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I've been looking desperately for a new secret OP champion to play, nothing has really caught my eye for a while. My last two loves, Viktor and Elise, have run their course and been thrust into the spotlight and/or crushed under the nerfbat, but I feel pretty good about my spider sense for strong unorthodox picks (yes Elise was unpopular at one time).
But I've found my new baby, and hot damn it feels good.
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/UnT80Qb.png)
Why does support Brand kick ass?
1. His passive does a lot of percent health damage regardless of itemization.
2. He has fat base damages.
3. His passive triggers every tic of spellthief you have on one landed spell.
4. He has a 2-second stun on a tiny CD, 3.6 second CD maxed.
5. He has 1050 range poke for 50 flat mana all game.
6. His ult is godlike in a 2v2 situation and wrecks teamfights.
I want to stress here that I'm not saying that Brand is a playable niche support, I'm saying he's a really really strong support with the capacity to carry games. If you like outputting massive CC and damage, and can land skillshots and position safely, you should try Brand support.
What Brand does:
1. Massive damage
2. Poke
3. Crazy single target peel
4. Absurd CC layering
What Brand doesn't do:
1. Escape bad situations
2. Set up picks/initiate
3. Dive the backline
HOW DO YOU PLAY BRAND SUPPORT?
Brand support is played quite differently than mid brand, beginning with your skill order.
This is going to be your standard skill order:
R>Q>E>W opening Q-E-W
Why?
Q is maxed first for three reasons.
1. It is your stun and utility, you need its CD as low as possible as it is the difference between life or death for you and your AD.
2. It costs 50 flat mana, it is the spell you can afford to cast in lane. Repeated casts of any of brands other spells will leave you with no mana far faster than they deplete your enemy's health bar. You must have its mana efficiency. As support you will not have the luxury of blue buff and extensive mana regen itemization.
E is maxed over W for a key reason. Reliability. It never misses. You absolutely NEED to be able to ignite your enemy for a stun. In league of dashes and gap closers its just far too easy to have your W dodged or miss. The absolutely reliable damage of E and as a setup for Q is invaluable. Its CD also reduces with level for more uptime on your CC.
Initially I tried W over E max, and it's an acceptable skill order, but through experimentation I believe E>W's reliability is significantly stronger with the amount of mobility in the game. I would still consider maxing W over E if the enemy teamcomp is extensively ranged. The more melee range divers they have, the stronger E max is.
MASTERIES & RUNES
Mpen Reds
Hp/lvl Yellows
CDR/lvl Blues
Mpen Quints
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/HdrIRdR.png)
New 9 util is poo, you are going to be doing a lot of damage.
ITEMIZATION
Open Spellthief and pots
Sightstone because you are a support and don't forget it.
Sorc boots for mobility and to benefit your passive/base damages
Morellonomicon to allow you to spam optimally, hit CDR cap, and to reduce all healing on every member of the enemy team for an ungodly length of time with your passive.
After this it depends on composition. I have favored Abyssal vs AP to prevent you from being instagibbed, provide that juicy pen, and assist your team with your aura. I also like Zhonyas for the same survivability reason, it can allow you an entire second spell rotation or enable huge turnarounds with a stun coming out of invulnerability. Many other items are fine. I build basically identical to a second AP carry, with more emphasis on survival to get another stun off over huge damage.
Why Not Liandry's Rylais first?
Pretty simply, you need the CDR and mana regen to be able to do your thing. Rylais and Lyandries are big expensive items that will lead you to a huge power dip until they are completed that you cannot afford. Fighting the first mid tower sieges and dragon fights with zero cdr and a giants belt is fucking terrible. Without Morellonomicon your stun uptime is too low, and you will end up without the mana to even execute a full combo. You will have to forgo nearly all prefight poke. Not good.
L&R are solid pickups after you have your base of morellos/sorcs/sightstone/spelltheif.
LANING
Posture aggressively and use Q fairly to poke when you have a good chance of hitting, spam more liberally the more spellthief stacks you have. Getting level two ahead of your enemy is extremely potent. Walking straight up to an enemy, Eing them, then Q will wreck a trade at level two. If you land this combo at level two the lane will be extremely in your favor.
After lvl two window you will play less aggressively poking with Q only until opportunity presents itself. A safe E is fine when you need to burn spellthief stacks.
Lvl 6 is a ludicrous powerspike. If you can bait an engage/countergank or land a stun you will devastate a 2v2 with your ultimate, play EXTREMELY aggressively. Your finishing DOT with ignite and passive is HUGE and can easily kill someone through heal, do not underestimate your raw damage.
As a basicguide:
1. Harass safely with Q constantly.
2. Allin on level advantage or low HP.
3. Never harass with W or E unless you have tons of mana and need to use spellthief stacks.
FIGHTING
Before a fight, poke constantly with Q for the %HP and nice chunk of dmg. HOLD YOUR Q IF YOU SUSPECT AN ENGAGE SHORTLY. You will need the stun.
In a teamfight stay behind your carries. E and Q stun anyone who dives onto them. Its very easy to land as they have to stay on the stuns path to attack your carry. HOLD W UNLESS IT WILL GIVE YOU A KILL. You are saving your W to allow your second Q to stun the second its off CD.
If you must, EQ quickly, most of the time its much better to make sure and line it up perfectly. Its usually far better to land the stun a half second slower than to miss it entirely.
The second you have an opportunity to ult 2+ people, take it. You need to get it off before you die, and the damage is far more important than trying to get a perfect target (unlikely). Teamfights usually begin the most clumped and then spread out as they progress. The raw damage of a bouncing ult will win your fights regardless of who its on. Ulting early will also ignite many or all of the enemies, allowing nice easy casual stuns even while holding E for later. It also applies Morellinomicon grievous wounds to the entire enemy team for 8 seconds due to you passive.
Do not be afraid to stun a diving initiator or tank. Your cd is only ~4 seconds, it will be up again for a higher priority if your team can kite even a little bit. The luxuries of playing Brand.
Lategame you will become a serious damage threat all on your own. Its still most important to peel for your carries, and to get AN ult off before dying. If you manage a decent ult and blow your QWE load you have a great chance of winning any fight because you did a retarded amount of damage.
TIPS AND TRICKS
1. Go into dragon pit and shoot a Q into tribrush at the game start. If it lands you got yourself 15 gold for free.
2. Take an extra second to line up your q's. Missing it is almost always way worse than delaying it .5 seconds.
3. Position right behind your carries to make Q easy to land on any divers or initiators.
4. To prevent chasers, W in their path, then Q for the stun. Much longer range and them must walk into W to continue pursuit.
5. Unless you are fed, its better to hold your spells and use each one to proc a Q stun. Maxed out you can chain 4+ two second stuns with 1.6 seconds between them if you space out your skill usage correctly, this will completely fuck any melee character. Fuck Taric you have 6 seconds of hard CC on a bad day.
6. Do not panic and blow skills if you get dived or caught. You need them to proc stun. Calmly walk in a direction and wait for Q CD's.
7. If you blow your load in a teamfight and are low do not stick around and auto. Run like a bitch until your CD's are back. Landing one more QW or E on an unignited gragas chasing your ass is worthless compared to another two second stun slightly later.
8. Ult a low health fleeing enemy tank or initiator, they will often run away and carry your ult into their own backline.
9. Don't ignore the fact that your ult prioritizes champions if it hits ignited enemies, try to ignite two targets before pressing R if there are minons present.
I've been having massive success with this champion so far, you provide far more hard cc than most support could dream of, and your damage is game winning. I have had the most damage dealt on the team in half of my games so far, and been a close number 2 in most others. I've played Vel'koz support quite a bit and Brand does more damage, is more reliable when played correctly, and provides MASSIVELY more peel and hard teamfight CC than he does. He's definitely tricky, requires positioning, and skillshot accuracy. But if you play him with the correct mindset these are not actually extremely difficult. He feels far far more reliable in a support role than he does in mid, as it allows him to play reactively and use his ult in lane to its full power. His stun is absurdly long and frequent compared to modern CC, and its very very easy to land it when you aren't the one being targeted.
Now go play him.
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Interesting guide. Out of curiosity, why do you think Brand support hasn't seen competitive play? We've seen Vel Koz on occasion, but I've never seen a Brand. He seems like a stronger more reliable Vel Koz in my opinion.
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On June 10 2015 09:10 Sonnington wrote:
Interesting guide. Out of curiosity, why do you think Brand support hasn't seen competitive play? We've seen Vel Koz on occasion, but I've never seen a Brand. He seems like a stronger more reliable Vel Koz in my opinion.
Honestly I just think he is unexplored and pros rarely try new things. There are weakness to brand but I think that is the main reason.
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Really good guide! Unfortunately I can't play much due to suss internet at the moment, but Brand has always been one of my most played champions. I play him mainly mid, but I have played the odd support game here and there.
I like the Q max idea and it's one I never tried, but how does it fair vs traditional W max damage wise? Do you feel you are missing out? Blazed W hits like a freight train on an ADC. Do you feel getting the combo off isn't as reliable as the Q max version?
I feel like eventually you will have to get a Rylai's. Lategame your damage falls off, but you still have good peel and Rylai's makes that even better. I agree that you don't prioritise it over CDR. That said, if I'm hella fed early (not hard sometimes), first back with a Haunting Guise is brutal.
Another hard to use, but neat trick is that you can E a target while Q is in flight to get a stun. Not always practical, but it can happen and be useful.
Brand vs Vel'Koz: Vel feels a lot safer than Brand. His main source of poke is easier to hit (Geometry is useful) Also, his mana costs are lower and his Ult is more reliable. I'd consider Vel a tier above Brand in the support list.
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Played lots of support brand in s4 gold. Fully approve this guide. Highest damage in team while playing support feels really awesome. I also recommend zyra, for same reason, loads of damage with few items.
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I'm not conviced 0 armor and 0 mr with only scaling health in runes is the way to go. That forces you to play incredibly passive as you lose every fight possible early on.
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Baa?21242 Posts
On June 11 2015 00:40 Prog wrote:
I'm not conviced 0 armor and 0 mr with only scaling health in runes is the way to go. That forces you to play incredibly passive as you lose every fight possible early on.
I agree with this. What happens when you meet up with an aggressive fighting lane who just runs up at you pre-6? Someone like Leona/Cait or Lucian/Braum or whatever combination that can fight at 2 - 3 with mixed AP/AD damage?
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On June 10 2015 17:36 JazzVortical wrote:
Really good guide! Unfortunately I can't play much due to suss internet at the moment, but Brand has always been one of my most played champions. I play him mainly mid, but I have played the odd support game here and there.
I like the Q max idea and it's one I never tried, but how does it fair vs traditional W max damage wise? Do you feel you are missing out? Blazed W hits like a freight train on an ADC. Do you feel getting the combo off isn't as reliable as the Q max version?
In a real game Q is just far more mana efficient per point of damage done. A level three Q does 160+.65 compared to a 165+.60 for W (unignited). Each W cost 160% of a Q, it doesn't do nearly 160% damage even ignited, which probably requires using another non efficient and close range skill (E). It just cost way too much mana. With Q max you can steadily and reliably output strong poke and barely lose anything even in an allin.
I feel like eventually you will have to get a Rylai's. Lategame your damage falls off, but you still have good peel and Rylai's makes that even better. I agree that you don't prioritise it over CDR. That said, if I'm hella fed early (not hard sometimes), first back with a Haunting Guise is brutal.
I don't feel brands damage falls off at all lategame.
Brand vs Vel'Koz: Vel feels a lot safer than Brand. His main source of poke is easier to hit (Geometry is useful) Also, his mana costs are lower and his Ult is more reliable. I'd consider Vel a tier above Brand in the support list.
With Q max you are much more comparable to velkoz poke, his is a bit easier to land, but brands does more damage and 8% max hp and procs spellthief three times.
Brands ult has a lot of advantages over velkoz
1. If you get jumped on velkoz ult is worthless, brands is incredible.
2. Brand's ult works as long as two targets are within 750 range, which is basically all the time in lane.
Velkoz is great in lane (most of the time). For teamfighting I really prefer brand's ult. It's massive almost guaranteed damage. While velkoz ult can do absolutely nothing if he is CCed or jumped, and very little even if a fight is only spread a tiny bit.
Mostly though Velkoz offers one source of really really unreliable hard CC on a massive CD. He's basically a pure glass cannon damage source and nothing else. This is why he's a cheesy pseudo support AP carry. Brand has ridiculous peel and can output 6+ seconds of chained stuns in a teamfight, he's actually a real support with crazy damage.
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On June 11 2015 00:54 Carnivorous Sheep wrote:Show nested quote +On June 11 2015 00:40 Prog wrote:
I'm not conviced 0 armor and 0 mr with only scaling health in runes is the way to go. That forces you to play incredibly passive as you lose every fight possible early on. I agree with this. What happens when you meet up with an aggressive fighting lane who just runs up at you pre-6? Someone like Leona/Cait or Lucian/Braum or whatever combination that can fight at 2 - 3 with mixed AP/AD damage?
I've been able to get away with it just by virtue of your range. You don't have to trade damage with many champions, and if they posture very far forward they are extremely easy to repeatedly Q, which nobody can stand for any length of time with its cost and %hp. You stun also shuts down trades very quickly if landed.
The alternative would be to run:
Flat HP yellows: ok, they break with scaling at level six
Armor: there is so much magic damage bot lane that i don't think they are great, you get hit by support poke much more than ad's.
The CDR is just so so powerful in that it allows you to hit cap with just morellos. Without it it distorts your entire build path horribly.
Mostly though I've been able to succeed with it. Brand doesn't trade damage much, he blows people up instantly, stuns them, or is out of range poking. Most times I'm caught I don't think a bit of additional armor and MR would save me. If like every pro level mid can run scaling CDR over MR in a 90% magic damage lane I feel pretty safe taking it in bot.
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On June 11 2015 04:10 sob3k wrote:Show nested quote +On June 11 2015 00:54 Carnivorous Sheep wrote:On June 11 2015 00:40 Prog wrote:
I'm not conviced 0 armor and 0 mr with only scaling health in runes is the way to go. That forces you to play incredibly passive as you lose every fight possible early on. I agree with this. What happens when you meet up with an aggressive fighting lane who just runs up at you pre-6? Someone like Leona/Cait or Lucian/Braum or whatever combination that can fight at 2 - 3 with mixed AP/AD damage? I've been able to get away with it just by virtue of your range. You don't have to trade damage with many champions, and if they posture very far forward they are extremely easy to repeatedly Q, which nobody can stand for any length of time with its cost and %hp. You stun also shuts down trades very quickly if landed.
The problem in those cases is that the enemy can zone your ADC from cs really easily. If you're forced to play back and just throw out the occasional Q, life isn't gonna be fun for your ADC.
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On June 11 2015 04:13 Fildun wrote:Show nested quote +On June 11 2015 04:10 sob3k wrote:On June 11 2015 00:54 Carnivorous Sheep wrote:On June 11 2015 00:40 Prog wrote:
I'm not conviced 0 armor and 0 mr with only scaling health in runes is the way to go. That forces you to play incredibly passive as you lose every fight possible early on. I agree with this. What happens when you meet up with an aggressive fighting lane who just runs up at you pre-6? Someone like Leona/Cait or Lucian/Braum or whatever combination that can fight at 2 - 3 with mixed AP/AD damage? I've been able to get away with it just by virtue of your range. You don't have to trade damage with many champions, and if they posture very far forward they are extremely easy to repeatedly Q, which nobody can stand for any length of time with its cost and %hp. You stun also shuts down trades very quickly if landed. The problem in those cases is that the enemy can zone your ADC from cs really easily. If you're forced to play back and just throw out the occasional Q, life isn't gonna be fun for your ADC.
I haven't had this problem too bad yet in about 20 games, The threat of a stun and followup from the AD has kept people from being able to zone very effectively. The poke is also more than an occasional Q, almost anyone will be too low to stand forward after 2-3 hits. It's just pretty hard to zone an AD badly without a lead in lane, and makes you really vulnerable to ganks.
If you wanna run Flat armor and MR or AP blues go for it. I don't think its bad, I have just been winning lane without it and having a crazy mid and lategame.
EDIT: Just got my third S+ game in a row.
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Ok, now I went 1-7 but we still won
You can actually chain just Q's for stun at 40% CDR, you have to stand very close to your target to account for cast and travel time, but you can just mash Q on them and it will proc stuns every cast because the CD is 3.6s, while the burn duration is 4s.
For practical purposes this is great for taking crab, which takes increased damage while CCed.
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On June 10 2015 09:29 sob3k wrote:Show nested quote +On June 10 2015 09:10 Sonnington wrote:
Interesting guide. Out of curiosity, why do you think Brand support hasn't seen competitive play? We've seen Vel Koz on occasion, but I've never seen a Brand. He seems like a stronger more reliable Vel Koz in my opinion. Honestly I just think he is unexplored and pros rarely try new things. There are weakness to brand but I think that is the main reason.
I think he's a higher risk/higher reward Annie (Particularly in lane). It's just that sheer awesomeness of flash tibbers (and reliable CC) that makes people favor Annie over him.
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On June 11 2015 07:59 Ethelis wrote:Show nested quote +On June 10 2015 09:29 sob3k wrote:On June 10 2015 09:10 Sonnington wrote:
Interesting guide. Out of curiosity, why do you think Brand support hasn't seen competitive play? We've seen Vel Koz on occasion, but I've never seen a Brand. He seems like a stronger more reliable Vel Koz in my opinion. Honestly I just think he is unexplored and pros rarely try new things. There are weakness to brand but I think that is the main reason. I think he's a higher risk/higher reward Annie (Particularly in lane). It's just that sheer awesomeness of flash tibbers (and reliable CC) that makes people favor Annie over him.
In lane sure, but out of lane they do completely different things. Annie is an initiator/assassin, and Brand is basically Janna who shoots fire. The only thing they have in common is they both do a fuckton of damage.
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I'm so happy to see a guide espousing the value of Support Brand. Support Brand is by far my most played champ/role, with a 70% win rate up to Plat 4 and countless more games in normals. Supports just aren't meant to do this much damage. To put it in perspective, I almos talways do more champion damage than two of my 3 core carries and while poke damage makes the stat a bit misleading plenty of it is meaningful teamfight/skirmish damage. You can't always pick him and he has a steep learning curve, but I absolutely agree he's disgustingly strong, not to mention a ton of fun (I LOVE the combo playstyle). He needs very little gold to do the damage of a fully farmed AP midlaner, but he still uses gold well if he can get his hands on some.
For me his biggest weakness is setting up vision. He's squishy as a solo laner, as a supp he's paper, particularly if you build predominantly AP. Expanding the vision line (because no one else does in solo Q) is incredibly dangerous to the point where it almost feels like a dice roll if you don't have vision of the enemy jungler. Almost all other supports have a better time than Brand in this area I feel.
I max W in lane. The better mana/damage ratio of Q is a point well made, but I find W far more effective. It's too easy for players to hide behind minions when you max Q, meaning the opportunity to use your ridiculous poke is restricted, while it leaves you and your adc vulnerable as you're using your only defensive ability. Landing W is as simple as waiting for the enemy ADC to last hit. It's brutally oppressive poke that more often than not forces them away from the minion line. It also means your E > Q > W combo does more damage which is big in an all-in. While mana can be an issue pre-sightstone I just I keep a mana pot or two at all times and it feels managable. By the midgame you have a regen item and the mana costs become far less important.
I go the Liandries/Rylais route, although you very rarely get there. I find support builds to be less about getting to a goal and more about doing what you can with what you have at the time. Liandries and Rylais are expensive but have easily obtained components and if you do manage to complete them both you just melt through everything. Guise is an amazing item that doesn't break the bank and a Giant's belt is pretty fantastic on it's own. I almost never buy NLR items because I almost never go back with 1600g and I hate sitting on a ton of money as a support. Zhonya's is cool, but it isn't as vital to Brand's kit as it is to say Morgana's. My build is usually:
Spellthief
Sightstone/Upg spellthief/boots
Idol/Chalice (depending on amount of magic damage on the enemy team)
Sorc Shoes
CDR item (Morello or Grail)
Guise
Giant's belt (sell spellthief's somewhere in there)
Finish Liandries/Rylais
Void Staff (or Zhonyas)
I run MPen quints. Early game it's amazing and by the time I had Sorc shoes/Guise I'm usually be hitting someone with 30mr so I get value out of them. What's the reasoning behind AP quints?
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I've been trying rylais lyandries after morello, feels pretty good but honestly I can't tell much of a difference.
Now that I look at the numbers I do think Mpen quints are probably better. I'll switch them out.
The vision thing is annoying but not that much worse than other supports, you have to get caught by two people to die usually, one you can stun and run many times. I mean its always terrible wandering out into the unknown when you are losing and have no vision, you die a lot doing that on any support.
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On June 13 2015 04:58 sob3k wrote:
I've been trying rylais lyandries after morello, feels pretty good but honestly I can't tell much of a difference.
Now that I look at the numbers I do think Mpen quints are probably better. I'll switch them out.
The vision thing is annoying but not that much worse than other supports, you have to get caught by two people to die usually, one you can stun and run many times. I mean its always terrible wandering out into the unknown when you are losing and have no vision, you die a lot doing that on any support.
This is your answer on why support brand isn't played.Your runes are pretty much all the evidence that is needed to show you don't understand the support role for anyone to take this guide seriously.
Even the most yolo of supports played annie has an on demand instant undodgeable stun which makes it at least possible to escape and also offers real qualities that people want in a support not what people who don't want to play support but do so and try to play mid.
I don't think brand is that bad but is definitely inferior to the popular supports right now.
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sob3k, what is your League account name? That way I can check in what kind of games you play him etc.
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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.
Your runes. No bueno. Scaling health/lvl as well as a lack of MR will result in you burning a flash or dying level 1/2. What's going to happen is one of 2 things:
1) Both sides walk into lane without doing gromp/krugs. They scroll over and see you have 25 armor, 30 MR and they'll immediately outshove and just zone you off the minion wave. If you go to contest, you have Q and well you're a useless sack of shit level 1. You may get some damage, but they'll hit 2 faster and if you get greedy you'll just end up blowing a summoner or instantly dying.
2) Both sides take gromp/krugs. Enemy hits 2 same time as you. You guys go all in and you either are able to dodge an enemy skillshot in which you win or you get hit by a skillshot in which you just lose.
Don't see how you win games taking Q at level 1 or going to lane with 450 HP, 25 armor, and 30 MR.
Also, you advocate poking with Q which is fine for damage and harass, but the instant they know your Q is off CD, well they can just go kill you because you're Brand and you have no escapes and you no longer have a stun. =D
Don't get me wrong, I like playing support Brand and it's mad fun to do tons of damage, but there's a reason why people max W and use that to poke instead of with Q, which is just calling for your death.
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On June 13 2015 05:21 nafta wrote:Show nested quote +On June 13 2015 04:58 sob3k wrote:
I've been trying rylais lyandries after morello, feels pretty good but honestly I can't tell much of a difference.
Now that I look at the numbers I do think Mpen quints are probably better. I'll switch them out.
The vision thing is annoying but not that much worse than other supports, you have to get caught by two people to die usually, one you can stun and run many times. I mean its always terrible wandering out into the unknown when you are losing and have no vision, you die a lot doing that on any support. This is your answer on why support brand isn't played.Your runes are pretty much all the evidence that is needed to show you don't understand the support role for anyone to take this guide seriously. Even the most yolo of supports played annie has an on demand instant undodgeable stun which makes it at least possible to escape and also offers real qualities that people want in a support not what people who don't want to play support but do so and try to play mid. I don't think brand is that bad but is definitely inferior to the popular supports right now.
I totally understand the objection to the runes, If Brand was played in a competitive game he would probably be running flat HP. In my games I'm still winning lanes with scaling/CDR, so I'm going to continue to run them. As a soloque I value damage more than if I was playing more organized or even knew my AD at all.
I feel much more comfortable getting caught as Brand than Annie, your stun is longer and you can easily land it twice. Its basically impossible to miss it on someone chasing in melee range (nearly all jungles).
I want to stress that the reason I feel brand is a strong support is his stun. His damage is great but primarily his utility and peel is fantastic. You can get crushed in lane and still provide a huge amount of CC. That's why I max Q and E for reliability. I'm not trolling with mid champions, I play a lot of really supporty supports (janna with armor quints etc), and I really feel Brand offers a ton of utility.
On June 13 2015 05:52 Fildun wrote:
sob3k, what is your League account name? That way I can check in what kind of games you play him etc.
My name is KKGWsob3k, I play teambuilder, so its a range of skill levels. I tanked my (hidden) ELO a bit after I got bored of Sion, but I'm climbing back up on Brand. I see diamonds again pretty frequently now but I'm under no illusions that I'm playing at top level. I'm interested to see how he'll do as I keep playing him. I just know he feels very strong to me right now.
You guys want me to play ranked for the first time in a brazillion years and see where I end up after a few weeks? I would be down for that. I'm completely unranked so it would be a good experiment. Science!
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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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But you can't just wait around as Draven. Brand's W is too strong. If he tries to sit and catch axes all day waiting for you to overextend you just keep landing easy W's and force him away.
Waiting for the Brand to get over-aggressive just sounds like waiting for the Brand to misplay because that's not what Brand should do in that lane. In fact I'd say Brand rarely wants to get overly aggressive/force things, you generally want to poke/zone and do more damage in an all-in. You're essentially saying a good bot lane beats a misplaying Brand.
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I don't really see why Draven can't just wait. Draven lifesteals a ton after his first buy.
I'd really have to see it, but we're certainly never going to willingly put Brand support into a Draven lane.
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So we finally saw out first Brand support in competitive (at least I think it was the first one). What do we think of PyL's build/performance? LGD played pretty poorly but it's hard to attribute that to the pick itself.
Personally, I didn't like the Mobi boots. Yeah they're cheaper and map mobility is huge in competitive but Sorcs are such an incredible buy that I would have made an exception here, particularly given how much HP there were on 4 of TSM's 5 members and how MR heavy they ended up building. They didn't lose those teamfights by much, a bit more damage would have been massive.
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United States37500 Posts
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damn, first competitive brand and they lose. If he had won expect it everywhere, now nobody will touch it for a year.
Unimpressed with the fact that he still ran standard AP Quints when magic pen is mathematically superior.
Also do not support no CDR, brand is not oppressive without his incredibly short cd stun.
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They wanted the uber slow from Rylai's. They wanted to be able to kite the low range/mobility team long enough for Kallista's damage to build up. It almost worked. If Imp respected Morde's melee damage in that last fight they would have won it.
My problem with the build was that he went Mobis > NLR. I know they wanted the slow but in a game like that he wasn't going to get to Rylai's in any reasonable time. He could have gotten Sorcs > Idol and had more impact for less gold or skipped the Mobi's to rush the Rylai's if it was that critical.
He maxed W btw.
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Pyl played it pretty awfully, like you said he really should have taken mpen-- I personally prefer 1 movespeed + 2 mpen. Better choice for first item would either be Zeke's or Luden's. Zeke's is easy pieces and you get some CDR with it-- while not particularly effective with Kalista, it's a great mini d-cap for Brand and can be swapped to Diana midgame. Luden's gives you some movespeed, and I like the Luden's + Sorc's combo which gives enough movespeed (then add in runes and masteries) and more squishy popping power.
Brief thoughts on lane:
-Pyl didn't do nearly enough damage, honestly Morde shouldn't even be able to get close to minions
-You can afford to pot up pretty hard cuz of a ton of extra gold from spellthief's
-Early glacial for Zeke's -> more spamming
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I think the theory was really, really good. Rylai's Brand is a peeling god vs champs with no dashes like Morde. Coupled with Kalista, LGD should have had an untouchable ADC every fight. It's a shame LGD ran it, because they are derping hardcore.
They screwed up in practice. I fully agree with the Sorcs instead of Mobis. I get it, you are a support. You want the extra speed to ward. But you are also Brand, who has high base damage and a non AP scaling damage passive. Mpen is god like on him. I actually didn't mind the idea of Rylai's first, provided the lane went as anticipated. Brand should've dominated that lane, but Pyl got hooked early and never really got the ascendancy. He shouldn't have forged ahead with Rylai's first when they weren't ahead.
I hate the idea that this might mean it isn't picked again, because it has merit.
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I would lean more towards "if your strategy to stop Morde revolves around having an item-based slow on your support you're gonna have a bad time". LGD had a ton of slow already with Glitterlance, Tramsogrify, Snowball and Absolute Zero. Given Morde is very much a priority target, I don't really see a problem with burning some CC/damage on him from other positions.
Crystal Scepter is nice from top or possibly mid as an early item as a mix of survivability and AP, but it's risky with support's income-- doing a very rough estimate, Pyl got 8.6K/35 mins, which means an income of 245 gold (we can assume that it was lower during laning phase and was inflated by teamfight assists and global tower gold) meaning it takes 12 minutes (as a low estimate) to build it. Oh, and Pytl dicks around and builds a sightstone, mobis and buys wards before, so he is literally useless as anything but a wardbot until he gets his NLR at 20 minutes... at which point his team is down 6K and then his Rylai's at 25 minutes... at which his team is down 9K. Yeah.
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United States37500 Posts
I think Support Brand is an improvement on Support Kennen. It's all about CC, all the way down to the Rylai's rush for both champions. The reason why I think Brand is actually better is because he's not entirely ulti dependent to get into team fights and his stun isn't reliant on the three tick system Kennen's is. Sure Kennen can possibly hard CC the entire enemy team while Brand can only target one but I think Brand's kit is a bit more flexible based on his QWE skills.
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I agree that picking Support Brand on the basis that he is amazing with a 3k item is risky at best. It even showed in game, with Pyl only picking up Rylais after LGD getting that good fight at baron catapulted him into a chunk of money.
I've said it before, I'd prefer teams look to Support Brand when they're low on magic damage late in the draft, are planning playing standard lanes, are facing a team with low levels of dive, don't need initiation from the support or some combination of the above.
I found it funny that people made a big deal of Brand doing more damage than Mord. Brands damage was actually pretty low, understandable given everyone on TSM built multiple MR items and he didn't have Mpen till the last fight. If they actually knew what the pick was capable of they'd be commenting on how low Pyls damage was.
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I was gonna write some commentary on the LGD TSM game, but LGD was just bad. It looks like a silver duo botlane trying really hard to look like pros by doing rotations and stuff vs a plat duo
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I bet I contributed pretty heavily to that, lol.
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United States37500 Posts
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On October 08 2015 18:02 Amarok wrote:
No Velkoz?
Ops.
I think I set my sample size threahold too high (3 k games) - so Velkoz got filtered out.
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I guess that means cheese picks like Lee or Lux didn't make the cut either-- you have the ability to filter champ games by positions?
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On October 09 2015 07:28 ticklishmusic wrote:
I guess that means cheese picks like Lee or Lux didn't make the cut either-- you have the ability to filter champ games by positions?
Basically, Riot has a way of identifying the positions. I just piggyback off their data.
And no, since there are 3k+ games per champion, you probably did not contribute that nuch 
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EPT
