Why NO ONE Plays: Swain | League of Legends

Hitting a Vision from across the map is so satisfying.

SWAIN I LOVE YOU

Problem with his ultimate is that the healing is mostly irrelevant. In the burst meta we are in, a few more hp from his passive and the life steal from his ult will not stop any decent assassin from bursting him down. He's a mage made for drawn out fights in an era where those fights barely exist anymore.

"A Morgana Q that can go through minions" you just described Neeko E.

One of Swain's biggest problems is how inconsistent his passive is. Almost all infinite stacking champs can get stacks from minions or jungle monsters like Nasus, Veigar, Smolder or Bel'veth and make sure they get stacks consistently. Swain on the other hand has to interact with the opponent to get his stacks, to be precise he has to hit an e or w, which are quite easy to dodge as most champs have a better range or the necessary mobility.
Swain will never reach the status of a Nasus with 1000 stacks or a Smolder with 225+ stacks. Swain passive is a late game passive that gets stronger over the match but never reaches the status where it gets out of control for the opponents or have you ever had the moment where you thought “oh shit a swain with 200 stacks”?

Main Swain over here. I wouldn't really say he's inconsistent. If you look at him from a general perspective, he totally is, but I think the problem lies in his current concept. He's not a half all in half poke/controller. He's 100% all in. All his current kit is meant to keep his R. The R is the whole champion, his kit is meant to make him a pve raid boss. Q deals damage, E and W keep enemies within his range. That's it. There's no champion otherwise, if you get kitted is over. I think they put too much emphasys on the R and the power budget just screwed him. If I were to change something, I'd lower the damage from his R and increase the healing or I'd give him more sustain as a reward for take downs during it. So that his basic abilities can become more meaningful outside of the R, which is... bassically the rest of the time. He's also too item dependent, I'd like to see a wider range of builds, perhaps make his health scaling more meaning full by adding something akin to Vlad's passive, but with thresholds, like with Smolder. Empower him based on health reached. That'd likely turn him into a hypercarry to keep him balanced, but I wouldn't mind that.

Swain has my highest mastery by a lot, my beautiful swan is my main. I think one thing that i experience personally is (assuming the other team knows how to play against swain) he just doesn't feel good. If you build tanky, you do no dmg so it's safe for the other team to ignore you. But if you build dmg, you die instantly when you go in. The drain tank idea is fun and feels good when swain is broken, but when properly balanced, he can't do dmg and tank. He feels very bad. You mentioned Vlad as an example, and he fits the feeling of drain tank much better than swain does, despite not usually being considered a drain tank.

While his ult is better now, I did prefer how it was a toggle back in the day. If you had RoA and Seraph’s you could keep it up indefinitely similar to Amumu. It also meant Swain was a literal Raid Boss is Ascension Mode, because you were crazy difficult to kill and could drain the entire enemy team at no mana cost… it was amazing

I think making his W cast time scale with distance so that it’s faster the closer it is to him would be cool. Also maybe making his ult a little bigger for every stack he has?

I love Swain. However, his old game play was my favorite in the game. So I play him rarely now because he isn't what he was. The problem of updating champs is that their game play will still age. His ult has way more impact now, but being able to swap on and off of his old ult helped you stay in lanes and fights with a stacking mana cost. Was a good trade-off of knowing when spending your mana was worth it.

Great video! I think Morgana has the exact same problem. Her basic kit is designed to play it as a ranged mage while her ult makes her want to be in the middle of the fight, which results in akwards positionings and being force to build Hourglass in order to not be garbage.

Swain, the champ that is below average on the rift but top 5 in aram

Swain instantly became my favorite character when he first came out and I loved the fact that he had a toggle r ability that allowed him to heal through fights as well as a damage amp ability that made even ignite stronger to use with it. The rework made him look cooler, but it made him function worse, so I completely agree with this video.

Im a swain main, and i never knew the champ pre rework. For people at my ELO hell, its important to find A champ on which you perform, rather than chasing meta picks. Landing Es and Ws has become so second nature that they sometimes show up in my dreams

something I notice a lot of swain players do is immediately recast Nevermove, which is a big mistake as far as I can see it, since recasting it at the last second will overall have MUCH more CC since the targets hit remain rooted UNTIL you recast it. Recasting it as late as possible allows you to walk up if an enemy is running away to THEN recast it and boom, you're right there in the close range you like so much. Keeping enemies rooted by recasting as late as possible also allows your teammates to walk up closer, too, and it works as a disengage tool because if you're running away you won't wanna recast it immediately, of course, but keep them still until you're as far away as possible.

I actually like the fact that swain's gameplay has 2 states. He's the goddamn demon strategist, of course i want to have the range of a strategist and the draintaking of a demon. I'm aware its not the best package, and i'm glad Swain's receiving some love from riot, i just hope the upcomming rework doesnt change too much about swain's versatile nature

I miss old Swain...

Honestly I think a fun experiment for how Swain could be tweaked is having his basic abilities change when he casts his ultimate kind of in the same way that K'sante's ultimate works. They could make it so his q at base is more poke focused while keeping his w and e basically the same and focusing more on control, and then in his ult form his q w and e could change to be something for practical for sustained close ranged dps and drain tanking, effectively making him a stance changer from an artillery mage to a battle mage. Granted this is all hypothetical and I have no idea how you would balance that but I think if it was done correctly he could be much more satisfying to play and ironically link him back more to his old identity in how he essentially goes from poking/control to all in and drain tanking by using his ult.

I think that it is just too hard to have the same impact as an immobile short ranged mage with no gapcloser in the age of dashes and blinks. Great ult, too bad enemies can just get away from you. Good W, too bad it takes about 5 decades to finish. Great E, if only it didn't move like it got withered by Nasus.

I liked Swain better when he was a bald guy with a limp. He looks like Lucius Malphoi now. But I really just liked the fact that he turned into a creepy bird thing whenever he used his Ultimate.

I miss you OLD SWAIN!!!!!

The biggest disjoint in swain's kit is his w. swain q rewards being melee range, swain e helps u get melee range, and swain r helps u stay melee range. Swain W approaches being a neutral game tool all wrong, and should really be more of a disengage than anything, to help u get out of melee range instead of rewarding u for being xerath range. I think a good swain w would be 20~ second cd like a fiora parry, and would push people away from him like inverted rell r. This turns his standard lane combo of e-e-w-q into e-e-q-w and makes it slightly more consistently safe, but it also locks this consistency behind a 20 second cd. It would also help him deal with melee range threats that can't be bursted down, giving him a unique position as a top lane battle mage, which fits his drain tank style better than mid or bot lane should. It would also add build diversity by not forcing you to build rylais to deal with these melee range threats.

Swain is my main, my beloved, and the only character i've never been bored of playing until now. I always play a lot of different picks but he's the only one i could OTP.

Swain is a DEMON into AD melee heavy teams, but thats about it lmao. One fed ADC can shut im down pretty hard.

One time i stole drake with swain W.
That was peak league, ive never had a better moment gaming

Swain my beloved

1:00 ah. Ok. I was about to say. He aint a constant, but at least down in the depths of low elo he's picked a solid amount.

12:06 Now that is someone I haven't seen in years. God I miss his animations.
Also if anyone is wondering what he does now, he became an electrician and is happier with it, so good for him.

I also liked old Swain a lot. He would get trounced in current meta, but back in the day he was a lot of fun to poke with

It's such a pain that such a cool champion doesn't get the love he deserves. Thank god though riot is reworking his kit

I've been a Swain main for a while and the real reason people don't like Swain is because his E moves at inconsistent speeds. The bug has been in the game for a long time and no one has fixed it. But Swain's E often goes slow or faster for no reason at all, which makes it hard to time. But Swain players stick with Swain because they like the chain lightning on his Q, it feels really cool when you use it.

The way I would change swain is make his q a charge shot where the longer you charge the more damage and range it gets but less projectiles so eventually it’s like a xerath q

I used to love playing Swain before they changed his passive.
It was really fun to click on people after they were CC'd by anyone on the team. Idk I just really liked the game feel of it.
I get why they changed him, it's just a personal thing. I really don't think he needs another rework though. Sure, he might not be played the most, but his kit is healthy imo. I think the duality of his Q being better close and his E being better far away makes for really thoughtful gameplay. Sometimes, when a kit is too cohesive, theres less microdecisions and it gets less interesting.

I miss old Swain's gameplay. If I could get old Swain's gameplay with current Swain's visuals he'd be a 10/10.

I think Riot kinda killed Swain's identity with the rework, as he's supposed to be a mastermind / tactician / general.
In his old kit, he had a lot of area control and he'd mostly enter close range with ult to cash in on a advantage state, which he tried to create via his other skills or to counter a dive on the Backline.
You might still be able to make him work out, as his skills aren't weak on their own. It just doesn't feel great when half of your kit isn't viable for a state you're in.

I never played old swain but i really like the map and vision control he has with the current W. I wish it lingered a bit more when putting points into it on top of gaining cast distance.
Something like : at lv1 it explodes immediately after 2.5 s, from level 2 onwards, after 2.5 you can choose when it explodes within a time limit, after which it would do so automatically.
So the vision time would be 2.5/4.0/5.5/7.0/8.5
The minimum required time to explode would always be 2.5 and the cooldown begins only after the second cast.

I liked the old ultimate that wasn't infinte but gave you bonus health when you popped it and it did damage based off how much you healed (also more room for skill expression that is no longer there. A good Swain knew how to delay demonflare for as long as possible to get bigger damage and to keep calm under pressure to not pop it early or wait for the perfect flash demonflare angle). The old ult gave him a real strategy that you can play out in the laning phase where you poke aggressively and take semi equal health trades sustaining where you can. Then when the enemy jumps on you for the all in you pull the rug out from under them with the bonus hp from ult and now the enemy is on top of you. Perfect point blank q to the face right there. When it works you really feel like a master tactician that set the perfect trap.
That to me was also more in line with the character identity too "Appear weak where you are strong and strong where you are weak" as the Art of War so eloquently puts it. Swain was at the disadvantage when he's playing neutral laning so he tries to poke you hard to discourage too many short to medium trades where his damage can't keep up with most matchups in the early game. He still loses HP and the opponent is usually able to still whittle him down in an even skill matchup but at that point he's farmed to 6 and odds are he can turn your level 6 all in.
You can't do that with his new ult and it feels like such an awkward ability to use in my experience. Idk why Rito thought an infinite ult was a good idea when fights are so short in league and have remained pretty short on average since 2016. Even when that rework first came out you rarely saw situations where his ult lasts any longer than it did before. And that was before the league community realized that they can kite back and wait his ult out. Plus I liked having a limited window to get things done when ulting, it encouraged aggression and rewarded you for doing so as long as you knew to back off and not unga bunga. Once again, in line with how you would think the character should play.
I like the passive fine honestly but bring back being able to pull from your teams cc. Such a unique ability that only affected one champ and it had a cd so you couldn't pull from your blitzcranks knockup and then e for another pull. Part of the skill expression was being able to differentiate good pulls from bad ones and whether or not you should try to save your pull to set up your own combo or to try and help the team catch an enemy.
I feel like the punishment for missing e is too high now even with the ult reducing the cd. I rarely find the cd to be the difference maker in catching someone or not because of the relatively short range of the ability. Usually if you miss your first one they are out by the time it comes up again even with the ult haste.
Finally Rylais is such an unfun crutch to use too IMO. (I don't think its very fun to just perma slow somebody and run them down as a skillshot mage, feels unskilled, un-interactive, and antithetical to the champions design. If you wanna do that then play Nasus) But the truth is your game is so much harder if you don't build it and if you don't rush it then the short range/high mobility problem is really hard to overcome.

2 ideas to fix his kit,
Make the q root on first hit, and pull on the second. Meaning the closer you are, the longer the root, and you trade duration for range.
Make his w give him a shield like volibear, if he is in the w when it goes off, he get a shield based on ap or max health gained from his passive.

You're pretty spot on. His thematic and design and stuff look really good but he just feels terrible to play. But I understand the predicament. People, including myself, loved the drain tank raid boss style of his ult so we want to keep that, but its kind of a disconnect of his kit. If you changed his Q to make it more control orientated to fit in with W and E, then his ult would be super out of place. But I think people are fine with him being short range so they could probably change Vision to an ability that doesnt suck, and then rework his root to be not so clunky and he would probably be fine. His Q and R already make sense together, so the other abilities just have to follow. If they are hellbent on the demon theme they could change his root back to the old style and have a demon hand grasp the area after a delay. And it would be fine to keep it shorter range to play into his kit. Id be perfectly fine with a total revert tho I miss old Swain. Maybe just rework Torment cuz a point and click DoT is kinda lame for this day and age but the rest of the kit was fine. Total control of the battle field with roots and beatrice and his ult.

A thought i had about Swain for a long time was: Why not capitalize on his infinite stacking passive? Aurelion sol for example does % max health dmg with his Q stacking forever based on his passive. With that logic, why not give something similar to Swain? Perhaps his R blast scales with the souls he has collected, or the healing % ramps up based on the number of souls. These aspects don't really address what you've said in the video but i believe giving him some infinite scaling with his passive (that actually helps like sustain) would go along way to make him extremely durable in fights (which is supposed to be his core playstyle), instead of him deflating like an overdue balloon.

Stopped playing ranking for a long time and stick to playing NG with friends only. But I am a big fan of Swain, played really a lot of games with him.

Pre-VGU swain was my favourite champion, with all the DOTs and the toggle ult. was so fun once you got mana going and could drain tank for ages. Current swain is okay, but I really miss the toggle ulti.

I'm new to the game and I went from Yuumi to Support Swain and I absolutely love his current playstyle.
He is so much fun to play.

6:30 A Legend 🫡

getting this video recommended after finding 3 swain players in a row made me laugh hysterically so you earned a sub

Hi, Swain main here. He's one of my favorite support/top laners.
I do wish his ult was something else tho

I think what Vars is saying is valid for most other champions. But Swain's kit works best not by optimising poke vs all-in, instead adapting to the situation accordingly. Being versatile makes swain fun and allows him to be strong in most roles. He' can supp with good vision control and playmaking potential, works well solo in either lane since he can poke also fight and his builds can be pretty adaptable, either going tanky for massive heal potential or full AP for huge DPS.
I've been playing him APC for a little while now and had solid success with it, either going even in lane most times (even in losses) and also dominating. He is fun and getting that perfect ult that lasts for ages is so satisfying, especially coming out full HP while everyone is low or dead XD

I love most of the awkward champions. I put in an effort to play them, but it's true that you can play so many other champions that do those jobs easier and better. I can never find the words to describe why a champion is awkward, but you always do. Thank you ❤

One thing I will add is something you said from another video, that mages are the most item reliant, and that is especially true for Swain, Rylais is almost a must have for him. I picked up on Swain support in season 13 and got all the way to mastery 7, and items were really in his favor, as you could have Rylai and Demonic for damage while going full tank from there, specifically Jak'Sho and Radiant Virtue, Radiant more for support and Jak'Sho for better tanking. But come season 14, Radiant is gone, Jak'Sho is now a resistance multiplier instead, and Demonic Embrace being removed means if Swain wants both % health burn and AP based on HP, suddenly he needs Liandry and Riftmaker, while not having an easy choice for tank items, while also having the budget of a support. Since season 14, I haven't played him much as the itemization issues as well as the things you brought up in the video just have made him overall feel not that good to play. Hope that mini rework helps when it arrives.
Great video, by the way.

what pissed me off with riot is they justified swains rework to remove his old q (Decrepify) because when used it would make his old e (root) impossible for players to dodge. They claimed this was an unfair mechanic and on rework his new q would be blocked by minions, then months after they reworked it again to the current q. When combined with rylai's....its essentially worse to play against than the old q, because the old q didn't have a low cooldown.

As a Swain main I’ve always thought that if you made the Q hold to cast and the longer you hold it the less wide it is but the longer range it becomes, you hold for x amount of time and you lose one of the bolts on either side and gain a little length on the ability, this would give his Q better value against single targets from range but also give opponents some room to dodge by seeing the cast being held, this kind of thing I think is good but I’m also not a game developer

I miss when we could command Beatrice to attack 😢

I knew this day was gonna come

As a swain main, while i agree with most of your points, his e works like trynd w where it punishes people from running away from him and his w works the same at melee and ranged, as a zoning and slow ability

I loved Swain’s old toggle.
And I quite like this new Swain tbf.
What about if whilst he was ulting. He got a new W and a new E that synergised better. Then he’d be like a shapeshifter.
Hell. Give him his old Q and W while I lying maybe

You've misunderstood how swain w and e are used in a fight. They don't work well up close because they're not meant to. If the enemy is point blank then great. You don't need e or w at that point. If someone somehow manages to get slightly of of range his e is there to bring them back. If someone manages to escape and is outside of e range then you use w to close the distance so you can then drag them to you. His e and w are used to stop people from escaping in a fight. If you use them early and people dash away afterwards and you're screwed. (w is also a vision/support tool like you said)

Weird Idea: Revers K'Sante. During R:
Gets Resistances based on his AP, loses a bit AP, gains HP based on his fragments, no more heal by gaining Fragments
R Passive is the healing through gaining Fragments or maybe even Spellvamp.

I love him in the eraly reworks games, when he got life and mana with his pasive and his q was narrow and he execution mechanic where if you kill the enemy your shot go through and has les cd
That thing make him a good trader and pucher in top and a good burst battle mage in late game also making him stay longer in fighting and use the pasive when the enemy disengage

Man everyday i think about old swain and old adc graves. Old swains Lazor bird was my favorite ability in the whole game.

Swain is an damage over time Champion, he wants to have enemys in close combat and deal damage with his Q (thus the small cd and shotgun style) his w and e are Tools to maintain close combat. A snare + pull and an aoe slow that also functions as vision. The dmg of those skill is secondary.

I really love Swain's gameplay and I think the previous midscope update was well done, that said I wouldn't change him too much in a future update.
Maybe his W could explode more rapidly if cast at short range, but deal more damage and apply a longer slow if cast beyond a certain range.

Love you mr swain

7:50 can we finally agree that neeko was a mistake then?

I would make his Q a three charge recast. First one is narrow, if it hits it gets a wider but lower damage recast, and if that hits it gets an even wider but lower damage recast.
Hitting a champion gives the recasts a higher AP ratio, so you still come out ahead on damage at high amounts of AP.

Pretty good video: Summs up all of the problems while pointing out the issues of fixing them.
IMO the Champ is just not fixable if you want to keep his current Spells. While some of it was interesting I don't think any of the stuff Phreak mentioned recently will do anything. If it's good he'll be just broken again, if it's bad nothing changes.
Swains big issue is indeed the fact that just loses against ANY other Champ when even.
You don't have ANY outplay potential what so ever - you to damn big to dodge and practically SELF-ROOT your self longer than your actual enemy when trying to use a Melee E... also you don't have any hard CC to prevent DMG.
Just bring the old one back, he had his issues, but was damn fun to play if you were able to deal with them.
I wonder through how many iterations of trash we have to dig until we're finally back there...
It's depressing man.. I loved this Champ, his theme and the game so much... but at his state... I don't know..
Just today I've lost another game cause I was unable to sidelane VS anything despite being FED AF... 1-6 Voli took tower in my face, 2-8 Lethality Udyr...ran me down... This Champ is HOT GARBAGE!

Swain is a pretty classic case of his abilities simply having exactly one way to be used and nothing you can switch up. Even with his set being usable in several roles, it simply isn't really fun over a long time in any of them.
His E simply does damage on click. It feels good to palpatine people and waves, but it's just effectively unmissable damage in the end, even without the stupid joy of a point and click projectile like Maplh Q.
W is an amazing tool for the map, but at the same time it is crucial to collecting passive stacks AND the drawbacks it has for being super long range also apply for its short range use cases, making it incredibly restrictive to use as well.
Lastly, E is just nice and satisfactory, but so crucial for the rest of the abilities to hit, that it is stuck as the ability that dictates how good the rest of his abilities can be because the damage difference between a hit E and a missed one can quite literally be 100%.
Lastly his R is super cool but got changed away from being a magic drain tank to being... just an AOE damage dealer. There is no use in supplementing Swain with tank items because, as everything in current league, the best way to stay alive is to just kill your enemy. Liandries will always do more than, let's say, spirit visage because his healing scales with AP for some reason and the resulting HEALING of Liandries stats simply outclassed the deticated tank healing boost item in every case. There is one way to build swain and that is - just like any other poke mage BUT you have to be in close range.
Lastly - his passive does its thing badly. Pre mini-rework the stats doubled from ulting and would heal him for the doubled part. It gave an amazing reward for stacking well and opened a skill reward for correctly baiting and ulting enemies, synchronized to the two different healing effects of your passive.
Even with the ult now being more rewarding, the sole interaction between passive and his kit got removed with no gain but, in good current league manners, damage.
If I had to change swain, I would keep his Q as it is, as it is boring but necessary and effective.
His W gains an AP and cooldown scaling based on distance. The farther away he casts it, the higher the damage scaling and slow becomes but the longer the cooldown gets, longer than current CD. On short range, damage and slow is minimized, but the cast time is ever so slightly increased to make it less reliant on E but also not oppressive or hard to dodge.
E can also stay the same as well and, in spite of many, must absolutely keep the fixed casting distance. I also think that the displacement should only happen in his ult, while the base E just rips a fragment on recast.
It would incentivise neutral mid range for laning and close range for ulting.
Swains ult should get back the old instant heal upon casting, maybe in an even more passive stack reliant form. His ults healing should get a bonusHP scaling, rather than AP scaling as well. It's actually ludicrous how Sylas got bHP scaling before Swain did.
Lastly, his passive should get increased speed on long distance so that you can atleast somewhat plan ahead on the healing you get. It's healing could also get minimally better, the often it comes from the same person. It's about collecting secrets, I think it wouldn't hurt to put in a gimmicky:
Healing = %maxHealth + (5*stacks from enemy HP)
just for the feeling of being rewarded for good stacking.
With this, more build options would open up, from Hypershot W sniper over AOE burner to ACTUAL drain tank, while keeping the player involved at the same time.

I am a Swain main, and I really love playing him, he is a good pick especially as a support. If you play agressive from the first minute and make some kills or assists with the adc he is really good as a supp. Late game he can manage to shred a bit of the enemies' hp and help the team as a tank, especially if you use Zhonia to wait for the heal. There are many better supps, but he can be a solid choice rather than being played mid lane in my opinion

Swain has been my main for so long due to his simple fighter+mage playstyle with really fun skillshit and Vision skill.

Just remake his grasp to be a dash followed with an optional input for a skill shot short pull. That way he can engage, close distance, and that gives value to his vision if he can dash on top of you as he sees you.

as an Swain otp, getting fed feels really good on swain.

Great analysis. thanks for the video

I miss his old passive. I liked being able to click on any CCed champ to yank them, it felt really interesting to have a kit that encourages empowering other's CC (Unlike Ornn that does that only in theory).

never though id see swain get a video like this

I'll say it over and over again:
I LOVED old AP Yorick, I LOVED old maokai ult WAAAY more and old swain was a fun menace in ARAM

I think his kit is realtivly fine but one of my greatest quips is his W do not scale well into late game. Early the speed is good since no one have boots need to burn a dash to get away from it if you hit it slightly in ther current travel direction. But allredy with normal boots you can basicly out run even if you completly cross it. I would love to see the detonation time shorten for every point you put into it make it so enemys that try to get away from you after ult have a harder time since you could way more effectivly cut ther path with your W (the slow is not to bad) on top of making it more consistent in late for scouting/cuting path. It could even becom a strategy for mid Swains o level it to suport side lanes globaly similare to a TF for the price of pressure in his own lane.

Can I just appreciate the fact that it took around a month before this vid got out?
"... at the time of writing this, early August..."
*posts around August 30th, UTC +**8:00*

Honestly they should just make him either full poke or full all in example:
Full poke: Q change: if an enemy is 50% past the Q max range displace them back R change: Now you can attach it to allies giving them 33% bonus health appart from the healing (it has to be nerfed but more damage given)
Full engage: W change: Give it shorter range but the slow is bigger or add seraphine's e passive (if the enemies are already slowed they get rooted) E change: Now marks every enemy that the E has went through and every enemy gets pulled, the further the enemy is away the more they are pulled

He is basically played every few games in Arena though, because of the cheese ultimate in the circle of death.
And I freaking loved the aesthetics. Despite being poor and a cheapskate, I bought like.... 2 maybe 3 skins. Just ultimately kinda felt boring.

As a Swain main, I think you nailed everything. I love this champ to death, but it's hard to make him work in a game where burst and mobility are the two major focuses right now.
For what I see Phreak talking about his new "rework" they plan to make his E a more consistent ability and his ultimate to be better at short fights, two very welcoming changes in my opinion.

I've been a swain main since before his current rework, and I've never felt like I've had to choose between being neutral or all in. The only spell he has that forces your all in is his ultimate. Everything else is used as either poke or, more importantly, control. Maybe it's because I don't use him as a standalone, but rather as a mass team enabler, and so I use his abilities not for swain, but rather for the whole team. He's honestly the best team fight control mage in the game, with nobody else even coming close.

If i was to tweak him i'd actually give his ult more priority whilst increasing the cooldown
Something like whilst his ult is active he gets a small (maybe 10-20%) flat damage reduction & Empowering nevermove to go from a boomerang to something reminiscent of a neeko Q - basically still a boomerang but first 2 champions it touches are rooted, can be pulled & maybe make it do bonus damage in an area on second champion hit + expiring - effecively turning his E into an all in trapping tool too.

Been waiting for this one. Love my birdman.

I love swain theme. Old swain was also super cool, mabye just revert? But that old kit would probably be more broken now

Honestly, even though all you said was true, i don't want Swain to be reworked again, it's the same thing with Aurelion Sol, i still miss the old one even thoguh i never played him, he was such an original design with his star mechanic and being a very skilled roaming mage, Swian is known for being THE Raid boss, and i want that to never change.

this is one of the most vars video ive seen in a while

Veteran Swain Main here. He is not very good in Summoner's Rift but he is a really versatile ARAM champion if you know how to play him.
What I use is Blackfire Torch + Sorc Shoes + Liandries as my core build.

General Swain my beloved, OTP here, he is just underestimated, it's hard to understand the champion and his abilities, but he is the strongest champion if you really comprehend it's power

On high elo specifically it's literally that all his kit revolves around e(hitting w, stacking passive, closer range for q etc) and it's impossible to do so against good players, he also has no consistent way to make his e easier besides some niche cases with w and R slow that is available after some time

ive stole baron with vision was so beautiful and timed perfectly

rework is gonna help his q which is nice because genuinely the only reason this guy isnt played imo as someone who has been enjoying him a lot lately is that csing on him is very difficult to get used to. thats why supp is his most popular role because well you dont need to cs

i love swain
and i ll play him whenever i want '^'
but a way to strenghten him would be him gradually building up damage resistance up to 10 or 20%
if his ult stays up for longer than its base duration
or his R erruption to root enemys in range for 0.5, 1, 1.5 seconds, to maintain the control focused gameplay
another aspect you could add is a minor slow of about 10-20% for 1 second on E when it passes trough you, nothing big since the actual pay off would be the return E
and for Q you could make it a skill that changes its angle depending on how far you want to cast it
like heimers rockets (but with less range) so you can opt for a ranged Q that is easier to dodge but hits harder or a close ranged Q that spreads out more

I have disagreed with some of your opinions on your others videos in the past, but I agree with every word you said on this one. I wished they would just give him back his old abilities.
I main jungle and I mostly play melees with cc because I like controlling the field. Swain was one of the few mages I enjoyed, a good neutral games was all I needed to incline the game to my team's favor.
I ABSOLUTELY DESPISE his Q and E abilities, they don't belong to Swain.
-His Q has the potential for shotgun
-his W is almost global
-his E is easier to land at maximum range
-his ult ask you to be in the middle of the fray or in someone's face.
The whole kit feel disjointed, unintuitive and forcefully put together; every skill rewards different spacing and positioning.
I main Jarvan since s2, and Shen since s7.
Every champion has an optimum distance, and those who have more than one, always have the mobility or heavy cc to make it happen.
1) Jarvan behind/in front of enemy
2) Jarvan uses his dash (cc) through the enemy and gets to the opposite side
3) Since his Q has lower cd than his E, he can reposition to Q a second time into his flag
=In front of enemy, behind enemy, burst, in front of enemy again
A) Shen on top of his spirit sword,
B) Shen uses his dash(cc) through the enemy
C) Shen uses his Q to pass through the enemy
=On top of sword, in front of enemy, behind enemy, on top of sword again
Swain doesn't have the mobility or the heavy duty cc to support having different skills with different optimum distance
No mobility, no particulary heavy cc, not particulary bursty, not particulary poke-y
One rotation of E, W, Q won't burst anyone and you won't have your only form of cc for 10 seconds.
After the initial rotation and bringing the enemy closer, you will be stuck with two skills better utilized at far.
If you are far, you won't be utilizing your highest dps skill, which is Q.
Does Swain want to be far or up close? Don't know
Does he has the tools to enforce his optimum distance? Once, for only one skill, every 10 seconds.
He HAD a strong neutral, an aoe snare and aoe drain. That was his hill to die; he could prioritize one small area and defend it, that is call tactical thinking. Tactical means "order" and it translate to "priority". Swain was neutral until he was all-in a small area of his priority. His ult was a toogle, that was his deterrance to bursty and high mobility champion.
You made the huge mistake of grabbing a Talon, bringing him close to you spending your only cc. Talon can kill you twice in 10 seconds, at least once before you throw your third Q. You are forced to ult.
Swain can't control any enemy, or any zone, the later which he used to do very well.
Strategy translate to "army guide", and it means "how you conduct yourself"
For someone with the title of "Grand general", his skill-set lacks focus and priority, and it drives very clunky.
Give us back old Swain!

Old Swain was one of my favorite champs. I still miss playing him... New Swain is nothing like it.

as a side note, you cannot ever compare swain E with morgana Q and blitz Q in the context of adding a recast for viability, as their abilities have 1300 and 1150 range respectively, where as recast would literally decrease the range when used, on an ability that already have shorter range and less effectiveness than both of these abilities at all times except the niche scenarios where you'd land it on 3-5 enemies which is extremely rare.

I loved old Swain and miss him just as much as mordekaiser running over rift with dragon as pet

To me the most irritating thing about Swain is how he has an ability with a badass name like "Nevermove" and it doesn't live up to it's name at all. It's very inconsistent to hit if someone is silightly too far or too near, so most of the time they can move. If you hit it, the cc is not nearly as oppressive as a Morgana q for example, the trade-off is that you can pull them in, but again it doesn't prevent them from moving. It does nothing against anyone with a dash, it's very telegraphed so mobility completely counters it, even though the name would suggest otherwise.
If the ability is called Nevermove, I want my opponents never be able to move. I would rather have Swain's e be op and have him balanced around that rather than anything else. And preferably have it be a anti-mobility tool, like Taliyah e or Poppy w. It would help him a lot since mobility is one of his biggest counters. And I think rito kinda owes us something as I recall them promising us more mobility counter when releasing Vex and all she did was deal slightly more damage when somebody used a dash recently, while ironically being a huge offender of it herself with the reseting long distance engage dash on her ult.
So, yeah. I just thing Swain e is not nearly as cool and powerful as it thematically should be.

They need to revert the root grab to the old global root. + getting stacks. Then that eyeball vision must be changed in the old bird throw. Throw the raven on the ground and do all dmg near. That will fix the boring swain. And maybe increase the power on the ult

Vars, nice content dude

The thing with Swain is that he can better convert resources into impact on teamfight better than most. It's like a fed Zeri but with 5000hp, and plus - she heals a lot, slows, pokes, and pulls enemies, and has a infinite ult and infinite scaling.
Besides the map vision he provides, Swain is primordially a good support, as he can convert botlane's advantage to a team advantage quite easily. You are wrong by pointing out "anyone fed is good against everyone else" : a Draven that gets pulled, with 6 items in, by a Blitzcrank and his team, even if they have only one item, is dead.
A conversion of gold to advantage is needed, a Swain in this cenario would just W+R and if they don't have enough damage to one-shot him, he'll heal about 1k there and then keep doing damage and healing, while his team is coming and you don't have enough resources anymore (skills, like blitz's Q). Plus, if he has at least 3 items he probably can solo all of them. That's why I find Swain as being a fun character, it's hard to play with but once you get used to this "R = Zeri's R" mentality, you start to understand deeper the champion as is and play better. I feel like I can contribute way better with Swain, while also being agressive. It's exactly like a Soraka, but that removes enemies health instead :').
10/10 would recommend.

I think you can Fix swain root by choosing the distance you want to sent the skillshot.
this way it's way more consistant , but it still can be dodge or fail, making it a good middle ground !