Basically this guide will show you how to turn swain into a god. It utilizes the Archangel Staff's passive to increase the AP far beyond what could be attained from other items, and as an added bonus gives you enough mana to sustain his Ult for extremely long periods of time. You can easily win 3v1's that aren't in your favor and dominate even the heaviest tanks 1v1, not to mention coming out of fights unscathed thanks to the healing from your ult.

For skills always start with torment, as it has a multitude of useful affects that can be devastating when maxed and help you dominate your lane in early game.

The second most important is Decrepify, it adds a ton of damage and can be devastating if combined with torment. It'll leave your opponent wondering where their health bar went, and can be used to dissuade a pursuer when you are being chased.

Third, is nevermore, while it can be quite powerful when maxed, its main utility is in its stun the duration of which doesn't increase as you level up. For his reason only put 1 point in it until later game.

Fourth of course is your Ultimate, Always max this as quickly as possible because not only does it have low cool down, damage, healing and crowd control, but it can be used sparingly on minions to quickly turn your Archangel's Staff into Seraph's Embrace which grants a massive amount of mana AND AP. Also, thanks to swains passive and the Doran's Ring it can be used for a short time for almost 0 mana.

PROS -
- Can root and slow
- Naturally gets a decent amount of health
- Can easily dominate a lane
- Usually comes out of fights with full health and can easily and quickly regenerate health without recalling
- Can typically survive if not win a gank from enemy jungler
- Can roam and gank easily
CONS -
- Can be dominated by enemies with silence abilities.
- Can be outrun early game (which is why you use exhaust)

When farming minions, use your ultimate. This takes out several at a time and can quickly transform the Archangel's Staff as well as give a large amount of gold to buy more items.

Swain can greatly impact the outcome of a team fight, his ult automatically targets up to three enemy champs so always activate it when entering a large fight. While you're piling on abilities focusing a single target, your crows will be constantly damaging others and keeping you alive.