The only good swains I see are usually the ones that took RoA,Rylais,Spirit Visage,Zhonya Hourglass or Abyss Sceptor. That's basically tanky in terms of being a mage.

Well, I can admit that if you build him as a Tank hybrid, with some tankish items and ap, you could do well. But that playstyle MIGHT require more skill than playing him pure ap, I dunno.

Oh, and I'm actually suprised that none of you seem to consider getting WotA. Oh well, I tend to build him with a main focus on ap and some survivability.
WotA, ArchStaff, Rylai's, (SV sometimes for teh lulz) and continue from there, but those two staves and the book is my three core items. 'Cept boots.

why are people going ryjls? swain already has a root and a slow. get roa, you get more ap and almost as much health. plus you get to make use of a catalyst. roa, deathcap and banshees will see you though most games.

You mean Rylai? (spelling fail :P)

Because his crows are single target like Heimerdinger rockets.
Triple 35% slow on all champions it hits is EPIC.

Swain was designed to be a tanky mage.
He has an hp-return skill for goodness sake. Build similar to Ryze, and you can rush into enemy faces with your other tanks, and they will run to no avail. :P

You build him beefy AP.
It's not that hard to figure out.

Lol silly grand

It's not what to figure out? I don't understand your **** English.

Anyways I am happy to see all these non-free swain players commenting. Good stuff people. Sorry, but when I hear tank I imagine people getting pure health items on poor swain... wtf

I saw people saying that tanking swain requires more skill than ap Swain. Er.... doesn't going tank mean more survivability and thus lowering the necessary skills for being a squishy? Can someone elaborate?

Also yeah, northern front swain ftw. Would be cool if he got another skin though.

*not that hard to figure out.

Just grab every item that is AP/Survivability that you can, with a bit of CDR thrown in due to his long cooldowns.
Rod of Ages, Deathfire Grasp, Deathcap, Hourglass, and Abyssal are the items I usually get on him.

And yes, Northern Front Swain is the only Swain.

Swain is, by his very nature, a tanky mage. By building a few core items such as RoA, Rylai's and SV, you have all the tankiness you will ever need. You do enough damage to be considered a threat, and your AOE root is your bread and butter in teamfights.

What I see from new people trying him this week is a failure of game style rather than build order. They try to play him like an Annie or Ryze...and fail utterly. Swain isn't the kind of champ that melts someone. He has decent burst certainly, but his game is one of attrition. You take a few shots, give a few back yourself, dance back and forth in the lane until your target is ripe for the picking. Then you land a nevermove and E-Q-Ignite-R your opponent. The rest of the team descends, but can't seem to kill you, giving *your* team opportunity to push the overextended foe.

Sorry for my other response. Well said.

Honestly, I am a mejai person. I know it's not the smartest item to get, but until recently there were so many people who didn't know how swain worked. So I could just go around rofl stomping idiots.

Oh and I notice some noobs raged and negged my first post. Sorry that you guys aren't good enough for Swain D:

One final note, one thing that keeps making me play Swain is his lore. That is one awesome dude.