Swann Guide

Swann Overview

(Updated to v15.6)

Once Swann sets up his missile perimeter properly, he deals the highest potential DPS of all heroes in the game. Only Messiah with 4 enslaved Shredder Lords can compete with Swann's overall damage in a game.

Patch version 15.5 has seen a very useful mastery for Swann, named Cluster Master. It finally allows Swann's turrets to have survivability against hordes of mutalisks and even nightmares of HW. This effectively replaces Helldivers for aggressive Swann playstyles.

Swann's Perks for OS and HW for Experts

This is the optimal mastery order for an aggressive Swann, who is always in the front-line:

1. Leadership
2. Weaponsmith
3. Absorption
4. Compartment

For quick entry of Perks at the beginning of the match, type (without quotes) "-perk lwec".

1. Leadership adds an additive bonus of +20% to the damage of Gatlings and Hellfires and is source of constant damage throughout the game.
2. Weaponsmith perk boost his Gatling and Hellfire damage massively right from the start of the game.
3. Absorption is an essential perk for Swann for his very high energy requirements.
4. Compartment perk provides a free Lightweight Equipment to Swann, and is essential.

An interesting consideration for Swann could be Onslaught in the place of Compartment perk

Onslaught adds :

1. +20% damage to Swann's nukes
2. +20% to auto-attack damage,
3. +20% increased movement speed

Combined with Terminator right mastery buffs, Swann can:

1. Deal very high auto-attack damage
2. Deal the highest nuke damage of all heroes
3. Have the highest energy regeneration of all heroes
4. Have the fastest movement speed of all heroes

As such, Onslaught can be used with Swann to nuke, making his nukes the highest damage dealing nukes, second only to Tychus. This would be especially useful on Oldschool, where nukes are cheaper.

A fully buffed Tychus now deals the highest damage with nukes, followed closely by Swann with Onslaught + maxed out Terminator buffs.

Swann's Mastery Order for OS and HW for Experts

Swann's optimal mastery order for OS and HW is very static.

1. Level 0 = Haywire + FREE Lightweight Equipment
2. Level 10 = Guerilla Protocol
3. Level 20 = Cluster Master
4. Level 30 = Satellite Uplink ULTIMATE unlocked
5. Level 40 = Wasteland
6. 2K Streak = Frontal Assault
7. Level 50 = Nuke
8. Level 60 = Energy
9. Hourly Mastery = Terminator

In the early stages of the game, Swann needs a lot of energy. Haywire missiles are Swann's principal source of energy regeneration. Energy regeneration is achieved much more effectively by dismantling either a Hellfire Missile turret or Gatling turret for the increased auto-attack range that it provides to Swann, to always procreate Haywire missiles for energy regeneration by auto-attacking enemies from afar.

Since Version 15.5, at level 10, Cluster Master mastery is picked to provide more survivability to the turrets. This is especially useful on OS, where groups of mutalisks will easily kill gatling turrets that do not have enough armor and HP regeneration.

Since Version 15.2, the additive damage bonus of Satellite Uplink towers to Gatlings and Hellfires has been nerfed from +150% to 130%. For the sake of information, an additive bonus is not multiplicative, therefore a combination of both Leadership perk and Satellite Uplink tower buff adds +150% (20% + 130%) to Gatling turrets and Hellfire turrets.

Wasteland mastery grants protection from spell damage from nukes, nukebacks, yagdra shots, toxic auras of bosses, etc. It is still very important on Oldschool, when building towers on Creep, whereby it is not possible to immediately make a Satellite Uplink tower. This allows Swann to emit the aura provides by his Satellite Uplink towers to immediately boost his Gatling turrets.

Ideally, Energy mastery is picked towards late game. If played properly, Swann can spam all his turrets without running out of energy thanks to Absorption perk + efficient usage of Haywire Missiles + efficient usage of Terminator. It is only after his 25,000 ELITE that Swann needs to pick Energy mastery since he will slowly run out of energy if he spams every single turret.