Having been suffering from being a Support champion with an extremely low win-rate, Swain was buffed considerably in order to bring him back to his original place: a midlane mage!
Reworked and becoming a literally nightmare at the beginning, he is now not suitable anymore in this meta as there are an uncountable number of Brawler-Assassins like Akali, Irelia,… who can beat him easily during laning phase and combats.
There was a time that Swain was tested as a Botlaner as well as a Support champion since his skills are very useful for these two positions. And because of that, so far, The Noxian Grand General has not been able to get out of Support position – which is completely opposite to Riot’s original idea.
But recently, Riot has finally figured out his problem and they are making some adjustments to his power in order to bring him back to midlane. Those include:
- His Q’s cooldown was a bit decreased from 10/8.5/7/5.5/4s to 9/7.5/6/4.5/3s so as to make his laning phase easier.
- His W’s range was doubly increased from 3500 at all levels to 5,550/6,000/6,500/7,000/7,500 and its mana cost was reduced from 70/85/100/115/130 to 70/80/90/100/100.
- His E’s mana cost was also decreased from 60/65/70/75/80 to 50 at all levels.
However, to prevent Swain from becoming so OP, Riot also took away some of his power:
- His movement speed was decreased by 10, from 335 to 325.
- His passive’s cooldown was changed into 10 at all levels and his ability of mana-generating disappeared.
- His W’s damage was also reduced from 100/150/200/250/300 to 80/120/160/200/240
Riot’s main purpose is to increase the flexibility of Midlane Swain so these buffs were just about his skill range and mana cost instead of increasing his damage, which is not bad now. This would help him to control his lane easier and provide his teammates with better vision, which is very important in high-elo matches.
Besides, these changes would also help low-elo players a lot as they are usually unable to dodge Swain’s skill. Additionally, Swain’s ability of mana-generating disappeared so he can not use his skills carelessly anymore.
The video summarising all of these: New Swain Changes on PBE (Patch 10.15) – New Champion Update – League of Legends
If you are into Swain, try reading this: Swain predicts that the Ruined King is still alive?