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Recommended Items
Runes: Precision — Battlemage
1
2
3
4
5
Precision
Sorcery
+10% Attack Speed
+9 Adaptive (5.4 AD or 9 AP)
+10-180 Bonus Health
Spells:
1
2
3
Mid & Anti-heal
Flash
Ignite
Items
Ability Order Pact of the Fiend
Ravenous Flock (PASSIVE)
Swain Passive Ability
Threats & Synergies
Threats
Synergies
Extreme
Major
Even
Minor
Tiny
Show All
None
Low
Ok
Strong
Ideal
Extreme Threats
Ideal Synergies
Sylas
Permaban. Swain -is- his ultimate, and unfortunately, with Sylas' kit he can use it better than you and take burst items. Any smart Sylas will take your ultimate and absolutely destroy you. Ban.
Synergies
Ideal
Strong
Ok
Low
None
Champion Build Guide
[INFO] Introducing Swain
Swain, the Noxian Grand General Battlemage, Teamfighter, Strategist, Drain-tank Swain is a champion that has flexibility in his role. From the toplane, midlane, bottom lane and even support, there's always an opportunity to play the master strategist. A teamfight god, Swain excells in longer fights, preferably in packs, and is most comfortable controlling the fight as opposed to really starting it. With his abilities he has almost global presence, average to slightly above average bursts, decent catching potential, and a passive that lets him sustain as well as grow tankier the longer the game goes. All of Swain's abilities can hit, and should hit, multiple targets whenever possible. The Noxian Grand General when reworked in 8.3 back in February 2018, was exuding with lore that had implications for all the world's lore from them on. Unfortunately finding himself in flux, Swain was mid-scope updated in April of 2022 to his best iteration yet. A drain-tank battlemage that wasn't going to burst your entire team down from the get-go, but would control and work his way up. I fell in love with Swain long before even his overhaul, and even more so after his mid-scope that I also provided feedback for. I've played Swain for years and count him among my best champions, and previous season-wide winrates with over 250 games and a 68% winrate (that I can no longer retrieve due to region changes, of course. "Trust me bro") lead me to believe I have a decent grasp over the champion, to where I even feel comfortable and succesfully play whacky builds for fun in competitive games because I know it'll work. Swain has some shortcomings. He's not terribly mobile, and doesn't have all the flashy 3 hit passives, executes, blinks and zips, flying, etc. skills people do these days. Additionally, Riot doesn't seem to agree with itself on Swain's lore and status. In videos about Swain and Noxus they'll say "Noxus isn't all bad guys" with videos, and then have new champs call Swain and Darius colonizers. It's kind of frustrating. Today, I hope to impart some of my knowledge of the Noxian Grand General onto you. Caw caw, caw caw caw. |
[INFO] Understanding & Goals
To begin understanding how to best play Swain, I think it's best to first talk about what Swain's goals are as a laner. What do I mean? Well, if you play Fizz or Ahri, your objective is to snowball your lane and then roam. If you're Twisted Fate or Aurelion Sol, your objective is to roam first with abilities and then snowball from there. If you're Malzahar or Anivia, it's to farm as much as possible, catch your opponent and push objectives as roaming is a bit slower. So what then is Swain's goal?
It switches over the course of a game. But overall? Teamfight domination.
Below is a long-winded explanation I do recommend you read, but if you're looking for a quick skim, skip to the TL:DR.
TL:DR - Our power budget dictates our R is our key ability, we have infinite HP stacking with sustain built in on these two bits, little bits of damage with our Q and W, and catching with our E.
The way we make sure to get the most out of our power is looking at items, runes, summoners, etcetera, which help us boost our goals!
It switches over the course of a game. But overall? Teamfight domination.
Below is a long-winded explanation I do recommend you read, but if you're looking for a quick skim, skip to the TL:DR.
Spoiler: Click to view
TL:DR - Our power budget dictates our R is our key ability, we have infinite HP stacking with sustain built in on these two bits, little bits of damage with our Q and W, and catching with our E.
The way we make sure to get the most out of our power is looking at items, runes, summoners, etcetera, which help us boost our goals!
[INFO] Base Stat & Growth
Let’s talk about the facts first: Stats and skills.
We need to tear a bandaid off. Swain’s HP and growth sucks. He’s among the lowest or middeling champions in regards to stats and growth. But the stats that matter to us are HP, AP and MS. Why? If you’re dying, you’re not dealing damage. If you’re not dealing damage, you’re dying. If you’re not catching up, or you’re too slow, you’re not fast enough. And maybe dying. This is actually why I recommend taking HP scaling runes in most scenarios. Swain gains 99 HP per level. Adding 20 hp with runes per level? This puts us into the shared top 10 HP per level at 119 HP per level. I don’t count Kled, he’s cheating. 42nd lowest HP at 595 means we’d get 2618 HP. 13th highest HP at 18! Kled doesn’t count. Cheating. And what’s more? This only goes up naturally. Amazing.
AP mana, MR… yeah, we’re pretty middle ground on everything. We’re in the 2nd lowest rank for movement, and that’s really important for us! Uphill battles across the board. So what’s our goals with stats?
Survive, Stick & Slurp (with our ultimate).
We need to tear a bandaid off. Swain’s HP and growth sucks. He’s among the lowest or middeling champions in regards to stats and growth. But the stats that matter to us are HP, AP and MS. Why? If you’re dying, you’re not dealing damage. If you’re not dealing damage, you’re dying. If you’re not catching up, or you’re too slow, you’re not fast enough. And maybe dying. This is actually why I recommend taking HP scaling runes in most scenarios. Swain gains 99 HP per level. Adding 20 hp with runes per level? This puts us into the shared top 10 HP per level at 119 HP per level. I don’t count Kled, he’s cheating. 42nd lowest HP at 595 means we’d get 2618 HP. 13th highest HP at 18! Kled doesn’t count. Cheating. And what’s more? This only goes up naturally. Amazing.
AP mana, MR… yeah, we’re pretty middle ground on everything. We’re in the 2nd lowest rank for movement, and that’s really important for us! Uphill battles across the board. So what’s our goals with stats?
Survive, Stick & Slurp (with our ultimate).
[INFO] Skills
Next we’ll talk about skills. Instead of simply copy and pasting the skill description, you can read them on hover and I’ll give you my thoughts.
P: Ravenous Flock is a big part of why I love Swain. If you see my schpiel on HP, you’ll notice I think Swain’s HP has a lot of potential. This elevates it beyond good. Hit skills, hover kills. Now a hard question to answer, what’s a good amount of stacks at X time in the game? Well… there is no right answer. It’s not like you’re Nasus and get to ignore the enemy and focus on minions. It’s the reverse. Not catching enemies means you aren’t growing. Enemy skill, knowledge and reactivity plays an immense role. Your own, even more so. The only real pointer I can give you is that you should try to toss a Visions of Empire around a bit. More on that later. Oh right, and try to grab souls in combat. Max HP % heals are insane especially if you have a lot of HP. Also if I ever call them birds, I’m sorry. I prefer the idea that I’m bird collecting.
Q - Death’s Hand is a great burst tool, and I often call it a shotgun. No, not a Peacekeeper, more like a Pump-Action. It’s got a really short cooldown, especially later on. It can hit multiple enemies, apply effects, or do loads of damage on a single target if you’re in their face. In lane, it’s a satisfying tool for farming and pushing. Did you know this isn’t a projectile? Yasuo mains in mid forget this quite often. Use it through a windwall. Max this first, always, but grab it 3rd.
W - Visions of Empire is either my favourite or really close 2nd favourite skill on Swain. It’s an amazing long range utility tool. I personally refer to it as my Assist grabber. I max this second, because while it’s damage is negligible, its use is immeasurable. I differentiate between a roam and a gank, and I’ll talk about this more later, but this is THE roam ability. Enemies on Drake/Baron? Fight in the river? Fight in another lane? 1HP enemy recalling on a ward? Recalling on a ward in general? I drop Visions of Empire in so many situations. It does a little bit of damage, but more importantly slows, grabs a Ravenous Flock stack for all enemies hit, and another if you get the assist on anything, which also gives you gold. And often I didn’t even have to leave lane all that far. Not every ability needs to feel like a nuke to be satisfying, and this is a great example. Use this just before a Nevermove yank ahead of where they land and you’re almost guaranteed a hit. Just delay the pull slightly.
E - Nevermove is your key ability. Sure, yes, your ultimate is important. But this ability ties your entire kit together. And it’s cooldown is reduced by 2-ish (Haste dependant) seconds while your ultimate is up. This allows you to hit Death’s Hand. Hitting this is your engage to use Demonic Ascension. If you use it properly, it guarantees a Vision of Empire hit. It makes you a catcher support. It gives you Ravenous Flock and it lets you stick to enemies. The only thing it doesn’t do is scale. Its ratios are low, its cooldown is static except in ultimate form, and the mana cost is static too. Once you pick this up, its the last ability you level. Side note, the stun reveals enemies. And if you want to hit Vision of Empire perfectly with this, practice the timing of the pull in training tool.
R - Demonic Ascenscion and Demonflare are the moves you'll associate with Swain first. It's what makes him a battlemage and draintank. It's what makes you fear him in teamfights. The unenlightened will call for "nerfs, Swain doesnt die, so broken, such a low cooldown", etcetera. Let them yap. The damage isn't insane. In fact, it's AP ratios are kind of garbage per tick. Swain's not someone you would build high AP on anyway. When you count it across 5 people, it's pretty alright. But the Heal per tick is different. You see, the heal per tick solely affects you. You see, hitting another target means you're just doing an alright tick of damage per second on another target. But heal per tick solely affects you. That explanation might seem complicated so let's simplify it. With no AP at rank 1 and 1 target, you heal 15 HP per tick, up to 40 per tick at rank 3. Not bad. But make it 5 targets, and it's 75 HP per tick, up to 200 HP per tick. This obviously changes with items, the amount drained, damage dealt, etcetera. But that amount of healing per tick is incredible and makes you a raidboss. Antiheal is the only thing that really stops you, and with all your low cooldowns, Demonflare being a big AoE damage dealer and slow, it's simply an incredibly good ult that goes up in value the longer you can stay in it and draining you can do. Ironically, this ability is what makes Sylas a permaban when I play Swain. His mobility, burst, and already built in sustain alongside your draining and burst with CC from the blast... he's always gonna beat you.
P: Ravenous Flock is a big part of why I love Swain. If you see my schpiel on HP, you’ll notice I think Swain’s HP has a lot of potential. This elevates it beyond good. Hit skills, hover kills. Now a hard question to answer, what’s a good amount of stacks at X time in the game? Well… there is no right answer. It’s not like you’re Nasus and get to ignore the enemy and focus on minions. It’s the reverse. Not catching enemies means you aren’t growing. Enemy skill, knowledge and reactivity plays an immense role. Your own, even more so. The only real pointer I can give you is that you should try to toss a Visions of Empire around a bit. More on that later. Oh right, and try to grab souls in combat. Max HP % heals are insane especially if you have a lot of HP. Also if I ever call them birds, I’m sorry. I prefer the idea that I’m bird collecting.
Q - Death’s Hand is a great burst tool, and I often call it a shotgun. No, not a Peacekeeper, more like a Pump-Action. It’s got a really short cooldown, especially later on. It can hit multiple enemies, apply effects, or do loads of damage on a single target if you’re in their face. In lane, it’s a satisfying tool for farming and pushing. Did you know this isn’t a projectile? Yasuo mains in mid forget this quite often. Use it through a windwall. Max this first, always, but grab it 3rd.
W - Visions of Empire is either my favourite or really close 2nd favourite skill on Swain. It’s an amazing long range utility tool. I personally refer to it as my Assist grabber. I max this second, because while it’s damage is negligible, its use is immeasurable. I differentiate between a roam and a gank, and I’ll talk about this more later, but this is THE roam ability. Enemies on Drake/Baron? Fight in the river? Fight in another lane? 1HP enemy recalling on a ward? Recalling on a ward in general? I drop Visions of Empire in so many situations. It does a little bit of damage, but more importantly slows, grabs a Ravenous Flock stack for all enemies hit, and another if you get the assist on anything, which also gives you gold. And often I didn’t even have to leave lane all that far. Not every ability needs to feel like a nuke to be satisfying, and this is a great example. Use this just before a Nevermove yank ahead of where they land and you’re almost guaranteed a hit. Just delay the pull slightly.
E - Nevermove is your key ability. Sure, yes, your ultimate is important. But this ability ties your entire kit together. And it’s cooldown is reduced by 2-ish (Haste dependant) seconds while your ultimate is up. This allows you to hit Death’s Hand. Hitting this is your engage to use Demonic Ascension. If you use it properly, it guarantees a Vision of Empire hit. It makes you a catcher support. It gives you Ravenous Flock and it lets you stick to enemies. The only thing it doesn’t do is scale. Its ratios are low, its cooldown is static except in ultimate form, and the mana cost is static too. Once you pick this up, its the last ability you level. Side note, the stun reveals enemies. And if you want to hit Vision of Empire perfectly with this, practice the timing of the pull in training tool.
R - Demonic Ascenscion and Demonflare are the moves you'll associate with Swain first. It's what makes him a battlemage and draintank. It's what makes you fear him in teamfights. The unenlightened will call for "nerfs, Swain doesnt die, so broken, such a low cooldown", etcetera. Let them yap. The damage isn't insane. In fact, it's AP ratios are kind of garbage per tick. Swain's not someone you would build high AP on anyway. When you count it across 5 people, it's pretty alright. But the Heal per tick is different. You see, the heal per tick solely affects you. You see, hitting another target means you're just doing an alright tick of damage per second on another target. But heal per tick solely affects you. That explanation might seem complicated so let's simplify it. With no AP at rank 1 and 1 target, you heal 15 HP per tick, up to 40 per tick at rank 3. Not bad. But make it 5 targets, and it's 75 HP per tick, up to 200 HP per tick. This obviously changes with items, the amount drained, damage dealt, etcetera. But that amount of healing per tick is incredible and makes you a raidboss. Antiheal is the only thing that really stops you, and with all your low cooldowns, Demonflare being a big AoE damage dealer and slow, it's simply an incredibly good ult that goes up in value the longer you can stay in it and draining you can do. Ironically, this ability is what makes Sylas a permaban when I play Swain. His mobility, burst, and already built in sustain alongside your draining and burst with CC from the blast... he's always gonna beat you.
[RUNES] Precision
PRECISION
The battlemage option, and the best option overall in this build for our goals.
The battlemage option, and the best option overall in this build for our goals.
This puts you on a warpath that doesn’t help you much in early-midgame, but excels lategame.
|
[RUNES] Domination
DOMINATION
The Warlock option, for your burst. These runes give you some much needed killing edge Pre6 and can make 1v1s a breeze,
The Warlock option, for your burst. These runes give you some much needed killing edge Pre6 and can make 1v1s a breeze,
while also providing some neat stats you might not immediately assume are THAT beneficial.
|
[RUNES] Celerity
Sorcery
The Mage that kills by a thousand papercuts. These are your safe options that don’t require too much risk
The Mage that kills by a thousand papercuts. These are your safe options that don’t require too much risk
to utilize and provide you with some very valuable options. It’s not the strongest tree in my eyes. But it provides so much safety when Swain needs it early it’s hard to debate.
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[RUNES] Resolve
RESOLVE
The Life of the Party. Do I actually go this? Yes! Unironically yes.
The Life of the Party. Do I actually go this? Yes! Unironically yes.
You see, if I’m against a melee lane like Yone or Yasuo, I generally feel really safe. But I can’t kill them. So instead I’ll continually proc…
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[RUNES] Inspiration..?
INSPIRATION
The Strategist. Yes, I do play this on occasion. Even in ranked. But this is the “F*** it, last game of the night, we ball” option. It’s not terrible but provides the least direct value to our goals. Rather, this tree boosts our income and lets us reach goals faster instead of boosting our usefulness with our goals. It’s hard to argue against winning the race faster, but consider if you’d like to win it in a simple car or a war tank. Just ‘cus it’s faster, doesn’t make it better. Use caution or play normals.
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