Mid Lane Swain: Fear my Flock

Introduction

Hi there, my name's Crystalfortress, and this is my guide to mid lane Swain, as well as my 6th guide on Mobafire. Swain is a very different sort of mid lane champ, with a diverse set of strengths and lots of different ways to be built. Swain is usually consistently strong at all points in the game, making him a fairly good generalist pick. This guide will show you the many ways in which I build and play Swain. If you enjoy the guide or it helped you become better at Swain, please don't forget to upvote the guide and leave me a comment. Anyways, let's get down to business!

Pros & Cons

PROS

Tankier than most carries
Very strong damage, aoe and single target.
Strong crowd control
Great sustain

CONS

Short range on abilities
Mana expensive pushing
Countered by Grievous Wounds
Low Mobility

Masteries

OFFENSE

The offense tree is obviously the best choice for mid lane Swain, since your main objective is doing damage, and that's what this tree does. This is my personal favorite way to go through the tree, avoiding the weaving and spellblade points because you don't autoattack and the double-edged sword point because you aren't melee.

UTILITY

I enjoy putting the remaining 9 points into the Utility tree. The main bonuses that you get from this are mana regeneration, quicker summoner spell cooldowns and longer blue buffs. You also get quicker recalls and slightly more from potions, but these are very minor advantages. If you prefer, or if you are in a very rough matchup, consider putting these points into the defensive tree instead.

Runes

MY PREFFERED RUNES

QUINTESSENCES

These quints are par for the course on AP mid laners, and Swain benefits from their substantial damage boost just as much as everybody else. Definitely usually the best quintessences.

SEALS

These provide you with quite a lot of health late game, and are usually better than any alternatives you can come up with. The late game tankiness is especially helpful on Swain because of his short range.

GLYPHS

If you are against an AP mid laner, these are really important to get. They will provide you with protection against the magic damage that they will be throwing out, especially early game.

MARKS

These are really great for magic damage mid laners, providing you with a large boost in damage throughout the entirety of the game.

ALTERNATIVE RUNES

QUINTESSENCES

These are pretty solid quintessences on all champions, because move speed is literally never a bad stat. I bought these initially because they were good on all champions, but I still sometimes use them against skillshot reliant enemies.

These could be good to use in a rune page for if you come up against an AD mid laner against whom you'll need the extra armor. In this situation, I would probably replace the magic resistance glyphs, since you won't be needing that stat.

SEALS

These could be used if you either like to have lots of mana regeneration because you aren't good at managing your mana or if you have a blue buff-reliant jungler. You will miss out on some late game health though.

GLYPHS

These are good alternatives for magic resist glyphs if you either would rather have more scaling damage or if you are against an AD mid laner.

Summoner Spells

MAIN SUMMONER SPELLS

is just a great summoner spell. On everybody. I mean, what champion doesn't benefit from the ability to jump through freakin' walls? And for , it's especially great because you don't have any mobility built into your kit. You can use it for more than just using walls to outplay your enemies, though. It can help you engage on enemies by jumping in to close range. It can help you escape bad situations by jumping away. Just such a great spell.

is great for helping secure kills in the early game, giving you that little boost in damage that you need to finish off that low-health enemy. It also applies grievous wounds, decreasing enemy regeneration, which can be awesomely helpful against certain enemies. And you know what's really fun that makes it even better on than usual? actually increases it's damage too.

ALTERNATIVE SUMMONER SPELLS

could be good on if you are in one of your rough matchups. First of all, you can use it to create teleport ganks at any of the other lanes, something which does exceptionally well compared to many other champions due to his high amount of crowd control and single-target damage. In addition, if you are against an enemy that has a high amount of harassment (which is what makes up most of 's bad matchups), then you can use it to recall to base without costing you too much in terms of farm in the early game.

While for the most part counters assassins by harassing the heck out of them early game, it can still be a good idea against some of them to pick up in case they do get some good opportunities to all-in you. Besides, you never know, they could get a good gank from their jungler and then all of a sudden they're scary all-in masters, so it could be a good idea to take it against an assassin, even if you do counter them sometimes.

Abilities

ABILITY LEVELING EXPLANATION

->->->

This is the main leveling order that I use in most games. I usually level first for the good early game harass (especially if you follow up with some autoattacks, they're increased too). However, you could also level one of your crowd control abilities if you think that you might need it against your lane opponent. Next, you want to get a level into each of the other two abilities that you didn't level, in whichever order you prefer against your specific lane opponent (probably second if you didn't take it first). You pretty basically want to get all abilities available as soon as possible because your full combo early game can wreck face. Next, I always max first because it increases the damage of not only itself, but everything else that you do because of the damage amp. Next, you have to choose between maxing or next depending on one thing: is there a single enemy that you really need to peel and keep away from you or your team? If so, max first. Otherwise, I would suggest maxing next because it decreases the cooldown, and having your hard cc on cooldown can make or break a situation. Obviously, level up your ultimate whenever it's available.

ABILITY EXPLANATION

PASSIVE ABILITY

One of the most brutally simple passives in the game. Pretty basically just gives you a few passives, which scale with level and a large % maximum mana regeneration on getting a kill or assist. One of the things that makes 's early game so brutal for melee-range enemies, because you can just keep on throwing out spells with very little effect on your mana bar so long as you farm well.

MAIN SPELLS

Upon being cast, this spell creates a raven at your location that locks onto the targeted enemy, dealing damage every second over the next three seconds and slowing them. However, the crow doesn't follow you, it remains at your original position. If the enemy gets a certain distance away from the raven, it ends the effect prematurely. This spell makes you a beast at kiting a lot of melee enemies, because if they continue to pursue you, they will not only be slowed, making it hard to pursue you in the first place, they will take a whole load of damage. This spell also makes it a whole lot easier to land on an enemy if they are slowed.

This is your 900-range, aoe snare. Yes, you read that right. You might be asking "But crystalfortress, that sounds flipping incredible! What's the catch?". Well, if you would shut up for a second, I would be able to tell you. The catch is that it has a visible effect that shows the area of effect to both teams and a fairly long delay before it goes off, making it fairly easy to dodge. Unless, of course, your enemy so happened to be slowed by something like, say, a . That would make it harder to get out of the aoe.

is your somewhat short range, but potentially very punishing targeted damage over time. Right off the bat, it does a pretty solid amount of damage over time. However, the part that really sells it is the damage amplification. At maximum level, all of the damage you deal, even from autoattacks, , and anything else, is increased by %20. That's huge. That %20 increase is the reason why you max it first and why you start off all of your harassment and all-in combos with it.

ULTIMATE ABILITY

Anybody who has every played against a has horrifying memories of this ult. After making the horrible mistake of early picking in mid lane one time and getting countered by , I still can't look straight at a raven for too long, or even people with canes. And that's all because of this ultimate, which is pretty freaking great if used correctly. This ultimate is a toggle (however it still has a cooldown). When toggled on, you become a scary-as-heck huge bird god that sends out a few ravens to random enemies near you (favoring champions) and deals damage to them, bringing back a large amount of the damage done on the return trip. However, this ability has huge mana costs that increase the longer it is on, so don't leave it on for too long.

Items

This section would be huge if I didn't shorten it somehow, so I'm putting the whole thing in spoilers.

STARTING ITEMS

starting items

EARLY GAME ITEMS

Early Game Items

are really good items to pick up early against almost any matchup. Having some nice early movement speed is good in almost any situation, since it allows you to run away, close distances and avoid skillshots more easily. That last part is especially nice for you, since a lot of the champions that counter you are heavily skillshot-reliant, long range mages.

catalyst the protector

This item is a great item to rush on . First of all, it builds into , an item that you will want to have in any matchup that you play and that you will want to rush. Grabbing this part as early as possible is great because it not only provides you with helpful stats in health and mana, but also gives you sustain in both of those regions with the passive. In combination with the sustain built into your kit, this should make it nearly impossible to push you out of lane.

catalyst the protector

Try to pick up a fairly early so that you can build into a asap. It also provides you with a pretty good amount of ability power on it's own, so it will still have a good effect on your laning without the upgrade. However, if you can buy either, get the catalyst the protector before you get this as it helps you sustain and stay in lane for longer.

This can be a great item to buy early if you have the gold to get one (which is quite a lot). It builds into , , and , which are all great items on . You should almost always be building a , so building one early is fairly safe. It also provides you with an incredible amount of damage all on it's own. However, you will rarely have enough to buy one in the early game.

This item builds into four of the items that you might want to build: , , , and . Only build this item if you will be building any of those items. It provides you with nice stats to have early, AP for obvious reasons, and cooldown reduction to help you get your spells off cooldown more often, which is especially nice for you because you have such long ones.

If you are in a matchup where you will want to be building the , then this is a great item to build early. It provides you with a nice little bit of magic resistance, which can be helpful against heavy harass AP mid laners. The main thing that it provides though is a large amount of mana regeneration.

If you so happen to come up against an AD mid laner (a fairly rare thing these days), then building one of these early can be a really good idea. Not only does it provide you with armor and ability power, two stats that will be really helpful against an AD, it also builds into , and item that is great against any AD mid laner.

If you are having a tough time against an AP mid laner, picking one of these up early can help you resist enough damage in the early game to survive without backing every 2 minutes. It also builds into , , , and , four great items to get against and AP opponent.

If you are building into a , this is an excellent item to pick up early. Health and ability power are both excellent stats on you because you are a mid laner that also needs to build fairly tanky. One of the best parts of the item though is the magic penetration it provides. Early game, in addition to your runes, this can allow you to pretty basically deal true damage to your lane opponent early with your spells.

If you are going to be needing the extra health sustain from the , then chances are that you will also be needing it early, so building this ingredient can be helpful. It synergizes well with your kit, because your ult already has got some spell vamp built in and you also have two high-damage single-target spells built into your kit. If you're getting low on health in lane, cast both of these on either a cannon minion or your enemy laner if possible and you'll regain a bunch of health.

CORE ITEMS

Core Items

These are almost always the best boots to upgrade your to. They help amplify your magic damage by allowing you to ignore some of your enemy's magic resistance. You could also replace these with either or depending upon the situation, but these are generally strong boots.

is the item that you will want to rush in every matchup that you play. This item provides you with ability power, your main offensive stat, mana and mana sustain so that you can keep on casting spells in lane, and health and health sustain, which are important for you because you are a close-range mage. It also has a stacking over time mechanism, so the earlier you get it, the earlier it reaches maximum effectiveness.

This item is great on anybody who scales well with ability power, which most certainly does. This item provides you with the single largest amount of ability power from a single item due to the passive, which increases your total ability power by %30. You will VERY RARELY want to replace this item because of the huge damage boost that it provides, but sometimes if you need more slots for certain items, it can be worth replacing this item with a or , which both also provide a good amount of ability power, although not nearly as much.

is a great item for anybody who relies on magic damage. It's passive allows you to penetrate through large amounts of magic resistance, especially if the enemy team has built a lot. This is mostly useful against tanks, since they're the main people who stack large amounts of resistances. This item could very easily be replaced by either or , as both of these items are similar in that they provide you with magic penetration. However, the reason that this one's core is that it provides you with a TON of it.

SITUATIONALS

Situationals

is a pretty great item to get in almost any matchup. First of all, even if you are against an AP mid laner, you will want to be getting some armor at some point probably, because otherwise the enemy ADC will be dealing true damage to you, which isn't good. Also, the active can be massively helpful in lots of different situations, especially since your ult continues dealing damage while you are invincible. Also, it provides you with a really good amount of ability power. It's also a great item to rush against an AD mid laner so that you can get the armor that you'll be needing pretty badly in the early game.

This item works very well on due to your short range. Most of the time, you'll be hitting enemies easily within the range of the aura, so it pretty basically gives you 20 magic penetration. It also gives you a pretty solid amount of ability power and some very helpful magic resistance. This item can be great either as a 5th or 6th item or can be used to replace your if you want the magic resistance but also have plans for your two final item slots.

This item works well on if you are aiming to burst your enemies down, which is fairly easy with your full combo. In addition to the damage amplification from , you will be doing pretty crazy amounts of damage with all of your spells. I would probably mostly suggest using this item against short-range enemies, as those are the majority of the enemies that you can actually reach to burst. It's also nice in that it provides you with some cooldown reduction, which is a helpful stat for . And 120 AP.

This item works excellently on . This item is built for champions who have lots of crowd control and damage over time effects. You have both of those. It's especially helpful if the enemy team has a health-stacker like or , but it will generally do lots of damage. If built in conjunction with a , you can just jump into teamfights with your ult on and watch the health bars drop and everybody get slowed. This item also has really nice stats, with health and ability power being two great stats on and magic penetration being fairly hard to get your hands on in most builds.

Another potential 5th or 6th item on . This item not only provides you with a pretty good amount of ability power, it also gives you a lot of health, which can be helpful on because you have to get close to deal your damage. You also get a slow on dealing magic damage, which is mostly helpful for the synergy with and . However, the CC built into your kit makes this technically unnecessary, so you could still skip it even if you are getting .

If you are in a matchup where you will really need health sustain, this can be a great item to get. Not only does it work with your ult to make you regenerate even more in teamfights, it also has great synergy with the high-damage, single-target and . It also provides you with a solid amount of ability power and some cooldown reduction.

This item can be helpful to build against enemies that rely on regeneration to survive (like yourself!). The stats that it provides alone are pretty solid, with cooldown reduction, mana regeneration and ability power all being really helpful. However, the main reason that you would buy this item is for the passive, which causes you to give low-health enemies grievous wounds, reducing their health regeneration.

A lot of people consider this a core item on swain, but I find that so long as you have blue buff and rod of ages, it isn't super hard to keep your mana bar full, so it isn't super necessary. However, I can certainly see the attraction of the item. It allows you to cast spells like there's no tomorrow, especially with a blue buff. The magic resistance can be extremely helpful in a lot of matchups. It provides a good amount of ability power, and some really nice cooldown reduction. Could be good if you need the sustain if you are having very long, drawn-out engagements with the enemy team.

This item has a mix of stats that work perfectly with . It gives you some really helpful tanky stats in health, health regen and magic resistance, a passive that has great synergy with your ult, and is absolutely incredible if you built , and some cooldown reduction, which is a great stat.

This is a great item to build on if your enemy has one spell that you really fear. The main thing that you get this item for is the spell shield. It could be useless if it blocks something like a , but it could also block a or . It also has some nice stats, with health and magic resistance being very helpful in some matchups.

These could be very situationally more useful than . For the most part, the reason that you take them is for the tenacity, which reduces the duration of enemy crowd control. This could be useful against enemies that rely on their crowd control for a lot of their damage, like , , and . They don't even necessarily have to be your lane opponent, if you are really afraid of the enemy team's crowd control late game, these boots could be the solution.

This is a pretty great item on almost any champion, mostly because of the free life passive. The resistances that it gives are also definitely nothing to be sad about. This could be a great item to get if you are very fed or far ahead of your enemies and they are focusing their damage on you to attempt to kill you early. This can make it so they spent all that effort for nothing.

This item can be really great if either the enemy team has lots of attack damage characters or one of them is getting really fed. The mana and cooldown reduction that this item provides are great, but the main reason to buy it is the huge armor and passive that reduces enemy attack speed.

This is an item that is useful in a similar situation to . If you really need some armor because an AD character on the enemy team is getting fed, consider picking this up. This item doesn't provide the nice mana and cooldown reduction that does, but it gives health instead. This one would be more helpful than if the enemy team also has some mixed damage, because health is a good stat in that situation.

This is a rather extremely situational item to buy, but it could be really useful if the enemy team deals A LOT of physical damage. It provides you with a crazy amount of armor and a passive that returns a certain amount of physical damage dealt to you to the enemy. The only problem is that this item provides you with nothing other than those two things. However, if the enemy team deals a lot of physical damage, this can help you stay alive.

I would say that these are EXTREMELY situational boots. These are only better than if the enemy team has a whole lot of physical damage, especially if it's auto-attack based. Otherwise, stick with for the large boost in damage that they provide.

TRINKETS & ENCHANTMENTS

Trinkets & Enchantments

This is one of the two upgrades for your . This one changes it so that instead of creating stealth wards, it creates vision wards, which are permanent until they get destroyed and reveal invisible units in the area. I like this one more than the myself because it's much better for controlling objectives like dragon or baron, giving you vision and clearing any nearby wards at the same time. It's also an extremely important item to get against any enemy that relies on stealth, such as , or .

This is the other upgrade to that you can pick up in the late game. This one lowers the cooldown on the ward placement, allowing you to keep more wards in play at any given time.

Instead of upgrading your , another option is to replace it entirely with a , which allows you to detect and destroy enemy wards instead of placing your own. This is often the best choice, because it is possible to buy your own wards, but you can't buy a ward sweep. Many players will get one of these and just start buying some wards every time they return to base.

This is one of the possible enchantments for your boots. This one makes it so that every time that you return to base, you regenerate your health and mana faster than usual and you get a temporary speed boost upon leaving the pedestal. This is really helpful for defending your base, as well as for getting back to lane faster after returning to base.

This enchantment just gives you some extra flat movement speed. This can be really nice on because he is a short-range character and can have trouble keeping up with his enemies after he's used all of his crowd control.

This enchantment decreases the cooldown on any summoner spells related to your mobility (in your situation, and maybe if you took it). Having a lower cooldown can be really helpful sometimes in the mid lane. However, the main time that I really like to run this enchantment is when I take , because then it reduces the cooldown of both of the summoner spells.

EXAMPLE BUILDS

versatile

health melter

sustain

burst

Gameplay

EARLY GAME

has a very good early game against some enemies, and a fairly tough one against others, and it pretty basically only depends on whether you have the range advantage. If your enemies outrange you, the best path is usually to play passively and get as much farm as you can, requesting a gank from your jungler if they're not busy. You have really good follow-up on ganks because of your strong crowd control and single-target damage. If you outrange your opponent, harass as much as possible, because your harass combo is very strong and you have good mana sustain with your passive. Early game, your combo goes into into , autoattacking if you are comfortable getting that close to your enemy. Once you get your ultimate, you can also egress on an enemy with your ult on. Just make sure not to leave it on too long, because it really can cost a lot of mana.

MID GAME

So long as you haven't been denied too much farm, your mid game has the potential to be very strong. If your opponent outranges you, try to keep a fairly solid amount of farm going without getting pushed out of lane too often. You are a fairly good roamer, not because of any kind of mobility, but because of your fairly strong crowd control and single-target damage. If you took , you can use this to make global plays by ganking other lanes. If you outrange your opponent and have done a good job of keeping them from farm, consider staying in lane to try to deny them more, preventing them from roaming as well. Just make sure not to overextend, you don't want to get ganked and give up a kill.

LATE GAME

So long as you haven't been denied a whole lot of farm, can do an excellent job in the late game teamfights. Unlike most mid lane mages, your job is to dive into the middle of the enemy team, letting your ult do a huge amount of damage, and focusing your other spells on killing a certain high-priority enemy target like the enemy AD carry or mid laner. You can survive this better than most carries becasue of the spell vamp built into and the tankiness that should be built into your kit. You aren't as good in siege situations as most mages either, so try to catch your enemies away from their turrets if possible.

Tips & Tricks

Your full damage combo goes like this: Torment-> Deathfire Grasp(if you have it)-> Decrepify-> Nevermove. You can turn on Ravenous Flock whenever you enter range for it in this combo. If you are using this combo to harass your enemy (using your whole combo for harass is fine because of the mana sustain you get from your passive and Rod of Ages), then don't use the Deathfire Grasp active.
If you took Torment at level 1, then you can use it to make your autoattack harass really hurt, because the damage amplification applies to them too.
I've said this before, but seriously, don't leave Ravenous Flock on for too long. It costs a lot.
You can use Nevermove to make long range pick-offs possible if someone on your team has a long-range crowd-control of their own. Otherwise, it's hard to hit without using your own slow from Decrepify.
Swain can be very adaptable. He has the potential for strong burst damage, damage over time, tankiness, sustain, or any combination of those. This makes him a fairly strong early pick in solo queue because he can adapt to most enemies. The only thing that majorly counters him is enemies that outrange him, but taking a Crystalline Flask in the early game and being content only getting as much farm as you can without getting pushed out of lane works fine. Also consider using movement speed quints, since most of these champions rely on skillshots of some sort to do their long-range damage. Also, most of these champions are fairly immobile, and thusly weak to ganks, so request jungle support.
If you take Teleport as your second summoner spell, recommend to your allies that they put wards in their lane brushes so that you can get surprise ganks on those lanes. Keep an eye out for such opportunities.

Summary

Thanks for reading my guide! I hope that you enjoyed it and maybe that you learned something about ! If you have any concerns, disagreements, things you enjoyed, additional tips you would like to share or absolutely ANYTHING that you would like to say to me, leave me a comment and I'll be sure to respond (just try to be kind). Also, if the guide did help you, I would appreciate an upvote. Anyways, thanks for reading my guide and have a nice day!

Changelog

8/9/2014 - Guide Published

Mid Lane Swain: Fear my Flock

Mid Lane Swain: Fear my Flock

Recommended Items

Spells:

Ignite

Flash

Items

Ability Order

Ravenous Flock (PASSIVE)

Death's Hand (Q)

Vision of Empire (W)

Nevermove (E)

Demonic Ascension (R)

Threats & Synergies

Yasuo

Kassadin

Akali

Fizz

Syndra

Orianna

Ahri

Ziggs

Xerath

Katarina

Introduction

Pros & Cons

Masteries

Runes

MY PREFFERED RUNES

ALTERNATIVE RUNES

Summoner Spells

MAIN SUMMONER SPELLS

ALTERNATIVE SUMMONER SPELLS

Abilities

ABILITY LEVELING EXPLANATION

ABILITY EXPLANATION

Items

STARTING ITEMS

EARLY GAME ITEMS

CORE ITEMS

SITUATIONALS

TRINKETS & ENCHANTMENTS

EXAMPLE BUILDS

Gameplay

EARLY GAME

MID GAME

LATE GAME

Tips & Tricks

Summary

Changelog

League of Legends Champions: