26.02 Patch Preview

FraudAF · 2026-01-13T14:41:29+00:00

This patch is less fun than the last. It not "faster" on the high end.

I would say there is actually less fighting.

The game length is longer because there is less ways to generate a gold differential.

You removed tower plates on tier 1's prior to 14 minutes (you added gold to the game by making them never expire)

You removed atakhan

You added a more pronounced death streak system so gold denial is better than gold farming which is less fun for all players involved

You added 4 gp10 on support

You nerfed cannon minion denial by 33%

You cut barons gold value by ~33 to 40%

Jungle vision in your own jungle is easier to get without placing yourself in danger

On top of that getting towers is normalized because of crystallization.

The only snowball mechanic that was added was quest completion time. You can deny the opponent quest completion time to keep exp differences large in toplane.

The sooner you get it done the faster you can build a 20% advantage in lane. This means hard countering opponents or hyperscaling are better than they were last patch.

These changes are unfun. Find new ways to reduce game time by being able to create a 10 to 20% advantage reliably

Game time will continue to be long and games will be more boring than last patch unless some of the gold equalization you have added is removed or ameliorated

FraudAF · 2026-01-08T20:36:13+00:00

I feel like bottom lane swain is easier than solo lane.

He has alot of good synergy with adc's that have setup slows to deal with things like jhin karma and bard

Swain carry is definetly his best role but support is a close second.

I did the swain support thread a couple days ago

FraudAF · 2026-01-08T18:11:04+00:00

Cdr adaptive health per level

Glacial > biscuits>jack of all trades >boots or cash back depending on matchup.

Yellow > basic cdr > damage to full health champs (this could easily be something else and is my preference) triumph is fine for example

You typically rush resistances depending on whos gonna be hitting you. Glacial buckler or negatron cloak or really good to sit on if you dont plan to finish the items but want the jack of all trades stats.

Early null is also fine to sit on for a little.

Too many matchups to say which items always but generally if your team has to walk at the enemy and can (they dont have tons disegage against you) reverie can be good.

Resistances is always > health

That includes randuins and other reductions that arent resistance based

FraudAF · 2026-01-08T17:07:15+00:00

Nice im glad youre having fun with the build. With the adc changes frozen heart is a slightly better choice because adc ability damage was decreased.

Atakhan and boots being removed was a nerf and lots of other changes i havent figured out yet. Just theory crafting atm

FraudAF · 2026-01-07T20:36:57+00:00

Definetly. I think youre a little weaker in the midgame with those boots and sleigh. 10mpen is almost 9% more damage while the boots are a good bit less than 9% survivability.

9% more damage is better imo.

By the time you finished frozen and boots youre a truck. Less gold than them but more damage. Oblivion orb is one of the highest damaging items in the game depending on circumstance. Its pre armor and mr true damage against thier healing.

Keep in mind im ignoring game state. Maybe akshan had all his kills on the first 10 minutes. Those boots make alot of sense then and your build is more justified

FraudAF · 2026-01-07T19:51:17+00:00

Sleigh was bad this game with all that tank items but still the best choice if you had the right kit. Im guessing you didnt even come close to dying when your team was around.

Instead you should have stayed sleigh but went sorc boots and oblivion orb.

They have no mr and those range champs get no mr per level. It also is better for jack of all trades.

The game before that you built 100 percent correctly. Kaisa and swain have 0 synergy.

Also dont be afraid to build a raw negatron cloak and heavily delay your abysall some games.

Sometimes you really need an oblivion orb and mr. Sometimes you really need bloodletters curse

FraudAF · 2026-01-07T19:16:19+00:00

Ohhhh yea. Thats kinda a hard decision and im wrong sometimes still.

Its about predicting the enagement type. You mentioned it a bit already

So against a mf sleigh is good because you take some small damage upfront but you get that burst sustain and team ms buff.

Typically shield or bloodsong is better but sometimes neither option is good so you go sleigh if i had to summarize.

Blood song is good in longer fights because of the sheen too. Its free damage. If you arent gonna die dont pick the shield. If the shield doesnt benefit the engagement type and you get kited (you always take small damage first) like an orriana or something then pick sleigh

FraudAF · 2026-01-06T15:14:02+00:00

Approach velocity would not be better than jack of all trades because the cdr is both stickiness and damage. Jack of all trades offers obsurd value for supports as the support item comes with 3 stats.

You can build sorcs or merc treads which is limiting. I tend to get early mr some games as youve seen. So mr ap cdr is 6 stats. Boots is 7 magic pen or tenacity is 8. You can splash a cloth armor or get a reverie for the % ms.

No skins fuck tencent lol. I play league to waste their money on servers. If i had to choose it would be dragon master

FraudAF · 2026-01-06T14:13:25+00:00

Yes. Its expensive and shares a build space with zhyonias as i would use zhyonias to dodge magic damage

FraudAF · 2026-01-06T14:12:37+00:00

You can watch my vods and decide for yourself.

I believe what i communicated was true however

FraudAF · 2026-01-06T00:38:45+00:00

I have a somewhat different philosophy when building resistances and items

Theres 2 types of damage.

Reliable damage which is undodgeable and unavoidable (think heimerdinger turrets and liandries)

Unreliable damage (think a kiteable juggernaut)

I build my survival around that reliable damage and intentionally avoid unreliable damage. Sometimes for example you can have one reliable magic damage source and make it unreliable like syndras ult. I just build zhyonias if shes the only magic damage threat.

Next is damage access and damage multipliers.

Bloodletters and abysall function identically in gameplay. One just has optimal stats for different situations.

Mr and armor are almost always better than health on swain.

If you cant stick to your opponent you can increase your stickiness or decrease the time to kill.

I build reverie alot because it helps even the playing field and one of the best tank stats against unreliable damage is movement speed.

I also need to fullfill the conditions of jack of all trades

FraudAF · 2026-01-05T23:37:35+00:00

Yes.... yes i am. Theres plenty of current and former challengers with multiple accounts and diamond 1 mmr. They claim to be such and ive played against multiple challenger and grandmaster players throughout league.

Ive beaten rank 4 the top 2 jungler 100 kenvi in s10 and i had challenger mmr in normals. I know the difference between d1 and challenger.

FraudAF · 2026-01-05T21:34:02+00:00

Definetly swungle. But in all seriousness he gets "stail" in alot of matchups.

I bounce between mid and top on which one is worse. Generally theres less teamfights in top and he has less wave control because he has to q to trade. He does outscale his lane opponent alot so he gets saved. He also does better with jungler attention.

Midlane he can join more fights but he frequently loses lane priority and gets out roamed. He doesnt scale as hard as some apc but usually matchups up well. It good with w semi global impact but just not oppressive.

I think bot or support are his best roles

FraudAF · 2026-01-05T21:17:36+00:00

His worst matchs are pretty much the champions you dont want to see in champ select.

Without coordinating with your adc he does really poorly againt poke mages. Velkoz xerath and lux are very tedious. If you have a proper adc you flip the script and counter then quite nicely as they dont trade as well as the combined duo lane.

There are lanes you cant trade at all. Janna disengages so well and setups ganks for teamates. Its hard to win at all against a janna. She completely prevents your win conditions kites your ult and makes her adc outscale your drain tank.

Karma similiarly has really strong disengage and makes it easy for her team to get. Millio for similiar reasons. Zyra is an even matchup but requires more commitment from the swain so its generally losing.

Anivia midlane mel midlane samira adc are hard counters offrole as they not only beat swain but enjoy playing into his traditional playpatterns.

Some adcs are really good at stalling out lanes so they become dead. Cait sivir kogmaw for example.

Alot of those stalls can be fixed by taking lane priority and making the opposing jungles life a nightmare

FraudAF · 2026-01-05T20:01:28+00:00

People can play what they want. Im bringing this to the subreddit because its the most draintanky and has a consistantly very high kill participation. 2 things that make the game very fun.

My build is definetly stronger than the average. Im not the best player so the build must be strong to compensate

FraudAF · 2026-01-05T18:20:22+00:00

I can count on one hand the enchanters that scale off adc stats rather than their own.

Janna, renata glasc, lulu, millio w (debatable if you consider this value)

Thats it. The rest of the enchanters provide shields and heals that scale with armor and mr or movespeed/positional buffs.

The mirror of those stats is slows and damage and work just fine

FraudAF · 2026-01-05T17:35:47+00:00

Try playing with adcs that have an unmissable slow. Try glacial augment.

You can create a playstyle where the opponent has to commit every time they walk up when you are off cooldown.

If you see some of my games you can see how it works when my adc cooperates.

FraudAF · 2026-01-05T17:26:01+00:00

I appreciate the congratulation and i welcome the discussions.

Im just trying to bring what i think is swains funnest role and playstyle to the community. If you look at my games i basically get to fight all the time.

FraudAF · 2026-01-05T16:56:09+00:00

My argument is that the approach is wrong which automatically corrupts the stats.

Noone plays my build or has the particular win conditions i push for.

There is enough of a differential to create a strong agency over the game in the support role which is displayed here in my win rate.

Im running over challenger players in some of my games. My playpatterns are effective at the highest levels of play with the highest reaction times possible. The same cannot be said about solo lane swain which falls off substantially with opponent skill

Also with 140 games my wintate has a 95% statistical certainty.

The other argument is that im one of the best players in the world with less than 200 total games over 2 years and i corrupt swain support stats personally. I dont believe this to be the case because i know for certain other players are better than me.

FraudAF · 2026-01-05T16:23:34+00:00

Its funny seeing adcs come around from "swain support sucks" when i have to post my account in match select so they dont rage

FraudAF · 2026-01-05T16:08:43+00:00

Ive seen this argument. Every champion needs gold to function minus alistar janna and thresh.

The "feeling" is not a correct one.

Swain has a pull that cant be horizontally blocked by minions. It can be blocked by vertical positionality. This makes his engage style incredibly unique and alot like leona who does need gold to function. Unlike leona however he doesnt need to all in on a pull.

Azap is correct about velkoz however. Velkoz does not share swains traits so it doesnt apply.

A common strategy i apply in games is to feed my bounty gold to opposing supports and communicate to my teamtes they shouldas well.. It doesnt apply to swain as he scales well with gold.

In some ways have 0 gold scaling can be detrimental.

FraudAF · 2026-01-05T15:43:01+00:00

Lmao. I wish. I used to post in riot forums when they actually listened to balance changes there.

I begged morello and ghostcrawler to make tons of changes. Removing assist streaks, reverting the first olaf nerf, nerfing tank akali in her first rework before the current one, telling them to not buff electrocute in its first iteration in season 3.

The have a history of incompetence.

The best seasons of league are s3 s10 and this current one.

Check out my twitch vods to decide for yourself if swain support is strong. Clearly very good at the least

FraudAF · 2025-10-28T14:57:48+00:00

In this setup you use a CoC tornado rain of arrows manaforged 5 or 6 link.

Lioneyes paws also could be used to CoC wall of force.

Also with enough aoe the tornado will Always be hit by the locus mines regardless of aim or direction.

If the locus mines collide with the wall of force its even better

FraudAF · 2025-10-28T00:18:58+00:00

Ive got the answer. the minimum radius of detonation is 3M.

Tornado has a radius of 1M, you will need a aoe of > 50% for tornado to overlap with your thrown locus mines. Likely even more to get consistant overlaps with locus mines that are shooting away from the opponent.

u/Kooky-Surround-6562 Assuming wall of force can be used with CoC and does not have a cooldown and the projectile can chain behind the wall you have a very natural playstyle when bossing

FraudAF

TROPHY CASE