@ Riot Repertoire my thoughts on “Brand The Burning Vengeance” for the “Mage Update Team”

So with the announcements of the mage update (14 days ago, sorry I'm a little bit late, I was thinking hard about what to write for this)(posted this several weeks ago and got no response so reposting after I deleted the previous post) they wanted to know what people who main those champs think about their kits. So here I am to talk about why I love brand.

Let me apologize for my not so great grammar and spelling before you read this, English was my worst class.

First let's talk a little bit about my history of starting league of legends as it explains my love of control mages and brand being my main since mid season 3 and my first played champion when I started.

For about 6 years I was playing Runescape and a mod (custom map) of StarCraft Broodwar (that I'm told was like dota and was similar to league of legends). Friends from both communities suggested I try league of legends, so after some trouble downloading, took about 3 try's, I finally Downloaded and loaded into my first game. I played with a 4-year friend from Runesacpe, he suggested I play brand of all the free to play champs as he was the easiest champ to use as far as his spells, little did I know how hard positioning with him was. I didn't really understand this until I was gold 5 for awhile and I turned my super aggressive positioning into a little more passive and climbed from gold 5 to plat 5 within 2 weeks using this positioning on all my control mages. He asked people to let me mid as I was new to the game with it being brands home and it being a shorter lane so I could be punished less. After the first week when brand was no longer free to play I played all the new free to play champs looking for another champ I enjoyed as much as brand. I could not find one so I saved all of my early ip to buy brand for 4800 ip, man was I excited when I unlocked Brand, The Burning Vengeance! For the first month of playing it felt like I was always feeding in laning phase going 0/5-0/8, then recovering those scores in teamfights knowing what spells to use on who/where. since mid season 3, around patch 3.9(I remember because of the changes to brand's mana cost on his w and e) I have mained brand as my first main with lux in a close second and Cho'gath as my third main of control/immobile mages as I like to call them. I know when im playing a control mage and we are behind no matter the amount, the game isn't lost because of my teamfighting with control/immobile mages which is what I love about them.

So lets get to the reasons why I love brand <3

(1.) I love Brands huge AOE damage in teamfights. So the most Important thing to me about brand is that you don't Change his "Pillar of Flame(w)" OR his "Pyroclasm(r)" AND the passive blaze effect when these two hit (the 25% damage buff on the "Pillar of Flame(w)" and the prioritizes champions effect on the "Pyroclasm(r)"). I think brand should be the one control mage that is meant to be just a ton of damage but not have much cc (excluding some sort of single target stun that needs another spell to hit for it to be a stun, and excluding Vladimir as he ISNT a control mage). To ensure this remove Rylai's slows from working with his passive (keep it working with his spells like any other champion, this gives you room to buff his late game scaling) as I think damage brand builds are more healthy for the game. Lower his base damages if you think he is unhealthy as a support but buff those scaling's and make him still hit that nice power spike after Ludens (the 10% move speed is amazing on control mages with move speed quintessence's and alacrity on your sorcerer's boots) OR Liandrys + Sorcerer's shoes in the mid game.

(2.) I love brands Risk Vs Reward playstyle and here are 3 examples of this in his kit

1. In teamfights, you can position correctly (all based on what comp you have and what comp they have) and deal huge amounts of AOE damage, where as if you don't position correctly you can be chain cc'd and blown up before you get any spells off.

2. In laning phase when you are 1v1 in mid, you have two combos:

3. You can try to land "Pillar of Flame(w)" a skill shot and then "Sear(q)" another skill shot and then be able to walk up safely and use "Conflagration(e)" and finally "Pyroclasm(r)" to damage or kill them.

4. Or you can try to land the Super Risky walk up to them (and try to dodge their cc or damage skill shots, not to mention if their jungler is waiting the bush) to use the short range "Conflagration(e)" then land the skill shot "Sear(q)" (if you miss this nothing stops your opponent from going all in on you to kill you) to "Pillar of Flame(w)" and finally "Pyroclasm(r)" to damage or kill them.

(3.) I love that brand has no mobility or easy defensive skills (please don't give him a easier defensive skill than the current "Sear(q)" he has if you decide to change it), its land one spell then land another spell that's a skill shot or your in trouble.

(4.) I love Brand's Cryocore skin, if you update it keep the same feel to it please. Even though I own all his skins I would quit if his Cryocore skin was made worse than it currently is, its the first skin I bought and would hurt me so much!

(5.) Brand's "Conflagration(e)" is the only skill that I really see that is not super tied into the rest of his kit, the only thing the new "E" skill would have to do is make it a choice of use it first to set up your 100% combo of e->q->w->r (1v1 or 1v2 fights) or use it for more aoe damage with combos like q->e->w->r or r->e->w or w->e->r (in teamfights). If the "E" becomes a skill shot then the damage from the current e needs to be better OR make its range longer to match the rest of his kit (I would prefer the range buff to his e to make it the range of his other skills, this would make him feel smoother) as it will be harder to land.

At the time of writing this post I'm sad as its not viable to play brand with his current ultimate bugs "Pyroclasm(r)". I made a post about them here: http://boards.euw.leagueoflegends.com/en/c/suggestions-bug-reports-en/zA1FNyXA-2-brand-bugs-riot

If I can just get a response from a rioter on the mage update team to know you just read this would be great, thank you for listing ^.^ Iris by GGD The Best Song <3