The Brand patch, as with most champion patches, includes some nice new skins. Brand launches with a Vandal skin and a Fallout-style “Apocaplyptic” skin, both of which look pretty nice. This patch also showcases Gragas‘ classy side – Gragas Esq. is ready for action on the Fields of Justice. Lastly, Time Machine Zilean is entering the battle this go round.
Anyone buying any of these? I’m seriously tempted by Gragas Esq., but I haven’t played him in forever.
The Brand Champion Spotlight is live, giving us a look at his skills in action. I’m pretty excited about Brand – his passive doesn’t seem crazy strong, even if I am a bit worried about those high-MR targets. Judging by what we can see, I’d say the only thing I don’t like about him off the bat is that it’s a little difficult to see when his Conflagrate actually casts. That’s a pretty minor complaint compared to a couple of recent releases.
I really like the shift toward skirmishing heroes over teamfight/tanky heroes. The fact that Pyroclasm only has a couple bounces makes it really devastating against two heroes, but sort of average against more than that. It’s a solid balance idea that should hopefully keep him from just solo-nuking entire teams.
The official Brand ability list showed up pretty early this week – sometime yesterday evening if I saw correctly. It’s nice to see a champ in the mix that isn’t tanky DPS, though I do wonder if his ult won’t be a little strong. Let’s take a look at the skills.
Sear: Brand launches a ball of fire forward that deals magic damage. If the target is ablaze, the target will be stunned.
Pillar of Flame: After a short delay, Brand creates a pillar of flame at a target area, dealing magic damage to enemy units within the area. Units that are ablaze take additional damage.
Conflagration: Brand conjures a powerful blast at his target, dealing magic damage to them. If the target is ablaze, the conflagration spreads to nearby enemies.
Pyroclasm (Ultimate): Brand unleashes a devastating torrent of fire, dealing damage each time it bounces. If a target is ablaze, Pyroclasm’s missile speed increases.
Blaze (Passive): Brand’s basic abilities light his targets ablaze, dealing a percentage of their maximum Health in magic damage per second.
I really like the synergy of his passive with his other skills. The overall strength of the passive will of course be determined by just how much of a percentage of the target’s health it deals. It’s interesting to see Riot trying to address the Tanky DPS issue directly through character design. I think it’s important to remember that the characters this passive plays best against are characters that already tend to stack a decent amount of magic resistance. My guess is that, even with the passive, Brand won’t stand a chance against a fairly tanky team. Magic resistance will negate a large portion of the damage, just as it does with characters like Kog’Maw and items like Bloodrazor/Deathfire Grasp.
I’m also interested in Brand’s ultimate design. Are we seeing a return to the AoE metagame? Be sure to check back on Tuesday for my impressions.
