good for guaranteed ult-zhonya with full healing.
Deathcap is a huge boost to your power and thus, indirectly, to your survivability. I'm a big fan of glass cannon swain, on account of how not actually glass cannon it is.
Try and get someone else on your team to pick up WotA if possible.
Archangels gets a lot of crap for being a noob trap but it's not a bad buy as a fourth or fifth item on Swain. You can actually use that mana pool, for one. It also boosts how much blue regenerates on you, making your ult last exponentially longer. Definitely don't rush it, though.
My opinion on Swain, as you may have noticed, is that you're tanky ap regardless of how you build, so you might as well build glass cannon.
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I actually haven't played him for quite long, and I noticed after going back to him that I may have had success when I was worse than now, but I didn't improve my Swain as much as I improved my general play, so I'm probably too rusty. Got beat pretty badly by a Garen (who was actually the only decent Garen I have faced, build and skill/summoner usage-wise) whom I thought I counterpicked. Makes you think.
As good as Abyssal looks on him, I'd get QSS every game too, if only to cut off that nasty ignite.
Against physical lanes, going catalyst->chain vest->zhonya looks really safe, but you don't have a whole lot of damage. I couldn't probably try that unless I got fed or end up in a free farm lane. I really like the catalyst for the early sustain and bonus HP tho, even if he benefits more from resists.
From what I remember from some calculations, Rabaddon's actually better than WotA when it comes to how much more healing it gives through his ult. I'd need to redo it since it doesn't take the cost difference into account, nor the fact that WotA works on his other skills, and that it was with Rabaddon/WotA as only source of AP.
Guess I need to go back to the drawing board and practice to learn how to trade properly with him.
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I still like to get ROA first on Swain, but I get deathcap after it like 90% of the time. Sometimes I get Zhonyas second if I'm dying REALLY fast for some reason while I'm sitting on a NLR. I've tried getting wota once but it was highly underwhelming. You're better off with building more damage because it kills the other guy faster and you get more healing with more AP anyway.
I think Swain is quickly becoming one of my favourite champions to play.
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Nice thing is that you can grab a NLR and have 2k gold to decide which path you want to go down.
Played 5 games with Swain today, sold on a 2nd or 3rd item Deathcap. Zhyona's really is enough for most threats mid-lateish game.
From what I remember from some calculations, Rabaddon's actually better than WotA when it comes to how much more healing it gives through his ult. I'd need to redo it since it doesn't take the cost difference into account, nor the fact that WotA works on his other skills, and that it was with Rabaddon/WotA as only source of AP.
Well, Rabadadohicky's gives an additional 36 + (6% other AP) damage on your ult, which is a total healing factor of .75*[86/106/126 + (.26/AP)] . WoTA gives an additional 16 damage on the Ult, plus an extra 20% healing, so that's .95*[66/86/106 + (.2/AP)]. A casual glance reveals that the two will converge somewhere in the thousands of AP, the latter being ahead for a while. DOesn't prove anything about the viability at all, but healing wise, WoTA does beat out DC.
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I tend to just play lane as last-hitting and survive until level 6 and blue, and the second I've gotten blue post-6 it is an IMMEDIATE lanewin. Only thing i've laned against mid and lost to have been leblanc and karthus, but i figure the karthus was me playing silly.
99/100 times I start boots 3 pots, but that's mostly habit. Immediate first item is roa in any situation. Wota is usually my second for how cheap it is and how much it benefits swain. third is extremely situational between roa, hourglass, deathcap, and abyssal scepter, depending on whos on my team, how we are doing, what the enemy team is made of, etc. etc.
generally finish a game with roa, wota, merc treads (silly, I know, but i like the MR for laning and they're never BAD just not GREAT.) and scepter, most don't last longer than that. May just be me though, I like getting that early game advantage and pushing it harder and harder.
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What skill do people start out with? I used to always get W first because of the security and leash strength, but I've been playing with E->Q->W. It's easier to trade with, and the threat of an EQ at level 2 is rather nice.
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United States37500 Posts
On March 14 2012 04:41 ManyCookies wrote:
What skill do people start out with? I used to always get W first because of the security and leash strength, but I've been playing with E->Q->W. It's easier to trade with, and the threat of an EQ at level 2 is rather nice.
Still EQEWER, R > E > Q > W
I don't see any scenario why to deviate from the above.
Not only is first skill W bad for mid lane, E still does more damage as a leash.
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On March 14 2012 04:47 NeoIllusions wrote:Show nested quote +On March 14 2012 04:41 ManyCookies wrote:
What skill do people start out with? I used to always get W first because of the security and leash strength, but I've been playing with E->Q->W. It's easier to trade with, and the threat of an EQ at level 2 is rather nice. Still EQEWER, R > E > Q > W I don't see any scenario why to deviate from the above. Not only is first skill W bad for mid lane, E still does more damage as a leash.
Wow really? Shit, why did I think everyone started W first.
(Although the extra damage is pretty marginal, and W holds Blue for an extra 2 seconds, which is nice if your jungler can't kill Blue before it turns, and damages the minions).
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I open E - Q - W, but after that I prefer to level R > E > W > Q. The main reason for this is because leveling W lowers its cooldown while Q remains the same, so when those fights begin to erupt past the laning phase, I find that higher levels of W just help more than higher levels of Q. At level 2 having Q is better than W for the "guaranteed" damage and slow, which helps your laning and your jungler in a conservative way, but I'd rather start leveling W over Q at lvl 8 and 10 because larger scale fights will occur more and more from then on, and I'd much rather have a lvl 2+ W over a lvl 2+ Q.
W also speeds up wave clearing past the laning phase.
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I think starting E first and trading with it whenever you can is the best way to play Swain. Throw in some AAs with it and Q at lvl 2.
Though you should consider taking W first if your team plans on invading. Potential 5 man snare = too good.
Now I've been wondering about 2 matchups:
Top vs Fiora. I honestly hate this bitch. She has her gap closer for you and just does so much damage. Anyone have experience/suggestions?
Next is vs Kassadin. Honestly, I always picked Swain whenever I saw Kassadin mid back in November(i think) when he was fotm. Swain gets to do what most APs do against Kass and then more. He wins trades early if he gets E+Q off with some AAs, giving him an advantage early.
Problem with pretty much every AP vs Kass though is that he starts destroying them post 6. Honestly, I think Swain can deal with him because of how tanky he is and if you just turn on ult when you see him teleport in, he should really never kill you.
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I start Q first always,its really good for getting last hits if your about to miss one or just to slow people that are about to walk up too you which is the whole idea of top lane swain.Even mid I would start out Q especially if your up against a jungler who could gank you early on,the range on E is too small so you can't really use it too harass stuff like cassio,ahri,etc.other standard ap mids effectively at lvl 1 so there's no point in taking E first imo.Take it at lvl 2 rather.
And I disagree about playing swain aggressive before lvl 3 or 4 when you can get your combo off.You just risk getting killed for no reason.
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On March 16 2012 09:50 Cloud9157 wrote:
I think starting E first and trading with it whenever you can is the best way to play Swain. Throw in some AAs with it and Q at lvl 2.
Though you should consider taking W first if your team plans on invading. Potential 5 man snare = too good.
Now I've been wondering about 2 matchups:
Top vs Fiora. I honestly hate this bitch. She has her gap closer for you and just does so much damage. Anyone have experience/suggestions?
Next is vs Kassadin. Honestly, I always picked Swain whenever I saw Kassadin mid back in November(i think) when he was fotm. Swain gets to do what most APs do against Kass and then more. He wins trades early if he gets E+Q off with some AAs, giving him an advantage early.
Problem with pretty much every AP vs Kass though is that he starts destroying them post 6. Honestly, I think Swain can deal with him because of how tanky he is and if you just turn on ult when you see him teleport in, he should really never kill you.
Can't remember if I have played vs Fiora or not, but i would personally never use q until she jumps you. If you get caught with q down when she jumps, then you are probably dying pre-6. Same story with w, her speed boost will let her dodge easily. Save if for when she dashes the second time to get her off your nuts. For harass e+autos is plenty of damage and keeps you much safer.
My biggest mistakes when playing swain top come when I get too aggressive pre 6 and miss my w, then they jump me and lay down a lot of damage.
Edit: I never take swain mid since his I think his range is too short and he uses a ton of mana to clear, so no advice there.
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Swain can do mid fine against most mages, but the ones that hurt him the most are shovers and people with absurd range.
So pretty much Cassio Malz, Morgana, and Brand are some of his worst matchups. I picked him vs Karthusan demolished him, but Karthus is such a squishy little guy.
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Valhalla18444 Posts
On March 14 2012 05:17 koreasilver wrote:
I open E - Q - W, but after that I prefer to level R > E > W > Q. The main reason for this is because leveling W lowers its cooldown while Q remains the same, so when those fights begin to erupt past the laning phase, I find that higher levels of W just help more than higher levels of Q. At level 2 having Q is better than W for the "guaranteed" damage and slow, which helps your laning and your jungler in a conservative way, but I'd rather start leveling W over Q at lvl 8 and 10 because larger scale fights will occur more and more from then on, and I'd much rather have a lvl 2+ W over a lvl 2+ Q.
W also speeds up wave clearing past the laning phase.
I used to do the same til i realized that by favoring q after e i dint need a second w in teamfights lol
cdr is nice but you dont need the extra damage to help push. you can clear a wave nice and quick post 6 and the danage difference in lane is v noticable if yiu dont max q second
i type this on my phone
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On March 16 2012 10:26 Cloud9157 wrote:
Swain can do mid fine against most mages, but the ones that hurt him the most are shovers and people with absurd range.
So pretty much Cassio Malz, Morgana, and Brand are some of his worst matchups. I picked him vs Karthusan demolished him, but Karthus is such a squishy little guy.
The ones I've had real trouble with are Cass, LeBlonk and non-retarded Morganas and Fizzes ("I'ma start Dorans!"). Brand/Malz/Kat were about even, generally lost by who made the first mistake or was successfully ganked. That could have been the players behind them though.
That said, when a mid has a bad matchup against Swain, it tends to be a really fucking awful matchup against Swain. And Swain snowballs incredibly hard against mids; he becomes untradable and ungankable, still does as much damage as a normal AP (over a longer interval), and unlike against most Top laners Swain can shut down farming pretty damn hard.
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On March 16 2012 15:02 ManyCookies wrote:Show nested quote +On March 16 2012 10:26 Cloud9157 wrote:
Swain can do mid fine against most mages, but the ones that hurt him the most are shovers and people with absurd range.
So pretty much Cassio Malz, Morgana, and Brand are some of his worst matchups. I picked him vs Karthusan demolished him, but Karthus is such a squishy little guy. The ones I've had real trouble with are Cass, LeBlonk and non-retarded Morganas and Fizzes ("I'ma start Dorans!"). Brand/Malz/Kat were about even, generally lost by who made the first mistake or was successfully ganked. That could have been the players behind them though. That said, when a mid has a bad matchup against Swain, it tends to be a really fucking awful matchup against Swain. And Swain snowballs incredibly hard against mids; he becomes untradable and ungankable, still does as much damage as a normal AP (over a longer interval), and unlike against most Top laners Swain can shut down farming pretty damn hard.
I'm sure LB is a pretty bad MU (like she is for pretty much everyone) but I just seem to always live her burst as Swain, barely at times. She is pretty much on a timer to beat Swain, since if he gets to level ~10 he will be too tanky and just heal up her damage, probably even be able to kill her.
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Any particular streamers (or VODs thereof) of decent mid Swain players? Anyone found a way to work Athene's Unholy Grail into their builds, or still fairly standard Hourglass/DCap/Void Staff/misc?
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Baa?21242 Posts
RoA/Grail/tanky ap stuff. Fight forever.
Put in chalice earlier if you really need the MR, otherwise finish RoA ASAP since it's time sensitive.
Always cawcawcaw never not cawcawcaw.
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Regarding tenacity, how is Q considered? Is it a fixed slow on top of the DoT, affected by tenacity, or is it a permaslow applied by the DoT, and hence not reduced?
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Each tick of damage applies the slow. Tenacity reduces the duration of the last tick, but not significantly. It's basically a permaslow.
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Thinking of buying this dude on my smurf once I finish my AP page. I remember I had some great times with him back in the day.
RoA/Abby/FH is my favored build.
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Would spirit visage (or whatever its called) increased healing % help Swain?
Is there a build I could do that lets him tank the entire enemy team, and regain health constantly enough to the point where you never die? And enough mana to let him do this for a long time?
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On May 30 2012 11:28 GhostOwl wrote:
Would spirit visage (or whatever its called) increased healing % help Swain?
Is there a build I could do that lets him tank the entire enemy team, and regain health constantly enough to the point where you never die? And enough mana to let him do this for a long time?
Aside from just being really really fed and the other team not having Ignite? No, that would be broken as all hell.
That being said something to the effect of Zhonya's, Abyssal, Athenes, RoA, Ninja Tabis/Mercs, and Deathcap would make you tanky as balls, hit like a truck, and solve most of your mana issues.
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That's how I've been building him the few games I tried to practice him back to shape, but I've found that I don't build rabaddon. It's not that I don't want to, it's just that Zhonya's too good to pass up, and then Grail/Abyssal are tempting sources of MR, both with their own reasons. I could probably just grab the negatron (leaving it open to QSS later if people like to chain-cc burst me before I can use zhonya) and complete rabaddon before I finish abyssal/build grail, tho.
Thanks Tooplark btw.
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Spirit Visage does boost Swain's healing from ult.
If you want to maximize tankiness, Spirit Visage, WotA, and efficient armor/mr items are the way to go. This has problems, however, in that you don't really contribute much to teamfights except for however much damage you absorb, and you aren't threatening enough to be the target of much damage. Balancing tankiness with AP is the most challenging part to playing Swain. Zhonya's Hourglass lets you go much heavier on the AP, and is core in any AP-centric build. RoA is an extremely efficient combination of stats and should be purchased as early as possible on a tankier Swain.
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So went through a few pages and didn't see much on it, but I'm wondering on the merit of 3 Spellvamp quints in place of flat AP, 15 ap v 6% spellvamp given swains slightly lower ratios would seem to always work out in the Spellvamps favour no?
Not sure...
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Baa?21242 Posts
On July 26 2012 12:14 Skithiryx wrote:
So went through a few pages and didn't see much on it, but I'm wondering on the merit of 3 Spellvamp quints in place of flat AP, 15 ap v 6% spellvamp given swains slightly lower ratios would seem to always work out in the Spellvamps favour no?
Not sure...
? Swain's ratios are actually extremely high, they're just all DOT.
Ignoring the E amplification, he has .9 Q .7 W .8 E and .6 R With E he has 1/close to 1 ratios on three of his skills, and his ult is 3 birds every second...
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On July 26 2012 15:05 Carnivorous Sheep wrote:Show nested quote +On July 26 2012 12:14 Skithiryx wrote:
So went through a few pages and didn't see much on it, but I'm wondering on the merit of 3 Spellvamp quints in place of flat AP, 15 ap v 6% spellvamp given swains slightly lower ratios would seem to always work out in the Spellvamps favour no?
Not sure... ? Swain's ratios are actually extremely high, they're just all DOT. Ignoring the E amplification, he has .9 Q .7 W .8 E and .6 R With E he has 1/close to 1 ratios on three of his skills, and his ult is 3 birds every second...
Don't forget long cooldown.
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Baa?21242 Posts
On July 26 2012 15:08 Sufficiency wrote:Show nested quote +On July 26 2012 15:05 Carnivorous Sheep wrote:On July 26 2012 12:14 Skithiryx wrote:
So went through a few pages and didn't see much on it, but I'm wondering on the merit of 3 Spellvamp quints in place of flat AP, 15 ap v 6% spellvamp given swains slightly lower ratios would seem to always work out in the Spellvamps favour no?
Not sure... ? Swain's ratios are actually extremely high, they're just all DOT. Ignoring the E amplification, he has .9 Q .7 W .8 E and .6 R With E he has 1/close to 1 ratios on three of his skills, and his ult is 3 birds every second... Don't forget long cooldown.
That is a detriment to spellvamp then just as much as AP so I don't really see the relevance..?
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Just wondering, is spellvamp a good item on Swain? I know his Q+E are full spellvamp and his W is reduced spellvamp. How about his R?
I tried him the other day and I went RoA->Abyssal. Then Zhonyas, Grail. Was thinking about working towards either dcap or void staff as last item (it was a 50+ minute game). I did okay, but laning was a pain against Morg since she could push me to tower and roam, while I struggled to clear creep 'til 6. I went R>E>W>Q.
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On July 26 2012 15:09 Carnivorous Sheep wrote:Show nested quote +On July 26 2012 15:08 Sufficiency wrote:On July 26 2012 15:05 Carnivorous Sheep wrote:On July 26 2012 12:14 Skithiryx wrote:
So went through a few pages and didn't see much on it, but I'm wondering on the merit of 3 Spellvamp quints in place of flat AP, 15 ap v 6% spellvamp given swains slightly lower ratios would seem to always work out in the Spellvamps favour no?
Not sure... ? Swain's ratios are actually extremely high, they're just all DOT. Ignoring the E amplification, he has .9 Q .7 W .8 E and .6 R With E he has 1/close to 1 ratios on three of his skills, and his ult is 3 birds every second... Don't forget long cooldown. That is a detriment to spellvamp then just as much as AP so I don't really see the relevance..?
Of course that's important. That's like asking why not use spellvamp quaints on LeBlanc.
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Baa?21242 Posts
On July 26 2012 15:10 Ryuu314 wrote:
Just wondering, is spellvamp a good item on Swain? I know his Q+E are full spellvamp and his W is reduced spellvamp. How about his R?
I tried him the other day and I went RoA->Abyssal. Then Zhonyas, Grail. Was thinking about working towards either dcap or void staff as last item (it was a 50+ minute game). I did okay, but laning was a pain against Morg since she could push me to tower and roam, while I struggled to clear creep 'til 6. I went R>E>W>Q.
His ult is considered AOE for spell vamp and Rylai purposes.
Spell vamp is cute and fun to screw around with but honestly you get more mileage out of just building hp and resists alongside your ap. I'm not really a fan of spell vamp on him, especially after wota got nerfed. You're just paying a lot for very little benefit compared to what you're giving up.
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On July 26 2012 15:10 Ryuu314 wrote:
Just wondering, is spellvamp a good item on Swain? I know his Q+E are full spellvamp and his W is reduced spellvamp. How about his R?
I tried him the other day and I went RoA->Abyssal. Then Zhonyas, Grail. Was thinking about working towards either dcap or void staff as last item (it was a 50+ minute game). I did okay, but laning was a pain against Morg since she could push me to tower and roam, while I struggled to clear creep 'til 6. I went R>E>W>Q.
Actually, his Q/E both have reduced spellvamp because they are DoT. In fact, all of his spells have diminishing returns with spellvamp.
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On July 26 2012 15:25 Sufficiency wrote:Show nested quote +On July 26 2012 15:10 Ryuu314 wrote:
Just wondering, is spellvamp a good item on Swain? I know his Q+E are full spellvamp and his W is reduced spellvamp. How about his R?
I tried him the other day and I went RoA->Abyssal. Then Zhonyas, Grail. Was thinking about working towards either dcap or void staff as last item (it was a 50+ minute game). I did okay, but laning was a pain against Morg since she could push me to tower and roam, while I struggled to clear creep 'til 6. I went R>E>W>Q. Actually, his Q/E both have reduced spellvamp because they are DoT. In fact, all of his spells have diminishing returns with spellvamp.
eh? wiki says the exact opposite.
Damage over time abilities (DoT) apply full spell vamp. (e.g. Brand's Blaze and Malzahar's Malefic Visions).
http://leagueoflegends.wikia.com/wiki/Spell_vamp
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Baa?21242 Posts
On July 26 2012 15:17 Sufficiency wrote:Show nested quote +On July 26 2012 15:09 Carnivorous Sheep wrote:On July 26 2012 15:08 Sufficiency wrote:On July 26 2012 15:05 Carnivorous Sheep wrote:On July 26 2012 12:14 Skithiryx wrote:
So went through a few pages and didn't see much on it, but I'm wondering on the merit of 3 Spellvamp quints in place of flat AP, 15 ap v 6% spellvamp given swains slightly lower ratios would seem to always work out in the Spellvamps favour no?
Not sure... ? Swain's ratios are actually extremely high, they're just all DOT. Ignoring the E amplification, he has .9 Q .7 W .8 E and .6 R With E he has 1/close to 1 ratios on three of his skills, and his ult is 3 birds every second... Don't forget long cooldown. That is a detriment to spellvamp then just as much as AP so I don't really see the relevance..? Of course that's important. That's like asking why not use spellvamp quaints on LeBlanc.
The argument was "low ap ratios therefore spell vamp > ap," i say "ap ratios are high" and you counter with "ya but long cooldowns;" that adversely affects spellvamp just as much as ap ratios, so i don't see the relevance.
Also DOT single target spells 100% apply full spell vamp...
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On July 26 2012 15:29 Ryuu314 wrote:Show nested quote +On July 26 2012 15:25 Sufficiency wrote:On July 26 2012 15:10 Ryuu314 wrote:
Just wondering, is spellvamp a good item on Swain? I know his Q+E are full spellvamp and his W is reduced spellvamp. How about his R?
I tried him the other day and I went RoA->Abyssal. Then Zhonyas, Grail. Was thinking about working towards either dcap or void staff as last item (it was a 50+ minute game). I did okay, but laning was a pain against Morg since she could push me to tower and roam, while I struggled to clear creep 'til 6. I went R>E>W>Q. Actually, his Q/E both have reduced spellvamp because they are DoT. In fact, all of his spells have diminishing returns with spellvamp. eh? wiki says the exact opposite. Show nested quote +Damage over time abilities (DoT) apply full spell vamp. (e.g. Brand's Blaze and Malzahar's Malefic Visions). http://leagueoflegends.wikia.com/wiki/Spell_vamp
Ugh. For the whole time I thought it was reduced =\. I blame the wording on the wiki.
http://leagueoflegends.wikia.com/wiki/Swain_the_Master_Tactician/Ability_Details
Decrepify procs spell vamp and Rylai's slow similarly with all damage over time spells and abilities with diminished effect.
On July 26 2012 15:32 Carnivorous Sheep wrote:Show nested quote +On July 26 2012 15:17 Sufficiency wrote:On July 26 2012 15:09 Carnivorous Sheep wrote:On July 26 2012 15:08 Sufficiency wrote:On July 26 2012 15:05 Carnivorous Sheep wrote:On July 26 2012 12:14 Skithiryx wrote:
So went through a few pages and didn't see much on it, but I'm wondering on the merit of 3 Spellvamp quints in place of flat AP, 15 ap v 6% spellvamp given swains slightly lower ratios would seem to always work out in the Spellvamps favour no?
Not sure... ? Swain's ratios are actually extremely high, they're just all DOT. Ignoring the E amplification, he has .9 Q .7 W .8 E and .6 R With E he has 1/close to 1 ratios on three of his skills, and his ult is 3 birds every second... Don't forget long cooldown. That is a detriment to spellvamp then just as much as AP so I don't really see the relevance..? Of course that's important. That's like asking why not use spellvamp quaints on LeBlanc. The argument was "low ap ratios therefore spell vamp > ap," i say "ap ratios are high" and you counter with "ya but long cooldowns;" that adversely affects spellvamp just as much as ap ratios, so i don't see the relevance. Also DOT single target spells 100% apply full spell vamp...
Spellvamp's effectiveness has to do with DPS. AP ratio plays a part in this, but cooldown also needs to be considered.
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Spellvamp is overkill on Swain. Your ult is enough healing most of the time, and if you really want to get more out of the healing it's more efficient to buy resists and Zhonya's.
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I used to get the WotA on Swain before both of the WotA nerfs. WotA was too good to pass up on. Right now I don't see a reason to get it over Abyssal/Zhonyas though, just not as strong anymore.
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I think swain is very underplayed and very strong in alot of matchups top and mid. roa+grail feels like a very solid core to have, the cdr is also extremely welcome. I think FH can be a viable option as well. The two common ap items WotA and DC never really work well from what i've seen. DC (WotA to a lesser extend) makes swain too weak to really use his ult to it's potential, even with the high AP scaling it has and the damage amplyfy from E. The only pure offensive item I consider is a late voidstaff against a bruiser heavy team, when you got enough mr through grail+mercs(+mb abyssmal). rilays makes you and your carry safer against alot of bruisers and is a natural counter to ignite and burst (the primary tactic to shut down a farmed swain). Basicly anything that gives at least two of those: defense, ap, utility/mana are items I want to consider with grail+roa as core choices and an optional voidstaff as a sixth item in really long games.
I've played with a swain in soloq who claimed to be a very experienced swain player. He got fed early and built roa, wota, dc into the mid-lategame, but didn't manage to really be a huge presence. With this setup he was not tanky enough to really soak up any damage and he didn't really do alot of damage with his ult because of that. Kinda sitting on the back with his high cooldowns and using ult when he got dived, dying to ignite + burst was all he was able to contribute. AP carries who deal sustained/poke damage or burst AoE/ very high burst ST can do well with such a squishy build because they don't rely meleeing bruisers. Swain is certainly not one of them. On regular AP carries I focus on getting damage and add defense when I can spare the gold. On regular Bruisers I do the opposite: focussing on defense and get in damage as I can squeeze it in. With Swain I do the latter.
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Swain is op as fuck in lane. His problem is that dot's are mostly garbage late game. You won't be killing any ad carry(which is pretty much your job) when they have 4+ items and are life stealing right through your damage. Peeling for your carry is probably the better choice, and not ulting until you start getting targeted.
Focusing more on defense is perfectly fine on him imo. He does not need a lot of ap to hit like a truck. Tag someone with e and unload everything on them and they go down pretty quick.
My own preference on building him is pretty much boots+3>cata>rod>zhonyas. After that, it depends on how the game is going. If I'm fed and killing everything, I usually go for a DC to insure that I keep killing everything. If I find myself getting focused a lot or they have a lot of magic damage, I grab a SV or Abyssal. If you also have a Kennen/Vlad/Rumble and see that they got a wota, you should consider grabbing one as well, just because double wota is stupid. Grail will also be an item of great usefulness, especially if you decided to grab a cup during lane. And of course a Void should be one of your last items if they are stacking a lot of mr.
Basically, there isn't one distinct way to build him(outside of rod>zhonya's imo). You really need to observe how the game is going and anticipate how it will play out. How farmed/fed is everyone, how late the game is, it all matters. There are so many items that can go on this guy, it really boils down to your judgment and experience in playing him.
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just had a game as swain vs fiora top. was very easy to lane vs her but noct kept camping and diving me. I was ahead in CS and kills compared to fiora still so she switched lanes with kat. Kat farmed very well during that time. she had more cs than me so i played defensively and waited her to make mistakes. was able to kill her too and get a decent farm and items. I still lost the game though since my team kept losing 4on3 fights at dragon etc so I had to leave kat and set up good dragon fights which i did 1 time successfully. In the end we still got pwned hard. Dunno. Our AD carry was never really on the right place and got caught in every 5on5 despite me being in the front line. I couldnt combo on noct though because kat would go rampage too much then. my build was tabi, roa, athenes, zonyas.
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The problem with Swain is that he crushes a lot of mid and top lanes but he doesn't really carry very hard.
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he carries very hard.. he also snowballs harder than like every AP
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On August 22 2012 07:03 zulu_nation8 wrote:
he carries very hard.. he also snowballs harder than like every AP
The problem is that he is mostly damage over time.
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what does that have to do with anything?
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Get fed, walk in middle of enemy team, press Zhyona's.
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On August 22 2012 07:12 zulu_nation8 wrote:
what does that have to do with anything?
dots are not good vs people with life steal. I hate whenever I go after adcs in a team fight, only to have them life steal through part of my damage. When they have ie, bt, pd(s) it becomes very difficult to kill them. Usually have to rely on someone with hard cc holding them down for you.
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On August 22 2012 08:39 Cloud9157 wrote:Show nested quote +On August 22 2012 07:12 zulu_nation8 wrote:
what does that have to do with anything? dots are not good vs people with life steal. I hate whenever I go after adcs in a team fight, only to have them life steal through part of my damage. When they have ie, bt, pd(s) it becomes very difficult to kill them. Usually have to rely on someone with hard cc holding them down for you.
nice post count!
yeah I guess I should have tried to concentrate more my ad carry during teamfights. Swain is very, very good at protecting them if you are aware of it. But I figured Swain does not hard carry by default, even if fed early on. You have to be smart about what you do in lategame and how you fight and not just cawcaw into them when noct ults on your carry.
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Swain doesn't assassinate the enemy carries. If you want to do that, pick Ahri or Kass.
Swain doesn't start teamfights explosively. If you want to do that, pick Annie or Brand.
What Swain does is live forever and do stupid amounts of damage. You are not protecting your team's carry - you ARE your team's carry.
Also, I still think that Rod of Ages is a pretty crappy item for Swain. Resists and damage are much more important. The mana pool is nice, but I'd rather leave catalyst alone (if I buy it at all) and just get Zhonya's Hourglass faster.
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When he gets god like farm he can carry like a mother fucker and going golden raven mode when on 10% HP to come out of it at 50% with 2 kills is maximum troll mode but he just seems lacking everywhere else.
If you're up against anyone who can push a lane moderately well then best of fucking luck as every second you don't have blue buff is crippling essentially meaning you have to either never leave your lane, blow a large portion of your mana to clear the wave before going or let your turret take the hits during which time your opponent is ganking your teams lanes or robbing your wraiths. When ganking he's nothing like an Ahri, TF or LB, if their top or bot lane are pushing they'll still be able to get out fine with standard ward positioning and basic reflexes, your best hope is their stupidity or counter ganking.
So, in my opinion while he can be fun to play occasionally and can snowball stupidly hard he doesn't really dominate in lane, doesn't have the ganking power and mobility like many other mid champs do and while having a fair amount of cc still not as strong or as much as other mids. To me that's why he gets so little use in competitive play and isn't exactly a go to champ for carrying yourself through solo queue, jack of all trades, master of none.
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the thing with swain is, you dont have to hit a skill shot to kill the other mid if youre ahead
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On August 23 2012 14:45 MVTaylor wrote:
When he gets god like farm he can carry like a mother fucker and going golden raven mode when on 10% HP to come out of it at 50% with 2 kills is maximum troll mode but he just seems lacking everywhere else.
If you're up against anyone who can push a lane moderately well then best of fucking luck as every second you don't have blue buff is crippling essentially meaning you have to either never leave your lane, blow a large portion of your mana to clear the wave before going or let your turret take the hits during which time your opponent is ganking your teams lanes or robbing your wraiths. When ganking he's nothing like an Ahri, TF or LB, if their top or bot lane are pushing they'll still be able to get out fine with standard ward positioning and basic reflexes, your best hope is their stupidity or counter ganking.
So, in my opinion while he can be fun to play occasionally and can snowball stupidly hard he doesn't really dominate in lane, doesn't have the ganking power and mobility like many other mid champs do and while having a fair amount of cc still not as strong or as much as other mids. To me that's why he gets so little use in competitive play and isn't exactly a go to champ for carrying yourself through solo queue, jack of all trades, master of none.
Really? I am always under the impression that he can dominate a lane quite easily once he is a little ahead - because of his stupid sustain via R.
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You can't kill him if he gets ahead, well, I guess you could with your jungler... but then you have to commit so he just rejoices at the sight of you remaining in range and takes the kill with a squeal. And sometimes a second one, if you've already done that a couple of times and your jungler doesn't pack enough burst.
A fed Swain can very well assassinate in the midgame thanks to the power of Torment, especially squishies, but the thing is—after the assassination, he's still probably got all of his kit except for W available on short notice, ready to trash somebody else (who's already lost some HP through your ult).
He's a dueling/teamfighting champion, not an assassin, nor a roamer. Everybody doesn't get to be Lebonk, 'happens. You just have to keep this in mind when you build your teamcomp. Or you just send him top and go all "Sorry Vlad, I'm liking that spot, now please leave me alone". Or weep because everybody and their mother has an instant dash up there these days.
Regarding RoA, it's simple: resistances are cool. Stacking them without HP and getting killed before your ult can kick in is not. Kinda the same as Mundo where you need a HP buffer for your ult to start ticking before you die.
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not getting roa is just weird considering that all the stats are very much needed and its an extremely costefficient item.
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I think RoA is too good to pass up. He uses every stat in RoA extremely well, and the buildup is extremely good for laning. The addition of grail into the game just makes him a monster.
Also Swain has been my goto pick against Diana. Punishes her extremely well pre-6, and post 6 you are relatively safe from all-ins.
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On August 23 2012 20:05 Amui wrote:
I think RoA is too good to pass up. He uses every stat in RoA extremely well, and the buildup is extremely good for laning. The addition of grail into the game just makes him a monster.
Also Swain has been my goto pick against Diana. Punishes her extremely well pre-6, and post 6 you are relatively safe from all-ins.
the swain vs diana matchup has a some weaknesses though. diana naturally pushes through Q poke and her passive without wasting mana for it. this makes her vulnerable to ganks but your jungler is not your personal laning bodyguard so you can't ever count on him to come at exactly the right moment. So diana will most likely be able to gain quite some farm and mapcontrol if she hits some Qs on you. you need to litterally bait out and dodge her Qs to do good trades and you need be on spot with your CSing (because the lane is pushing to your turret). It is also very easy for her to mitigate your E and Q damage in lane with her shield since they all dots, so even if she isn't spot on with her reaction she will tank quite alot of it's damage.
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I dunno why people have trouble dodging Diana's Q's. Just walk towards her.
Swain rocks Diana. She comes into melee range of the creeps post 6 and just fight her.
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Thing is the only reason Swain does kinda well with mana management pre-blue is his passive, which isn't helped against a good pusher like Diana. Add the shield to mitigate your DoTs (the free renewable shield, should I say), and the fact that she can spam all day with her ridiculous mana costs and I believe she could easily wear down a Swain by running him oom.
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On August 23 2012 22:38 Bladeorade wrote:
I dunno why people have trouble dodging Diana's Q's. Just walk towards her.
Swain rocks Diana. She comes into melee range of the creeps post 6 and just fight her.
You do that often and she will intentionally aim the arc at you instead of the circle.
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On August 23 2012 22:57 Sufficiency wrote:Show nested quote +On August 23 2012 22:38 Bladeorade wrote:
I dunno why people have trouble dodging Diana's Q's. Just walk towards her.
Swain rocks Diana. She comes into melee range of the creeps post 6 and just fight her. You do that often and she will intentionally aim the arc at you instead of the circle.
So recognize this and change your pattern? walking straight backwards or sideways is the worst way to dodge.
I prefer running straight at Diana and engaging since her Q is now on cooldown
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On August 23 2012 22:57 Sufficiency wrote:Show nested quote +On August 23 2012 22:38 Bladeorade wrote:
I dunno why people have trouble dodging Diana's Q's. Just walk towards her.
Swain rocks Diana. She comes into melee range of the creeps post 6 and just fight her. You do that often and she will intentionally aim the arc at you instead of the circle.
Or she'll just use her other abilities and do 2-3x more damage than the Q.
Its range needs to get nerfed pretty badly, as does her ult range. Damage on Q could stand to go down, too.
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If she tries to kill you at or after 6, she is playing a very dangerous game. Anyone who has to get in close to Swain to fight him without some form of CC (Kassadin op) has the potential to be taken from 100-0 or at least chunked for a great deal of their health.
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When you play Swain top, and considering the lack of good armor itemization for AP champs, would you consider getting early tabi instead of sorc shoes? I mean sorcs are probably better if you're ahead, but against hard-hitting lanes (Panth, Riven, etc.) wouldn't you rather want the resists to outsustain them?
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On August 23 2012 22:51 Alaric wrote:
Thing is the only reason Swain does kinda well with mana management pre-blue is his passive, which isn't helped against a good pusher like Diana. Add the shield to mitigate your DoTs (the free renewable shield, should I say), and the fact that she can spam all day with her ridiculous mana costs and I believe she could easily wear down a Swain by running him oom.
This is why you run AD runes on Swain and destroy Diana pre-6 via autos.
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'k I'll run my AD/armor/flat MR/MS page on him one day.
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Plus it's easier to last hit with AD runes. Not that I'd use them for that particular reason or anything.
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AD runes are a reasonable choice on Swain. A lot of your early control comes from Torment amplifying your autoattack damage, and last hits are how you keep your mana topped off.
Armor items? Armor runes and get a chainmail for Hourglass. Not that Tabi's a bad buy or anything, though usually I go for Mercs.
I haven't played Swain vs Diana, but I think Swain would beat her. Torment is comparable to her Crescent Strike in mana cost and cooldown early, and she's melee range so you get a few autoattacks on her if she tries to close. Crescent Strike does outrange torment, but you should be able to make it to level 6.
From 6 on, if she goes all-in on you she might get a kill but you should win otherwise because of the crazy healing on your ult. Buy some magic resist and/or doran's rings early.
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On August 28 2012 14:26 Tooplark wrote:
AD runes are a reasonable choice on Swain. A lot of your early control comes from Torment amplifying your autoattack damage, and last hits are how you keep your mana topped off.
Armor items? Armor runes and get a chainmail for Hourglass. Not that Tabi's a bad buy or anything, though usually I go for Mercs.
I haven't played Swain vs Diana, but I think Swain would beat her. Torment is comparable to her Crescent Strike in mana cost and cooldown early, and she's melee range so you get a few autoattacks on her if she tries to close. Crescent Strike does outrange torment, but you should be able to make it to level 6.
From 6 on, if she goes all-in on you she might get a kill but you should win otherwise because of the crazy healing on your ult. Buy some magic resist and/or doran's rings early.
I guess this is kinda an old post but if she ults onto you pop ult and shit on her. If you have cata(i.e arent fighting boots vs boots or something) you'll poop all over her. If you need armor id just get hourglass, really like running HP/L Yellows on Swain.
Im quite convinced he's one of the stronger AP mids atm.
Reading one of the LoLPro guides posted in GD, im kinda liking RoA-> Hat, was doing RoA Abby with a chalice mixed in sometimes, but liking DC atm.
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swain should crush diana in lane.
should diana get good / similar farm to him, she should be able to kill him with any assistance or on her own with ignite should they duel imo post level 7 ish
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EPT
