With Liandry's getting buffed, Brand really needs to be tuned.

It's no secret that Brand can do a ton of damage with nothing other than levels. Yet his scaling is incredibly lackluster, which makes his early game performance much less important than it should be on a high damage mage.

Even if he's incredibly behind or on Support income, he'll still do plenty of damage in a fight thanks to his insane base damage. His AP Ratios are almost irrelevant, when he's mid he doesn't need to get high AP items because his passive and R need 1000+ AP to deal more damage than their base damage, making magic penetration/DoT enhancement the best damage source every game.

Why? Look at his base damage vs scaling (all sourced from the league wikia):

Passive Part 1: Brand's abilities set his targets ablaze upon damaging them each second, dealing 4% of their maximum health as magic damage over 4 seconds, stacking up to 3 times, for a maximum of 12% of their maximum health over the duration, and empowering his abilities against them.

Entirely base damage, no scaling.

Passive Part 2: At 3 stacks, an area around the target is marked, which explodes after 2 seconds. All enemies struck are dealt 12% - 16% (based on level) 「 (+ 1.5% per 100 AP) 」 of their maximum health as magic damage. The explosion will still trigger if the target dies to the third ability or during the delay.

For the damage from the AP ratio to come close to the base damage, he would need more than** 1000 AP**.

To summarize, his passive gives all of his abilities 12% max HP damage over 4 seconds, and in a "perfect combo" (each spell landing on the 4th second of the DoT) of 3 basic abilities, it will deal 48-52% max HP, no AP required.

Q: MAGIC DAMAGE: 80 / 110 / 140 / 170 / 200 (+ 55% AP)

Average base damage and AP ratio, but it isn't really a "damage" spell. AP needed to match the base damage is ~363 AP.

W: MAGIC DAMAGE: 75 / 120 / 165 / 210 / 255 (+ 60% AP) INCREASED DAMAGE: 93.75 / 150 / 206.25 / 262.5 / 318.75 (+ 75% AP)

Here we find his only spell with a decent AP ratio, but it already has high base damage. AP needed to match the base damage is 425 AP.

E: MAGIC DAMAGE: 70 / 90 / 110 / 130 / 150 (+ 35% AP)

Low base damage and low AP ratio, but it's a point click spell, it shouldn't do much damage AP needed to match the base damage is ~ 429 AP.

R: MAGIC DAMAGE: 100 / 200 / 300 (+ 25% AP)

Again, high base damage, bounces four times, can only bounce twice to a single target, leaving the AP ratio to have a max of 50% AP but a base 600 damage. AP needed to match base damage is 1200 AP.

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Having such high base damage and bad AP ratios leads to an "ideal" Brand build looking like:

if Support

if Mid, and he really only needs a

Really his biggest damage items are:

for MPen for MPen for more %HP DoT - with buffs incoming too! for MPen

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While Brand should be able to deal a lot of damage, as it's the only thing he has to offer to his team, he shouldn't get the majority of it for free. Nerfs to his base damage and increases to his AP ratios needs to happen. This won't exile him completely from bot lane, it would just make it riskier and wouldn't give him a free ride into mid game. Additionally he should have more access to builds like when going mid lane, allowing him to choose between high damage and utility.