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Recommended Items
Runes: Electrocute
+9 Adaptive (5.4 AD or 9 AP)
+9 Adaptive (5.4 AD or 9 AP)
+6 Armor
Spells:
Flash
Ignite
Items
Ability Order Ability Levelling
Ravenous Flock (PASSIVE)
Swain Passive Ability
Threats & Synergies
Draven
Draven
Champion Build Guide
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Karolis |
This guide was written by Karolis in Preseason 11, I'm a platinum support main currently and play a lot Swain,Zyra,Karma,Seraphine and Gragas.
Discord: karolis#3313
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Pros + Lots of Damage for a Support + Great Pick Potential + Good All in Pressure post 6 + Really Good at Utilizing Ally CC |
Cons -Relatively Short Ranged -Weak vs Grievous Wounds -Easily Ganked -Low Mobility |
+ 

Electrocute is a good standard keystone rune as it's probably the easiest to use since you just need to E
> P
> Q
to proc it. It's generally good for its burst,
Cheap Shot adds to that since it's going to be proccing of off your E
. Eyeball gives you AP on takedowns and
Ultimate Hunter lets you have you ult up more often.
Your secondary runes for this page are going to be
Inspiration , running
Perfect Timing and
Biscuit Delivery, I prefer these but you can also take
Magical Footwear instead of
Perfect Timing , I previously had
Magical Footwear as the one I prefered, but with Season 11 changes to the meta, I think
Perfect Timing is better currently.

Conqueror is another keystone that works well on Swain, especially against lanes where you can really burst e.g tank support and a long range ADC that you can't ever hit. It also scales better, and in later fights stacking up the extra AP and healing is generally going to be more beneficial than one
Electrocute proc, this requires the enemy champs to be short range or a lot of melees so that you can stack
Conqueror for a fight. This page also gives you access to
Presence of Mind which returns Mana after you get kills or assists. Finally you get
Legend: Tenacity which is useful against champions with CC, and
Coup de Grace makes you deal more damage to low health targets.
Your secondary runes for this page are yet again are going to be
Inspiration , running
Perfect Timing and
Biscuit Delivery, I prefer these but you can also take
Magical Footwear instead of
Perfect Timing , I previously had
Magical Footwear as the one I prefered, but with Season 11 changes to the meta, I think
Perfect Timing is better currently.
DISCLAIMER: This Rune page is not as good as it was with Hextech GLP-800 in Season 10 since



Glacial Augment is the third and final page that I would recommend. It lets you stick to targets with your Auto Attacks which in turn is letting your Q
deal more damage since the spell does more damage when you hit more bolts, in short; being closer to enemies=your Q
deals more damage. This page gives you the aforementioned
Magical Footwear/
Perfect Timing and
Biscuit Delivery, on top of
Cosmic Insight which gives ability haste, meaning your spells are shorter CD.
Your secondary runes for this page are
Domination :
Cheap Shot and
Ultimate Hunter which are mentioned in the
Electrocute page of the guide.

[PASSIVE] RAVENOUS FLOCK
Swain's ravens collect Soul Fragments that heal him and permanently increase his maximum health. Swain can right-click an immobilized enemy champions to pull them closer to him, dealing damage and ripping out a Soul Fragment.
Swain's Passive is something you can control, so while it may be tempting to use its as soon as you see it, you can wait until the last second of the CC to make the CC duration longer. The CD of the passive means you should track like an ability since you don't want to be using it when you won't be able to make use of the enemy being pulled e.g too far away/you're outnumbered/enemy coming at you anyway.
It's also a spell that allows you to pull Enemy champions when Ally's CC, meaning it's great to lane with champions that can let you pull enemies such as Jhin W




You gain Soul Fragments with your passive, Although You don't really do anything with souls actively, they just restore some HP and add to Your permanent HP after hitting Swain's W or Use his Passive. You also get souls from walking near recently dead enemies.

[Q] DEATH'S HAND
Swain unleashes several bolts of eldritch power that pierce through enemies. Enemies hit take more damage for each bolt they are struck by.
Swain's Q is going to be your main DPS spell in longer fights, as it has the shortest CD and Damage, It's going to be dealing more damage when you are closer to the Enemy, but you can use it as poke in lane especially when the enemy ADC or Support missteps, using either your E > P > W > Q for all ins or simple Auto > Q for a short trades.

[W] VISION OF EMPIRE
Swain opens a demon eye that deals damage and slows enemies. Champions hit are revealed and also grant Swain a Soul Fragment.
Swain's W is a great tool to slow enemies when they are running away from, or at you. It's an excellent spell for checking spots where the enemy JG might be pathing based on if the camps are up, and also checking routes where a midlaner might roam from. It's generally good to use when you see an Ally fighting, either to assist some damage, slow an Enemy, or simply block a path an Enemy is running to. Last thing I'll say is that it's also nice to be able to check bushes or objectives without having to facecheck them.

[E] NEVERMOVE
Swain launches a wave of demonic power forward. It then returns to Swain and roots enemies it hits.
Swain's E is going to be the main CC spell that allows you to all in an enemy and let you unload your combo on, it goes through minions so it's a little bit easier than other hook champions, with the downside that it roots the last target hit, meaning if there are minions behind an enemy its best not to throw it out.

[R] DEMONIC ASCENSION
Swain transforms into a demon and drains health from nearby enemy champions, minions, and neutral monsters. Swain can cast Demonflare to decimate nearby enemies with a nova of soulfire, dealing damage equal to a portion of the health he drained and ending his transformation.
Swain's R makes you deal AOE Damage during its duration meaning your going to damaging multiple targets with this spell.
Try to ult when the fight is starting to go All in, and you can get close to enemies, not while both teams are dancing around waiting to start. This also means that if Enemies start running at you to engage, Use the Ult as it makes you a little harder to kill. It doubles the bonus health gained from the passive making you a little more durable, but if if your around multiple Enemies draining them it's likely that they will try to burst you, and this is where


The MoonStaff build revolves around two items







The mythic passive also gives Ability Haste per Item which is a stat that is great on


Starting items for








Considering your first Recall will be around level 4-5, and have enough gold for





Moving from the early game you can start to buy component items like










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Swain should be starting E





E


It also opens you up to cheeses when the enemy is coming back from leashing, and is the best spell to have for the laning phase.
Once the actual lane starts, you can go for lvl 1 E

You should spend level 1 trying to get level 2 from the first wave and 3 melees from the second wave, and to threaten a level 2 advantage where you can fish for a E




That although is the ideal and won't happen every game based on matchups, different ADC champions you are paired with will different levels of commitment, so pay attention to what the enemy champs and Ally ADC can do in the early levels and base your decisions of off that. Understanding this will come with time for the most part.
You should play Swain from a neutral position. This means that you should look for opportunities for the enemies to missposition, rather than being overly aggressive. This doesn't mean however that you should play overly passive, and should look to trade with enemies with AA>Q



If the enemies are missing/dead you should help you're ADC to crash by spamming Q

Mid Game on Swain support doesn't change drastically in that you should still be with your ADC whether they are Mid Top or Bot, And you should look to respond to fights either by moving in anticipation, or using W

Don't forget about Your

Swain loves to teamfight and around this point he should have his first item completed and maybe have a

NOTE: You should ping Allies for the right play whatever it may be e.g Dragons/Turrets but At the end of the Day you're playing SoloQ and it's going to be a lot better to give into the chaos if your teammates aren't following your calls, since you can at least control what happens when following them rather than being stubborn.
In the Late Game, Try and see who from the enemy team is under-leveled or under-farmed as you generally want to know on who to focus, and who is too weak relatively to be a threat.
Your Gold Income as a Support will heavily rely on Winning fights, so take into account that you are going to be relatively Weak to the enemy carries and you won't be able to do anything alone unlike earlier in the game, So don't go too far up by yourself or get caught in Areas that are unwarded.
Considering the Death timers are longer at this point it's a lot easier to Win or Lose the Game from One potential fight. So At this stage don't take just any fight as its harder to keep track of enemy

As Swain, and CC supports in general in the Late Game you are going to be Winning due to killing mispositioned enemies, so look to Catch enemies off guard.
If you aren't the only source of CC on your team, its going to be a lot easier to start a fight/catch because of your Passive


Roaming is straightforward enough in that you should look for time to impact the rest of the map when:

Swains strength in roams comes from his ability to follow up on Ally CC due to his Passive

Another factor of roaming is what your jungle is doing and what champ they are playing, if it's something like Zac or Rammus you can make use of their CC for your passive pull. And if Mid has some hard CC you can do same.
After a roam you should look to getting back to Lane with your ADC so they don't miss CS but also just for yourself to get as much XP and Gold from being in a lane consistently

You shouldn't overthink roaming and You shouldn't go overboard with roaming either.
Warding Has a few different functions as a Support where you can:
Defensively Ward, meaning you ward on your side of the map,
Neutral Wards being in the River or bushes that are in the river,
And Finally Offensive Wards, which are on the Enemies' Side of the map.
When you should ward what and when generally depends on where your team or enemy team is and what they are doing, this just comes with experience.
Swain has the Added Bonus that his W

Look to use Vision for your own benefit, to get a jump on the enemy team or look for picks and try to keep a supply of

When warding the area around an objective before it has Spawned, and there's not a fight waiting to happen, try to recall after warding to refresh your wards.
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