Two League of Legends champions are getting some touch-ups soon, namely Swain and Olaf. Both champions seem to have been forgotten these past few patches, and these mini-reworks explain why. Both of these champions are receiving major changes, which also increase the ability for both of them to be flexed to other roles. Swain should now feel better being played in solo lanes while not losing much agency as a support, while Olaf top lane is now more viable without hurting his jungle role much.
Mini-reworks to both of these champions are currently prospected to ship out in League of Legends Patch 12.9, sometime in mid-May. Of course, since the PBE is a testing ground for new and potentially experimental changes, all of the information listed below are not final and subject to changes. These are not the official patch notes and may not represent either Swain or Olaf when the changes hit live servers.
Swain
Edited April 28: The Swain rework has now shipped into live servers with League of Legends Patch 12.8. Check out the patch notes here.
Changes to Swain are now in the PBE, and we have the details courtesy of Tim “Riot Truexy” Jiang. He also provided additional context to the changes.
This version of Swain aims to pull some [of] his burst power into investing in Swain's fantasy of becoming a drain-tanking terror while in R. We're upping how often Swain can use R and removing the “ticking clock” on how long he can stay in his form. As long as he's draining enemies, he can go infinite. We've shifted the power from his Passive pull off allies into more agency for the Swain players themselves within the Q/E/R changes.
These numbers are not final and subject to changes. The details outlined below may not exactly represent the Swain update once it hits live servers.
- P – Ravenous Flock
- Removed: Swain can no longer pull crowd-controlled enemies.
- Removed: Swain's pull no longer deals damage.
- Healing: 4/5.5/7% (levels 1/6/11) maximum health >>> 4/5.5/7/9% (levels 1/6/11/16) maximum health
- Health per Soul Fragment: 5 >>> 12
- Q – Death's Hand
- Mana Cost: 65/70/75/80/85 >>> 45/50/55/60/65
- Cooldown: 9/7.5/6/4.5/3 seconds >>> 7/6/5/4/3 seconds
- Damage: 55/75/95/115/135 (+40% AP) >>> 60/80/100/120/140 (+40% AP)
- Additional Bolt Damage: 15/20/25/30/35% >>> 12/22/32/42/52 (+10% AP)
- Maximum Damage: 88/135/190/253/324 (+64/72/80/88/96% AP) >>> 108/168/228/288/348 (+80% AP)
- W – Vision of Empire
- Mana Cost: 70/80/90/100/110 >>> 60/65/70/75/80
- New: Pings now display enemies in range similar to Twisted Fate R – Destiny and Nocturne R – Paranoia
- E – Nevermove
- New: Can now be reactivated to pull all champions rooted by Nevermove.
- New: Cooldown is reduced by 20% during R – Demonic Ascension
- R – Demonic Ascension
- Cooldown: 120 seconds >>> 100/80/60 seconds
- Drain Damage per Second: 35/50/65 (+14% AP) >>> 20/45/70 (+10% AP)
- Drain Heal per Second: 20/35/40 (+16% AO) >>> 20/40/60 (+16% AP) >>> 15/40/65 (+25% AP)
- Removed: No longer grants 125/200/275 health
- Changed: Upon Casting Demonic Ascension, Swain gains 50 Demon Power. Demonic Ascension lasts as long as Swain has Demon Power, which drains at a rate of 10 per second. While draining an enemy champion, Swain gains 20 Demon Power per second. After 3 seconds, Swain can cast R2 – Demonflare.
- R2 – Demonflare
- Demonflare Damage: 100/150/200 (+50% AP) >>> 150/225/300 (+60% AP)
- New: Demonflare now slows enemies by 60%, decaying over 1.5 seconds
- Changed: On casting Demonic Ascension, Swain can cast Demonflare 1 time. This does not end Demonic Ascension.
- Removed: Demonflare no longer charges up based on health drained, up to double damage.
Olaf
Everyone's favorite Berserker in League of Legends is also getting a touch-up. For this one, we're receiving a bit more context and details, courtesy of Bryan “Riot Axes” Salvatore. Here's what Riot Axes has to say:
“The Olaf mid scope update is coming to PBE today with an intended ship date of patch 12.9 (not 12.8). Putting him up early for feedback, so he should be on PBE for about a week, and then he’ll disappear as we prep patch 12.8. He’ll return to PBE when we kick off the 12.9 cycle.
Before getting into the actual changes, let’s talk goals. One common response to the initial announcement was confusion as to why he’d be next up on the list for an update.
Olaf has a number of urgent issues we’re looking to address. First, he is (and has consistently been) the least deeply played champion in League—on average, that is (Olaf one tricks don’t @ me.) If Olaf is a champion you play, he probably makes up the lowest percent of your games played, and has consistently been among the lowest for many years now. Second, he’s a deeply pro-bound champion: his win rate is kept lower than would otherwise be ideal because he tends to take over pro play when his kit is tuned to win games in Solo Queue. And third, he’s been deeply impacted by systems changes this season, even more so than other fighters, putting him in particularly bad shape with the current item system.
With these problems in mind, the goals for this update are to add significant excitement to his kit, remove a bit of pro-oriented power (reduce how easily he escapes dangerous situations with his R as well as curb how fast his jungle clear can get when perfectly optimized.) Lastly, this update should help him use Juggernaut items effectively to scale better than before, which should also make him more resilient to future systems changes. For lanes, we’re aiming to preserve his ability to Jungle (while making it more accessible) while significantly increasing his viability in Top Lane.”
- Base Stats
- Attack Damage: 68 (+3.5/level), 127.5 at level 18 >>> 68 (+4.7/level), 148 at level 18
- Health: 575 (+100/level), 2275 at level 18 >>> 575 (+105/level), 2360 at level 18
- Mana: 316 (+42/level), 1030 at level 18 >>> 316 (+60/level), 1336 at level 18
- P – Berserker Rage
- Calculation reworked to grant max effectiveness at or below 30% health
- Maximum Attack Speed granted: 99% >>> 40-100% (levels 1-18)
- New: Now gives up to 12-35% life steal (levels 1-18), based on Olaf's missing health.
- Q – Undertow
- New: Shreds 25/27.5/30/32.5/35% armor for 4 seconds on champion hit
- Damage: 80/125/170/215/260 >>> 60/110/160/210/260
- Minimum Range: Approximately 300 >>> 425
- Mana Cost: 60 at all ranks >>> 40/45/50/55/60
- Cooldown: 7 seconds >>> 8 seconds
- Cooldown refund on Axe Pickup: 4.5 seconds >>> 5 seconds
- W – Vicious Strikes [REWORKED]
- ability might be renamed
- New: Resets Olaf's basic attack
- New: Olaf gains 70/115/160/205/250 (+25% of Olaf's missing health) as a shield for 2.5 seconds
- Removed: No longer grants Life Steal
- Removed: No longer amplifies Olaf's healing based on missing health
- Attack Speed: 50/60/70/80/90% for 6 seconds >>> 40/50/60/70/80% for 4 seconds
- Cooldown: 16 seconds >>> 16/14.5/13/11.5/10 seconds
- R – Ragnarok
- New: Hitting a champion with a basic attack or E – Reckless Swing extends the duration of Ragnarox to 2.5 seconds. Olaf can refresh Ragnarox indefinitely.
- Duration: 6 seconds >>> 3 seconds
- Removed: R – Ragnarok's passive's bonus resistances are no longer lost for the duration of the cast.
Riot Axes provided even more context regarding the seemingly out of place change regarding Q – Undertow's minimum range. Here's what he said:
“So, if I'm going to give you the possibility of infinitely being immune to crowd control, that is very likely to result in situations where the fight is a perfect stat check – able to be calculated in advance – for opponents who can't dash away to break contact. The min range change exists so that Olaf has to forecast his position a little bit in advance, essentially adding counterplay because when he throws Q, if you move away from the Q, he has to choose whether to pick it up or not, and that choice has real consequences to the outcome of the fight from that point on. (Incidentally, part of the reason for adding armor shred on Q is to ensure that picking up the axe really matters to whether he wins the fight or not – don't want him just ignoring it)
I realize it's going to feel bad, but if I reverted it I think I'd also have to cap the ult at 7 seconds or something like that :/
EDIT: This is mainly talking about melee vs melee duels. In other contexts, it wouldn't really be necessary. But there are a lot of melee vs melee duels for junglers and top laners.”
For more League of Legends news, click here. Interested in the League of Legends Patch 12.7 Notes? Find them here.
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