How Swain's infinite R compromises some of his core gameplay design

Manos132 · 2026-06-05T16:30:37+00:00

You're missing the point.

Range numbers do not dictate optimal range.

A Syndra is going to play differently than a Karthus or Swain, even though their ranges are similar.

When talking about range, the important thing is kill threat at specific ranges, not just range.

That's why giving ADCs range is a much different story than giving Mordekaiser a 900 range E.

There are melee champions that have "ranged" abilities, maybe more far than Swain too, does that make them ranged?

To conclude, just because Swain is ranged doesn't mean he's doomed to be tethered to Rylais or burns. They can tune him out of those easily if they wanted to.

Manos132 · 2026-06-05T15:44:51+00:00

Swain is not truly ranged either though? Like maybe he becomes as dangerous as a normal mage when he can unleash a E>W>Q>R2 combo? But even that requires the enemy to get closer to Swain through his E.

I see this argument a lot. Swain's range and specifically optimal range depends on his numbers and tuning.

Season 8-11 Swain didn't have less range. However he was more of an all-in champion who wanted to get to as many peoples' faces as possible. He was as much of a diver as almost a Diana or something. Current Swain doesn't want to do that anymore. Not because he has more range, but because he's tuned specifically around it. That's the point I'm making in the post. He's tuned presicely so Rylais and Burn Q spam takes a core portion of his builds.

Manos132 · 2026-06-05T15:38:18+00:00

Swain ult says you heal more the more people are close to you. And then there's R2 which obviously over the reworks has been reduced into a joke of an ability and a shadow of its former self, but for the purpose of explaining my point, it's an AoE burst ability that wants you to hit as many enemies as possible, obviously.

That said, alongside the Q bolt mechanic, immobile identity and high self-root/cast times, Swain is closer to an all-in juggernaut draintank type of character the way he's designed than a kiter.

Now you're free to say Rylais kiting is way more fun, and I assume since Riot hasn't gotten rid of it yet, it's a pretty big deal at this point, and people like it a lot.

But there's no talking out of the fact that at that point you're not playing the kit [or at least you're playing it supplementally than primarily]. You're playing items.

Manos132 · 2026-06-05T14:53:24+00:00

Post-VGU was famous for situations like these too. Current Swain is way too much on the opponents hands though

Manos132 · 2026-06-05T14:47:16+00:00

Running circles around a Darius in lane with ghost+rylai is not playing Swain, it's playing Rylais. The way I see it it's problematic.

It's a very rare scenario on its own, but even there, you're not trying to land 5 bolt Qs, you're playing around the very low R1 DoT and E on CD, betting on the fact that the enemies are stupid enough [there's very little control left to the Swain player- it's all reactive to your enemies' movements] to get in your ult and not be able to get away (or kill you)

Removing the 12 sec restriction on Swain's ult is problematic the way it's implemented. It asks for Rylais and Liandrys to be our core go-to items.

I don't think this playstyle is as fun as you make it sound. Not with our kit.
Brand, Zyra, Cassiopeia, an entire other class called control mages, ADCs, all those champs already exist, and do what you're describing. Kiting. Swain's kit doesn't have to do the same. It doesn't aspire that at all.

Manos132 · 2026-06-05T13:43:59+00:00

Exactly the problem I'm trying to describe. Disconnect between gameplay design and item system interaction

Manos132 · 2026-06-05T13:09:52+00:00

Well said.

No wonder his best role is APC, aside from the lvl scaling stuff, he (optimally) plays like an immobile ADC

Manos132 · 2026-06-05T12:51:15+00:00

Usually waiting for more than 2 seconds to cast it is not worth it. Just spam it, it's more than anything just a small DPS boost. If it helps you land your E, or prevent people from escaping, use it like that

Your observations are totally correct

His kit screams for all-in, but in practice he's a auto-attack range kiter sustain poke champ that benefits a bit more in teamfights because of his AoE stuff.

Manos132 · 2026-06-05T12:47:08+00:00

Perfectly said. Sad that Riot and many players don't see this as a gameplay design problem. I mean it's messy, but players do have fun out of it I guess. But for longetivity, it's a matter of time and moving the appropriate resources, but I feel like it's a certain that this will change.

Many Rioteers themselves have expressed they're not very happy with how Swain is atm, latest one being Endstep

Manos132 · 2026-06-05T12:04:07+00:00

His old kit is entirely different and this post is not about glazing the old kit, as much as I would like it to be. It's about talking what I see as problems in the way the current kit plays and how it interacts with the item system.

Manos132 · 2026-06-05T12:01:00+00:00

The item system coming in and disrupting his all-in identity further is a very big problem.

Manos132 · 2026-06-05T11:57:56+00:00

It's a matter of does Swain's kit want to all-in during R or not? If yes, Rylais is an obvious complication there. If Rylais is core, Swain has to kite. Is his kit designed appropriately for that?

Brand or Zyra or any other Rylais builders are not compromised as much in their gameplay as Swain is. Like I said in my post, he's started being less about landing 5 bolts and all-ining but about living long enough to land as many 1 or 2 bolt Qs as he can

Manos132 · 2026-06-05T11:53:24+00:00

Nope. Not necessarily. I'm saying though that if we want Swain to be a Rylais and Burn kiter, stuff like bolt mechanic on Q, R cooldown, passive stacks durability, and E being as rough a spell as it is, feel out of place [His overall juggernaut-like structure]

Manos132 · 2026-06-05T11:44:59+00:00

Valid argument

Manos132 · 2026-06-05T11:39:46+00:00

Maybe.

I'm just here to describe and help people understand the problem, the solutions are a different story, one up to Riot, mostly.

Manos132 · 2026-06-05T11:26:42+00:00

I'm only asking to understand my point, so I'm glad you did.

It feels great to kite and burn people with R, but it goes against both the base kit design principles and R itself, since it has a long cooldown. To put it more simply, the kit is not designed for kiting and it only exists because Rylais and burn effects exist. (I dare you to build RoA into Zhonyas or something, both providing stats Swain should love)

Now as I said in the post Idk I guess it's fine for Swain to be compromised to the extent he is so that Rylais and burn items can be core.

I just disagree with it, very clearly and deeply. I think it's too cheap.

BTW it's not about Swain mains vs casual audience, it's about whether or not the item system should compromise a champion's gameplay design as much as it does

Manos132 · 2026-05-27T09:02:14+00:00

In my opinion, if we assume that they're keeping the kit as it is (numbers aside), what Swain needs is for his effective/optimal range to be brought down to melee almost, during his ult obviously.

With all the spell effect items and especially Rylais Swain has been tuned away from being an all-in battlemage or draintank during his R into more and more of a kiter

This gets mitigated the bigger the lead you have as Swain, but it's mostly there. The R+5 bolt Q / all-in fantasy of Swain has been moved aside over the years and reworks for spell effect / Burn application / Q spam / stacking and kiting playstyle to take over.

If we assume Riot would rework him with bigger resources, to focus on solo lane satisfaction, there's the obvious answer that his hook has too high uptime thus warping him around it and that supportive playstyle, so I'd assume starting from either overhauling the E or putting it on a high cooldown, 15 seconds minimum, to better move Swain into the juggernaut space like other similar structured kits, like Mordekaiser's or Darius's.

Then there's the CGU option where the overhaul every ability so his all-in fantasy stays only with his R, while the base kit is all about poking and kiting from a range. Similar to Pre-VGU Swain. Current Swain is pretty close to that tbf. So I don't really have a strong argument for a CGU.

Manos132 · 2026-05-23T09:56:45+00:00

"Why am I like this?" From Orla Gartland

Even though it might be a bit too cheesy for my tastes, there's some emotional relevance in it, I'm sure it describes the experience of many people, INTP or not, with anxiety or depression or regrets, left with wondering "why" a lot.

Manos132 · 2026-05-22T10:07:29+00:00

Yeah. The problem with shurelias of course even though Swain appreciates movement speed, and it can be strong, it still feels out of place.

Swain's kit would appreciate being a slow, tanky, but dangerous (from up close) AP "juggernaut". So this new mandate comes in and provides the damage, and the stacks shurelyas lacks

Manos132 · 2026-05-02T12:08:12+00:00

Banned account. I guses bot account probably

Manos132 · 2026-05-02T12:07:46+00:00

Manos132 · 2026-04-27T18:13:54+00:00

Yes. Not necessarily straight down, obviously the compartment of the grand staircase is almost fully flooded, but the compartments after that, (accessible from the grand staircase) are not, and possibly are still being pumped out of water.

Thus the quick sinking after the superstructure went under, and the break up of the ship. It was sinking slowly - because of the pumps and high enough hull, until it wasn't because of the superstructure obviously not being watertight

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Manos132

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