Bramble Speculation Thread

[Ekamo]

Ekamo, we do need a Bramble speculation thread!

Your will be done. :)

What do we think about him? Does he have yet undiscovered potential? How will he position himself in the current meta?

[Skyve]

I would have liked him more if his Q silenced for the duration (0.5 sec linger) with additional silence at the end. Would work well with his slow/MS buff in terms of "walking people down".

He also seems to be a great assistance to any melee carry, so here's hoping we'll see them used more often in conjunction with Bramble.

His aura feels a tad too weak on lvl1 though. Maybe a slight rescaling (50/67/84/100) would be better? Too early to really say though.

[skeloperch]

I feel that his W is a tad too strong, and his aura a tad too weak. I often find myself leveling Q and W over his aura, and focusing on mobility items like ToC and SS. Might just be me, though.

[Sherwood]

He feels very weak compared to other 'melee baby sitters'.
Other baby sitters can act usefully in most lane scenarios.


Bramble relies heavily on one side being very aggressive. His shrubbery only works when stuff happens. Using it to reduce damage or to slow enemies. If both sides are passive farming then he isn't that great. He doesn't have much in terms of mana-dump aggression. All baby sitters have some spell which can be cast for decent effect when sitting on full mana. Bramble doesn't. He has a damage reduction with I already talked about, a passive aura and Balphagore spew-type thing. The latter requires melee range, pushes the lane too much, risks aggroing creeps if you auto attack with it and generally should be saved when something happens. At least with Balphagore he can farm coprses and levels for level 7 and then aggressively push.

Bramble in the early game comes across as a melee Martyr. Initially a soft support, but as he's melee, he needs to be baby-sat himself. At least with the likes of Accursed/Jeraziah, the best comparison of fellow Strength Supports, in addition to their reactive/predictive shielding spells, they can actually heal their lane partner directly outside of conflict. The former 2 feel more a reliable pick than Bramble for the niche of Strength Melee Support.


Bramble is a Melee Strength Support that needs to be baby sat on an aggressive/hard lane. In any other situations a contradiction or a worthless choice.
He seems like Blitz. A psuedo ganky support. I guess if you want a defensive support gank-assist hero Bramble is your man.



The plus side is that he isn't defined by his Ultimate. The effect of a wall can be achieved via Behemoth/Empath and lesser Extend Chipper. The angry ward effect can be gained by Slither/Polywog. It's a sort of marriage of the two that it rarely needed. Perhaps you want to ensure the enemy walks into Kraken's Ultimate whilst the wall eats them. The frustrating thing about the ulti is that it feels like Bramble should make a Frostfield Plate/Daemonic Breast plate to make full use of it. Daemonic to increase damage taken. Frostfield to keep victims close enough for longer.

A good/bad thing is that his ultimate is very situational. It's not a spell you may need to blow immediately in a team fight. It's a more tactical Polywog Ultimate. It's essentially an Empath wall on steroids but with a cooldown and short attack distance. The cooldown makes you feel reserved about using it. You could use it to ensure you gank someone, but will the enemy suddenly appear and will you need it to protect your escape route? Perhaps too many things were tacked onto the Ultimate and its cooldown had to be increased to make it balanced, but causing players to use it stupidly/rarely.

I mean it's not a great disable like a Kraken Ultimate, all it does it get in the way and attack stuff. You can't validly throw it around for a trivial gank on one player.

[Reldnahc]

Haven't played him since damage nerf/bug fix. Hero feels great to me. Wall has multiple uses that make it interesting and fun. He has an offensive aura that is intuitive but not boring like plain damage or something. His W feels like how Rewind should have worked(controlled and not lulzRNG). There doesn't seem to be any glaring issues. He's rather straightforward leading to his success in pubs. Surprisingly though his base damage is unusually high.

Feels like a straight forward, well designed hero that design team should pat themselves on the back on.

[Skinsword]

Personally, it feels that Bramble doesn't do well as a pure support. It also suffers many problems that the other melee supports suffer from: difficulty harassing, and item dependence.

I think that all sucessful supports should have at least some sort of harass potential, be it 600 attack range or a reasonably mana and cooldown efficient nuke. Unfortunately, Bramble has neither and he needs to rely on his spore breath to chase people out of lane, but it also pushes the lane a bit too hard. On top of that, Bramble needs items to get the most out of his supporting abilities. While many supports perform decently with striders, and 1-2 support items, Bramble needs to build additional survivability and tankiness to benefit his team.

[ninja_goat]

First of all bramble's ultimate DOESN'T SCALE WITH AURAS such as sol's and abyssal's etc or items like plated greaves (you can check it out in practice) and the dmg of the plants isn't defined as magic or physical if you have noticed, which means that it is true dmg (?)

Secondly he is mellee support without harassing tool ... really s2 ?
which makes us assume that he should be played as a hard carry with support skills, something like soul reaper , ohh wait bramble's ulti doesn't scale with anything he also has an OP 40% dmg reduction heal, a situational stun and a bad aura----> BAD DESIGN

[Skyve]

Secondly he is mellee support without harassing tool ... really s2 ?

Like pretty much every single hero in the game he can serve more than just one role. If it turns out that he is more effective as a solo, then he will be used as that. I wouldn't try and put a label on something (even if S2 does that for the sake of their spotlights) before the hero has been properly tested.

Plus all that is necessary for him to serve the support role is to be able to do [something] in that category well enough to warrant him being used as such.


which makes us assume that he should be played as a hard carry with support skills, something like soul reaper

You could also use him as a ganker with pushing power, like Pollywog Priest. Which so far is something he seems to be decently effective at.

[Brannock]

Remember when Myrmidon was spotlighted as a mid ganker and players instead used him as one of the best support in the game? Even if the spotlight shows Bramble as melee support don't take that as an absolute conclusion.

Of his abilities, it's not the stun or the wall that scares me. It's the 40% damage reduction that splashes the healing (and also has an aoe slow!) and the +100 MS on-hit aura. I can see Bramble being used as a keystone for some very aggressive strategies or as a severe counterpick against less mobile teams.

[Bersk]

Im a little afraid that Bramble will just make us stay longer in the tanky meta :/

[skeloperch]

As I said, the shield is a tad too strong and the aura a tad too weak. If those were reversed, he would be an excellent mid solo hero and late-game support for carries. Right now, he allows carries like Magebane to live through an onslaught of ultimates, but he just can't babysit MB.

If a team were to run him as a late game support (getting baby sat by someone like Slither or Torturer), and then run a squishy hard carry in another lane (being baby sat by a hard support like Shaman or Rhapsody), I'm pretty sure it would catch on really fast. Having a Scout with 900 HP and 400 damage a hit being able to live through a Kinesis barrage and then proceed to 3 shot him is hilarious.

[`11411181]

Shrubbery just screams pre-remake Visage to me.

[PzKw]

His damage reduction is going to prove to me too strong in the long run.

[SirVH]

I didn't play with him, only against.... so can anyone explain the high win ratio for a just released hero?

[Terranigma]

I didn't play with him, only against.... so can anyone explain the high win ratio for a just released hero?

Nobody is familiar with his abilities and know how to handle this guy - I guess that pretty much covers it. It's been like that everytime when a new hero got released; won't take long and people know what to do with/against Bramble and then we could talk about his win-ratio. At this moment, the win-ratio doesn't say much.

[SirVH]

Well, new heroes usually had low win ratios, like 30~40% on the release week, this hero is the contrary, that's why I'm asking.

[Jeroz]

this hero got a simple tool set, every skill is straight forward, therefore it shouldn't be a surprise that people knows how to use him.

And then you get the hidden mech of the ult able to push, the aura buffing the minions etc that weren't covered in the spotlight so the ones against him will be caught off guard.

combine those two, yeah.

[Skyve]

Bramble also dealt too much damage with his Q for a while, so that might be a reason for high win% too :)

[Oona`]

Delete Bramble and make a new hero, just overpowered :(

[_BIGboss_]

The only op spell on bramble its the first, and now the first spell has balanced on the last patch.
not op now, it's ok to me, my opinion.

:D

[MushidoZ]

I don't think his ult should hit towers. I find that aspect of polywog to be what makes him too strong as a hero, so having a tank doing it.. meh? I'm also pretty concerned with str tanks that can support / be more useful than those who can only do one thing not-that-well. In many aspects, bramble is armaddon with tower destruction capacity (everyone knows how to play armaddon --> high win ratio)

[man_guy]

The only op spell on bramble its the first, and now the first spell has balanced on the last patch.
not op now, it's ok to me, my opinion.

:D

40% damage reduction that can be extended to anyone on your team with 700 cast range from level 1 and a nearly 50% uptime when maxed. That's a skill by itself, then there are other tack-ons to that. Without a single weak skill it puts him over-the-top.

[Sherwood]

Nullfire Blade/Electrician's Purge ought to counter Shrubbery.

Perhaps make the spell effect be more glaringly obvious like Jeraziah's Magic Shield. People don't seem to QQ at Jera's shield making people immune to all magic damage. Then again, it doesn't heal people around the victim nor slow.

[Alten]

The hero doesn't have many weaknesses; really, only the delayed stun and the fact that it's melee serve to impede it. Pushing power, very high defensive utility (damage reduction, heal, slow, defensive wall, etc.), a stun, high damage, good stat gains, high ms/chasing ability that is also applied to its team, etc.

[skeloperch]

The hero doesn't have many weaknesses; really, only the delayed stun and the fact that it's melee serve to impede it. Pushing power, very high defensive utility (damage reduction, heal, slow, defensive wall, etc.), a stun, high damage, good stat gains, high ms/chasing ability that is also applied to its team, etc.

You know what other weaknesses he has? Horrible laning, reliability on allies to be able to make the most of shrubbery, and being reliant on levels despite all of that. He makes a decent ganking and pushing hero, but not much else. Completely outshone by Polly Wog in those roles, and out shone by Shaman and etc. for the support role.

The stun is decent. Not too strong since it got bug fixed. W is too strong and should be nerfed. E is too weak and should be buffed. Ulti is situationally overpowered, but not by much.

[Dominare]

Horrible laning

You're kidding, right? Bramble AND his ranged lane partner have more movespeed than you from his passive any time there's combat happening, if you don't know how to take advantage of that, I don't know what else to say to you.

--

I've been playing him as a ganker (phase -> hotbl), and find him rather strong. He's one of those heroes whose ultimate provides a fairly guaranteed kill anytime its up, and the cooldown & manacost are quite low for such a powerful ability. More importantly, you cannot run from this hero on foot - he's got 100 more movespeed than you, he's got a six (!) second AoE slow, and his animation is pretty great too making it easy to attack-cancel while chasing.

His int gain is good plus he's got one cheap spell (W) and one passive, so you can focus all your itemization on bulking up. His strength gain is unremarkable but does the job, and while his agi gain is bad, he's got very good starting armor for a strength hero and is a natural carrier for Sol's, RoT and the like.

More on the ultimate: It's powerful early, the slow is significant all game long, you can push towers with it, you can gank with it, you can completely disrupt enemy plans during teamfights with it, you can escape with it by blocking ramps etc. It doesn't cost much mana, it has a short cooldown, it has a pretty ridiculous cast range, it lasts a whopping ten seconds at rank 3 (longer than any other movement impeding ability in the game), etc.

I've played this hero quite a bit, but I still haven't nearly fully explored ways to build him. For the reasons stated above he's got the whole 'blank slate' thing going for him, like Midas - he gets most of what he needs simply from his gains and skills, so you can really get whatever you want (or more importantly, what the team needs) without worrying about missing out on your 'core' gear. He also scales very well into the lategame since movespeed, walls and 40% damage reduction are just as useful at 50 mins as 10.

[AssGear]

I think that regardless of whether he is to strong or weak you should make so that abilities like Cthuluphants trample cant run straight thru his ult.

[Elman1]

I think that regardless of whether he is to strong or weak you should make so that abilities like Cthuluphants trample cant run straight thru his ult.

Not unless they fix Pharaoh's mummies too.

[`11411181]

There appears to be a huge disconnect from when he visually turns into what appears to be striking a creep, and when the damage actually happens. This honestly annoys me more than anything else about the hero. Wall is ok (could potentially last a little longer, but meh), Q is also decent and W needs no introduction.

[Epidemilk]

He's got normal EA syndrome (a lot of people apparently didn't even watch the damn spotlight, lose lane to him because "OMG I HAVE NO IDEA WHAT THIS HERO DOES")

[Antimodus]

his ult counters Pollywog's really hard by the way, as well as the other ones that PWP's counter (arachna engi artesia). Anything stationary that dies by a fixed number of hits or low hp is annihilated in seconds. Just make sure that at least some section of your ult is close enough to the stationary objects you want dead. The low range makes it so you don't even have to manually retarget it like you would with a polly ult.

[SuperCommand]

His damage reduction skill is really strong. Not quite as strong as Monarchs(As in not as high damage reduction) but on the other hand lasts longer, doesn't disarm you, heals allies, slows enemies and doesn't immobilize you. Turning any hero into Armadons back for 6seconds makes it quite tricky to bring down.

Solution: Maybe give it a higher CD and longer duration making dispels viable(Like Jera's shield)? Make it only work against physical or magical damage?

His ultimate is probably over the top, at least for pushing. A level 3 ulti does something like 6000damage over 10 seconds. Placing one between the barracks makes them melt. Also having the slow go through SH is maybe also a bit unneccessary.

Solution: Don't let it attack buildings? Or lower damage and cooldown?


Overall I think Bramble is pretty nice. He's just incredibly tanky with a crazy ultimate.

[Fen__]

The idea of playing bramble as a babysitting support is completly retarded.

Its like saying that elec is a support because he can cast ultimate to give speed to his ally!

P.S. I wonder how can you say that bramble shrubery is worse than monarch heal even tho bramble doesnt immobilise/disarms his target :D

[foxmindedguy]

40% damage mitigation from level one of the spell, all the while healing allies for the damage mitigated is not bad at all. I think players need to experiment him more and share their experiences in order for us to give any strong verdict of his relative balance (and viability).

[Floffeh]

I've played +6 games with this fella as of now, and I really enjoy this fella.

Quite interesting how I haven't played as a support at all, while this whole thread is filled with "meele support" and comparizon to jera/accu ...
Instead I played him kind of like Armadon - a big, fat, farmed turd that everybody on the enemy team hates ^^

These 2 games went a bit overboard though ... (1600-1700 bracket)

K/D/A - 19/5/23 - MatchID: 94370408 A very close (and long, fun) game with me as Bramble going mid vs Magmus
-"- 15/1/10 - MatchID: 94347925 A not-so-close game with the bomb in my team getting an immortal... (I had so much farm I bought a restoration stone - hilarious)

Only problem I've found with him is how he easily can be controlled by ranged heroes early game since he doesn't really have a gap closer until ghost marchers + 2 or 3 levels of his aura. A stunner by his side can do wonders.

[MushidoZ]

After seeing bramble in a couple of games, I have to say he's currently waaaay too strong. His ultimate is the biggest problem (though his other skills aren't bad).

To explain, his shrub deals massive damage to heroes and towers alike (maybe faster than polywog's ultimate, which is an abobination), prevents people from going a certain way (like empath/behemoth's thing) and on top of that applies one of the sickest slow in game. That ultimate is, frankly speaking, the strongest ultimate in game currently. The moment bramble is open for competition, you will start to see bramble in every game unless banned (pretty much like polywog and some other heroes are). He is polywog priest with massive survability.

I would like to say his ultimate needs to be changed and remade entirely because it is too strong.. but it looks so great I find it would be a waste to have it removed entirely. Nonetheless, there has to be a MAJOR change to it right now, there isn't a way to defend yourself against it, and once you're hit, you're pretty much done for. Some for towers.

[`11411181]

What's a tablet?

[SomethingOdd]

What's a tablet?

I call your rhetorical question,
http://images.wikia.com/newerth/images/b/b2/Item_Tablet_of_Command.jpg

And raise another
What's an auto attack?

[PzKw]

How is he a stronger PWP. PWP is an incredibly strong disabler with fantastic lane control.

[MushidoZ]

Tablet doesn't save you from that ult, as the wall doesn't last that long (so they will chase you by passing through it), but deals LOTS of damage pretty fast and slows you like very few other things in the game at a really dangerous range (and remember that they get movement speed by attacking whatever). And if you run away from it and it happens to be close to the towers/rax, you just lost it as it deals SOOO much damage it pretty much kills any structure it is near of.

There also isn't a way to auto attack and kill that wall, as there are so many targets you won't be able to take it down before the damage it dealt to you or your structure is passed the point of no-return (especially since it has pretty high attack speed)

PzKw: He takes 6 times the damage polywog can endure, and can heal with it.. He also is a disable. Granted though, he doesn't have forked lightning to kill creeps / attack heroes with.. he has the barf skill and an aoe movement speed buff though, and movement speed / premitigation damage + heal is freaking good support for carry heroes.

[PzKw]

So pretty much the only thing that's amazing on Bramble is his heal. Everything else is either passable or meh. His heal is incredible and probably will need to be nerfed at some point, but there's nothing else on him that is really all that strong...

[zstarkey42]

I dunno about you, but I find his wall to be rather strong as well. The damage and slow it provides are so damn strong and melts towers in a few seconds, and it lasts for a good while as well at rank 3. The only annoyance is when you accidentally target one of the plants as an ally; that gives you the default hero skill interface while not being able to do anything with them.

[dandylion]

The heal is pretty ridiculous and screams for a nerf. Combat vigor is by no means bad, but I don't know if I'd call it overpowered. Wall deals a decent amount of damage and is a really big annoyance on the battlefield. Maybe a little too strong, but not that bad. However, the animations for the spell are just too much. I don't know if that really plays into the balance at all, but it's just an eyesore and buries other small details that are important to be able to see. I think it needs to be toned down a bit or given some transparency or something.

[Tomate]

I didn't think much of Bramble early on, than I got extremely annoyed with his 40% damage reduction. This makes who ever he uses it on extremely hard to kill...

I played a game against a Bramble + Wretched Hag... and the Hag was just unkillable... Already a hard hero to kill due to the high mobility, once she had her null stone + treads + Bramble's armor... it was all but extremely painful as focusing her was virtually never getting us a kill, ignoring her right clicking our supports was just as painful.

I really didn't think all that much of the hero until this event. His stun is mediocre, his ultimate is OK, his armor is absolutely amazing.

Overall, I wouldn't change him yet.

[Zenanii]

His skillset is ok, it's true that his ulti deals crazy damage, but low range and low duration makes it wastoy inferior to polly ulti. Might have to rebalance structure damage.

His armor is insane. Used perfectly it pretty much reduces all aoe damage taken by your team, and I can see him being picked as a great counter to aoe-heavy lineups.

[Epidemilk]

W is pretty sick, it's great that when opponents decide "no more focusing tank" you can lend it out to others, but is it purgeable? Haven't tried yet, but it seems Para, Elec, or a Nullfire Blade might go a long way to reduce his power.

Ulti can be devastating, but it suffers from the same issues as every other obstacle spell, with a much longer cooldown (pretty short for an ulti though)

[Frisbetarian]

Why can't we accept that there are certain aspects in heroes that are supposed to be strong?

[ZephWyrm]

Lane him with martyr for the lulz. "We are gonna run you down and tank the **** out of you" situations all-around.

[foxmindedguy]

Tablet doesn't save you from that ult, as the wall doesn't last that long (so they will chase you by passing through it), but deals LOTS of damage pretty fast and slows you like very few other things in the game at a really dangerous range (and remember that they get movement speed by attacking whatever). And if you run away from it and it happens to be close to the towers/rax, you just lost it as it deals SOOO much damage it pretty much kills any structure it is near of.

There also isn't a way to auto attack and kill that wall, as there are so many targets you won't be able to take it down before the damage it dealt to you or your structure is passed the point of no-return (especially since it has pretty high attack speed)

PzKw: He takes 6 times the damage polywog can endure, and can heal with it.. He also is a disable. Granted though, he doesn't have forked lightning to kill creeps / attack heroes with.. he has the barf skill and an aoe movement speed buff though, and movement speed / premitigation damage + heal is freaking good support for carry heroes.

You can't compare Polly and Bramble based on 1 similar skill. If so, Bramble should also be compared with Balphagore, Accursed and Voodoo Jester. Furthermore, Fayde and Witch Slayer should be compared too.


Why can't we accept that there are certain aspects in heroes that are supposed to be strong?

Every so often I forget this and then I get ****-stormed by the community. Yes, strong aspects in heroes is what makes them likeable (or down-right annoying).

[zstarkey42]

If you haven't noticed already, any new hero with a strong aspect is quickly deemed overpowered by the community before they even adapt to it while older ones still retain their strong/op traces for several years (cough, dota heros).

[Sherwood]

Shrubbery Armour is indeed purgable by Nullfire Blade.
However, since the animation of the buff is swirly green smokey vines, it's very hard to notice it on him. It's green-on-green. You're relucant to nuke him down because he might take 60% damage and heal the rest. Or if you purge him without the buff, your purge is on CD and he just buffs someone; himself.

The buff needs to be more noticable; like Jeraziah's Bubble.

[supply_depot]

Shrubbery Armour is indeed purgable by Nullfire Blade.
However, since the animation of the buff is swirly green smokey vines, it's very hard to notice it on him. It's green-on-green. You're relucant to nuke him down because he might take 60% damage and heal the rest. Or if you purge him without the buff, your purge is on CD and he just buffs someone; himself.

The buff needs to be more noticable; like Jeraziah's Bubble.

I think this is a great point, as well as the other post that pointed out how much of an eyesore that his ult can be. I think some of the visuals need to be reworked so that his heal / buff is easier to see, and so the walls don't create such a cluster-[expletive here] on screen in clutch scenarios.

Bramble gets really nasty with teams that have some coordination, but is really lackluster otherwise. I feel like this is an indicator of good balance.

[MushidoZ]

Refresher bramble kills a tier 3 tower and 80/100% of a melee rax for the short duration it has. I don't exactly see how it's balanced, sorry. Compared to polywog's ult (which I also consider bull op), bramble's ult doesn't last as long but has twice as many targets, making it impossible to kill / hinder / handicap before the damage is irreversible.

Rest of the character is fine.. strong, but fine.