Where Brand Stands

Brand has been my most favorite champion since I bought him back in 2012 around level 10. I find him to be extremely fun and unique because of his combo style. Brand is one of the few champions I have never seen in competitive play. I wanna start a discussion and see where the community and riot thinks Brand stands at the moment. I am going to give you a rundown on how I feel about brand and his abilities and where he stands in the meta. TL;DR down below.

Brand has one of the best burst at level 6 as long as his ult hits the correct targets. Melee champions have a very hard time playing against him once brand has achieved level 3. His burst is strong and can zone enemies away. brand is also a risky champion to gank once he is level 6 since his ultimate should get the full amount of bounces with the rest of his crazy aoe damage and the ability to have a 2 second stun at such a low level. What brand has in damage he lacks in mobility. Brand is probably in the top 10 or 5 for least mobile champion in the game. Leagues new champions over the past 3 years have come with more mobility while brand has not seen many changes. His ult and stun are not the most reliable because of mobility but if landed correctly can destroy your opponent.

• Brands passive besides ekkos, is probably the best damaging passive in the game. Brands passive does 8% max health over 4 seconds as magic damage. This passive makes it extremely hard for opponents to trade with brand in the lane phase. Brands passives fits perfectly with brands design to do tons of damage to everyone around him. There is really not much to complain about his passive. It can proc ludens echo allowing you to get 2 pops off on the target if you use your abilities correctly which can change a fight. The only suggestion I could have for this passive is give brands passive the way to fix his mobility. Each blazed enemy champion on the map increases brands movement speed. Just a flat move speed increase. Would help brand escape ganks and to set up ganks. Not looking at something as ridiculous as ahri move speed but something to allow him to turn the tides of fights or to save him.

• Brand Q has the longest range of any of his abilities and the best AP scaling. It is a low costing spell and can be spammed if 40% CDR has been reached. If the target is ablaze Brands Q is also a 2 second stun. if Brand has 40% CDR he can actually land 2 Q's and stun the target without having to use any other abilities since the cool down goes below the time his passive lasts. brands Q synergizes extremely well with rylais and allows for big slows and stuns. There is really not a whole lot wrong with this ability. Some people will tell me his Q stun being 2 seconds at level 2 is extremely strong but landing it is not the easiest since it must be combo'd with another ability. His Q is what allows brand to play the support role other than his crazy damage

• Brand W is his highest damage basic ability. It carries the highest base damage and is only .05 less scaling than Q. The ability also deals an additional 25% damage if the target was set ablaze before hand. The AOE area is not the biggest but early game without boots it is extremely hard to escape. It is the main ability used to harass in any lane and shuts down melee champions from farming in lane. This ability is brands best and any buffs could make him too oppressive in lane. Even though once boots are bought it is easy to escape, using W when enemy champions go into farm pretty much gives it a 100% chance to land. The only suggestion I have with his W is sense the move speed increase for every champion, brands w could either use a slight bigger aoe radius or the explosion of fire could use a slightly less delay.

• Brands E, man this ability lacks when compared to the other 3 abilities already mention. I did not play back in season 1 but from what I understand Brands E had I believe a 675 range making him impossible to harass in lane. E is a targeted ability with okay damage but a high mana cost for what it does. If the target is ablaze his e becomes aoe shooting fire to every target in range doing the abilities damage and setting them ablaze. This ability is great when used with w to clear minion waves. It is combo'd well with Q to give brand his most reliable stun combo in the game. Brands E though suffers from many issues. One being its range. All of brands other abilities that combos so well in 1v1 duels out range this ability by over 200. This ability forces Brand to get into a vulnerable spot to use offensively versus many match ups. As stated the mana cost is extremely high for what it brings to the table. I know the mana cost was increased to compensate for the mana reduction on his W and R but i feel that 90 mana at rank 5 is too high. Maybe the mana cost at rank 1 of 70 is to high and the abilities mana cost needs to start lower then scale to 90 mana. This is generally brands last maxed ability since it is the lowest damage to a single target and often used to open up a fight so it does not utilize its passive. Another idea is to make the combo with this ability stronger. Maybe if the enemy champion Brand is targeting is already set ablaze, the AOE range would increase hitting more targets in the area. Maybe double the range of the aoe or just increase it but like 100-200. You could also give this ability more range if an ablaze target is with in a certain range. The ability could gain 200+ range allowing him to combo his abilities in different ways and easier. The range could make him too oppressive early game allowing brand to keep his passive up for almost 8 seconds without being touched.

• Brands R has potential right now to be one of the highest damage ultimates in the game. Brands R is a targeted nuke that bounces after hitting the first target to random enemy characters. If the last target hit by brands ultimate was ablaze, then his ultimate will prioritize an enemy champion if one is in range to bounce to. I remember Brands R always being a topic of discussion because of how random it was. The ability can either make or break a team fight or duel just because it could either bounce between champions or it could suddenly disappear to wraith camp in the shroud of the map leaving you speechless and wanting to cry. The ult has ways to be manipulated early by fighting your enemy in minions. Your W at rank 3 will not kill the minions by itself and if your enemy was hit by your w you can throw out your R and watch it bounce three times and secure the kill. Brands R is too random though. Even in team fights with 5 enemies around if one of the targets it bounces to was not already blazed, it could bounce to minions and ruin a lot of your damage. My idea for Brands R is to give it champion seeking always if it touches a blazed target at any time during a bounce. Now I understand at level 6 1v1 this would be OP. So my suggestion to fix that is if Brands R hits a minion after striking an ablaze champion the next hit to a champion is reduced by 50%. meaning the hits would go 100% damage to ablaze champion, then 100% damage to minion, then 50% damage to ablaze champion, then 100% damage to ablaze minion, then another 50% damage to ablaze champion. Brands ultimate at level 6 does 450 base damage plus 150% AP ratio. If the example above happened his ult would only do 300 base damage plus 100% AP ratio. If the ultimate would not strike any minions after hitting an Ablaze champion, it would always do 100% damage.

Thank you all for reading this. I am very passionate about brand and I hope this sparks a discussion about the champion. All this changes were thought about before typing or I came up with while typing since they also seemed like good ideas. I am not trying to make Brand OP but I am trying to put him in a better spot then where he stands now and maybe some competitive play.

TL;DR - Brand is an extremely strong early to mid game champion with huge AOE damage and potential to instantly burst someone in a 1v1. Brand suffers mobility issues which could be fixed by giving his passive move speed per blazed champion. Brands E suffers from short range and a high early mana cost making it hard for brand to sufficiently clear waves of minions and risky to use offensively in many match ups. The passive on his E is also generally not worth it unless being use to clear minions so i give a few ideas on how to increase its usefulness in duels or team fights. Brands R is potentially extremely strong but is too random and can ruin fights if it goes wrong or win them if it goes right. i suggest brands ultimate gains the ability to always seek champion if struck 1 ablaze target but also reduce his 1v1 potential by reducing his ultimate's damage if it is used to bounce between champions and minions.