What’s up guys it’s me Jeremy!
One of the more common issues with older League champions is that they tend to have multiple
identities, rather than a single cohesive one.
Swain is a champion that suffers from this too, and this will be the focal point for
his upcoming full scale visual and gameplay update.
He’s been pretty high on the priority list from player requests, and his gameplay and
art in particular
are very dated.
Swain’s VGU is due for release after Evelynn, and it might be a bit of a surprising change
for his direction.
From a gameplay perspective, Swain is usually considered as a drain-tank mage, someone that
obviously likes to stack AP to build his damage but makes his mark by having insane sustainability.
Drain Tanks like Swain and Aatrox very often have a difficult time finding a balanced state,
because if they are behind they are pretty much useless, but when they are ahead they
become unkillable DPS monsters.
Unlike Aatrox however, Swain has a ton of power built into his abilities, with effects
that enemies are unable to effectively deal with.
His root is avoidable with good movement, but the slow and damage amplification are
auto-targeted, so once he’s in range you can bet you’ll be in a world of hurt with
little chance of out trading him.
Although this is of course an issue from a balance perspective, it’s actually not the
main driving factor behind the rework - the issue is that he’s always been painted as
this genius ‘Master Tactician,’ but his gameplay doesn’t match up to that identity
at all.
There are two solutions to Swain’s confused identity - either Riot chooses to turn him
into a true Master Tactician and create a kit to match, or they craft a new identity
for him and build the kit around that.
You may be surprised to hear that they are actually going with the latter; Swain will
no longer be known as the Master Tactician.
Swain is well known for his cunning in the world of Runeterra, but his character is more
than that - after all, he is the Leader of Noxus.
Riot Reav3 gave the comparison of someone like Tywin Lannister from Game of Thrones;
he’s a ruthless leader, vastly powerful and well known for his ability to outsmart
his opposition - but he’s not really what you’d call as a Master Tactician.
Reav3 explains that this is how they see Swain, he’s not just some commander sat in a tent
leading his troops from a distance, he’s an intelligent warlock with the power to rule
a nation.
This is going to be the new identity that Riot are going to craft for the rework, he’ll
be moving from Master Tactician to Ruthless Leader, and from Drain Tank to Warlock.
Reav3 reassured that Swain’s essence will be kept intact, which means he’ll likely
keep the same art direction and raven-themed magic, but his kit will likely be quite different.
Riot will be building it up from scratch to better suit Swain as an intelligent warlock,
so a good comparison would be Urgot - the essence of Urgot as a half-man half-machine
monstrosity stayed the same, but his kit was updated to give him that much needed cohesive
identity.
The shift towards Warlock alongside confirmation that they will rebuilding his kit from scratch
is pretty interesting simply because his kit already feels like a pretty solid foundation
for the warlock archetype.
However, it does mean that even a brand new kit can still use elements of the old one,
so sticking with the Warlock theme will hopefully keep Swain mains interested and happy with
the rework.
It’s quite interesting that Riot would decide to move away from the Master Tactician identity
simply because there’s nothing really like it in the game right now, but updating Swain’s
kit to give off that impression would likely make him almost unrecognisable.
That’s something that Riot usually tries to avoid because it’s usually met with frustration
by players that main the champion undergoing the changes, but it does open up the possibility
of a new champion that has ‘tactician’ identity.
A good example here could be something like Abathur from Heroes of the Storm - it’s
quite unlike most MOBA heroes because you approach the game in an extremely different
way.
Instead of heading down lane to farm, you send out your own minions to wander down the
lane and focus on buffing or assisting your own team.
There’s no confirmation from Riot that they have any plans for a tactical champion like
that, but detaching Swain from the tactician identity definitely opens up the opportunity
to release one.
After all, any Commander or Tactician champion like that would likely be met with raised
eyebrows from the community considering Swain is meant to be the Master Tactician.