In recent years, Riot Games has often made surprising buffs to the jungle clearing abilities of certain champions. This aims to increase the number of players in the Jungle role in League of Legends. Notable names that have been granted this ability include Talon, Zed, Morgana…
The latest target of this expansion of the Jungle champion pool is Brand. However, Riot Games seems to have over-buffed this champion as Brand is currently noted to possess a “terrifying” jungle clearing speed. Specifically, Brand can clear all 6 of the first jungle camps at the time of 3 minutes and 6 seconds. This allows Brand to reach level 4 while teammates and opponents in the Bottom Lane are only at level 2.
This massive advantage of Brand has left the League of Legends community quite upset and calling for Riot to nerf this champion. “I agree with making Brand a Jungle champion, but his jungle clearing speed is too fast. The fact that Brand can reach level 4 and attack the Bottom Lane (where opponents are still at level 2) is extremely unbalanced. Riot needs to nerf this factor as soon as possible,” shared one gamer.
The reason behind Brand’s “terrifying” jungle clearing speed is that Riot has significantly buffed this champion. In patch 13.22, Brand’s passive damage dealt to jungle monsters was increased to 230%. Not to mention, his E – Conflagrate ability also received a buff in base damage. As a result, Brand’s area damage against jungle monsters has become excessively strong, leading to the aforementioned “terrifying” jungle clearing speed.
Currently, Brand in the Jungle has a fairly high win rate of 52.11% (according to LoLAlytics statistics). This number rises to 59.48% if looking solely at the Challenger rank. This indicates that Brand is indeed an overly strong Jungle champion with the ability to clear the jungle quickly and effectively attack early.
Of course, Brand still has the inherent weakness of traditional Mage champions, which is low mobility. Perhaps Riot should reduce Brand’s jungle clearing speed a bit to limit the overwhelming level advantage that this champion currently possesses too early. This way, Brand would become a more balanced champion with clear strengths and weaknesses instead of being too strong as he is now.