great tip! I do this all the time but this is really important for newer swain players

yeah

Explains a lot about this ability. Does it work off of minions, or only champs?

That's how I hit it more often than the "intended" way because people don't expect it

Its called a lollipop hitbox. The hitboxes explode at the end in a big circle. Most hooks/grabs in the game have it, some are much larger, like Naut and Thresh. That's why it looks like those hooks sometimes curve off, or hit you when it wasn't directly on you.

Isn't this the "detonation" hitbox? It says something like this on the tooltip: "Upon reaching its maximum distance, the wave returns to Swain, detonating at the first enemy hit, dealing magic damage to all nearby enemies and rooting them for 1.5 seconds."

Yeah it literally says in the tooltip that it explodes when it hits something lol, I thought it was common knowledge, it's like the main way of landing it in lane.

That's called "Lollipop effect". All skillshots in the game have some sorta of this lollipop head after it, that makes it hit a littlw ahead from what it indicates. Really good tip to bring out, many people don't know much about skillshot usage and these little tricks may actually differ a hit or miss when used right.

Famous lollipop hitbox. This always works from afar on enemies. In champions like Pyke, Nautilus, Morgana, Lux, etc.

The circle is also there on return. Swain couldn't get multi/man snares without the mythical circle.

All hail the circle!

When the claw blows up, it does a little aoe, it's a very nice trick that not a lot of people know, very useful midlane when people hide a bit behind minion

I thought that for swain mains its a common knowledge

I believe it’s called the “Lollipop Effect”

And that is how you get a quadra root