Swain Mini Rework Coming Soon

The trend of bringing old League of Legends champions back into the limelight with mini reworks has worked wonders for League of Legends. Not only have Riot brought back the champions into the meta, but also given them new life with the Kassadin visual update doing wonders. So, what do they have in store for Swain?

This isn't the first time Riot are giving Swain some changes, though it's been a long time coming, with the most recent ones scheduled to take place in patch 12.6, where before those particular ones Swain was left aside since early season 11. The changes were meant to help both Swain in Mid and support by giving him better access to his meaningful spells, as was explained by TheTruexy on Twitter.

Since those have been scrapped, though, it would appear that Riot have much bigger plans for Swain in the works.

[Update April 12, 2022] 

Swain Changes on PBE 

It seems like the Swain update could come as soon as League of Legends Patch 12.8. Let's check out all the changes Riot might make to the champion. Are these better suggestions than the earlier ones Riot had wanted to ship? 

• Ravenous Flock (P)
  • [REMOVED] Swain can no longer pull crowd-controlled enemies
  • [REMOVED] Swain's pull no longer deals damage
  • Healing changed from 4/5.5/7% (lvl1/6/11) max health to 4/5,5/7/9% (lvl 1/6/11/16) max health
  • Health per soul fragment 4 --> 12

• Death's Hand (Q)
  • Mana Cost: 65-85 --> 45-65
  • Cooldown: 9-3 seconds --> 7-3 seconds
  • Damage: 55-135(+40%AP) --> 60-140(+40%AP)
  • Additional Bolt Damage: 15-35% --> 12-52(+10%AP) 
  • Max Damage: 88-324(+64-96%AP) --> 108-348(+80%AP)

• Vision of Empire (W)
  • Mana Cost: 70-110 --> 60-80
  • [NEW]Pings now display enemies in range, similar to Twisted Fate R and Nocturne R
• Nevermove (E)
  • [NEW] Can be reactivated to pull all champions rooted by Nevermove
  • [NEW] Cooldown is reduced by 20% during Demonic Ascension (R)

• Demonic Ascension (R)
  • Cooldown 120s --> 100/80/60s
  • Drain Damage per second: 35/50/60(+14%AP) --> 20/45/70(+10%AP)
  • Drain Heal per second: 20/35/40(+16%AP) --> 20/40/60(+16%AP) --> 15/40/65(+25%)
  • [REMOVED] No longer grants 125/200/275 health 
  • [CHANGED] Upon casting Demonic Ascension, Swain gains 50 demon power. Demonic Ascension lasts as long as Swain has demon Power, which drains at a rate of 10 per second. While draining an enemy champion, Swain gains 20 Demonic Power per second. After 3 seconds, Swain can   cast Demonflare (R2)

• Demonflare (R2)
  • Demonflare Damage: 100/150/200(+50%AP) --> 150/225/300(+60%AP)
  • [NEW] Demonflare now slows enemies by 60% decaying over 1.5 seconds
  • [CHANGED] On casting Demonic Ascension, Swain can cast Demonflare 1 time. This does not end Demonic Ascension
  • [REMOVED] Demonflare no longer charges up based on health drained, up to double damage

These changes will bring out Swain's identity as a battle mage once more, though some players worry about the changes to his passive, since much of his currently gameplay revolves around his pull. We will have to see if these are the exact changes Riot will decide to go with in the future, but they look promising. 

Riot August Announces the Swain Mini Rework

Riot August, the Lead Champion Designer at Riot Games, has only recently tweeted out that Swain will be getting, what he calls, a mid-scope update. These are meant to be changes to a champion's kit, that don't necessarily buff champions, as much they modernize them.

This isn't the first champion to be receiving updates of this sort, with Ahri being the most recent one, as can be evidenced in the spike in both her Win Rate and Pick Rate. Swain is joining Taliyah and Olaf as the third champion to be receiving the changes at the same, approximate, time.

What Could the Swain Rework Look Like?

Though it's uncertain just why the previous changes to Swain's kit were pulled from the PBE, we have an inkling, That, of course, being the fact that those changes were not well-thought-out in the slightest, as Riot nerfed his already weak solo laning phase into the ground, while not giving much love to the support aspect of this champion either.

Instead, what we can expect is a new way of proccing his damage combo with his passive, which was meant to be defanged completely, while his ultimate may also experience some changes, to give it a place in the current high-speed meta, in every sense of the word.

When Will the Swain Rework Go Live?

As we stated previously, pulling back the changes from the PBE may just be due to the fact that Riot have decided on giving Swain more to work with than just some damage and cooldown changes.  Taking into account the fact that Swain is joining Olaf and Taliyah as almost an afterthought, we can expect him to get his rework later than both of those.

Of course, the reverse could also be true, as Riot have already had some changes ready to go, though we stick to our first theory, purely based on the fact that the changes in question were terrible, and are unlikely to be part of the final product.