Swain is running rampant through bot lane right now and doing quite well in mid, too. His bot lane playstyle is more strongly tied to Malignance and his role as a bot laner is more about his damage output. Meanwhile in the support role, where the majority of his players are, they mostly rush Rylai's and perform as more of a pseudo-frontliner. So with all of that in mind, we're nerfing his AP-scaling ultimate damage and inherent crowd control power in hopes to nerf bot lane while leaving support as unscathed as possible.

Swain's buff last patch didn't help him out as much as we had wanted to so we're following up to put more wind in his sails (wings? Demon wing?) We're keeping things relatively straightforward with increased healing from his passive which should be generally appreciable.

Swain is quite weak in his most-played role of support. We're giving him a little more power in his E as well as lowering its mana cost to let Swain support have more room to work with without a mana item, since he typically doesn't buy one there.

Swain is flying a bit too high right now, most notably in mid and bot lane. As a result, we're making him a little squishier to physical damage so some mid laners and ADCs in the bot lane have a better chance to succeed against him.

Swain's update has come out and though he's a bit weak, we're really happy with how his new toolset is performing. Since we've now got a decent bit of room to give him more power, we'd like to increase his ability to take up space as a beefy mid-laner and give his bread and butter spellcasting more potency.

It’s demon time! Swain is receiving a sweeping update aimed at making him much more consistent and giving him more personal agency over his successes and failures. He’s receiving this increase in personal agency largely through significant buffs to Nevermove’s accuracy and an overall shift in power from his ultimate toward his base kit. Death’s Hand will be doing about 10% more damage at long range and have a lower mana cost to make those ranged trades better. These buffs are being compensated with a small decrease to his melee range damage output, meaning Swain won’t be so strongly defined by his best and worst matchups. Vision of Empire is being compressed to not require skill rank-ups as strongly as before, primarily through front-loading the slow and reveal duration. It’s meant to still be a competitive option to max second, but should leave room for Nevermove’s increased importance. Nevermove’s changes are the most important in this patch. Its acceleration has been re-implemented with more modern missile tech, removing randomness from its travel time. Its return is now more consistent and substantially faster, providing Swain much better access to crowd control. Its damage is also being shifted entirely into the explosion, which should make it better at damaging enemy champions. This increase in expected output per cast has necessitated nerfing its cooldown and his passive healing to compensate. Demonic Ascension is meant to represent less of Swain’s overall power, allowing Swain to rely more on his stronger basic abilities. The chief nerf here is to cooldown. Though it now scales plainly with ability haste, the overall cooldown is substantially longer and the healing and damage are generally weaker. But for the Swains who are strong enough to take over games, they’re getting multiple Demonflares per ultimate! He’s not meant to access these extra casts every time he transforms, but when Swain starts really carrying, that’ll come with some extra spice. Our hope with these changes is that Swain feels like a much more well-rounded and fulfilling champion to play, a centerpiece battlemage who can wear down his opposition, sustain himself from his success, and still strategically aid his teammates across the map.

Swain's early laning and damage has been lacking recently, so we’re buffing his Q to accentuate the damage he can reliably dish out, particularly on targets he can get in proximity of.

Turns out Swain's new empire was Patch 12.10, quickly rising to power in every lane. We're nerfing him across the board with particular attention to Top and Mid, making his healing and damage lower at later stages of the game.

The Grand General is back and grander than ever. Swain has certainly made a name for himself in bot lane since his last mini rework, but as the commander of the Noxian front lines, he should also be one to strike fear in his solo lane enemies' hearts. The goal for this midscope update was thus to revive his fantasy as a master strategist and dark, demonic diplomat, rather than someone who must rely on others to execute his plans. In addition to mana buffs across all his abilities, of note are some changes to his crowd control capabilities. Swain can no longer pull enemies CC'd by allies, but his E now lets him pull everyone he snares, making him all the more terrifying in bottlenecks and narrow corridors. Together, these changes should help Swain players in all roles feel like the ruthless yet tactical ruler he is—especially when he unleashes Demonic Ascension, which now lasts for as long as Swain can sustain himself with his enemies' souls. Sacrifices must be made.