Thread:Armegdon/@comment-4949668-20121031190323/@comment-3419132-20121102050243

Sorry for the wait

Yes I play (Tyrant) Swain quite a bit and I love almost every mage, dps, burst, or utility! 

Overview: Swain is a high DPS mid who becomes a beast of a team fight champion mid and later game with his very high presence, survivability, and single target melting capability. Lane wise, Swain fairs well with a poor starting but quickly becomes more and more threatening with his high kill potential being almost fully capable at lvl 3. 

Pre-game: For runes I run a mixture of Magic|Pen and Flat AP Reds (5 Magic|Pen 4 Flat AP) mana regen Yellows, AP per level Blues and Flat AP Quints. On Swain I take 9/21/0 mastaries with more emphasis on Magic Resist and actually 1 AD in Offense and 2 in Minion damage. The reason being is Swain's AA is rather weak early on and it will help a ton with last hitting. 

Builds: 

* Start Boots and Health pots, nothing special 

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0.0001pt;line-height:15.75pt;"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial,sans-serif;color:white;border:1ptnonewindowtext;padding:0in;">* Rush RoA, it gives nearly everything Swain needs and only gets better <span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Helvetica","sans-serif"; mso-fareast-font-family:"TimesNewRoman";color:white;mso-themecolor:background1">

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0.0001pt;line-height:15.75pt;"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial,sans-serif;color:white;border:1ptnonewindowtext;padding:0in;">* Rylais/Abyssal/WotA (Ok here is where the build starts to vary. What determines what you get here is based on a number of factors. First, know your enemy's team comp, if it is dominantly AP then Abyssal is the obvious choice [also factor that hybrid damage champs such as Teemo are more dominantly AP than AD {not considering builds} when determining buying Abyssal.] Rylais is a good second item though is rather slow to build. It gives good utility and more survivability and damage. WotA is great for added sustain and even though Swain has two AoE abilities his DoTs apply full Spell Vamp [this is a common misconceptions about spell vamp but DoTs apply it fully.] <span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Helvetica","sans-serif";mso-fareast-font-family: "TimesNewRoman";color:white;mso-themecolor:background1">

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0.0001pt;line-height:15.75pt;"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial,sans-serif;color:white;border:1ptnonewindowtext;padding:0in;">* Rylais/Abyssal/WotA/Zhonyas (Same factors here as before but some notable combinations with Zhonyas. Rylais with Zhonyas gives strong direct survability, Abyssal with Zhonyas gives strong resitances for Swain as well as the Highest AP with this combination.) <span style="font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Helvetica","sans-serif";mso-fareast-font-family:"TimesNewRoman"; color:white;mso-themecolor:background1">

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0.0001pt;line-height:15.75pt;"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial,sans-serif;color:white;border:1ptnonewindowtext;padding:0in;">* Abyssal/WotA/Zhonyas/Deathcap/Voidstaff (Again, same factors here but if you aren’t going to get Rylais at this point forget it. Deathcap is better later on Swain because he needs survivability and damage to be most effective. Deathcap gives Swain a huge amount of damage but still offers some survivability given the healing scale from his ult. Voidstaff if they are building signifigant Magic Resist. Straight Forward) <span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Helvetica","sans-serif";mso-fareast-font-family: "TimesNewRoman";color:white;mso-themecolor:background1">

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0.0001pt;line-height:15.75pt;"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial,sans-serif;color:white;border:1ptnonewindowtext;padding:0in;">* DFG/Voidstaff/Deathcap (as you guessed, same factors for the same items from before. As for DFG. Its a situational item overall because of the recent nerfs. It works well on Swain as you should get it later on and it does scale better later game but mostly because his E increased its damage as well. This makes it quite exceptional but sometimes straight up overall damage over a burst item can be better.) <span style="font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Helvetica","sans-serif";mso-fareast-font-family:"TimesNewRoman"; color:white;mso-themecolor:background1">

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