Abilities:
Blaze (Passive): Brand's spells light his targets ablaze, dealing 2% of their maximum Health in magic damage per second for 4 seconds.
Sear: Brand launches a ball of fire forward that deals magic damage. If the target is ablaze, the target will be stunned for 2 seconds.
Pillar of Flame: After a short delay, Brand creates a pillar of flame at a target area, dealing magic damage to enemy units with the area. Units that are ablaze take an additional 25% damage.
Conflagration: Brand conjures a powerful blast at his target, dealing magic damage to them. If the target is ablaze, the conflagration spreads to nearby enemies.
Pyroclasm (Ultimate): Brand unleashes a devastating torrent of fire, dealing damage each time it bounces. If a target is ablaze, Pyroclasm's missile speed increases.



Updates

• Pure AP Nuke and slow build added 04/20/2011. Second build under team two. Thanks to Applepai and many others

Pros

1. Passive Ability combined with magic penetration dominates the early game phase and mid game as well
2. Low cooldown potential allows spamability of abilities in the mid game phase to apply the passive
3. Range for abilities is enough that you can hit an enemy with proper timing and get out of their range before they can use an ability on you
4. With two skill shots, and practice, you can unload a lot of damage in a short burst (nuking)
5. Once you get spell vamp, you will only have to recall if you are ganked heavily or want to buy items
6. Abilities provide excellent combos
7. With a stun, you can be invaluable not only in the mid lane, but in a group fight as well
8. Ultimate can deal up to 900 damage at level 1 if only champions are present and it bounces all five times between them

Cons

1. Does not gain damage in his abilities from Ability Power at high ratios, so end game damage is less than some other characters
2. Costs 6300 IP, so expensive if you are not sure you want to play him
3. With two skill shots, and only one target ability, it can be hard to hit the enemy if you do not have much practice with aimed abilities
4. Squishy character naturally (though Frozen Heart + Banshee's + Archangel's adds 20% cooldown reduction, 2275 mana, 25 mana regen per 5, 147 ability power, 99 armor, 375 health, and 50 magic resist with only 3 items!)
5. His ultimate can be stopped if it hits a target with a Banshee's Veil, and does less damage than many Ultimates, so if stopped, is much less useful

For the early game phase you are going to want to take the middle lane, but if you cannot for any reason, go to the top lane.

Mid Lane

Purchase Meki Pendant and a Health Potion or two if you need (recommended)
Put your first point in Conflagration and what you will want to do is stay out of attacking range of your enemy and then get just within your range, cast Conflagration and then get out of range before you get attacked. This will sum up to incredible harassing.

Second point into Pillar of Flame and third into Sear. Once you hit level two, hit the enemy with Conflagration and follow up with Pillar of Flame for incredible damage output. By level three, your enemy should either be playing incredibly defensively (and you can try to zone them to keep them from getting experience) or should have to recall. If they recall, force the minion wave to the turret so the champion does not get experiences for the minions that die, then recall and buy your boots.

Top lane

Same ability order as mentioned in top lane. Difference is that unless the lane has a healer such as Taric or Nidalee, then you and your lane-mate will select a target and you will continue to Harass them with Conflagrate Conflagration while your teammates does his or her own harassing on the same enemy.

Once you have forced a recall, take advantage and nuke down the other player will your ability combo: Conflagration > Sear > Pillar of Flame. With your teammate, you should get a kill and then you can keep the player who recalled earlier at length or try for a second kill.

Once you have reached level 6, you should have built your Tear of the Goddess and have one Amplifying Tome maybe. Skill order should be Conflagration Pillar of Flame Sear Pillar of Flame Conflagration Pyroclasm * Pillar of Flame* *comes at 7

You will want to be wary of ganks now as you will likely be the target

When your enemy comes within your range, make sure not to get hit by their attacks if avoidable (Anivia, Caitlyn, Ezreal, etc) and then use the following combo: Conflagration Sear Pillar of Flame and if they are weak enough for the kill: Pyroclasm.

If there are too many minions for you to hit with Sear before Pillar of Flame, then go:
Conflagration Pillar of Flame Sear and possibly Pyroclasm

After any kills, if you have gold to buy items, push minions away from your turret or to the enemy turret and then recall and purchase your Hextech Revolver and later Sorcerer's Shoes

If you notice enemies overextended in the top or bottom lane, gank before recalling or if you have teleport: recall, purchase, Teleport, dominate, win

Build the deathcap if you are not have survivability problems, but if you built the Negatron or chain vest in the mid game, go ahead and build that into your or appropriately. Then move onto the Deathcap and finish with the one of the two you did not build. If you have no survivability trouble, build Deathcap, Abyssal Scepter, Hourglass.

The hourglass will provide any survivability when you are within the range of your turrets, but if you get attacked and focused by multiple enemies at any stage in the game, it is not really a matter of survivability. If crowd control abilities stun or slow you and multiple enemies attack you, you will most likely die.

All build include the following items for the following reasons:

• The magic penetration in the early and mid game phases is an incredible Utility for Brand (one guide suggests cooldown reduction boots, but that is because that is a build for people who want cooldown reduction, not magic penetration)
• The additional mana is useful for many reasons. For one, your mana pool is greater so you can use more abilities naturally. Also, your masteries give you 1% of your mana as health regen which gives you a total of 10 health back per second once you have 1000 mana for TotG. The mana regen is also essential in addition to your runes to make sure you can harass heavily as well as stun enemies when you are ganked. YOU WILL BE GANKED if you play Brand well
• Different builds provide different items, but in all cases you get at least 120 ability power from the natural 40 and the passive 3% of maximum mana conversion. God-like mana regen means that you can spam your abilities a LOT and you will want to since the builds also include cooldown reduction.

Core Build Items

> > > > >
This is for a bit of survivability in any game situation and spellvamp to stay at your maximum health and the ability power that you will need to do damage while playing brand.

Items in Some Builds

• This is fairly obvious as Rabadon's provides a massive amount of ability power and then adds even more with its unique passive. It is not in every guide because I would only recommend building it when you are building all-out AP so that its passive benefits you the most
• and These two provide armor, and the Frozen heart provides a MASSIVE amount of armor. They both provide the essential cooldown reduction and add mana to the build which adds more ability power due to and more health regen through masteries.
• Provides excellent cooldown reduction and mana regeneration and ability power. An all-around good item to have on Brand.
• If you are building a Heavy AP build and are having trouble against physical characters, this is optimal because of the awesome 100 AP bonus as well as the nice 50 armor bonus. You buy this instead of when you do not need the armor as much and are planning on also buying a . It's active that allows you to "enter stasis" and take no damage of any sort for two seconds can really help in a bad situation
• built from the and provides more spellvamp and more ability power and also provides the team with an aura of spellvamp and ability power that benefits any other AP champions on your team in a teamfight
• Sometimes, the enemy team has a lot of AP Heavy champions and you need some magic resistance. How about 50 magic resistance and block any spell every 30 seconds. I say yes. The health also provides more survivability and the mana gives you more health regen through masteries and more AP through
• Sometimes the enemy has a Galio. And some other times, the enemy team does not appreciate that you are playing Brand incredibly well and decides to build or and that hurts your feelings. Don't be down, turn it around! Void staff nearly cuts their magic resistance in half and if you are following the magic penetration build I made (Team 1, first build), then your masteries apply another 15% magic penetration, meaning that 55% total destroys half of their magic resistance to your attacks!
• This item is a must when you are dominating in a game and the enemy is not building magic resistance. The stacks provide 8 ability power each with a maximum of 160 ability power + the 20 ability power it has naturally. And at 20 stacks, you get the ever-so-amazing 15% cooldown reduction addition. If you reach 20 stacks with this item, the game should definitely end in your favor. The reason I do not recommend this in most of my builds is that if you build it before your or , then you will only have 20 ability power to work with for your abilities and it will be very hard to get any kills to provide stacks for the ability power and eventually the cooldown reduction. But when a game is really going your way, this will add insult to injury against the other team.

We all know that no build is ideal for every game, and it is hard to cover every possible type of game, but my builds do not cover some situations, and the items below will fill those gaps.

*Following thanks to "awwsmm"*
This item can be very useful for the player that is having trouble hitting enemies with aimed ability on Brand. By slowing the enemy with each spell, you would be able to set up the following combo a lot easier:
> > by slowing initially with Conflagration and then the pillar of flame will be more likely to hit as the enemy will be moving slower and will be less likely to get out of range and then your Sear (which will apply the stun if it hits now) is more likely to hit as the enemy is moving slower and cannot dodge as easily. The health bonus from the item is also more useful (500 health) if you are having survivability troubles.

This item is a common starting item for many AP caster builds and I have started with this item in some games. the problem is that in the end-game phase, you just end up selling it. The good thing is that you only lose around 220 gold from selling it. And this item is very powerful as a first item because you get health, ability power, and mana regen in fair amounts, but you cannot buy any health or mana potions if you need to which could cripple you. So this item I cannot argue for or against, I can just provide a short list of pros and cons
Pros

• 100 health, 15 AP, 5 mana per 5 instead of 200 mana, or 7 mana per 5
• You do not have to choose between Mana and mana regen as this provides Ability power and mana regen
• 100 health = 1/5 of your health extra so roughly 600 instead of 500. More survivability

Cons

• Though it is only 2 mana per 5 less than , this item does not build into anything (notably the TotG ) which sets your core build back
• Takes you longer to build the which is where your extended laning ability comes from (quite important)
• 15 ability power is nice, but slows down your purchase of the amplifying tome which is 20 ability power

Overall, the Doran's ring provides more EARLY early game power while my builds provide better success in the MID and LATE early game phases as well as the mid game and late game phases.

I have heard that many people enjoy throwing this item on Brand, and I agree that the magic resist and Mana are nice additions to the Ability power, but the item costs nearly as much as the which is a massive amount (3470 gold for Lich Bane, 3600 for DeathCap) and this item would likely be built last. The ability to deal an additional 100% of your ability power in damage is nice for pushing turrets and sneaking in a final hit on an enemy as well. I just find that other item combinations sum up better than what the cost of Lich Bane provides you with for its cost. I could see it used as a magic resistance item and ability power item and its other traits stack well with my build items. This item is categorized as Situational because I believe the player should determine if they want this or not. I personally choose against it and have only purchased it once out of 45 games while playing Brand, but not every player has the same play style.

This item is very expensive and would have to take the place of another item in the build. Throwing in another Pros/Cons section for this item.
Pros

• 60 Ability Power (80 ability power after 10 minutes) - pretty high and replacing another AP item would not result in much of a loss in AP
• 390 Health (630 after 10 minutes) - Nice for survivability. Even nicer if you have build magic resistance and armor because the health goes further when you negate more damage
• 525 Mana (725 after 10 minutes) - Adds quite a bit to your mana pool and with you gain additional ability power :D
• Item has several different bonuses to provide the champion with

Cons

• 3035 gold (very expensive)
• After investing 3035 gold, you have to wait 10 minutes to get the full effects from the item. Similar logic to the Soul Stealer. Crippling initially because of its cost and initial benefits
• sets back the rest of the build unless built late in the game and if it is built late in the game, it is not likely that 10 minutes will pass and you will receive the full effects from this item
• Having to get rid of another item in the build means that its benefits are not as good as they appear as the other items in the build combine very well with other items in the build.

Your call on this item as well. If the game looks like it might end up taking "Ages", go for it, if not, I personally would not choose this item.

Teaming with other Casters

Team synergy here consists of mostly any other champions that can nuke or have a root / slow / stun. In order of most helpful to least helpful (in my opinion), best character combinations would be:

1. Ryze : Root, plus Magic resistance reduction and both champions having low cooldowns is a force to be reckoned with
   
2. Malzahar : Malzahar can open with his ultimate over his AOE spell and while the enemy is suppressed, you can burn him with your W, and then after the suppress wares off, you can stun with Q and then use E and R if needed (but you should not need to use your R unless attacking a tank or Galio)
   
3. Lux : With her root and her slow, and your stun, enough said :D
   
4. Swain : Keeping swain within range of his R with your stun and his ability to root the enemy immediately after your stun wares off is quite a dangerous combo
   
5. LeBlanc : Although LeBlanc is amazing alone, up against multiple enemies, LeBlanc can easily pick off an enemy while the two of you reduce the health of the rest of the enemies significantly
   
6. Annie : Massive nukeability and two stuns, but annie will be targeted and you have no abilities to protect her. So long as she is not fragile as the game goes through, the combo would be very nice though.
   
7. Anivia : Stunning an enemy so that Anivia is able to aim her stun and follow up with the ice shard while slowing with her R is deadly. Her ice wall will prevent escape as well. Being able to protect Anivia is very nice too as he or she will most likely have a soulstealer
   
8. Heimerdinger : If Heimer can get behind an enemy and set up turrets and you can force the enemy to Heimer, it is game over because with a slow from the turrets and Heimer's R ability, you will easily hit the target with your stun, allowing the turrets to continue hitting and slowing the enemy after your stun wares off. This sync works great for team fight situations as well
   
9. Morgana : Her root allows you to get your stun off quite easily with a Conflagration > Sear Combo which would allow you to use your Pillar of Flame and would allow your Morgana to use her ult while the enemy is stunned, resulting in a second stun after yours wares off. Her root would be up shortly after her Ult. ended if you cannot manage to kill a tank or someone will massive Magic Resistance (ie. Galio) with that combo. This would be the best combination in my opinion, but either Brand or Morgana should be mid lane if they are both in a game
   
10. Cho'Gath : this lane combination allows your Pillar of Flame to easily hit the enemy after Conflagration once Cho'Gath pops them into the air with Rupture. This also benefits Cho'Gath greatly because he build more tanky as his abilities can be used as support to help you nuke the enemies and he can finish with the all-powerful Devour
    
11. Nunu & Willump : his slow in combo with your stun from Sear as well as a great amount of damage output with little mana costs (with your mana regen built accordingly) and Nunu's Passive ability will lead to a lack of difficulty in your lane.
    
12. Veigar : His stun from his AoE ability will allow you to Conflagration the enemy with easy and proceed to stun one with Sear and use Pillar of Flame as a possible finish. If his AoE traps multiple enemies, quickly fire off Pyroclasm to hit them all and some multiple times. This would also be a great example of where your Will of the Ancients has a nice benefit as Veigar will benefit as well. His Dark Matter AoE spell will also hit the stunned enemies and you can each pick off enemies with his ultimate and your combo again
    
13. Zilean : He is powerful alone. Brand is powerful alone. Together, they can work magic. Time bombs + harass from Conflagration and your passive and the occasional Pillar of Flame when they overextend means the enemies will have low health and should never get close enough to you to be a threat. Later, Zilean can use his abilities to speed you up to chase down a kill or escape, removing the need for Ghost and allowing you to grab Teleport instead if you know the Zilean personally and trust him to save you.
    
14. Soraka : As health is what you lack in early game (which is why you build Hextech Revolver and later Will of the Ancients), having a Soraka to heal you allows you to lane longer and you can allow her to get minion kills if you can overpower the enemies by hitting both with Pillar of Flame and keeping them low with Conflagration. Anyone who lanes with Soraka will be happy unless they are squishy and get zoned, but to pick the right person to lane with Soraka, you have to find someone who can dominate the lane and allow Soraka to get in and get last hits for gold to benefit the team. The champions that dominate in such a way are Lux and Brand and a couple other.
    
    
    I am sure that there are other possibilities, and I may add every single possibility as I come across them, but these are the ones that seem the most useful to me.

Teaming with Physical Damage

1. Xin Zhao : After Xin slows the enemy and pops him into the air, your stun should be a guaranteed hit, allowing Xin to slow again shortly after your stun ends and get the kill
   
2. Master Yi : Allowing Yi to stay on an enemy and get on the other side of them even, while they are stunned, allows him to get off several high-damage attacks and if he has the buff from the ancient lizard, he will slow them, possibly allowing you to stun again.
   
3. Tryndamere : Better for damage than Yi, but you have no ability to save tryndamere in a bad situation where other casters may be a better combination to help him survive
   
4. Miss Fortune : Her slow allows you to land your AOE spell on the target then stun the target for Miss Fortune's Ult which deals massive amounts of damage if you are in range for the entire duration
   
5. Ashe : Ashe slows the enemy enough for you to catch up and stun. GG
   
6. Pantheon : Two stuns, allows his Multi-target spear to attack the stunned target for entire duration, allows his R ability to land directly on a target if timed properly
   More to come here as well as I play more games
   
7. Jarvan IV : Until level 6, he is not the best to lane with, but your stun will allow him to land hits easily with his flagstand ability and his other ability that allows him to get pulled to it, popping enemies into the air much easier and once he pops them into the air, you can hit them with your Pillar of Flame much more easily for that extra 25% damage.
   At level 6, this combination is scary, especially if Jarvan has built survivability. If he traps one enemy with his ultimate, then you can Conflagration > Sear combo them to stun them and then Pillar of Flame while Jarvan is continually pounding the enemy (not taking reciprocal damage part of the time because you stunned them). If he traps two enemies, you can open with Pyroclasm and then Sear one of them, follow with Conflagration to hit both and Pillar of Flame to get the bonus on both. Again, Jarvan is attacking as well the entire time, producing amazing results.
   
8. Jax : Once you stun the enemy, Jax can jump to the enemy and start pounding away and hopefully get a stun off assuming he dodged the attack of a minion recently. He has crazy damage output and though he is squishy, it is irrelevant if the enemy is stunned. This will also force the enemies to focus Jax, allowing you to cast freely. Though it becomes your responsibility to kill the enemies before they kill Jax.
   
9. Kayle : Not sure how you all classify her, but to me, she is Melee. Her heal and move speed boost ability allows you to stay at a decent amount of health while getting into range, hitting the enemy of choice with Conflagration and getting out before retaliation. This also allows you to chase down the enemy to get a Sear off if needed or get within range to Pillar of Flame an enemy that is low health and has your passive on them but is just barely outside of your range. And of course, her ultimate will save you. End of story.
   
10. Lee Sin : His ability to jump to you and shield you will keep you from short-burst nukes that are used to harass by enemies around level 3, such as Ryze with the Root, Fireball, Bouncing thingy combo. He has nice damage output and can slow the enemies by a considerable amount making Sear and Pillar of Flame easier to aim. His ultimate Dragon's Rage can force an enemy back within your range too, which would allow you to Conflagration > Sear combo, etc
    
11. Nocturne : My, my. I personally like Nocturne more in the Jungle, but if he is laning, Brand and Nocturne can be a great utility in a lane. You are both a bit squishy, but Nocturne can force fear on the enemy, keeping them in your range, while you use your Conflagration > Sear combo. If played properly, Nocturne benefits greatly from attacking a stunned enemy and your Sear does stun :D
    
12. Trundle : I'm not a Trundle fan myself, but his slow is impressive and can force the enemies into a particular direction allowing an easy hit from Sear to stun the enemy and you and Trundle can easily dispose of the stunned enemy.
    
13. Twisted Fate : His stun and your stun are easily used in combination, keeping the enemy stunned for roughly 3.5 seconds to 4 seconds depending on timing and skill of the enemy and summoner abilities, etc. Fate has great damage output and so do you. Works really well if he builts AD/AS so that the enemy cannot be safe by simply building magic resistance.
    

I think that Vladimir and Tristana and Urgot and Sivir would not be very good lane combinations as the abilities do not really benefit either player much at all and could be much better used to solo lane / lane with another champion.

So, I choose ghost every time because it is key for survivability in my opinion and allows you to chase down those enemies that have ghost or flash away but are still killable if you can catch them.

The second Spell is up in the air though. When i get back from class, I will discuss each spell and its Pro's and Con's. Your choice from there.
Update: Spells discussed below

Options:
Flash : Useful for getting to an enemy to finish them off, hop across the Baron barrier, dodging certain attacks, and escaping multi-man ganks

Now I do not recommend ignite at all as your passive has a similar effect and the spell is really only a great benefit in the early game phase, but if you disagree, please do explain. I am aware of its reduction of the enemy's healing, but in most cases, as you are a nuker late-game, that would not be a problem.

This could be useful as you do not have a slow of any sort and would be ideal for setting up a gank from an ally. You lure the enemy in, exhaust, and then your teammate jumps out and the two of you kill the enemy as you can get your stun easily

So why do I choose teleport? Welllll, I don't always. I mix it up, but teleport is what I use as a reference and what I suggest because unless you are playing high elo games or ranked, you should not need flash and Teleport gives you map control, lane push-ability and allows you to get from bottom lane to top lane to aid in a group fight. If you are in a really really tight spot you can just use it to teleport to the minions closest to your base.

Warning, do not use ghost to get within range to flash to an enemy for one kill and miss the kill and get attacked by the other four players on the team. Results may vary
Yes, I did that in one game D:

Under Construction

Champions that are viable in the Mid Lane:





I am sure there are other champions that can play mid, but these are the ones that are even mentionable as common.

How to Play Against Each:

Anivia

Anivia focuses on her skillshot: the iceball that is aimed and can be activated to pop and stun the enemy and her Frostbite that deals double damage to enemies that have been hit with the skillshot. This is the Anivia strategy early on. Knowing this and that the iceball has a cooldown of greater than 4 seconds allows you to wait until she misses with the skill shot (patience is required) and then get within range and hit with Conflagration. As she will likely be just outside your range when you dodge the ice ball, you can get within range within a portion of a second if she is not already running away.

It is possible that the Anivia player will have a lot of experience and will dominate you forcing you to play defensively (hug the turret) and not get off any combos. If this happens, I would recommend switching lanes to avoid possible death. However, if you have the upper hand, you can be a bit more risky and try to start your combo on Anivia : Conflagration > Sear > Pillar of Flame and she may retaliate with Frostbite, dealing minimal damage as you will not be slowed, and possibly the iceball and then Frostbite if the ice ball is off of its cooldown. The second scenario will stun you and hit fairly hard depending on her level in Frostbite, but either way you should be able to hit with an ability or two and apply the passive.

Anivia is especially annoying because of her passive that renews every 6 minutes. When Anivia enters her egg, she is at all full health again. It is likely that you will not force her into the egg and then kill her before she is "reborn" from the egg with the current remaining health, but while she is "egged", your skill shots are a guaranteed hit and if you use Conflagration > Pillar of Flame and Sear one second later, you will stun her after she leaves the egg, allowing an extra auto attack and allowing your passive to deal one more second of damage (it adds up)

Annie

Annie is not all that bad! Yay! When I get an Annie mid on the other team when I play Brand, I get pretty excited :D
She has a limited range for her abilities and the only threat is her stun. If she starts with her Q ability (the powerful fireball), she will not have the stun when she reaches the minions at level 1, but if she starts with W, she can use it as often as the cooldown is up at the spawn point and she could stun you with her first W spell, which catches some off-guard

Either way, with the limited range she has for her abilities, it is more than possible to sneak in, use Conflagration and get out before Annie can retaliate and get in range to cast on you. Annie also has to come within range of your Pillar of Flame range to hit you with any ability except her Tibbers, which means that you can set the cast for Pillar of Flame and then Conflagration before Annie is hit by the Pillar of Flame. If she has her 5 stacks from her passive, which you can check by left-clicking on her on your screen and checking buffs/debuffs for the number by the flame (5 = stun ready), then she may stun you right after you use Conflagration and may run to you, past your Pillar of Flame and then run away. If this is the course of action, change where you are aiming Pillar of Flame so that Annie has to either take damage, or run away.

Annie will not want to use any abilities once her stun is available as the ability would use up the stun and she would then have to get stacks again before she could use her stun on you. Use this to your advantage! If she has her stun stacks, use Pillar of Flame occasionally from outside of her range to harass, while taking no damage, and she will not use her abilities to farm minions, so you can cut off her gold supply as well. Make sure you only last-hit the minions to stay away from her turret. If you push to her turret then she is protected and you have to go close enough to the turret to get experience from minions which leaves you open for ganking.

If she does waste her stun on minions, rush in and combo her until her stun is available again. After level 6, be careful (especially if she has Flash as she can quickly nuke you dead as her Ultimate (Tibbers) does more damage in one hit than your Pyroclasm and she will open with it dealing massive damage in an instant and stunning you. Flash would allow her to jump into range from out of range, where you thought you were safe. Be ready in case that happens, to counter-flash (use flash immediately after she does).

Ashe

First thing to note. Ashe is squishy (very squishy) and if she does not purchase boots as a starting item, she is very slow meaning that when you go in for the kill, there will not be much she can do. Laning against her before level 6 is not bad at all. Make sure that you stay behind your minions to block volley from hitting you. Also, make sure to stay out of her auto-attack range so she cannot harass you.

My strategy is to get in, use Conflagration as with other champions, and follow up with Pillar of Flame just behind her so that she can only avoid the damage by running to you. if she does, she will likely run to you and attack / Volley you. Either way, this leaves an opening on Ashe. Now she will be directly in front of you. Cast Sear at her for a stun and then auto-attack and get back out of range so she can not hit you any after the stun wares off

After level 6, Ashe gets more tricky. Her ultimate (the giant arrow of Rape that everyone in the game knows) has a lower cooldown than your ultimate and she can shoot it anywhere, so as the mid, you have to always be ready to try to dodge her arrow (which is nearly impossible at point blank range. I would just suggest waiting for her to stop moving, then move back to your turrets to hopefully make her come within range to attack you.) and at the same time, you need to communicate to your team when she shoots her arrow at top or bottom lane to help her team.

When she is kiting you (hit and apply slow and follow and continue), you can end it easily with Conflagration > Sear as you will likely be at the edge of her range and it will only take you a half of a second to get out of her range while her slow will not last that much longer and your stun lasts longer. Also be weary of enemies missing from their lanes, because Ashe can stun you with her Ultimate and then another enemy can hit you with CC's and then Ashe can slow you continuously after that. If this happens and you don't have flash, you will die.

ANOTHER BRAND

This just comes down to who has the more adaptive build, the better runes / teammates and who has better reaction time / judgment. I always make sure to grab Conflagration first and harass the enemy Brand with that while remaining at nearly full mana, while he may do the same or put a point into Pillar of Flame and miss every other time and use more mana, giving me a nice advantage.

Not much to add to this section as the best way to counter the enemy is to know what the enemy needs to do in order to kill you and if you are playing Brand, you should know what you would want to do in the enemy's situation. Only tips are to play a little more aggressively when you get them to low health and to play more defensive when you are lower on health until your masteries get you your health back (roughly a minute and a half)

Caitlyn

Caitlyn can be similar to Ashe but her ultimate cannot be dodged (unless an ally jumps in front of the projectile and takes the damage for you) and she can lay traps anywhere that will immobilize you (stop you from moving) for a very short period of time (half second I believe) and deal damage and make you visible to the entire enemy team temporarily. She has no slow but has a similar timed ranged auto-attack.

Caitlyn also has an AoE moving ability that is shot at you and damages everything in its path. She can use this to harass you or to finish you off if you are not careful and playing smart. In order to succeed against a Caitlyn, you will need to match the damage from her Projectile ability with your Conflagration and occasionally your Pillar of Flame and your passive. When you have more health than her, she will be forced to pull back and occasionally launch her projectile at you, which you will have to react to fast enough or take damage from. But if she ever comes in to auto-attack you, just Conflagration and Sear and Pillar of Flame or Conflagration and Pillar of Flame

Her third ability shoots a net at you which does damage and slows you. It also launches her backwards in the opposite direction. She will use this a lot to escape. And there is not too much you can do about that, but she cannot use it every time you use Pillar of Flame or she will not have the mana to use any abilities offensively. Be careful because a Caitlyn with good timing will be able to auto attack a couple times, use the net to dodge your Pillar of Flame and then run toward you and launch her projectile to deal a fair amount of damage while you deal fairly little. So, don't get hasty or greedy!

Cho'Gath

Good ole' Cho'Gath! You are likely to find Cho'Gath in the top or bottom lane, but if he comes mid, he will be a challenge to take down, but not terrible hard to avoid if you have good reaction times (and will be a bit easier if you have laned against a Cho'Gath before). His Rupture will give you time to dodge (slightly more time than your Pillar of Flame and then pop you into the air, dealing damage and slowly you after you land. He will use Rupture to get into range to use his silence ability, which will keep you from defending yourself, and after level 6 he can use Rupture to get close enough to you to use Devour, which will ruin your day. Be warned: His rupture has longer range than your Pillar of Flame!

Corki

Ezreal

Heimerdinger

Karthus

Katarina

Kennen

Lux

Malzahar

Miss Fortune

Mordekaiser

Morgana

Nidalee

Ryze

Sion

Teemo

Tristana

Twisted Fate

Veigar

Vladimir

Xin Zhao

Zilean

Under Construction

Videos in introduction.

Runes for each build are shown in each build and just above this. If you have different preferences, that is fine, these are what have been shown to work for me.

Masteries are pretty straight forward and nearly the same for each build. Hard to argue against the masteries unless you plan on playing a tanky caster, which I will look into by the way

Items are discussed in each stage of the game in each respective section

Skill sequence is the same for each build, shown at the top

Summoner Spells are right above this

I will add videos as I play. Feel free to request any and I will be glad to add them for you.

Most importantly, enjoy the game and have fun! Good luck!