Guide to Playing Swain Support
Below is a guide on how to play Swain support. We'll talk about how to play him, the rune set up, the item build, how Swain support works, the drawbacks of Swain support and how to counter it.
Swain isn't a newcomer to the bot lane meta. He's classically however, been a gold hungry laner and tends to focus more on himself as a hyper-carry rather than as a utility-based role. With AD based hypercarries like Jinx, Xayah and Kai'Sa in the meta however, it's getting more difficult to justify funneling gold into Swain. This doesn't mean he's not still viable bot lane though...check out how players are picking up Swain support below!
Guide to Playing Swain Support
Below is a guide on how to play Swain support. We'll talk about how to play him, the rune set up, the item build, how Swain support works, the drawbacks of Swain support and how to counter it.Swain isn't a newcomer to the bot lane meta. He's classically however, been a gold hungry laner and tends to focus more on himself as a hyper-carry rather than as a utility-based role. With AD based hypercarries like Jinx, Xayah and Kai'Sa in the meta however, it's getting more difficult to justify funneling gold into Swain. This doesn't mean he's not still viable bot lane though...check out how players are picking up Swain support below!
Swain support Table of Contents:
- How to Play Swain support
- Swain support Rune Setup
- How Swain support Works
- Potential Pitfalls of Swain support
- Countering Swain support
How to Play
Rune Setup
How It Works
Perfect Claw Range
Nevermove [E] has a range of 850, which just happens to be higher range than every marksman in the game with Caitlyn sitting nicely at 650. This means as a lane bully, he can easily reach enemy marksmen and punish them via a quick root + auto + Q, proccing Electrocute and dealing massive damage.
High Poke/Initiation Mid-Game
A lot of Swain support players tend to max his Q first for increased all-in poke damage. However, his Vision of Empire [W] is really where he shines mid to late game. If you manage to snowball your lane, maxing Q isn't a bad idea, but otherwise the slow and long range catching ability from his W is basically a scouting/poke/catch tool all wrapped up in one.
Powerful Base Damages
Overall, Swain really just needs mana and some bulk to hold his own and scales incredibly hard into the mid to late game. He doesn't need a huge amount of items to be effective if you're not planning to be front-lining, and his offensive abilities are very valuable. His personal defense abilities are excellent as well.
Nevermove [E] has a range of 850, which just happens to be higher range than every marksman in the game with Caitlyn sitting nicely at 650. This means as a lane bully, he can easily reach enemy marksmen and punish them via a quick root + auto + Q, proccing Electrocute and dealing massive damage.
High Poke/Initiation Mid-Game
A lot of Swain support players tend to max his Q first for increased all-in poke damage. However, his Vision of Empire [W] is really where he shines mid to late game. If you manage to snowball your lane, maxing Q isn't a bad idea, but otherwise the slow and long range catching ability from his W is basically a scouting/poke/catch tool all wrapped up in one.
Powerful Base Damages
Overall, Swain really just needs mana and some bulk to hold his own and scales incredibly hard into the mid to late game. He doesn't need a huge amount of items to be effective if you're not planning to be front-lining, and his offensive abilities are very valuable. His personal defense abilities are excellent as well.
Potential Pitfalls
Low Peel Power
At his core, Swain is not a traditional support. He's not going to be doing much to help your marksman stay alive besides really being a distraction. His crowd-control power is slow, and really he'll need to focus on the whole concept of death being the hardest CC.
Weak When Behind
Swain is a champion that really focuses on getting ahead and staying ahead. If he doesn't do well or even in lane, he tends to get punished heavily as a result of his slow crowd-control and lack of defensive supporting skills.
At his core, Swain is not a traditional support. He's not going to be doing much to help your marksman stay alive besides really being a distraction. His crowd-control power is slow, and really he'll need to focus on the whole concept of death being the hardest CC.
Weak When Behind
Swain is a champion that really focuses on getting ahead and staying ahead. If he doesn't do well or even in lane, he tends to get punished heavily as a result of his slow crowd-control and lack of defensive supporting skills.
Countering Swain support
Swain has a lot of trouble against speed boost champions like Zilean and Karma that can avoid his relatively slow spells and poke him down without dealing with his ultimate up close and personal. If you can kite him around without getting caught by CC, Swain ends up being relatively weak in a 2v2 situation.
Conclusions
Swain support is surprisingly good and certainly can snowball games hard if you get ahead. His catching ability is very powerful and his burst damage can easily double kill enemy laners. However, if he ends up falling behind it will be difficult to come back and your marksman will certainly be susceptible to start raging.
Suggested Tier: Tier 2
Latest Weird Picks
Latest Weird Picks:
- #119: Varus Top
- #118: Kled Mid
- #117: Luden's Ezreal
- Click here for more!
No comments:
Post a Comment
Feel free to comment or leave a message :)