Brand Build Guide by Worolith

Introduction

Hi, i'm Worolith and i'm making this guide for you.

Why am i making this guide for you? Definitely not for fun. The reason i'm making this guide is because I've seen plenty of Brands play in stupid ways. I've seen them using all their spells on minions in early-game, I've seen them build AD. Clearly Brand can be played a lot better than this and i intent to teach you how. Even if i have to spend several hours typing this, it will be worth it to get rid of a few of those Brands who decide it will be a fun idea too have a cuddle with the enemy turret.

Warning : Ridiculously OP Brand

Do Not use this build unless you are in a like.... 1:30:00 game. It is what it is but it's awful early on. It turns you into a full glass cannon but is extremely expensive and hard to reach end build. As Brand, if there are 2 enemies on their summoner platform, you will be able to ult them and kill them both. It is seriously OP but as i said, i would never use it in a game unless we're really far in and i could just sell a load of stuff and get a long way into the build or maybe in a Proving Grounds as you get a lot of gold in that. Despite what the section at the top looks like for this build, it will actually give you around 1,300 ability power. This means your ult will do about 1000 damage with each hit. The downside is that you are incredibly squishy. this is a full glass cannon build. Only use it if you have at least 1 tank in your team, preferably 2.Have fun one-shotting! :)

Pros and Cons

Brand

Brand

Masteries

Masteries

1/1

3/4

4/4

1/1

3/2

4/1

4/3

1/4

1/1

3/3

1/1

3/3

1/4

Brand

Brand

Offense 1 For the passive for Ignite meaning you get 5 Ability Power when it's on cooldown. 1 For the extra Ability Power. 1 Cooldown reduction means more damage. 1 To help counter counter-builders. 3 Simple, increased damage means more damage! 4 Extra Ability Power that grows as you level helps keep you on track for the whole game. 4 5% Ability Power means more Ability Power throughout the whole game. 1 [indent[Simple, increased damage whenn they're lower is when you use your most powerful abilities making them do even more damage.[/indent] Utility 1 Less of a cooldown on Flash means you are more likely to evade death or get the kill. 3 More mana throughout the game to help counter Brands mana useage. 1 Move faster to get a kill or survive. 3 More mana regen increases lane pressence. 1 1% Spell Vamp to keep Brand going that little bit longer.

Runes

Runes
Greater Mark of Magic Penetration 9	Greater Seal of Scaling Ability Power 9	Greater Glyph of Scaling Ability Power 9	Greater Quintessence of Ability Power 3

I choose to get 9 of these for Brand. It helps counter build in the early game when brand is at his weakest. If any champ knows how to play Brand, if they have any brains at all, they'll know he's an Ability Power champ and build some magic resist and this helps counter a little before they get a large amount.

Skill Sequence

Ability Sequence
1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12	13	14	15	16	17	18

Pillar of Flame

because it does the most damage early game when you have less Ability Power. Late game Sear will do more damage as Pillar of Flame adds 60% of ability power to its damage and Sear adds 65%. However, when mixed with Blaze, Pillar of Flame will do 25% more damage so gives us more of an advantage Early-game.

fairly unlikely to hit an enemy with Sear because it's a skill shot and it collides with minions making it a pain in the Early-game. Conflagration isn't a skill shot and also, when combined with Blaze it does an AoE which can help get rid of some of those extra minions.

that you could miss but it can also hit minions. The other reason is that (despite doing alot of damage Late-game) we mainly need it for it's stun when we combine it with Blaze. This means we'll have a lot more burst early game than we would if we got this second or third.

Spell Rotation

12345 67 89

This is one of the most important things about Brand, without Skill Sequence, you are very unlikely to be able too burst your opponent down as well as surviving.

Blaze is the most important spell you have. Despite it

Conflagration

will always hit the target as it's a non-skill-shot and applies Blaze. I find that this is the easiest spell to open with as it's easy to use.

Blaze

won the battle, literally. Due to Blaze, your Sear not only does damage but doubles as a 2 second stun. This gives you a huge advantage as this is when you will inflict your most powerful abilities.

have Blaze on your target, i wouldn't worry too much, Pillar of Flame still does tons of damage on its own and it's only a 25% increase that your missing out on. The reason i cast Pillar of Flame before Conflagration is simply easier to hit. You want to use your skill shots when the target is motionless, if they're moving, there's a slight chance you'll miss so it's safer to use Conflagration before Pillar of Flame.

is very low, i don't recommend using Ignite as it has a long cooldown and it would be a waste if you were going too kill the opponent anyway. It's much better to save this for a tanky rival opposed to someone you can kill very easily.

Brand

fights. Any experienced LoL player will tell you not to wait for the perfect moment to use your ult, instead, use it when it will help you, be it secure a turret or a kill. Pyroclasm will generally be your finisher, it does a nice chunk of damage and it's not a skill shot so is very simple to use. It is rare that the enemy doesn't either die when i use my ult or from Blaze right afterwards.

Ignite

Flash

kill the enemy and they are out of range of your auto attacks and any spells that you will regain quickly. I generaly only use Flash to put Blaze on my target if they're very low or to counter. Several times i've been bursting someone and they Flash through a wall, i use Flash to follow them and secure the kill.

back too step 1 and apply Blaze and then stun with Sear. The only possible reason the enemy won't be dead after step 8 is because they're either massively fed or you're massively under fed.

Item Choices

One of the most important things in a game of LoL is to get a good start. You want to either do this by having lots of Lane-Sustain or Lots of Damage. This choice can go either way with brand, depending on what lane he's in and who he's with.

Soloing or with a non-support champ

If you're on your own or simply with a non-support champ, i'd recommend buying Boots of Speed and 3 health potions. Boots of Speed will help you alot, either to run away from an enemy or to catch up to one. The Health Potions on the other hand can massively increase your lane sustain. I recommend just using them until you have none left or enough money to buy either a Blasting Wand or a Giant's Belt.

Due to the Amplifying Tome, Your abilities will do more damage early game and you will also have a Health Potion to increase your lane sustain. Only use this when with a support champ or someone who can also do a lot of burst damage.

The reason i buy a catalyst on Brand is fairly simple; He's mana hungry, the health is useful, it increases sustain by healing you with its passive and it will be used later in our Rod of Ages. I prefer this item to Tear of the Goddess because of Brands long cooldowns. A Tear of the Goddess works better with boots of lucidity, however, it costs alot of mana to max the tear of the goddes quickly and it's very hard to do so as Brand before the end of the game.

In my opinion, these are the best boots for Brand. Boots of Lucidity are prefered by many but they're better for late game. Sorcerer's Shoes allow for a more heavy hitting poke and although you won't hit as often as if you had Boots of Lucidity, It's much better for early game as more frequent poking means more use of mana which at this point in the game, Brand doesn't have much of.

This is a great item on Brand. It works extremely well with his passive as it means he'll be able to cast that initial Pillar of Flame and follow it up easily with a basic attack and then a Sear stun. It also make Brand a lot more tanky but not at the cost of an item slot because it also gives a lot of ap.

This is a great item: it pretty much just makes Brand do more damage and take less. It also increases his mana. Once you have this item, you shouldn't really need to worry about mana consumption too much as you'll gain more every minute via its passive.

Another very nice item for Brand. By now you should be hammering enemies so if they have any brains at all, they will try to counter build. Void Staff gives a nice amount of Ability Power but also allows you to counter-counter build. Most enemies will only counter build with one item so unless they do so with more, i wouldn't bother with anymore Counter Builds.

Lich Bane does several great things for Brand. Firstly, extra movement speed to help you escape or chase down an enemy to get one last hit off. Secondly, extra mana meaning more Ability Power from Archangel's Staff and finally, the best thing; the passive. The passive on Lich Bane is amazing for brand, especially Late-game. Basically, when you use an ability, your Ability Power doubles as Attack Damage for your next Auto Attack. At this stage you should be around 200 Ability Power so that Auto Attack will hit like a bomb. This only adds to your burst and as this effect can happen every 2 seconds, you could potentially use it several times in a fight.

Gameplay

Brand

Pillar of Flame

Brand

Pyroclasm

Predictability

Another thing i've discovered when playing against another Brand is that they're always so predictable. They'll start running towards you before casting a spell making it incredibly easy to predict and dodge. If you can play Brand unpredictably, you'll be able to do a lot more damage as a lot more of your spells will hit. The trick with this is to have Pillar of Flame ready to use so you can see its range exactly and where the impact will hit. Wait with the spell open, just kill some minions, don't move. Enemies tend to dance if you stay still, especially melee. The second they come into range, use Pillar of Flame just behind them so they are just on the edge of the spell. Almost all enemies I've been against run back towards their turret when you place a Pillar of Flame down, this will maximize your chance of hitting.
The image above demonstrates how to be unpredictable. The main thing is that you don't move to cast the spell.

Farming

Farming is one of the hardest things to do as Brand because firstly, he's Ability Power and secondly, you don't want to waste mana on minions. The easiest way to farm is to use your AoE's to damage an enemy champion aswell as minions. Try and position your Pillar of Flame as shown in the Predictability section but have some enemy minions in there as well if possible. The other spell that can come in handy when farming is Conflagration because of its effect when Blaze is on the target. This means that you will do a small AoE outwards from the target. You can do this to minions too however i don't recommend using spells directly on minions until you are a higher level due to the mana cast.

Conclusion

As I've said to many people in the comments, this guide is nowhere near completed and i wanted to get it out faster. It will be updated extremely regularly and i aim to add one or two chapters a day.

Feel free to ask any questions you may have, i will reply!

Here's a link to my friends awesome stream http://www.twitch.tv/5henanigans

Thanks to all who read my guide:)

Thanks to Jhoijhoi's Guide Tutorial

Worolith:)