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On June 13 2015 06:07 Lost My Will To Live wrote:
21/9's okay if you want to battle. However, that makes you much slower and if you do happen to get caught, you die instantly.
I really don't think 1.5% MS and 20 flat ms out of combat would make that much of a difference, plus if you went utility would you not go 9 offense? If you went 21/0/9 you would lose block/unyielding, 35hp and 3%hp, and only get 1.5%ms and biscuits. Going 0/21/9 or 0/9/21 doesn't seem optimal on brand.
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Not saying he's bad, I just think there are better options because your stun isn't on demand and can be missed and when you do get caught you just die. Plus you really just dont have much utility outside of stunning one guy.
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12/9/9 could actually be a legit build here I think. The rest of the offensive tree doesn't matter that much early.
Also, 20 ms does actually matter quite a lot.
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hm, I tried out 0/9/21 and it actually feels pretty good, offensive masteries just don't do much early and you get quite a lot of gold from utility
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I don't think simply classing other supports as "better" is the right way to look at Brand. What he offers is so different to any other support it's barely comparable.
It was mentioned earlier that you play Brand support for the stun. I disagree. Picking him for the stun just makes him a shitty Morgana. The stun is nice (underrated) but you pick him for the damage. You don't usually pick supports for their damage but Brand is the exception. The best time to pick him is when you have a low damage team comp, no magic damage from your solo lanes or are coming up against low engage/damage enemy teamcomp that won't be able to punish you/pick you off easily. He rounds out some comps so so well.
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I switched to 0/9/21, utility feels way better and I can't feel any difference in damage, the mana and gold is noticable. Also switched to Mpen quints, still running scaling hp and CDR and crushing lanes.
I've been going
spellthief
sightstone
(frostfang if I get FB and can buy it super fast with a ton of laning to go)
sorcs
morellos
rylais
liandries
Void
It feels very good. Rylais with Q and E is a whole nother long ass CC, I like it a lot and the HP you get is great. I have been doing incredibly well with him and been carry status in most of my games.
Apparently he's getting new visuals, new W is cool but I hope the ult is a WIP, its fucking ugly.
From my games Brand/Jinx Brand/Cait and Brand/Ashe seem very strong lots of poke and CC stacking. Cait/Jinx can lay traps under a stun, which is brutal. Kalista seems good too. Vayne not so much, but most vaynes are terrible. Ezreal is hard to lane against, anytime you can Q he can Q earlier and faster.
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I've played with and against brand support a bajillion times, mostly with one of my friends at plat-diamond level games (I'm diamond and he's plat). The biggest and most critical weakness of brand support is the nonstop downward spiral once you start losing the lane. Once you start falling behind, it's just impossible to regain foothold due to the complete zoning as mentioned in one of the earlier replies from another poster. If you haven't experienced this, I think your opponents were just too weak. My guess from your replies is that you are playing against opponents who are good enough to know that they can all-in and instantly kill you, but not good enough to avoid your poke and completely zone until you guys feel forced to come forward, THEN kill you. They end up trying to force the all-in too much and lose the zone pressure.
If Brand support could snowball the game out of control it'd be a justifiable pick, but he isn't really worth the risk. To us it was high-risk, medium reward. We do find incredible success when we have a silver brand though. I'm pretty sure brand support just gets progressively worse as the competition improves.
The only exception to this is against Cait, maxing W first. I approve of this any day of the week.
Of course, I hardly played at all this season so maybe something changed, I dunno.
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Draven's by far my favourite opponent. It's almost impossible to miss a W when you know Draven's going to catch an axe.
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How do you support Brand vs a Kalista?
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On June 17 2015 22:31 Zdrastochye wrote:
How do you support Brand vs a Kalista?
With great difficulty. It's a very tough lane. Play defensively and poke where you can. You have to be very careful with your Q as if she gets in range with it down you'll die real fast. At level 6 with any decent engage on her support (Annie, thresh, Ali etc) her all in is terrifying. She channels her position with her jump, making your W usable for poke if you're positioned well, but that's about the only advantage you have. Pick something else if possible. Jinx is the other tough lane.
Brand + Kallista is great though. She doesn't need a baby sitter and an ADC providing an escape is awesome for Brand. Sometimes you get the opportunity to throw yourself into the enemy team and unload everything like a fiery kamikaze. Good times.
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Shouldn't Sivir be really tough as well? You can't stun her at all and I don't see you poking her much either. Plus she can harass you pretty well with Q and W, because of your low HP and armor.
That does make Brand bad versus the best two ADC's at the moment (Sivir, Kalista), but in a different meta it might work.
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Draven is the second worst opponent for support Brand to go against in my book. I only had it happen in my game once and said never again. I don't remember the exact details all too well, but the Draven side just goes all-in and Brand fed him to oblivion. I just remember being the jungler and not even seeing an opportunity to gank before the lane was forfeit.
The worst opponent is Vayne for the same reasons, except she's harder to hit and can do the same thing at level 6 onwards even if she gets stomped completely prior to it.
I played a lot of support Velkoz and I just felt there's a wall at higher ELOs. I stomped through Plat and got to Diamond pretty fast with Velkoz support in my lineup of champs, and then I just started every game with Velkoz. I'd get top damage out of everyone and lose the game, and this was back in last season when poke champs were pretty strong. I can't really imagine Brand being any better, even though there are some distinct differences between the two. Brand is better at all-in dumpster fights, while Velkoz can kite with his ADC better due to having a slow AND a stun. Velkoz can ward pretty safely too, since his Q is a very good bush check on a really low cooldown, with E for backup if they try to go ham.
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Sivir is an interesting matchup. Her short range means your W is very easy to hit, but it having a delay makes it easy to spell shield. As a consequence her spell shield is often down and coupled with her short range finding an opportunity to stun becomes easier than you would think. Biggest problem in the matchup is mana but once you get even a Faerie Charm it becomes possible to drop W's during her spell shield cooldown and you outright win if she misses one. I'd class it as a skill matchup perhaps slightly in the Sivir favour, but that said I've probably faced under 10 Sivirs this season. She's popular at the pro level but I rarely see her in solo Q.
Just a general note on all-ins, Brand does way better than you would expect in them. Basically it comes down to the fact you always do way more damage than the enemy support, so it's easier to burn someone down. Thresh is a great matchup for this reason. He wants to hook you and go in but he does no damage, so if the ADC can't burn you down you bring more to the fight than he does. Brand is also great when something is running straight at you. E>Q is simple to land in that situation and it's the longest stun in the game pre-6. It's for that reason I like the Draven matchup. You have the tools to control him if he's farming (W on axe land) and the tools to deal with him in an all in (E>Q as he runs at you). Yeah if he snowballs it can go downhill, but that a property of Draven more than it is Brand, he does that to everyone. Watch out for Draven/Morg though, very dangerous lane.
Vayne is an easy matchup. Short range and she needs to AA to farm. Drop a W every time she tries to cs and push her off the wave. Ward deep, don't get ganked and punish her before she gets going. Like Draven, she's scary if she snowballs but you have the tools to punish her.
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No defensive runes is straight up suicide against any competent botlane...
That being said, why or when would Brand be better than Zyra? Zyra's cc doesn't rely on on hitting the enemy before hand and is AoE, her ult is just as strong if not stronger in teamfights and her plants make going Dora very safe. While Brand's lane harass a bit better I suppose, Zyra just seems to do everything else Brand does better.
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I don't really have much to add other than Kalista/Alistar was my only lane I've played and felt like shit. You have way more spells than sivir has shields, especially with a longer ranged AD. Vayne usually has to tumble for damage and you can nail her from close range afterward or bait it with W or an adc skill. She'll be at a health deficit and often won't even be able to allin.
Still haven't had issues with zoning. No really gonna comment on theory but Q CD is so short there is not really much opportunity for aggression, plus you can then land it as they try to back off easily if they don't kill one of you very very fast.
I'm doing better than ever on him, I'm a lot better at hitting Q than when I started, you can really weave it in between minions et.c and use blitz tricks like walking at one person and Qing the other. Played vs and with diamonds quite a bit now and done very very well.
even if laning isn't a smash success you can completely shutdown many melee range tops and jungles no matter how fed they are once teamfighting starts. Way too much stun. Stuff like a fed evelynn is almost funny, they are worthless.
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On June 18 2015 08:09 Jek wrote:
No defensive runes is straight up suicide against any competent botlane...
That being said, why or when would Brand be better than Zyra? Zyra's cc doesn't rely on on hitting the enemy before hand and is AoE, her ult is just as strong if not stronger in teamfights and her plants make going Dora very safe. While Brand's lane harass a bit better I suppose, Zyra just seems to do everything else Brand does better.
Zyra's CC is a root that lasts less than 1.25 seconds until like level 10 and only hits 1.75 maxed, and is on a 12 second CD (7.2s with max CDR).
Brand's CC is a full stun for two seconds from level two onward that scales down to 6 seconds CD (3.6s with max CDR). Two seconds stun on a 3.6 second CD.
Fairly large difference. The precondition isn't very challenging with brands kit.
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Brand also does way more damage that Zyra. Zyra's warding/roaming is way safer though.
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On June 18 2015 08:45 Amarok wrote:
Brand also does way more damage that Zyra. Zyra's warding/roaming is way safer though.
I don't really agree. Zyra has has one linear root, Brand has 2+ linear stuns with much more duration. Brand also has 15 MS on her. Brand can skillshot bush check just like she can, but has longer range. I guess she has her ult as a conditional one second knockup.
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There are a few reasons I'd class Zyra as better at expanding vision. For one, seeds don't have a cooldown or mana cost so you can check multiple spots which is great in the brushes above Dragon or around Baron, it's also less punishing if you have to use them in lane. Seeds also provides more vision for longer period of time. Brand's stun is great but Zyra has a root which can hit multiple people, a slow and her ultimate to disengage if things get really hairy. I'd say that makes her significantly safer.
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I feel like all the things mentioned that's defending Brand only works at lower ELOs and/or when you're simply better than the other team. E-Q being easy to hit when they're running straight at you is exactly the kind of things that I'm talking about. Quoting myself earlier:
My guess from your replies is that you are playing against opponents who are good enough to know that they can all-in and instantly kill you, but not good enough to avoid your poke and completely zone until you guys feel forced to come forward, THEN kill you. They end up trying to force the all-in too much and lose the zone pressure.
People running 'straight at you' is precisely the kind of stuff that I'm saying they shouldn't do, and it goes hand in hand with zoning. Simply put, the players you're playing against aren't zoning well. They run 'straight at you' as you say instead of just waiting for you guys to come and bait the stuns.
There's just way more bad Vaynes and Dravens, but the really good ones will completely destroy an opposing Brand. If you can land an E-Q, then you can put a lot of damage in and keep them from going all-in. If you miss, you die and feed the lane. It's high-risk, medium reward.
Vayne matchup feels like a complete stomp, but at some point she can just press R and win. Vayne as a champion just has a weak laning phase, and just stomping on her is not good enough since you can pretty much stomp her with any support during the laning phase.
However, I do believe that if Brand support is ever going to be viable in competitive pick, now is the time. Tank meta mosh-pit prolonged teamfights are about as good of an environment as you can ask for. Brand support is and always will be extremely weak against all-in assassins, which have phased out as of late.
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EPT
