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Meet the new look Swain in League of Legends patch 8.3
Patch 8.3 has dropped, bringing with it the hotly anticipated Swain rework. We jumped onto the Rift to make sure you know how to dominate your pubs with him.
It feels like we’re still recovering from the major new season changes in League of Legends, and we certainly haven’t figured out all of the small changes and how they work. Despite the new season still feeling very fresh, we’re already onto 8.3, and with the new patch, comes a lot of changes. Popular champs have been nerfed, underused champs have been buffed and lots of champions received some small changes to HP regen. But the big new addition with 8.3 is the totally reworked Swain.
Riot has built yet another tanky hero that fits well in the mid lane with the new look Swain, bringing a lot of huge tweaks and changing many of the key elements of how he plays. Some people love the new Swain, us included, while others have been quite critical of some aspects of the redesign. However, the one thing that we can all agree on is that this rework was needed.
If you’re wondering if the new look Swain is for you, then you’re in luck. We jumped onto the Rift to play a few games with him and have returned with this overview of his new kit and how to play with it.
Abilities
Passive: Ravenous Flock
Swain’s passive has two parts to it. The first is pretty simple, if you right click on a champion while they’re immobilised, you’ll damage them and pull them a short distance towards you. This is great for extra lockdown, dragging people out of position and pairing with champions that have lots of crowd control.
The second part of Ravenous Flock gets a little more complex. Whenever Swain pulls an immobilised champion towards him, or hits a champion with his Vision of Empire (W) ability (below), he gains a Soul Fragment. When gained, these will heal Swain for a portion of his maximum health. These fragments are also factored into his ultimate, when that ends, he deals Area of Effect damage – and the more Soul Fragments he has, the more damage he dishes out. When this happens, all Soul Fragments are lost, and it’s back to square one.
Q: Death's Hand
Swain’s Q is capable of doing a lot of damage at regular intervals with the right build. With this ability, he unleashes bolts of eldritch power in front of him in a cone, in a similar style to Ashe’s Volley ability. If the bolts kill a unit they'll restore a portion of Swain’s mana. At max level this has a ridiculously short 2.5 second cool down, and with the mana restore built in it becomes easy to spam the spell multiple times in fights. With a good AP build you can also deal significant damage with each cast, making it very dangerous to foes who get too close.
W: Vision of Empire
Vision of Empire is perhaps our favourite of Swain’s new abilities, thanks to its ridiculous range. When cast, a small eye will appear on the ground at the target location and reveals it for two seconds. Then it’ll explode, dealing damage and slowing champions for 2.5 seconds. Any champions hit will also grant Swain a Soul Fragment. What makes this spell great is that it has a ridiculous 3,500 range, meaning you can finish off some minions in lane while traveling through the jungle. This is also the best way of gaining Soul Fragments if you’re in a quiet game.
E: Nevermove
Nevermove is the ability that really plays nicely with Swain’s passive ability. When cast, it sends out a wave in the targeted direction dealing damage to any enemy that it hits. When the wave hits its max distance, it returns towards Swain, and if it hits an enemy during the return, they will be rooted for 1.5 seconds and be dealt further magic damage. Of course, with Swain’s passive he can then pull any rooted enemy towards him and gain a Soul Fragment. It has a fairly short range, but with some practice, you can hit this and combo with your passive in a lot of situations – all gaining those precious Soul Fragments to boost your ult.
R (Ult): Demonic Ascension
Swain’s ultimate sees him unleash the demon, which gives him a number of boosts. While in ult form, which last for 12 seconds, Swain drains HP from the three enemies closest to him, with a priority on champions. The drained targets will take damage per second while Swain will be healed each second, depending on how many enemies he is currently draining.
When his ult ends, all Swain’s Soul Fragments are consumed, which send out a wave of damage around Swain. The more Fragments Swain has, the more damage this ability will do. If needed, Swain can also end his ultimate early, providing he has restored at at least 150/300/450 health to send out the damage wave.
How to play Swain
People still seem to be figuring out Swain, and there are a lot of options for the reworked champ. A lot of people like to run him mid, which is where we’ve had a lot of success, but we've also seen him used in top and even as a support. You’ll probably get the least reports in mid, but have fun and try him out wherever you fancy. You never know, you might start a new meta.
As for build, Attack Power builds are great for boosting damage output, while tanky builds work very well in terms of staying alive and distracting others. It somewhat depends on the game, and if you already have a lot of tanks then obviously AP is the way to go, but if you’re lacking, then becoming the team tank is a solid option. Mixing both together is also a solid idea, but remember that your ultimate is great at keeping you alive during fights. So, if you feel like you need to tank up for the big skirmishes, just try to work on your position a little more.
