Just to be clear, I don’t believe Braum is inherently weak. He is picked where he is meant to be picked and fills his role very well. He possesses clear strengths and weaknesses. Very balanced champ.
But I can’t help but feel like he’s starting to lag behind the support roster a little bit with his own agency as the game evolves more and more. It would feel nice if Braum players in soloq could press their advantages a bit better. Most notably by actually playing into his greatest strength, defending things.
Right now, he can’t even reliably defend his own vision lines. Its difficult for Braum to punish enemies clearing/replacing vision short of having flash or afk’ing a bush. Yes, you can punish with His R, buts its cooldown is very long in early-mid and it needs to be up for every objective. This creates really awkward scenarios where a Braum that is ahead prepping for drake just kind of has to watch while his vision is erased after moving back into river. He doesn’t do enough damage to scrap alone (this is fine) and his mobility is gated by having others near him (this shouldn’t be with the plethora of dashes). He can jump to minions like lee, why can’t he jump to wards like lee?
I think giving him the ability to jump to friendly wards would lean into his identity and buff him slightly in a way that is not OP. It also would help in situations where Braum needs to be the initiator, as he would be able to position better outside of lane/in skirmishes, which would hopefully raise his playrate a bit. What are your thoughts? Would this be too strong?
He should not.
Let me as a person with more than 1 million mastey in most of the Wardens in game try to explain this.
Braum is a Warden.
A Destinct trait from Wardens is Mobility restriction.
Yes, in situations where they can use their Mobility in 100% Value their mobility is Insanely good.
Most of Wardens not only have very restricted mobility, but also have CC/Utility tools tied to those.
The only exception is… yes you guessed, fucking K’sante.
Poppy Cannot use her E as she see fits, it’s also her main cc tool.
Tahm Kench has a base 21 Second Cooldown, it’s also a CC tool.
Shen Taunt is his CC tool, has High energy cost and medium Cooldown.
Taric stares at you, in a very handsome way.
Galio Dash not only goes backward before going foward, is a CC tool and a Enabler for his Main cc Tool.
Every single Champion in this class has this shared trait of - Conditional CC and Conditional Mobility, except K’sante which is why he is fundamentally broken.
If you exable Braum to Ward Hop, he breaks the game.