Riot Games Reveals Changes On the Horizon for Swain on PBE

League of Legends has been in a state of constant change for the past few weeks and the players are trying to keep up with the pace of these changes put forth by the developers at Riot Games. Just recently, players were given a glimpse of the changes for pridestalker Rengar, and Master Yi who is getting a hurly-burly buff after his win rates were trashed by the hotfix nerf to his damage ratios. Well, now Riot is adding one more champion to this list: Noxian Grand General Swain has been slated for some changes on the Public Beta Environment (PBE).

Associate Game Designer Tim “Truexy” Jiang shared the Swain changes on his Twitter handle. He wrote, “Some Swain changes that will be on PBE this week! Goals here are shifting power out of less satisfying places and into the spells that make Swain, well Swain. More spammable Q in the lane, and higher uptime on Ult.”

What is changing in Swain’s ability kit?

Swain has a very weak early laning phase and players often complain about the never-ending mana problems with his kit. He went from being played in the top and mid lanes to being chosen as a support champion even after the rework. Now, with these changes, Riot is hoping to bring him back to the carry lanes and into the meta, overall. Jiang added, “This should help both Swain in Mid and support by giving him better access to his meaningful spells. We expect it to be a small/mid-sized buff to Swain everywhere. Birds.”

Following are the changes made in Swain’s kit:

• Passive - Ravenous Flock - Damage removed

• Q - Death’s Hand - Cooldown reduced from 9-3 seconds to 7-3 seconds

• Q - Death’s Hand - Mana cost reduced from 65-85 to 50-70

• R - Demonic Ascension - Cooldown reduced from 120 seconds at all ranks to 120 to 80 seconds

Interestingly, Riot Games has removed the bonus damage from Swain’s passive. So, pulling in a champion that has been immobilized will no longer deal extra damage. Looks like the buffs to Q - Death’s Hand are quite significant as players can now spam this ability due to its reduced cooldown and lower mana cost. This would allow Swain to have a better poke in the laning phase. His Ultimate - Demonic Ascension’s cooldown has also been changed.

Removing passive damage from Swain’s kit

Players are not too happy with the removal of Swain’s passive damage with many calling it a nerf and not a buff. A Twitter user wrote, “I don't like this T___T. Passive damage is gone for some pathetically lower cooldown/mana cost and shorter ult starting at lvl 11 bcos most games won't even last long enough for lvl 16. I picked Swain occasionally and now I think I'll stop completely. Who asked for this? :')))”

Taking away Swain’s passive damage would mean that the champion can no longer burst down the enemies and it seems like it would only worsen his state in the solo lanes.

Players pointed out that Riot could be entirely misreading the situation with Swain just like it did in the case of Master Yi.

Following backlash from the community, associate game designer Jiang took to Twitter to announce that they might revisit some of these changes and redistribute the buffs. He wrote, “Thanks for everyone's feedback on Swain. We hear you on how big losing the Passive ratio can feel. We'll do our diligence and make sure Swain players feel like this list is a win. This might mean redistributing some buffs, so keep that feedback coming!”

Currently, all the changes that Jiang mentioned would be tested out on the PBE this coming week and could change accordingly before the actual patch releases for play.

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