As far as I'm concerned, DFG is in a lot of core builds for Swain. You can deal crazy damage with it as your only AP item for a long time, and because of it's price you can rush it quite easily.
But what about being built from a Kage's Lucky Pick? Does that make it so that the kage can be bought early for early AP, and then maybe the DFG is bought as a 3rd item? This would make it much more cost-efficient.
Jebus McAzn wrote:
A lot of people put DFG as a core item but it's just so lackluster overall (considering the cost) that you would probably get more damage from building like a tanky AP carry.
I'm going to have to disagree with you there.
I did the math, and if Swain attacks an 80 MR 2000 HP Ashe, and gets his whole combo off(including DFG active), it deals 1027 damage (assuming he doesn't have any other AP items but DFG, and doesn't have Archaic knowledge)
Now let's look at a Swain with 100 ability power but no DFG active fighting the same target. 519 damage. Pretty obvious he'd do less damage, considering he only has 40 more AP. What about a 150 AP Swain? 555 damage. OK, looks nice, but these are still pretty low numbers. Let's try a 300 AP Swain, which would be the equivalent of a ROA and Rabadons. 987 damage.
EDIT: Oh **** I only counted Decrepify doing one the first second worth of damage when it lasts 3 seconds. Not going to recalculate everything, just the 300 AP Swain and the DFG Swain.
These results are so crazy, I think I messed something up. Be sure to prove me wrong if I did =P
Nice job considering the damage from one burst combo. This is the problem with mathcrafting - it's not practical.
Any Swain player plays like this:
1. Repeatedly poke the enemy down with E-Q-W combos (adding in an ult to harass)
2. When the enemy is low enough, THEN you full combo them (with Ignite, maybe) to secure the kill.
3. Use abilities to farm.
When you buy DFG, a lot of the money is going toward the active and the CDR, neither of which you should need. Swain should almost perpetually have blue buff, and combined with CDR blues and your 9/0/21 masteries, you have 40% CDR already.
Buying a Needlessly Large Rod lets you farm more, farm faster, poke more, and most importantly, do more damage in team fights. Oh, and you've still got about 1000 gold left over for more AP, MR, or armor. Deathfire Grasp's active lets you take down one character really fast, but in a team fight, you need to be dealing a ton of sustained magic DPS to everyone around you.
What's Swain's core build? Rod of Ages, Rabadon's Deathcap. Where are you going to fit DFG in? How will you farm enough gold mid-game to afford all three items in a short amount of time?
By the time you get DFG, the usefulness of spiking down one target is pretty much over. Late game you're not Annie, you're not Veigar - you're an offtank.
Any questions?
Any Swain player plays like this:
1. Repeatedly poke the enemy down with E-Q-W combos (adding in an ult to harass)
2. When the enemy is low enough, THEN you full combo them (with Ignite, maybe) to secure the kill.
3. Use abilities to farm.
When you buy DFG, a lot of the money is going toward the active and the CDR, neither of which you should need. Swain should almost perpetually have blue buff, and combined with CDR blues and your 9/0/21 masteries, you have 40% CDR already.
Buying a Needlessly Large Rod lets you farm more, farm faster, poke more, and most importantly, do more damage in team fights. Oh, and you've still got about 1000 gold left over for more AP, MR, or armor. Deathfire Grasp's active lets you take down one character really fast, but in a team fight, you need to be dealing a ton of sustained magic DPS to everyone around you.
What's Swain's core build? Rod of Ages, Rabadon's Deathcap. Where are you going to fit DFG in? How will you farm enough gold mid-game to afford all three items in a short amount of time?
By the time you get DFG, the usefulness of spiking down one target is pretty much over. Late game you're not Annie, you're not Veigar - you're an offtank.
Any questions?





Actually, going MR glyphs on Swain is great since you'll most likely be facing another mage in the sololane.
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This got me thinking - in much the same way Considereth uses Hextech Gunblade and Deathfire Grasp to deal as much damage as possible on a single target during Poppy's ultimate (which gives increased damage), why not use DFG on Swain?
Discuss!