Hi, my name is Bizzleberry and I am a longtime League of Legends player, playing since before Season 1. Over the years I have achieved high ranking in solo queue, from Platinum in Season 1 (the highest at the time) to Challenger multiple times throughout the years. I used to stream in season 4-5 and stopped playing League for a year during season 6. I have now returned and am currently in Master as a support main. You can catch me on my stream or my Youtube channel. I try to explain what I am doing in most situations; feel free to ask any questions on stream or leave a comment on the guide!

Brand is a fun, skillshot based champion, which I believe is underused currently this season. His ability to melt tanks that disregard Magic Resist will always put you top in team damage AS A SUPPORT! and is by far the highest damage dealing support as his Blaze is very strong with little Ability Power & items.

Brand's Advantages are that he provides a stun( Sear and when combined with Rylai's Crystal Scepter will provide massive AoE slows that will keep ticking with your Blaze, and of course, his damage output. In lane if you catch someone with a combo it will usually take down any ADC from 100% to 40% and is damn right scary for the enemy to deal with. Also the option to run Morellonomicon can help immensely against the current popular, self-healing champions.

Brand's Weaknesses are his lack of mobility and being able to land skill shots. Positioning is always key, and don't be surprised if you die a lot, it's the price you pay for dealing a large amount of damage as a support. Missing Sear can cost you a kill and may even cause your death in some cases. Brand does not do well pairing with late game carries such as Vayne or Kog'Maw as not falling behind in lane is crucial for your team input mid-game.

DOMINATION

Dark Harvest provides a lot of damage and also procs off your passive, so even if you die if you have done all of your AoE you can potentially still do a decent amount of damage when dead.

I recommend the following minor runes -

Taste of Blood Will give you much needed sustain during the laning phase.

Eyeball Collection Provides more AP scaling for your spells and Dark Harvest. You are welcome to take other options here including Zombie Ward, but I prefer the damage.

Ingenious Hunter Will give you a lot more cooldown on your Trinkets and Luden's Tempest. If you are not taking ludens then go Ultimate Hunter .

Precision

Presence of Mind as long as you deal damage you will generate mana. Get a takedown on a champion, and you get mana back! Luckily due to Brand's passive Blaze you will be damaging enemies a lot throughout the game!

Coup de Grace Allows the potential of executing targets that get low on health. Very good general damage increase rune.




If using Luden's take:

Inspiration

Biscuit Delivery - You will need Mana Regenation and sustain in order to harrass the enemy, cookies is perfect for this.

Cosmic Insight further reduces the cooldown of your Luden's.

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Bread and butter, use Ignite before they use Heal to prevent half of the healing on target. Use Flash to either engage with a burst followup or to disengage from an enemy play.

Blaze

Brand's Passive Blaze is what will do a lot of your damage in team fights, and give you that extra oomph in the laning phase. Blaze does a passive 3% max health damage per stack over 4 seconds.

Let's pretend the enemy has 1000 HP and 0 Magic Resist. If you have one stack of Blaze you will do 30 damage with smaller tick amounts of the duration (such as 8,7,8,7 - 7.5 damage per second). This stacks up to three times (15,15,15,15) however on the 3rd stack it will only stay on for two seconds (23,22) as the Blaze Explosion will trigger and reset the stacks to one. The 3% portion of this damage is nothing crazy HOWEVER, it will trigger slow effects from Rylai's Crystal Scepter and extra damage from Liandry's Angush making it incredibly annoying for the enemy team as explosions will also give enemies one stack of Blaze if hit by a 3 stack explosion. As Blaze Explosion will also give one stack to nearby enemies, if they are clumped together mass enemy Blaze explosions will occur.


3 stack Blaze does progressively more damage with more AP and per level, it is common to do 20% max hp damage from around level 11.

Blaze also affects large monsters such a Blue Buff, Drake and Baron. This allows you to do a lot of damage to objectives.

Sear

Skill shot similar to Ezreal Mystic Shot. Will apply one Blaze stack and stun the target if Blaze is present on the target.

Landing this skill shot is the difference between securing a kill and dying, in some cases you want to be patient if your target has a Blaze stack as they will try and zig-zag and dodge your Sear. Remember you have 4 seconds until Blaze falls off, so if they are playing the dodging game, wait 2-3 seconds and throw the Sear during this time. You should be landing auto hits while they are running around doing no damage! Max level Sear after Pillar of Flame as it reduces the cool down per level by 0.5s.

You can start Sear as part of a damage combo, primarily used in lane. WARNING if used you are vulnerable as you will have no stun for the duration of the cooldown. ( Sear into Pillar of Flame into Conflagration)

You can also use Sear as part of a wave clear combo. Try and aim for the cannon minion first with 7 minions clumped around Brand. The combo is ( Sear into Conflagration into Pillar of Flame). However as support you will likely need to do another Pillar of Flame to clear the wave.

For more advanced users, you throw out Sear and while the projectile is still in the air, you can cast Conflagration which, if fast enough, will stun the enemy just before the Sear projectile lands.

Pillar of Flame

Pillar of Flame is your primary poke in the laning phase and the most damaging ability in your kit. It will do 25% more damage if Blaze is present on the target. It has a decent range, but the delay on the explosion is a tad slow. It is easiest to land this when the enemy ADC is about to last hit a minion.

You can use Pillar of Flame to start a stun combo ( Pillar of Flame into Sear into Conflagration).

Conflagration

Conflagration is an easy way for you to get one Blaze stack on the target and is primarily used to start a stun combo with Sear.

As of 10.22 Conflagration now is AoE without requiring a Blaze stack and the AoE range is increased if there is a Blaze stack. Use on a minion to apply 1 stack of Blaze on an enemy to easily apply the debuff to both the enemy ADC & Support.

Pyroclasm

Pyroclasm will bounce from Brand / Enemy champions / Minions and monsters. If you are lacking targets then use your own champion as a bounce source in order to increase the damage output of Pyroclasm

Pyroclasm will slow the enemy ONLY if they have a Blaze so doing a Conflagration beforehand is a good way for them to stop running away and preventing bounces.

Pyroclasm damage potential is greatly increased per level, (more so than most ultimates). Level 6 Pyroclasm gives you 100 damage per bounce with 30% slow if there is Blaze on, and at level 11 Pyroclasm damage is DOUBLED to a potential 1000 damage and 15% more slow. Getting to level 16 is not common as support unless it's a long game, but 1500 damage and the 60% slow is very nice.

In a few rare cases, I have used Pyroclasm to bluff it's a Sear. If you are at the same running straight angle and the enemy is flustered they will Flash thinking it's a Sear. This then enables you to Flash Sear and land a stun!

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Spellthief's Edge

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Spellthief's Edge has now changed to auto-upgrade to Frostfang (500 gold collected) and Shard of True Ice (1000g collected) from the Tribute gold quest. You are now allowed to receive gold from hits on enemies / turrets without an ally nearby. You can also 'accidentally' get cs from throwing out skillshots in lane without being punished (Until you meet the Support Rule CS Limit which won't kick in until around 30-40 Creeps Taken, depending on what time it is in the game). Blaze will trigger the Tribute gold once per unique target, for the first tick of the Blaze.

Shard of True Ice

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The final Support Quest upgrade. You will no longer generate tribute gold, but the stats on this item for 'free' are very good for mid-game and also supply you with 4-ward charges that can be refreshed when you go back to the fountain. When this item is completed, it counts as a 'Legendary Item' towards your Mythic.

Liandry's Anguish

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Liandry's Anguish is your strongest Mythic item if there is at least one high health target on the enemy team. Provides a burn over time which refreshes with your Blaze passive. Liandry's Anguish provides Ability Haste every legendary item you have, so brand will reach lower cooldowns then he ever would have in previous seasons

Luden's tempest

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Ludens is the an option for Brand. Your Blaze passive will trigger the Cooldown reduction on the item, to allow you to have more procs. As you can imagine you will be able to proc this a lot particularly in teamfights. Also your Blaze AoE explosion counts as 'another spell' to help further reduce the cooldown of Luden's Tempest.

Demonic Embrace

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Demonic Embrace is a new item for Season 11. It applies a stronger Damage over Time (DoT) than Liandry's Anguish and will grant you bonus armor and magic resistance when this DoT is applied to enemy champions. Very strong anti-tank item and Item in general for Brand .

Sorcerer's Shoes

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Finishing Sorcerer's Shoes before mid game not only gives Brand some much needed mobility, but increases his magic penetration by 18. With Oblivion Orb this will put you around 33 magic penetration. Magic Penetration does not pass zero unless the target is afflicted with magic resist reduction from items or effects such as Wit's End

Morellonomicon

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Morellonomicon is your go to item early if the enemy has a lot of healing in their team. Champions such as Soraka or multiple champions that go for healing on items such as Blade of the Ruined King will help increase your damage but only because you will be stopping a chunk of their healing. If the enemy hasn't got healing, and you already have Rylai's Crystal Scepter and a Liandry's Anguish you may want to buy this item 3rd if the enemy has no to little Magic Resist as penetration is stronger when the enemy has fewer resistances. Otherwise purchase a Void Staff.

Rylai's Crystal Scepter

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You will want to buy this item if you want to increase your self-tankiness and/or to increase your utility in the game. Once completed you will be dealing a constant slow, hopefully to a fair few of the enemy champions, making it easier for you and your team to kite and catch them. Rylai's Crystal Scepter will proc off every Blaze tick which happens once every second for the four second duration.

Zhonya's Hourglass

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Zhonya's Hourglass An Important item if you care about staying alive. Allows you to get off one rotation of spells, stay alive to an assassin and then get potentially another round of spells off.

Void Staff

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Void Staff will likely be one of the last items you purchase as the enemy team should have some Magic Resist at this point. Don't forget that Flat Magic Penetration is calculated BEFORE Percent Magic Penetration! This means if you already reduce the enemies' Magic Resist to around 40, shaving off 14 magic resist isn't going to be worth it; instead wait for a Rabadon's Deathcap or the safer Zhonya's Hourglass to protect against assassins.

Vigilant Wardstone

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Vigilant Wardstone Generally a decent last slot choice for spots as it allows you to continue having control wards in your inventory & you also get stats for doing so. Vigilant Wardstone is very cheap and allows you to have TWO control wards on the map at all times rather than the normal one. Can be handy at controlling objectives this late into the game.

You want to take Pillar of Flame level 1. This ability will help you poke safely from a distance and help partially push the lane towards level 2. Getting level 2 before your enemy will allow you to get Sear and enable you land a stun on the enemy. Most of the time however it will be a protective stun, particularly against heavy level 2 engages, such as Alistar, Leona and Thresh.

At level 3 you can start to shine and have access to Blaze combo. Conflagration (preferably their ADC), then Sear into Pillar of Flame. I would always use Ignite at this point, hoping to blow Heal and Flash at the very least. This will give you lane control and put you in an easier position if the enemy jungler is intending to gank your lane soon.

Feel free to use Conflagration to on an enemy minion that has a Blaze debuff to help harassment if your mana allows it.

Level 4 and 5 will give you nice damage output on Pillar of Flame but be aware of your mana and make sure you always have around 200 mana to be able to use all 3 of your spells (300 mana including Pyroclasm). Try not to misuse Sear too much. When it's on cool down you and your ADC are vulnerable as you will have no CC, so bear that in mind before throwing it out. Also don't be afraid to use mana on the support, even if it's a tanky one, as your 3 combo is usually easier to land on those types of target and will still do decent damage due to how Blaze works.

Try and use Pyroclasm as a gank deterrent (when you are 3v2) or as an opportunity when you stun combo someone and their partner / minions are nearby. Should get a kill or at the very least burn a few summoners.

On your first buy try and get at least a Amplifying Tome and a Control Ward (maybe also a couple of Health Potion and Boots when possible).

If you do destroy your bot tower first, try and pick up herald for your team as the tower pushing power of herald is immense. If used in a lane with no enemy champions, expect to kill the Tier 1 tower and quite possibly a Tier 2.

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If you are winning Bot lane, encourage your Jungler to do Drake. Have a Control Ward ready for it and once you have the enemy low on HP, start sprinting for Drake, even if it's a Cloud Drake, it could prove useful later on in the game. (Cloud Drake doesn't do too much damage, I had a game recently where I tanked the Cloud Drake while my ADC helped kill it, takes around 20s with just two of you). Infernal Dragon will hurt, so make sure your Jungler has a decent amount of health before he tanks it.

Do your best to keep brushes warded, but most importantly keep a ward in the mid lane, just in front of the Tier 1 tower; this in my opinion, one of the most important wards (apart from Baron).

Don't be afraid to sacrifice yourself for your team to get kills, you can deal a lot of damage, but you are also the support. You dying for one or more kills (as long as the one isn't their support) will always be worth it! You die for their Jungle? Great! You team can do Drake / Baron. You die for their mid laner? Great! Your team can now push down a tower.

Brand has low mobility and is squishy, you will die. A lot. However you will always be bringing someone down with you and if you get all four of your spells off, you have done your job.

In teamfights still try and support your ADC, focus on stunning assassins or tanks coming in to take out your ADC. If your ADC is behind, by a lot, then it could be better to assist your next fed person, protecting them, ensuring they are also doing a lot of damage and protect the ADC later in the game when he has more items.

Against teams cowering behind towers, if split pushing is not working, focus on pulling them out with Baron and Drakes. Do one combo on the Baron, Sear or Conflagration first so your Pillar of Flame does more damage, then save your spells for the engage to come. If you can stun the jungler, great, do so, otherwise hurling spells into the middle of their team and trying for multiple Blaze procs will do wonders and cause panic too.

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Thanks for reading my Brand guide, I hope you give it a try in ranked and I wish you the best of luck! For more guides and fun videos please visit my stream or my Youtube Channel

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