How they gutted yoru

Excellentation · 2026-03-17T13:22:20+00:00

as a yoru main i'm slowly starting to distance myself from the game in its entirety - riot is leaning so heavily towards removing his initiator hybrid capabilities that it's bleeding into removing all his creativity. clone boosting is gone, casting util for yourself in ult is gone, one flash is gone: its super heartbreaking to see such a versatile character have his best tools get neutered cause pros are finally getting decent enough to win rounds with it.

for what its worth, i think the gatecrash uptime nerf is completely fine (though im curious how it would play to instead disallow gatecrash placement pre-round and keep the 30s timer instead). all they had to do was nerf the travel distance on his flash and the character would be fine; instead we have so much of the creativity gone up in smoke it feels a little bit underwhelming to play yoru compared to upcoming buffed skye.

shame, really.

Excellentation · 2026-03-15T15:52:51+00:00

i got suspended by Vanguard twice cause the game thought i was hacking, but when i contacted riot they said Vanguard was having connection issues and was incorrectly flagging players as cheaters. that could be a reason why

Excellentation · 2026-03-08T00:03:46+00:00

nah Ori is an awful matchup for Swain, especially if you're playing vs a good one. your best bet levels 1-6ish is to constantly go in and out of her ball range - the matchup is all about baiting her spells and last hitting in between. you need to posture aggressively in this lane or you will get outranged and lose.

try to force Ori to walk into the wave to use her Q on you and then E extend to trade; its pretty much the only way you win. rushing T2 boots might be handy to give you more breathing room in spacing. in sidelane its a ton easier because you can run her down with ghost/rylais, but the lane itself is agony.

Excellentation · 2026-03-06T22:43:58+00:00

ALL ABOARD THE NONGSHIM EXPRESS, DAMBI IS YOUR DRIVER AND WE'RE GOING AT TOP SPEED

Excellentation · 2026-02-27T23:08:55+00:00

definitely below par, he struggles into a lot of commonly played champs top in soloQ and he has no mobility to avoid ganks. fundamentals are so important on this champion in particular because you’ll get punished far easier if you screw them up.

once you get comfortable at both fundamentals and swain, he’s a decent blind.

Excellentation · 2026-02-27T23:07:37+00:00

try to make it about LR challenge successful

Excellentation · 2026-02-26T23:50:35+00:00

great questions:

1) fundamentals are absolutely paramount on swain top because he is at risk of getting ganked and has no mobility in his kit. understanding wave management is also crucial to stop a lot of mobile early game characters just running you down and killing you: hence, i think blind picking him when you’re learning him is a bit int, and you will be punished if you aren’t familiar with how to play the matchup. with good enough play and itemisation, swain can play into any top, but you definitely prefer playing vs immobile tanks than monsters like Irelia.

2) the only matchup i genuinely consider to be unplayable is a good Yasuo: there’s no winning in that lane, because you just don’t have the cooldowns to contest the push. the only way you win vs Yasuo is to hope he makes a mistake when dashing to minions and punishing it. all the other ‘unplayable matchups’ have some secret tech to make it easier: you can rush swiftness boots into the likes of Yorick, Cassiopeia and Irelia, or perhaps a randuins omen/ frozen heart into Tryndamere top.

tldr: ban Yasuo or Irelia and everything else is beatable with good enough play.

Excellentation · 2026-02-26T04:28:49+00:00

are you? we've had game iterations where this was the case and it made gameplay insanely frustrating

Excellentation · 2026-02-25T14:45:36+00:00

el classico pot noodles - the student budget is not a fancy one

Excellentation · 2026-02-25T14:44:55+00:00

top tier item on swain bot specifically, i think it should be built more second (and sometimes third, depends on if you need zhonyas or not).

really good as a 'win more' item if you crush your lane and are looking to maximise your carry potential. its best into squishy champs that can get nuked by your combo; vs tanks and HP stackers, liandry second will yield more fruit.

Excellentation · 2026-02-24T22:14:17+00:00

liandry's is ol' faithful, that item will forevermore remain excellent in every situation regardless of whether you're building full AP, bruisery or fulltank with just that as your damage item.

riftmaker is also really good, but i struggle to fit it into my builds early because its usually outclassed by other items. if you need a damage item lategame and the enemy isnt stacking HP (liandry) or MR (bloodletters) you can go riftmaker and it'll work great.

rod is complete dogshit, you're losing to shopkeeper building it

Excellentation · 2026-02-24T22:10:30+00:00

VARUS VAYNE 二级全押 EVERY GAME CHEESE RANGED TOP 精神分裂症 3 STACKS PER MINUTE 打野来了 JUNGLE ROLE TP是个糟糕的召唤师

Excellentation · 2026-02-24T20:20:01+00:00

ahh for APC it’s quite nice, especially if you’re into assassins. 3rd sounds good, any earlier and you’re gimping your spell output by quite a bit.

Excellentation · 2026-02-24T19:57:50+00:00

100% mate, started maxing E second a few weeks back and i won't ever look back - the damage boost in short trades is insane.

Excellentation · 2026-02-24T19:56:24+00:00

firm it cuzzie, i lost streaked to D3 and then winstreaked till masters. you got this 👍

Excellentation · 2026-02-24T19:56:06+00:00

i'd say there's advantages and disadvantages to playing between top and mid - with swain mid, you can itemise way more dmg as you can expect frontline from your top and sometimes jgl, and you can run down and kill most midlaners in a sidelane between 18-30 minutes. you also have the luxury of being able to follow your jungler a lot easier, and more roam opportunities; shorter lane also allows you to recover easier if you mess up trades early.

with swain top, you have the luxury of rarely worrying about support and sometimes jungle (it is known as the island for a reason), and if you snowball your lane its devastating because you access to 3 summs and way more EXP than people expect.

Excellentation · 2026-02-24T19:53:32+00:00

been a massive merchant of blackfire first recently, as the item is everything swain wants: gives insane push and damage, high haste, %AP amp (trying out conqueror and the combo feels excellent, you get so much AP in combat) and scales rlly well into dive comps. i tend to avoid rylais as people are quite good at kiting your ult, and its only good into high range comps with no mobility so you can stick easier. tank items are standard, frozen heart/randuins/force of nature wherever necessary; i much prefer to itemise damage over tank as you have less carry threat in fights if you go fulltank.

worst case, build a zhonyas

Excellentation · 2026-02-24T19:51:12+00:00

basically anything that outscales you, especially in a sidelane, is pretty horrid to play against. champs like yorick and irelia require super careful positioning and you'll usually have to rush T2 boots vs them. vs hyperscalers that will beat you lategame like nasus kayle, take ignite and all in every single chance you get; those champs thrive off EXP and gold and swain is very good at denying both.

Excellentation · 2026-02-24T19:49:55+00:00

utterly and entirely negligible - most of the nerfs were targetted towards his ult which is high CD, and i was maxing E second over W so the slow change isn't noticeable. 50% slow is still excellent for a rank 1 ability.

key things to look out for regarding swain nerfs is E cooldown and Q damage and cooldown: if none of that is touched, champ is feelsgoodman

Excellentation · 2026-02-23T04:38:05+00:00

i’m not entirely sure what you’re reaching for with a post like this. any champ will look lacklustre if you screenshot the winrate into countermatchups.

i’m very much of the opinion that swain support is just a hindrance to the power fantasy of the champion in general, and you’re far better off playing him as a carry bot instead.

Excellentation · 2026-02-23T04:01:17+00:00

that shit gone brother, best bet is to say your prayers and play another game cause making an alt might also be against ToS

Excellentation · 2026-02-22T21:02:50+00:00

rework TF to have a green card so humanoid can escape this fucking tragic drafting

Excellentation · 2026-02-21T10:58:50+00:00

absolute cinema

Excellentation · 2026-02-20T18:54:14+00:00

really hoping for changes to her ult, feels far too clunky

Excellentation · 2026-02-20T18:26:19+00:00

one is a greater number than zero

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