[Patch 5.3] Lunar Revel General Discussion - Page 48

He's an AoE burst mage relying on combos, with some added DoT damage that make him dangerous if he can keep applying his passive in longer fights :
- He's limited by his longest cooldown if he wants to combo to full strength (unless one cd can get to half the longest, but iirc it isn't the case).
- He loses a lot of effectiveness if he can't 100-0 people (or mostly).

The second point makes him midgame-centric, while the average game goes pretty late atm (less so than in s4, and the potential for CLG.eu turtlefests is lower, but still long), so he's got less value than mages who remain effective even late (otoh Cass likes it for example), so it's not ideal for him.
Another thing is that he has animations/delays on his spells, so dashes, quick/instant hard cc, etc. harm him, and higher becomes an issue (LB misses a chain on Vayne? She can W away. Brand misses his Q? Midgame he can try and juke/stall/make her run by blowing ult/etc. but the latter it goes, the more likely Vayne is to just kill him before the next cast, or lifesteal enough to survive it).

The dps argument ties into his range too (and indirectly into his combo mechanic): his ideal single-target combo is EQW, otherwise he loses either the stun or a bunch of damage.
But his E has shorter range than most point'n'click dashes and he's frail. In lane he can use it to poke Zed or Fizz, but latter on he's straight-up dead if he enters their range. Early on he can survive Xin or Irelia dashing on him, but very quickly he's cc'd before he can follow-up his E with Q, and die during said c/c.
In the midgame you can more or less reasonably expect to brawl at mid range during skirmishes, trying to stay close waiting for a cd, chasing a bit, etc. but it becomes much harder. When people group, squishies have a frontliner who makes it hard to E them, which is less likely during roams.

LB can use her short-cd ultimate to poke too for example, and her ranges are less of an issue because Q has basically no cast-time and W's return is instant (nigh-instant cc like Polymorph or quick stuff like Charm wrecks that, though).

That doesn't mean he's bad, obviously, since midgame is his thing, that's when he's strong, and it's normal that he falls off later.
However, basically losing E and relying on Q (then no cc) or W (harder to hit because of the delay and lower range) to break Banshee's, poke people, etc. hurts him more than champions like Ziggs/Syndra/Xerath/Orianna who either have lower cooldowns or don't sacrifice defense/cc. That's the most awkward for me in Brand's late game, because otherwise E can make a fine 5.5s 35% slow to peel for your AD, his damage is still enough to threaten squishies in conjunction with his allies, and when he can hit his poke it hurts (and the slow makes follow-ups easier).