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External link →Hey, just wanted to hop in this thread and let you know that these are pieces of conversation I had with was having with Swain mains in their discord last year taken out of context. They are not a statement by me responding to the questions that you are claiming I responded to.
I've already posted a number of comments in the thread that you've linked, but I'd like to provide a bit of clarity in regards to the words that have been taken out of context/conversation.
Swain's rework intended to keep him powerful as a solo laner. As we (the playtest team back in the day) continued to optimize and understand Swain's strengths, we began to narrow in on where we felt was a good spot balance wise for his release, but then, we identified that he was actually quite a potent support. We then adjusted his power budget such that we had confidence that his mid lane was his optimal role. We acknowledged that Swain support was likely a viable offrole though. On release, Swain settled into being a solid mid laner as we hoped he would.
With the mini-update that shipped last year, we did not intentionally try to buff Swain Support. We were not extremely surprised when players started jumping on it though because we already knew from his development that he was probably close to working pretty well there already.
We were surprised by the amount of players playing him as a Support. This is the data that August has shared. Swain's depth skyrocketed in a very unexpected way. So while Swain's playrate dropped in his solo lane, we were happy overall because a ton of players found a champion that really resonated with them and both mid lane Swain and Swain support were living at objectively healthy winrates per our balance framework.
That said, I am bummed that there are players that feel Swain isn't as fun to play in solo lanes. While we are currently prioritizing other projects over Swain, I promise we haven't forgotten about him.