Magic Items under CBM

[Micah]

Sombre hit it for me.

To elaborate: I don't see how you can compare 7 damage to ANOTHER FULL ATTACK and come out on the side of 7 damage as being universally better. The CR on the brand is often useless since undead are already 100% CR, and the AoE doesn't beat a second swing in many cases in terms of chaff control. Additionally, the SoSwiftness is the best (non-unique) defensive 1-hander you can get.

It's not a weapon for weak, cheap raiders, it's a weapon for nice SCs that have enough strength to really administer beatdowns with each swing, even if they're just using a toothpick. At that point the 4 extra gems over a frost brand for the 2 points of defense and ability to really multi-attack your opponent's defense down starts to look like a great deal. Pair with chi shoes for yet more defense and you get 3 attacks for a full square-clear each action against the common size-2 chaff. (Including skelspam, which a frost brand sucks against.) Oh, and add weapons of sharpness from a support mage and the extra attack really leaves the slight bonus damage from the brand in the dust since it increases the damage-prot differential substantially.

[Mardagg]

Micah,good points.
I still would mainly niche use it dual wielding with ambidextrous thugs/Sc`s.
Dont forget that the frost brand got 4/2 att/def.So the first strike is more likely to hit than the first strike of the SoS.
That way,you might get more often the full 16 damage with the brand ,whereas the SoS profits a lot more from every subsequent attack,missing the first 9 damage here and there.
But,to exploit that, u gotta dual wielding it ,missing out the shields...it essentially becomes a 2h weapon for 10 W gems then.
Certainly not a underpowered one ,though,thats sure.