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My thoughts on Brand buffs on Pbe and the champion as a faulty designed champ

Et Tu Geddn XNa ·5/7/2019, 11:16:27 PM·29 votes·14,813 views

Brands buff thats currently on Pbe. Conflagration (E) damage increased from 70/90/110/130/150 to 70/95/120/145/170 AP ratio increased from 35% to 45%

I do like u riot but i bet u will come up with an excuse and say u hope this change will push him more mid lane (it wont ) and it will help his wave clear. All the dmg increase will do is that it will give support brand more dmg to play around with.

So news flash for those who dont know , particulary to our new players that have come the recent years. Brand was originally and was supposed to be a mid laner. That has changed in the recent years and with the small rework he got which made him even better support. Riot has said that they want him to be played more mid which is why the mana refund on his E was added and at times increased. Well didnt work now did it why? , because champions design is faulty for mid.

The issue is that Brand is by design flawed and so is Zyra. By flawed i mean that riot really really wish they could be played mid but due to how they are made they will Never be played mid majorly they will almost Always be prefered support there their base dmg will help make enemy adc suffer and at times one shot him if hes not careful and play very safe unless ur lucky and have a support that might be able to deal with them. Thats Brand and Zyra in a nutshell.

This buff and every buff that Brand gets in his future will most likely just make him stronger support (same goes for Zyra and equally flawed champ). It will in most cases never make him being played mid unless u want something new to play with in mid or ur Froggen who likes him for some reason mid.

93 Comments

FabWarlock5/7/2019, 11:48:21 PM17 votes

This is a really bad idea. Brand is in a good spot, and I don't know why they want to buff him.

Tahminatrix 5/7/2019, 11:33:54 PM9 votes

Considering the base damage on lvl 18 brands 3 hit passive does more damage than even a full ap tahm kench s maxed W (which technically requires 4 hits)..

Whats the point in buffing him again?

kuzzy475/8/2019, 12:32:38 AM9 votes

I think riot is insane.

Kaisha5/8/2019, 1:40:20 AM4 votes

As long as mid laners have infinite resources, 1-ability wave clear, and 100000 dashes/hyper mobility, brand won't be back in mid. You can't farm AND harass. You're defense is your offense. The his long cooldowns means you have to clear and run or you'll be insta-delete'd. Any smart mid laner facing brand will just land clear and run off to harass other lanes.

Quepha5/7/2019, 11:35:34 PM4 votes

I think Brand was always destined to be mainly a support and that was facilitated more by Support income updates, the mage rework was just the final push over the edge in addition to giving him a lot of visibility as a support to solidify that image in the minds of players.

Mid lane is about safe farming vs. burst potential and pushing power combined with roam potential. Brand's emphasis on skillshot-dependent combos and complete lack of mobility mean he's a sitting duck for many assassins, putting his waveclear and harass on the same button (W) means he can't safely clear a wave in those matchups, and lack of mobility comes back as a double whammy to make his roams weak. A generic mage in mid lane has simply been power-creeped with too many options for champions that have truly safe farming and harass (Xerath, Ziggs), assassination and outplay potential (Zed, LeBlanc), or insane roaming threats (Twisted Fate, Taliyah). The one thing Brand gets that these champions lack is big AoE damage over a combo, and that isn't useful in a 1v1 matchup.

Imo, if you like Brand, you should learn to love that he goes in the bot lane now because that gives you a good chance to get a sick ult that bounces between two champions to stack your passive on both for massive damage, that's something you'd miss out in if you were mid lane.

Basically all the same stuff applies to Zyra. She shouldn't get mobility, she shouldn't get absurd range, so she should just be a very scary support mage.

Targon5/8/2019, 1:14:22 AM3 votes

I think there is two main reasons why Brand is played support over mid:

The base damage on his passive is extremely high, to the point where he can still deal good damage on a support budget.
The explosion on his passive and his ult are more difficult to deal with in a 2v2 lane compared to a 1v1 lane.

If Riot wants to push Brand back into mid lane, they'll need to shift his power budget around.

Kídá5/8/2019, 1:45:11 PM3 votes

unless you max E second, this buff is negligible for support brand until you go very late game or you get incredibly fed

2Charmnot2Charm5/8/2019, 12:28:10 AM3 votes

The champion isn't flawed, mid lane isn't like how it was in seasons 1-4.

Too much wave clear and mobility for a champ like brand to handle in the solo lane these days. Then if he gets ganked, he is a free kill or free flash [sg-miss-fortune]

CasterGilgamesh5/8/2019, 11:49:46 AM2 votes

i perma ban Zyra right now but now i dont know what to do with ...Do i just get a duo and tell him to perma ban now? [slayer-jinx-unamused]

PopcornBunni5/8/2019, 7:15:50 AM2 votes

Zyra is much more flawed for midlane because she requires set up and lane priority which isn't possible with the length of mid and the trade paterns of solo lanes in general.

is not so fundamentally flawed. He just has stupid base damages and piss poor ratios such that item spikes don't benefit him, relegating the impact he has entirely to winning lane for an actual scaling team mate. It isn't inherent to his design though, like Zyra's plants are.

Neptunia xoxo5/8/2019, 5:55:56 PM2 votes

Probably because Brand is rarely ever seen in high elo and pro play because hes literally an immobile mage that insta dies. People complain about him so much yet those players are normally in low elo where ofc you see a lot of him because players don't play around him but yet if you watch something like a high elo team or pro team play against Brand they have 0 issues with him and can make his ulti useless in fights just like when he was being played bot lane as a carry and I even remember this some low win rate pro team played against it and never stacked for his passive once or even his ulti.. it was always split as soon as they saw it and Brand was 4th top damage that game. I don't see an issue with Brand getting some buffs as long as it's nothing major like his passive or something but people here saying hes overpowered when hes nowhere near that state lol.

taleofsonata5/9/2019, 12:52:59 AM1 votes

The big problem is that there is not skill match up when you play a Mage vs an Assassin/Bruisers like it used to be in season 3. Now it's just that if you are a squishy champion and I'm playing an Assassin/Bruiser you deserve to die. I'm Irelia I move around super fast with little to no cast time or reaction time, while your mage has Cast time + Delay.