Hello Everyone, I go by a couple of names, preferably Brofish or Brotuna, and im someone who has a very large amount of experience improving in a wide variety of games.

I have managed to aquire top 500 in Overwatch for 3 seasons

Diamond with Terran/Protoss in Starcraft 2

Champion rank in Battlerite (ign Brotuna)

and finally, the most relevant achievement would be placing amongst the top 10 Swains in NA in season 11

Just like anything else, I had to work towards goals I set for myself to improve, and my hope with this guide and any other content I create on my Twitch /Youtube channel is that you will be able to take some of my ideas and apply them to yourself, and over time you will begin to see results as well.

I will be adding to this guide over the next couple of weeks, going into even greater detail about situational items and matchups!

Time is the most important resource in league, everyone strives to use it effeciently, maximizing clear speed in the jungle, aquiring as many minions as possible per minute, and recalling at appropriate times to avoid losing minions.

You will be sacrificing presence in lane for more control over the map, when you finish your Liandry's Anguish the burn damage paired with the 8 second reveal will prevent people from recalling for the entire duration of the reveal.

In the event someone pushes minions to the tower to reset after killing one of your side lanes and you happen to know where they are recalling, you will be able to waste a significant amount of their time all from the comfort of your own lane, your team may even be able to respawn and get back to lane to kill them if you buy enough time.

In the event your team manages to get a kill or two, you can drop on their summoner well when they have 2 seconds left on their respawn timer ( detonates 1.5 seconds after ability cast), as soon as they spawn they will be struck, they will lose their homegaurd movement speed buff and recieve a nice slow instead, once again, all from the comfort of your own lane.

You will be weaker in lane, if played correctly 2 maybe even 3 enemies will lose a significant amount of time and efficiency that will cripple their early game as a result.

What sets apart the play style I'm encouraging over whats considered META is the emphasis on map awareness and the utilization of Swain's over in earlier stages of the game, not every game, but more often than not.

I will not be going over what Swain does normally in great detail, if you want to focus on dominating your own lane and pressing your own advantage, simply max Swain's and follow the Lane Domination Build above.

When maxing most of your attention should be in your side lanes, and to always be on the lookout for your allies CC abilities to confirm the hit every ~10-12 seconds, while going neutral in lane and farming minions with auto attacks primarily. Play Video

Let's go over each ability, then I will talk about the thought process you should implement when deciding which one to put points into.

Ravenous Flock (Passive): His passive, Ravenous Flock, leaves behind soul fragments after enemy champions have died that last 16 seconds. These souls will heal you for around 5-9% maximum HP AND grant you 12 HP permanently. ✦ These souls will make Swain naturally tanky throughout the game ✦ Collected upon takedown or entering soul fragments proximity ~1000 Units (about twice as long as Swain's auto attack range) ✦ Collected upon landing or recast on enemy champions

Death's Hand (Q): His Q, Death's Hand, unleashes 5 bolts in front of him, dealing AOE damage to all enemies hit. ✦ Get as close as possible to land multiple bolts and maximize damage per cast ✦ Will be used sparingly due to high mana cost to confirm minion farm when auto attacks wont do the trick early game ✦ After aquiring can be used for wave management (pushing wave to tower to begin roaming/resetting without ✦ Will be the primary ability when focusing on lane domination or when fighting a high mobility team

Vision of Empire (W): Vision of Empire will grant vision of the area for 2 seconds and then explode after 1.5 seconds, dealing magic damage to all enemies, slowing them for 2.5 seconds. Enemy champions hit will then be revealed for 4 to 8 seconds and you'll collect a soul fragment for Ravenous Flock from every champion hit. ✦ Most of your attention should be in lanes with champions who have abilities that help land ✦ The ability on its own is quite hard to land, most champions can simply walk out of it, so try to time the cast during specific events like or respawning. ✦ Use it to block enemies and zone out of specific areas they might be trying to enter for a couple of seconds. They'll either have to walk into your team, or run through it, causing them to take damage and be slowed. Aim for areas that are tight and narrow, especially in the jungle and river, or even between towers and walls. ✦ When enemies are using abilities that slow or completely immobilize them while being cast, like Xerath's Varus's Sion's or Vel'koz's . They'll either have to rush their abilities or take the hit from . ✦ You will have a much easier time landing on enemies who are being effected by crowd control. Make note of your team's CC abilities when the game starts, after reaching level 5 you should have 3 points in and you can use this ability whenever team members land CC( ) ✦ While enemies are recalling, even if you don't hit them, they'll still have to walk out of the range therefore cancelling their own recall. If you do manage to hit them and you have 4 or 5 levels in with they will not be able to recall for the entire duration of the reveal, wasting another 7-8 seconds, and if they try you will be able to hit them with another after about 5-6 seconds of recalling, preventing them from recalling for 22 seconds in total. ✦ The vision alone is incredibly useful for aquiring information without any unnecessary risk that comes from approaching brush. Think of it like a free except it does damage, has a much lower cooldown and tags enemies revealing them for an additional 8 seconds giving you even more information. ✦ After you aquire and Vision of Empire will have a 10.4 second cd, paired with the 8 second reveal, you may be able to chain hits back to back on someone up to 7500 units away if you predict their movements just after losing vision of them, this will only get easier over the course of the game as you build more items with ability haste. ✦ Although this will not be its primary function, just keep in mind can be used to clear minions occasionally, your ability to manage minions will suffer from not maxing so if you need to reset, push the wave to tower or last hit siege minions while you are not in lane, this is always an option.

Nevermove (E): Nevermove, throws out a demonic hand, damaging enemies it passes through. Once it reaches its max range, it will then return to swain, damaging and then rooting enemies in a small AOE. You can then recast this ability, pulling enemies champions towards you ripping out a soul fragment from . When learning this play style, landing this ability should be second nature, focus on landing this and trading with your lane opponent successfully before splitting your attention accross the map. ✦ This is your main medium to long range poke tool in lane. ✦ Upon successfully landing the root from be sure to follow up with wait for to hit, then recast to pull rooted enemy champions into the center of vision of empire before detonation. ✦ Against spell shielded enemy abilities (for example sivir w) or items (banshees, edge of night), you can cancel them with the initial part of E Nevermove, but still have the 2nd part damage and root, hit them. ✦ Since recasting pulls them closer to Swain, it has great synergy with and ✦ Aim to land this ability at max range, the closer enemies are to you, the more time they will have to dodge the hand as it returns to Swain. ✦ Another AOE ability that can be used for waveclear and last hitting minions, thanks to having pretty low damage it can be used on full HP under tower to make them easier to last hit after they take a tower shot.

Demonic Ascension (R): And finally, his Ultimate, has 2 parts. Demonic Ascension is the first part. Swain will start generating demonic energy, which is the red part under his health bar. During this time, Swain will drain enemies nearby, damaging them and healing himself each second. This ultimate will stay on, as long as Swain can generate demonic energy out of enemies. If you have atleast 1 enemy champion nearby, it will stay on the entire time. Demonflare (R): Only after 2 seconds of Demonic Ascension, can he cast the next part of his Ultimate, Demonflare. Swain sends out a nova of energy, damaging all enemies in range and slowing them for 1.5 seconds, which decays. ✦ Amazing AOE, aim to hit as many targets as possible when the enemy team is grouped. ✦ or while low on HP and the drain effect will persist causing you to gain HP while untargatable. ✦ Drain effect is only 10% effective against minions compared to champions, keep this in mind when going to fight an enemy champion, drain from as many different sources as possible. ✦ Will persist while under any effect including Zilean's and Tahm's ✦ The slowing effect from will make landing and significantly easier

Ability Order
More often than not you should be able to decide during the loading screen whether or not you will want to max out Vision of Empire first.
✦ If you have a champion on your team with hard CC that will make landing it in their lane easy
✦ The enemies are playing champions that have very few or no mobility abilities
If your team is failing to hit their CC abilities consistently and you find that you cant rely on them, try to come to that conclusion by at least level 7 so you can start putting points into Death's Hand.
✦ you can transition into standard swain over the next 4 levels while still making use of your whenever possible
✦ After you get a few points into start focusing on your lane primarily, then your side lanes whenever it's convienient.
If you are facing off against a large number of high mobility champions like or and the enemies have side lanes like all while having a low CC team, focus on maxing and focus on yourself during the early game.
✦ Death's hand goes through and any other effect that would make someone untargatable like Akali's
✦ Wave management becomes significantly easier, giving you the ability to push out the lane and roam