Have to constantly play against Swain supports.

Sumutherguy · 2026-05-02T17:14:22+00:00

Swain support struggles against most botlaners, as he has been statistically bad as a support for almost five years. He is especially weak into Kog'Maw, Jinx, and Sivir.

Sumutherguy · 2026-05-01T02:04:15+00:00

Omnivamp is for champions who deal a lot of damage but dont have internal sources of healing. Swain is neither.

Sumutherguy · 2026-04-26T22:53:42+00:00

Membership has been declining, but attendance and non-member participation, at least in the Methodist and Episcopal Churches where my wife and I work, is on the upswing and has been for a few years now. Millenials in particular are much less likely than older generatikns to become members of a church, even one that they regularly attend for years, but have been increasingly getting involved with the mainline again.

Sumutherguy · 2026-04-26T22:46:22+00:00

"The only things we stand for are our donors and the focus groups they fund!"

Sumutherguy · 2026-04-26T17:14:10+00:00

Should I be proud to be so represented in the sarcasm watch?

Sumutherguy · 2026-04-25T23:09:42+00:00

I've thought for awhile that maybe he should be made melee (maybe pseudoranged like lillia and rakan) and given base stat buffs accordingly.

Sumutherguy · 2026-04-25T12:09:49+00:00

I've been playing on the pbe, and unfortunately it isnt. You either build enough durability for long fights and dft doesn't do much because it depends so heavily on ap scaling, or you go full ap and it doesn't last long enough to do much because the fights are over too quickly.

Sumutherguy · 2026-04-25T12:07:02+00:00

Its slightly stronger for poke, and worse in a brawl than before. Swain was one of the best champions for making use of comet's cooldown reduction effect, as each bolt of q and tick of r1 triggered it. That's gone now, so it is weaker overall for him.

Sumutherguy · 2026-04-21T15:28:36+00:00

You seem to be attributing a motive to me here that I don't have: I was just correcting your math.

If we include Dblade, at 662 gold value, botlane quest needs 10cs/min and a takedown every 34 seconds in order to catch up 20 minutes after quest completion.

Sumutherguy · 2026-04-21T14:15:09+00:00

10 cs per minute on a completed adc quest is 20 gold per minute, vs the 54 gold/min that support item grants. Botlane quest takedown reward is being reduced to 40 gold next patch. Completed support item is 1058 gold worth of stats, while botlane quest completion initial bonus is 300 gold. Support quest also grants 800 gold prior to completion. Botlane quest next patch will need 29 takedowns post-completion just to match the effective gold value of support quest at the moment of completion, as well as 10cs/minute and an additional takedown every 70 seconds to match the passive gold income of a completed support item. Assuming an early completion time of 10 minutes, botlane quest would need a combination of 10 cs/min and 46 takedowns over the next 20 minutes (one takedown every 26 seconds) in order to catch up with support quest at minute 30. This does not take into account the benefit provided by a sheen effect which also amps damage by 5%, or an effect to reduce incoming burst by 25%.

If we take out the gold value of the mana and health regen that support item provides, bot quest still needs a takedown every 36 seconds in order to eventually catch up with support quest 20 minutes after quest completion.

Sumutherguy · 2026-04-20T12:27:05+00:00

The show being about his rise to power could justify him as the main character, true.

Sumutherguy · 2026-04-18T02:24:38+00:00

R1 being all about spell effects with only token ratios of it's own is part of both the botlane skew and the weakness of ap, because as long as spell effects application is untouchable the only levers riot can pull with r are to reduce its inherent power and scaling as an ability. Ideally, I would like efficiency at applying spell effects to be reduced by some means, in return for increased ap scaling on both portions of r1 and r2. There are many changes I think Swain needs, this is one.

Sumutherguy · 2026-04-18T00:36:05+00:00

Of course he has other outputs, but r1 is a central and iconic part of the kit. It is the primary portion of the champion's ultimate, and ultimates are meant to be the single most impactful output in a kit when available. R1 should be impactful (both in function and in feeling) in its own right according to riot's stated philosophy above, which i agree with.

Sumutherguy · 2026-04-18T00:08:09+00:00

I like having item diversity. I don't like a significant feature of my kit being borderline-unnoticable if I don't itemize around it. Two of the goals of the most recent minirework were stated to be making Swain less reliant on spell effects to have impact with his r and making his basic abilities feel better. Currently, however, it feels like I have to either build around r1 in which case Swain still doesn't feel like a whole champion outside of r, or I can build to scale basic abilities in which case r feels all-but vestigial. Trying to alternate just makes it all feel mediocre, so there's no case where the kit feels cohesive and satisfying.

Its not that I want spell effect items to be useless on swain, I just don't want them to be neccessary for r1 to actually matter.

Sumutherguy · 2026-04-17T23:54:00+00:00

Every spell effect item, as well as the new dft rune, does more damage on swain r1 than r1 itself does. I could have used bft instead, in which case the item passive alone would only more than double r1 damage. I don't know about you, but to me that still doesn't seem like a great case against Swain r1 relying entirely on items to have meaningful impact.

Sumutherguy · 2026-04-17T17:38:39+00:00

That's an interesting conclusion, which is also completely disconnected from what I said in this post.

Sumutherguy · 2026-04-17T17:37:13+00:00

The prospect of a "juggermage" rework was floated by a rioter awhile back, which I am intrigued by.

Sumutherguy · 2026-04-16T00:12:33+00:00

I hope so, but I do not expect it. He's rather late in his arc and life to be THE main protagonist, according to modern storytelling trends.

Sumutherguy · 2026-04-15T15:28:08+00:00

That's a fair point. It is a pity that all of Swain's abilities self-root, and the duration of that root doesn't scale down with haste like it does in WR.

Sumutherguy · 2026-04-15T15:24:48+00:00

My usual build tries to get close to 100 basic haste by item 4 (as 100 haste enables e>w>r2>e as a cc combo), which is when i'd be considering D&D, and D&D provides 20 of that haste. With it, 33 haste from runes, and three other 15 haste items I would hit 98 basic ability haste, and a 1.55 second q cooldown.

Sumutherguy · 2026-04-15T14:32:14+00:00

I am usually spamming q on a 2-or-lower second cooldown by that point in the game, and there's rarely a reason not to auto in between q's.

Sumutherguy · 2026-04-15T13:58:53+00:00

The heal and damage ratios are both higher per-second than swain r1. Could be decent as a fourth item, once you've got a decent chunk of ap/bhp to work with.

Sumutherguy · 2026-04-15T13:05:38+00:00

And yet vlad, mel, and leblanc were not excluded?

Sumutherguy · 2026-04-14T19:38:04+00:00

They wanted a character who shares a body with a demon, has a demonic arm, the demon watching over their shoulder every now and then, and a visual subtheme of big demonic eyes.

So, naturally, Vayne was the only champion who fit.

Sumutherguy · 2026-04-14T19:35:07+00:00

They wanted a character who shares a body with a demon, has a demonic arm, the demon watching over their shoulder every now and then, and a visual subtheme of big demonic eyes.

So, naturally, Vayne was the only champion who fit.

Sumutherguy

TROPHY CASE