Had 1 Game with a Braum in it (on my team). Enemy team had Thresh. Braum didn't seem as impactful as Thresh. My team was winning for a long time but eventually we lost. Thresh brings a ton more CC and the dreaded hook that can turn a game around really fast. Our Braum might have sucked, but from my view his abilities just didn't seem to do much. Our bot lane did win laning phase though.
I had a very successful game with Braum; I pretty much shut down the opposing teams Thresh laning against him. It was Lucian and I vs. Twitch and Thresh. Part of the issue was that Twitch doesn't really have range - if it had been a Cait or a Varus I might have been zoned a bit more, but I was easily able to maneuver to q onto one or the other (or both) to get the stun started. On top of that, anytime he threw a hook at my Luc I just w'd onto Luc and took it instead. Shielded in his and Twitch's direction, and then either q'd or ulted to get a stun going. Because of Luc's passive to hit twice anytime Thresh started shit we would immediately turn it around.
It was fun, because jumping into the hook was excellent. You can't kill me, and you just pulled me into melee range so I can initiate a stun. That went badly.
I have played some team builder as Braum and gone against other Braums. It seems like every other Braum I see is trying to force something by spamming their abilities. I feel like Braum is more of a reactive Champ then proactive, react to your ADC making a move and combo accordingly or react to their ADC going after yours and combo accordingly.
Pretty much this as far as I can tell. I counter initiated instead of initiating, which was somewhat displeasing to my team. We had a tank jungler who I expected to be slightly more proactive on jumping in but it didn't work that way. I stayed glue to my carry's side in my games, but I found that without a tankier champ or at least a disruptive champ to initiate I was fairly weaker.
You pick Braum for the same reason you pick morg, to disrupt enemy engage teams or divers. I think he is better at it then she is as well. His offensive laning isn't really anything to write home about, but if your adc isn't a moron you effectively can't die in lane barring a really good gank. His ult is also absolutely broken, the line knockup would be good enough but add to that a decent duration slow field and you can pretty much dictate the pace of a fight, especially in tight places.
edit:
He also is very good at fight cleanup and chasing because of his W and Q. Its like trying to run from a gragas. No real engage though so I wouldn't pick him in a team that required aggressive action from its support.
This.
In one game (and my most successful) we had the enemy jungler putting lots of pressure onto our bot - I warded a shit ton and would dash to my carry and ult into the group. There wasn't a single time where we didn't come out ahead of it. In the best circumstances, I saved my carry and we would ace them, mostly because we had some reinforcements coming. In the worst case scenario, we didn't get a kill but they didn't either.
I had a lot of fun with Braum; shielding in the direction of a projectile and then leaping into the group to protect was just awesome. The shield sticking in the direction you point it in is also amazing, just because I could continue to move but would be stopping anything coming after us.
I have to get the timing down a bit more with him, but I like him a lot. Leona was another of my fave supports and while he doesn't initiate like she can, I've at least got the "HAHA YOU ARE NOT FUCKING KILLING ME, WHAT ARE YOU INSANE?" stuff down.
Thumbs up on the champ so far; having a Yasuo on our team on the one map was entertaining as well. I fed him so many kills with my ult.
