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Talking about Brand : trying to improve our burning combo mage.

Yfrappefort·2/17/2014, 10:15:02 PM·2 votes·776 views

Some says the world will end in fire. Brand is one of them. He's the burning vengeance and no summoner can contain him.

Brand was released quite a while back in april 2011, and was advertised as a "combo mage". I loved him from release, since he really got me with his theme, being a fire mage and most importantly, being just a pure dps machine. I also loved the fact that all his abilities synergized with his passive.

However, Brand never got very popular and as of today his pick rate is pretty low (under 4%). I think he has a few problems that are holding back from really burning up. I'm not a pro Brand player, but I really like the champion, and will try to explain what I think are his problems the best I can. The thread will be divided between these two subjects :

  1. Brand's problems in the current meta and why he's having trouble.
  2. Brand's lack of "best case scenario" for his combo based kit, especially when dueling.

1. Brand : trouble finding his place in the mobility meta.

Brand got a few problems that hold him back :

a) He's an immobile mage. In the current meta, that alone is a problem, considering the mobility creep.

b) He rely extremely on his abilities to hit for any damage/CC to go trough (if he miss even one, he can be punished heavily for it).

c) His ultimate is not really reliable in 1v1 scenario, and the RNG hurts him even in team fights.

For those who play Brand, you know how high his dps can be if you get a good team fight. He should be the "top mage" when it comes to dps alone. Problem is, a lot of other mages currently do about as much damage as him and bring a lot more utility/safety to the team. To name a few :

Orianna got about as much AoE damage, but got way more utility (slow, speed boost, shield and her ult) then Brand.

Ziggs can do more AoE damage from a safer distance, and he got an escape and pushing power on top of that.

Gragas bring instant AoE in team fights and is mobile and tanky, unlike Brand.

Another problem is that, since he is so heavy combo dependent (especially for his stun), any mobile assassin will make his life a living hell. A few of them are Fizz ,Kassadin , Khazix, Zed and Leblanc. Winning against these match-ups as Brand is very hard.

2. The flaws in Brand's kit as a combo mage

I think it's very important for Brand to keep his identity as a combo mage, but currently the way his kit is made, he can never really get the "best" out of any situation. Let's explain that by looking at his kit :

Passive : I would not change that at all. It's a great passive that can shred tanks and that can lead to surprise kill combined with ignite.

Q : Brand's line skillshot and his opportunity to stun the target for 2 seconds if ablaze. This means he must hit his W or E before going for the stun. So far so good.

W : Brand's main AoE damage. It has a small delay, but if the target is ablaze, the damage is increased by 25 %. Sounds nice eh? But then you have to hit your Q or E before. Since you usually want to use Q when the target is already ablaze for the much needed stun, you will try hitting hit with E before W.

E : Brand's only point and click single target damage and his shortest range spell. If the target is ablaze, then the spell spreads to nearby enemies. My problem with this ability is that, in order to get the full benefit of Brand's kit, you HAVE to hit this one first, yet it's the spell that expose Brand the most to danger. Yet it would be hard to simply increase the range on a point and click ability...maybe this one could change.

R : Brand's ultimate. It can bounce up to 5 times between champions/minions. If the first target is ablaze, then the bounces will prioritize champions. This ultimate is probably the main reason Brand is so unstable/unreliable in many situations.

In 1v1, you will never get many bounces unless you have minions around, and even then there is no garentee that it will go where you want. I would propose a simple fix for this : allow Brand himself to be an available target for the bounce, similar to Ryze spell flux. It would allow Brand to be threatening when he catch someone in the jungle with an E > Q > W > R > ignite combo and make sure they won't survive it. Brand should punish people who blindly walk to him, but currently you rarely get the full potential of his ultimate.

In team fights, depending on where the fight is, there is a good chance that some bounces are gonna be wasted on minions/monsters. I think an easy way to fix this would be to make the ult prioritize champions by default (and give it a new ablaze effect). The RNG must be reduced (or removed completely) one way or another.

Now let's see why I think that, regardless of the choice of the rotation (excluding ultimate), Brand always comes out on the "losing side" :

E > Q > W combo : This rotation is what I call the "ideal" harass rotation in lane. However, the trade off is that you must be close to the target to use your E, and thus can't benefit from the safety that W and Q bring (both have 900 range, while E is only at 625). Also, minions can easily block your Q, so it's not an easy rotation to pull off.

E > W > Q combo : Similar to the one above, but is harder to perform since the target will not be stunned for the W.

W > Q > E combo : This rotation is probably the "safest" to use in lane. However, since you use your W first, you will not benefit from the +25% increased damage, and this could mean the difference between winning/losing a trade or killing/not killing your opponent.

W > E > Q combo : Similar to the one above, but you have to put yourself at a bit more risk before attempting to stun your target.

For these rotations to works, you have to hit all of your spells, and it can be quite hard if against a mobile opponent. I believe Brand is punished a bit too much by them.

TL;DR Brand is currently outclassed by many other mages (mobile and not mobile) and is hard countered by assassins. His kit is also very unforgiving and could use some tweaks so that he can use it to it's full potential without so many drawbacks, while retaining his identity of the "burning combo mage" in the field of justice.

So I'm asking this to Riot and the community : What could we do to bring Brand on par with other mages and make him an attractive pick? He needs to keep his "combo mage" identity, but should be a bit more forgiving of mistakes. I also believe no other mages should beat him on raw damage since that's all he got. I think there is much to explore/experiment with Brand.

And with that, let the discussion begin! Don't forget to +1 and share toughts/comments! Let's see if we can improve Brand !

4 Comments

Seth732/18/2014, 12:58:32 AM2 votes

I think one change that could be made is to switch the ablaze effect on Brand's Q and E. As the OP already said, with it's decent width and slow speed, it is very difficult to land a max range Sear in lane. With the stun on his E, Brand can give up his most effective damage trade of Q > E> W in exchange for a Q/W > E that gives him guaranteed hard CC to escape ganks or lock a diving assassin in place. In addition to this change, I would image the cooldown on Q being reduced to something like 5 at all levels, reduced by 2 seconds every time he hits an enemy with it (much like Thresh's death sentence). This would allow Brand to get several targets ablaze, provided he can hit the same target twice within 4 seconds (which he now has the opportunity to do) without expending an entire spell rotation. This offers a big reward for hitting the rather difficult skillshot (for balancing purposes, the range of his Q may need to be reduced slightly, which I think is ok). This change would also allow Brand to build on his ability to deal very will with 2v1 situations once he hits level 6. Here is how a gank against Brand might look like after the changes I proposed above:

Brand is laning against a Gragas and both champions have just returned to lane with full health and mana at level 6. Gragas is falling behind in cs due to Brand's range advantage and has called in his jungler Elise for a gank. Let's assume that Elise has just finished clearing her wight and is on her way, approaching from the blue side of her jungle. Brand has no vision of Elise, but manages to hit Gragas with a Q while he is clearing out the wave. Gragas is now ablaze for 4 seconds and Brand's Q will be available in 3 seconds (assuming 0% CDR). Elise has now arrived in the right side bush in the midlane and is ready to gank. Gragas uses bodyslam-explosive cask combo to knock Brand towards him (and Elise, who repels in) After the knockback finishes, Brand's Q has come off cooldown and he hits Gragas with it again, because he is still ablaze, the effect spreads to Elise and her spiderlings. To avoid the hard CC and execute potential of Elise Brand quickly follows his Q up by casting his E on Elise. She is now stunned for 2 seconds. While this happens, Gragas body slams Brand, bringing him down to just under half life. Continuing his combo, Brand uses his W and gets the additional damage on all targets (Elise, Gragas, Spiderlings) as they are still ablaze. The W kills the spiderlings, leaving only 2 targets for Pyroclasm (R) to bounce to (remember, Gragas just finished clearing the wave before the gank started). Brand uses his ult on Gragas and flashes away, out of danger. Because there are only two targets, Pyroclasm bounces between them constantly, dealing massive damage and netting Brand the double kill. And just like that, Brand has turned a gank from two of the strongest champions (currently) into a double kill.

Goth Skunk2/17/2014, 11:11:16 PM1 votes

Addressing your E point. In a 1v1 situation, it is true that priming a target with E must first be done before using Q or W in order to get the maximum effectiveness out of your combo. However, because it is a single-target spell that can never miss, it must have a shorter cast range. If E had the same range as his Q, then patient players wouldn't even bother trying to combo anyone in the early game. They would just hit a target with E and then run away singing 'trolololol' as Brand's passive ticked down, and repeat this strategy every time E came off CD.

ZzZosoZoos2/17/2014, 11:45:08 PM1 votes

Brand is perfect. Please don't touch him Riot, Brand does not like the bad touch.