In the recently updated version 12.8, Swain is the champion that received the most adjustments, and this is considered a light rework for this character. Essentially, with the removal of the ability to pull controlled enemies from his passive, Swain will find it difficult to appear in the Bottom Lane. Instead, this champion will return to familiar Solo Lane areas to gain a significant amount of experience and reach level 6 quickly, as his ultimate, Demonic Transformation, becomes much more important.
However, Riot Games seems to have overbuffed this ability, making Swain a champion that is incredibly difficult to take down. Even on League of Legends forums, many believe that with this “new” Demonic Transformation, Swain will become immortal in team fights, regardless of whether opponents reduce his healing or not. Some have even recorded a video of Swain surviving for nearly a minute, battling against 3-4 enemies alone without being killed.
There are two reasons that make Swain so powerful: the duration of his ultimate is no longer limited, and the amount of lifesteal has been buffed. Simply put, the duration of the Demonic Transformation skill will interact with the amount of “Blood Magic” that Swain possesses. This stat increases each time Swain heals, so whenever a team fight occurs, this champion will continuously heal and be incredibly hard to kill.
As shown in the aforementioned video, many strong champions with high damage like Yasuo, Garen, and Riven can’t even take down Swain. It wasn’t until Cho’Gath appeared with his ultimate to execute enemies that this “monster” could finally be killed. Otherwise, Swain could continue to heal, survive, and take down more opponents.
As a result, Riot Games has faced continuous criticism from players for allowing Swain’s ultimate to be this powerful. In fact, the video showcasing Swain’s dominance has received over 2.6 thousand upvotes on Reddit just one day after being posted. Hopefully, Riot will consider a way to nerf Swain, at least slowing down the rate at which he gains Blood Magic points so that he can no longer be in this dominant state for a minute as seen in the video.