Talk:Swain/@comment-26448040-20150601020648/@comment-26158777-20150607170427

The build path you laid out is effective and is what majority of players who play Swain will build. Your start game build you follow is more effective for skillshot reliant champs and gives you a slight early game damage drawback. Try considering a Doran's Ring and 2 HP Potions since that will help alleviate some of Swain's early game mana problems and the stats are overall beneficial for him. Once you obtained his core items, the RoA and the Hourglass, start building situational items. For boots Mercury's and Ninja's are great situationally but also try considering Sorceror's for that extra Magic Pen if you're carrying your team and the enemy team lacks CC. Other than the items you have listed (which are all effective but situational) and depending on the composition of your team and your role that you'll have to fulfill for your team try considering building these situational items: Spirit Visage (to further increase tankiness and better sustainment in teamfights), Tears of the Goddess/Archangel's Staff (to help further mitigate mana problems in sustained fights and increase mana pool substantially if built early in game), Frozen Heart (to help subtantially increase mana pool and increase tankiness against heavy AD), Randuin's Omen (to help further increase tankiness against heavy AD), Aegis of the Legion (to help increase tankiness against heavy AP). Just about almost any item that makes Swain tankier is beneficial to him since he is to be built like a tanky mage and to be up front mostly in teamfights.

Mana Regen items are as you mentioned not really needed on him especially when his passive essentially gives him free flat mana but they can help compliment him where needed. Through good mana management you won't have a need for mana regen items at all. Instead, building items that contribute to a larger mana pool is more highly efficient for him especially for his sustained fighting. Utilizing the E-Q combo complimented with some basic attacks is his most effective way to harass. Try considering utilizing different combo patterns also like E-Q-W, Q-W-E and W-Q-E. E-Q-W is the easiest combo to utilize and is most useful against targets that are mid to close range. W-Q-E is better for the longer ranged targets but can be too heavily reliant on landing that skillshot to maximize effectiveness. Combining basic attacks with said combos is a must if you want to maximize his damage potential against any target. Although his main strength lies in teamfights, he can still skirmish effectively if played correctly.

Your skill leveling order you laid out is about the most effective order to level his skills. That will definitely maximize your damage output. You can max W before Q but it's going to be situational and is definitely not recommended unless you're confident in your ability to land that skillshot effectively every time. The cast time and the cooldown consideration you stated is more than enough to determine the fact that W is more effective as an engagement/disengagement skill than anything.

"instead of defensive set, try the following items: athenes, abyssal, spirit visage instead of rylais......and if you have athenes, the mana issue on him is completely gone as he gets 50 % of his max mana per assist/kill"

I don't quite agree on the Athenes. Swain already has a mini built in Athene's passive, which is more than sufficient for sustained fights. Mana regen is not very effective on him since just about all mana regen items will not be able to keep up with his high and rising mana costs. Sure it may have AP and MR but there are many items that can fulfill those roles more effectively than Athenes. Athenes does not completely eliminate Swain's mana issue in any way. It will help mitigate some of it to a minor extent, but you'll have to almost go OOM (out of mana) for it to see major effects. Also Athenes returns 30% of max mana upon Champion Kill or Assist, not 50%. Even if you combine it with Swain's passive, which only returns 9% of maximum mana, the total will only add up to 39% of maximum mana. Having a larger base mana pool will in turn be more effective for him for sustained fights and will help compliment his own passive.

"also i prefer maxing w second because i get -2s cooldown every time i put a point in it. that being said, q and w deal almost the same amount of damage"

Having less of a cooldown does not mitigate nor reduce the cast time on it and in turn will make it more mana costly to use. Besides, you shouldn't be trying to prioritize getting a lower cooldown on a skillshot that still has a preset cast time put forth on it. Q and W may deal almost the same amount of damage but you have to put into consideration that one is a skillshot while the other is a point and click. You'll be able to gain much more damage output from Q than you would with W and besides Q does deal more damage than W in both raw damage and scalings from skill level 2 and on if you can contain the enemy within its 3 second duration time.

"also if you are ahead, get hourglass before roa and just get the catalyst, then go roaming alot."

Never try to prioritize an Hourglass before the RoA even if you're ahead. Having just a Catalyst with an Hourglass may give you the damage and some sustainment but then you are setting back the stacks that an RoA can gain over time and the bigger mana and HP pool, which will largely compliment Swain more than just a damage item with some Armor and an invulnerability passive. It should be a given but don't just go roaming until your lane is pushed, have taken first turret, or if you're going up against a champ that does not have strong waveclear like Swain.