Let's Talk About Brand, The Burning Vengeance...

I am making this thread as someone who enjoys playing and loves the hell out of Brand, thematically and game-play wise. I am not suggesting outright buffs, but balances and mechanic changes that would make him much more consistent in his damage and create clear opportunities to dive on him and when to avoid him. ** First, lets talk about Brand and his current skills. If you understand Brand and his skills, skip to my suggestions.**

Ablaze (P): Brand's spells light his targets ablaze, dealing 8% of their maximum health as magic damage over 4 seconds. This ability also augments Brands other spells. This skill is very strong early game and doesn't lose its usefulness at any point in the game, taking any pop shot skill from Brand will always guarantee you are taking 8% of your maximum HP along with the power of said spell and maybe even ignite for an easy ticking first blood.

Sear (Q): Brand launches a fireball forward that deals magic damage to the first enemy hit, if the target hit is ablaze they are stunned for 2 seconds. Details: Range 900, Cost 50 mana, Cooldown 8/7.5/7/6.5/6 seconds, Damage 80/120/160/200/240 (+65% ap) This spell is pretty straight forward, a line skill-shot with a reasonable cooldown that requires you land another of your abilities to get off the CC portion. This is one of Brands inconsistent spells with the reason stated above, requiring another skill probably his W or E for a chance of getting the CC.

Pillar of Flame (W): After a small delay, fire bursts from the ground in a small radius dealing magic damage to any enemies inside. Enemies who are Ablaze take 25% more damage. Details: Range 900, Cost 70/75/80/85/90 mana, Cooldown 10 seconds, Damage 75/120/165/210/255 (+60% ap) This spell is Brands lane harass and main execution tool, aside from his Ultimate, having long range and dealing a considerable amount of damage on a static 10 second cooldown. This ability is used to poke people in teamfights to get off your passive, or is used in your execution combo of E, Q, W.

Conflagration (E): Brand blasts an enemy with fire dealing magic damage. If the enemy is Ablaze the fire spreads to other targets within a 300-circle radius Details: Range 625, Cost 70/75/80/85/90 mana, Cooldown 12/11/10/9/8 seconds, Damage 70/105/140/175/210 (+55% ap) This ability is a point and click combustion on an enemy target, though the tooltip doesn't explain that well. This is Brands only consistent damage aside from his... Ultimate (we're getting there). You'll use this ability to clear waves or try to hit an opponent that got to close to an Ablaze'd minion. Or as a way to start off Brands 1v1 execution combo.

Pyroclasm (R): Brand unleashes a devastating torrent of flame at target enemy that will bounce 4 times (a total of 5 hits). If the target is Ablaze the next bounce will prioritize champions. Details: Range 750, Cost 100 mana, Cooldown 105/90/75 seconds, Damage 150/250/350 (+50% ap) per bounce. Despite what this tooltip would like you to believe, when you use this ability in the presence of minions it is laughably inconsistent in it's bouncing, I swear I've seen it bounce to minions in their death animation wasting precious damage in an already inconsistent damage dealing kit. Using it as part of Brands execution combo in lane or 1v1's is only for its bonus 150/250/350 damage on a target, and will hardly bounce to hit them again. In team-fights this ability is metal, bouncing over and over again between their front and backline (especially in jungle fights) making the enemy team reassess their decision to group with a Brand in their presence.

Now knowing all of these abilities and small explanations for their use you see that Brand has no innate sustain and two damage confirming, point and click spells (E, R), while also lacking any mobility and is limited, harshly, by early game cooldowns + mana costs. Though he makes up for it by having an extremely strong passive, and good late game scaling with lower cooldowns and 4 damaging spells.

Suggestions: Finally, on to some changes that I am proposing. I think Brand should continue to have no sustain and no mobility as they are obvious weaknesses to his overbearing set-ups should be eventually land them and his great team fight presence.

First, I think Brands Pyroclasm (R) should have its current Ablaze effect removed and changed to If Pyroclasm hits a target that is Ablaze that target will take the full effect of Ablaze and reapply it (only happening once per target). What this entails is that should Pyroclasm hit a target that is Ablaze the target will take 4/6/8% of their maximum health immediately while also reapplying the 4/6/8% they will take over 4 seconds (Ala Lux ultimate). BUT this will only happen once per Ablaze'd target as to not deal 1050 + 150% ap and 24% of their max hp at lvl 16 should it bounce to the same target 3 times. Maybe lower its bases and ratios a smidgen to make landing it on an Ablaze'd target all the more important.

As you may have noticed the Ablaze percentages scaled upwards in damage in the Pyroclasm suggestion. This is where I feel Brand should be nerfed. Ablaze should start off only doing 4% of the targets max hp over 4 seconds at lvl 1, increasing in power at lvl 7 to 6%, and finally reaching 8% of max hp at lvl 13. This change is necessary on Brand if we want any of his other abilities tweaked at all.

The last change I'm proposing is a complete change to Brands Conflagration (E), in terms of mechanics and scaling. Brand's Conflagration will cause flames to burst forth from any enemy suffering from Ablaze, dealing damage, reapplying Ablaze and slowing the enemy briefly. Think of his ability as similiar to Sejuani's Permafrost (E). If Brand lands W or Q and sets a target ablaze he has the choice to use Conflagration (if their within range) to reapply Ablaze and deal a moderate amount of damage and slow them, so he can line up another skill (Q or W). He can also still use this skill as a means to wave clear much like how E works at live.

Not only does this give Brand another form of CC that isn't completely limited to landing 2 skill shots (or the E, Q combo Brand uses in live) It also gives him some form of slow to assist in landing those skills-shots and on multiple champions in a team-fight should he open with Pyroclasm. The slow and damage of this ability shouldn't feel soul-crushing, maybe a 15% slow that scales up to 25% at lvl 5 for 1.5 seconds. The damage on this ability should also be lower (Damage 80/105/130/155/180 +40% ap) on a static 8 second cooldown (and the same mana cost?)

I believe these suggestions aren't too crazy and still keep Brand very close to how he is live though with more confirmed damage, or a more consistent way of getting damage off with his spell rotations. Thanks for reading my essay and sorry for ranting for this long.

EDIT: Pyroclasm numbers should be lowered if the max hp change were to go through. Dealing 100/200/300 +45% ap. Making it so that hitting a target that is ablaze is what you truly want to aim for. EDIT: Some of my suggestions could have better clarity, though I'm not sure how to include it, so if you have a question I will try to answer personally.