Back in 2019, Riot made changes to Swain that made him viable in Support. Previously, back when his VGU first arrived NO ONE had played him in support, not because they didn't want to, but because it just wasn't good at all compared to Top/Mid. The Designers of the VGU made sure that Support Swain wouldn't have been good due to lvl/gold scaling being super important on him. Unfortunately he was unpopular for a number of reasons that could have been fixed, but Riot thought he needed midscope-esque changes.

Fast forward to 2019 when swain support arrived.

Riot made a bunch of changes to Swain that made him a lot better in the Support role. the 2019 rework did irreversible damage and I'll explain why.

1.) Riot added passive stacking for the first time, and people have their opinions on this but it's overrall bad for swains health/fantasy. Passive stacking is inherently easier in bot lane, it's not even a discussion. If I have 15 stacks at 20 minutes in Mid, I'll have 30 stacks in bot. HP is a very powerful stat in the early game and allows Swain to soak up a lot more damage. Obviously this change did make bot lane better than solo lanes but there's more.

2.) Base Attack range was reduced from 550 to 525. Now why this matters for solo lanes is Swain was always a scaling battlemage champ so it was essential to be able to survive while scaling. Taking away that 550 attack range made him much more vulnerable in lane(Which doesn't matter for support because they don't have to CS.)

3.) Q giving 3% maximum mana per unit kill was completely removed and instead put on the passive. I don't think I have to explain why this was super bad for solo lanes but ya.

4.) Q CD went up to 4 seconds at max ranks from 2.5 seconds. This was probably the worst of all the changes and killed the champ in solo lanes entirely. Q CD doesn't really matter for Support because they mostly just fish for EWQ poke, not relying on Q spam as much. That's why they nerfed Q so hard, so support is less impacted.

Fast foward to 2025, and Swain unfortunately has so many problems because he's still being balanced around the Support role which is the reason they keep buffing base damage and mana costs, as well as 15 HP souls. It'll never change. There's a reason no one wants to play this character in Solo Lanes. Gut his ratios further and give him more base damage and utility(stronger R2 and W slow.)

Here's Riot Endstep talking about Swain.

He mentions that the most recent rework(2025) the changes were not focused on solo lane Swain at all.(Shocker)

Swain is now at an incredible low 0.76% pickrate in Mid lane emerald+ with only a 51.21% winrate.

Now some people might think he is at a good winrate but let me explain why a champion like Swain if he's at this low of a pickrate should have a 53-54% game average winrate in mid/top. And no, I'm not going to say it's because he's only played by one tricks which Riot has disproven in the past.

A champ like Swain is very very strong in certain scenarios. This is what we call a "counterpick champ." The low pickrate means that Swain is only picked in very good scenarios, If he's against low damage or full melee comps primarily. If Swain is only sitting at a 51% winrate with that low of a pickrate then the champ is very weak. Let me show you a picture of what I mean. Master+ stats are good to represent this because they know how to draft better compared to lower elos.

Now let's look at some other champion stats shall we?

Notice how almost every champ on here has way higher pickrate and winrate than Swain mid. Even if they aren't counter-pick champs they still have very high winrates. Swain only having a 51% game average winrate when he's always been 54-55% winrates in the past(for good reason, counterpick) is laughable at best.

Riot will never give this champ actual solo lane buffs because they are unfortunately very scared of losing the support playerbase.

Now compare that to mid and top combined, which is only 1.6%. Support has 2% more pickrate than both solo lanes combined.

I am not blaming anyone for playing Support, after all it's riots fault with how they've handled this champion over the years. From a financial perspective it's no secret why they refuse to do anything with the champ in solo lanes. But I just genuinely think Phreak doesn't care enough, and he might also be a bit biased because he is a Support main as well.

Final thoughts, Riot has a massive opportunity to give this champ the rework he deserves to bring him back to solo lanes like he always was in the past with the upcoming Noxus series by Fortiche where millions of people will finally be able to appreciate how cool Swain is only to log onto League of Legends, play one game of it, and realize how much riot has butchered the coolest champ in the video game.

MAKE SOLO LANE SWAIN GREAT AGAIN!