Most players usually play Swain as a support or as a bot lane carry with Liandry’s. This is definitely a good way to play Swain. However, Swain also functions just fine in both solo lanes. He excels against melee champions, because he has good harass and trading, and easily turns around all ins from the enemy laner with his ult. He also benefits quite a bit from levels, because his Q and W damage increase at an insanely fast pace with levels. This build capitalizes on all of his great solo lane attributes turning him into an unstoppable raid boss frontliner that is, in all practical senses, unkillable.

As you can see on the spreadsheet, this build trades out damage for more mana and an insane amount of tankiness and healing. Your damage is also not that much worse than the regular build, especially considering that your last 2 items are always tank items and that you start with a tear rather than a Dring. The build that was put in comparison to my build on the spreadsheet is simply just a combination of the most picked items on Swain top (and really Swain in general) in order. All of these numbers come from Lolalytics.

You'll want to play the early game on this build and as Swain top and mid in general differently. You don't want to play around short, bursty trades with your full combo. You want to constantly be poking the enemy with auto attacks, which will proc grasp. You want to make sure your trading doesn't **** up your wave too hard, so be careful. post-6, you can almost never get all in-ed and you can probably win 1v2's against the enemy laner and jungler if you play correctly. This will give you free reign over the lane, so use that to get stacking on your tear and to hit your 2 item powerspike

You have 2 options on this build in the mid game, either split push to apply pressure or group around objectives for teamfights. Your pressure at this point is nearly unmatched and the enemy team will have to send multiple people to stop your side pressure, and you can probably take at least one or two people with you if you die. You have good tower taking since you've got demolish, and your waveclear is really good since you've got so much mana. In teamfights, you're just a raid boss. It's really hard to play against a tank Swain, since his damage is so high but you can't kill him. If you're playing against heavy dive, abuse that and stand on top of your carries. The enemy divers can't go in because they will immediately die after they go in since you're standing there in your ult.

Late game Swain is an absolute menace. You want to group with your team and force fights as often as possible. You're extremely tanky, deal ridiculous damage and provide amazing zoning and vision control with your W. Drake fights should almost always be free, since you're fighting in a small area, and choke points are your best friend. Use and abuse them as best you can.