Brand support - the support that ADC's hate on both teams!
A master KS support if not played properly!

What is Brand support?
The gate way for snowballing in simple terms! A pure damage support that harasses and chunks off the enemies health (remember to feed your ADC ;) )

How good is a Brand support?
Brand support is excellent, he is one of the easiest champions to start a snowball in lane, and not to mention his scale in to late game where he is right there in the fights dealing out tons of damage! Useful from level 1 to 18!

Behind in lane and my ADC is trash!
Well Brand has very good base damage, therefore, even if you and your ADC is behind, you are still able to pull it back in to the fight. Brand is the comeback king and still very very useful even if he does not have a lot of gold or items! Nevertheless, Brand can step up and gain the victory in bot lane SOLO! That ultimate can 1v2! So if your ADC is AFK or literally not playing as well as expected, you can take over the lane with this support!

Brand support rate?
10/10 if you play him as a support properly. If you have no clue how to play Brand support then he is 3/10 for the following reasons; KS your ADC, no healing, limited CC, immobile, off meta support items, struggles with mana, squishy and cant build tanky and the list continues.
Moral of the story is (learn to play him properly and your ADC will be a monster and fall in love with you)


PLEASE NOTE: The way this guide is written out will sound like it is stripping Brand of his damage to not KS, however, it is the most viable build to play Brand as a support properly and be a TEAM PLAYER!

Why are these runes better than any other build?
First of all, lets analyse Arcane Comet which is a very popular choice for Brand. The reason why Arcane Comet is not a good rune for a Brand support is that it is an ultimate weapon to KS and overall does not actually provide much use as a support item. Sure Arcane comet helps with harass, but overall it will cause more harm than good. The reason why you go Aery is because you don't want to KS your ADC and it provides shielding for your allies.

Second rune (manaflow band): you might be asking hey why not ultimate hat, after all, Brand is everything about his R. Well unfortunately, Brand really struggles with mana that you are forced to take this rune.

Third rune (celerity): 1 word IMMOBILE

Fourth rune (waterwalking): Now this will cause a massive debate because Scorch is a rune especially perfect for Brand, however, in actual gameplay it is much more convenient to have that movement speed in the river than it is to get a bit of burn off his harass (his burn got buffed anyway). So overall, waterwalking provides more usefulness in actual gameplay than scorch would.

Fifth rune (Front of life): Well with resolve you get a nice package and not to mention when you impair the movement of an enemy your ADC will heal off of it, an ideal recipe for a support item.

Sixth rune (Unfliching): Survivability

Max your W first - this is your main damage output

Max your Q second - this is your second source of damage but this is a very conserved ability, DO NOT WASTE IT!

Max your E last. Why? it provides the most burn for your passive and because your not playing mid lane where E would be max second, you only want the extra burn in late game (again to not KS your ADC in early)

Exhaust or ignite??

Ignite: if you are not threatened in game by an assassin mid lane or a jungle that can pounce on you. This way you can start the ball rolling with early snowball

Exhaust: Assassin mid lane and pouncing jungle. Vayne, Tristana or Kalista as enemy ADC.

Pros:
Useful from level 1-18
High base damage
Great comeback fighter
Amazing late game
High potential for early snowball
A true team player
Ranged
Harass ability
1v2!
Take over lane for ADC

Cons:
High mana cost
High cooldowns
Immobile
Squishy
Limited CC
Easy to KS ADC
No heals
Can not build tanky
Bad roaming
Poor auto attack damage
Off-meta support items

A champion that was designed to be the crème de la crème for being a team player.

How to play Brand support + combos!

Harass with W
Long range set up: W then Q to stun your opponent for your ADC to kill
Short range set up: E then Q to stun your opponent for your ADC to kill

Q: for a blind last attack i.e ward-off or catching the last hit on a running enemy. But try to keep it just for stunning and use it very wisely!




Basic combo:
E-Q-W: this will set them on fire, stun and the W will produce the maximum damage from your 3 ability cast (close range) OR (use E then close gap and use Q-W)

W-Q-E: You did the harass with W, but they just walked into firing line, stun with Q and set your passive off with E

Q-W-E/E-W-Q: Your running away from the enemy and casting abilities backwards (this is because your cooldowns are on so your forced to use this as you were not able to use the basic combo A or B


Skill combos:
R-Flash-Exhaust-Q-W-E (need grouped minions to cast this to catch the enemy)

R-Flash-Q-W-E-Ignite (need grouped minions to cast this to catch the enemy)

W-Flash-Q-E-Ignite

E-Flash-Q-W-Ignite

Flash-E-Q-W-Ignite


ADC set-ups:
E-Q-pause-Exhuast

W-flash-Q-pause-Exhaust


Finishers after set up:
E-Q-pause-Exhaust-pause-Flash-W-Q-E (setup ADC for kill but they could not get it but you are in range to finish the enemy off)

W-Q-pause-Exhaust-E-Flash-Q-W

(feel free to use R as a last hit if you must)


Ganked:
E-Q-W-Exhuast-R

R-Exhuast-Q-W-E

Exhuast-E-Q-W-R

R-Q-E-W-Ignite




These are all the combos you need in order to master Brand!