Talk:Swain/@comment-24191440-20150226065611/@comment-26158777-20150305021545

"skill cap (not to confuse with skill) is the difference between the skill floor and the skill cap. So the difference between a 100 game Plat I Swain and a 0 game Plat I Swain. In detail, that means how hard it is to master the unique skill set of a champion (i.e. how much you can improve)."

So then you're considering that skill cap is how long it'll take to effectively utilize a champion's kit to its fullest potential?

"Good examples for low skill cap champions on the other hand are Xin, Graves and Pantheon. They have a strong early game, autohits or ultra-cheap AoE skillshots, and in general it's harder to deny their combos than to pull them off."

Even if they have strong kits for early game use does not make them considerably cheap. They all have drawbacks in many different ways i.e. mana costs, cooldowns, single target abilities, cast times, etc. There are some factors that are put into play before they can even utilize their combos otherwise it isn't going to be the most effective although it is quite agreed that it is harder to deny their combos than to pull them off.

"Now let's take a look at Swain: There's a pretty clear optimal combo with R,E,Q,W (I think about 90% of his engagements will work out in this exact order). Q,E and R are autohits, so all the skill involved is clicking them (and maybe a champion). Even his itemization is static to an ugly extent - RoA and Zhonyas practically are burned into his item set. He also has almost no possiblities to sneak an engagement or to play around flash." There are definite weaknesses to Swain's kit. Being an avid Swain player there are definite things he struggles with i.e. mobility and mobile enemies, high mana costs/mana considerations, range and ranged enemies, poor wave clear and his proneness to ganks. The point and click Q and E in his kit are there to allow him to be able to trade and fight but at the cost of getting within most champion's abilities and ranged champion's AA even if cast at max range. The W is there to give him a possible advantage on ranged enemies, to keep any enemies at bay, deny unnecessary engagements, etc. but at the cost of a pretty decent cast time, which affords plenty of time to dodge it (unless utilizing the Q W combo). It does not however stop the enemy from AAing and utilizing abilities. His R's range is not very far and is there to allow him to keep himself alive in a short to sustained fight while dealing some amount of damage but with rising mana costs. His itemization is that way for a specific reason even if very static i.e. RoA is meant to give him the mana he needs to offset his mana problems, HP to allow him longer survivability, and the extra AP to give him extra damage. Zhonya's should be a given as it works well with his R, which still procs through its duration if activated before the invulnerability effect. He makes a great engage or disengage champion when utilized correctly and definitely can help influence the outcome of a teamfight due to his survivability.