After the arduous season-ending grind, everyone can sit back and relax for a while. For a support player like me, this means playing some top lane, remembering why I don't play top lane, and then moving back to support with some more obscure picks. With the Season 7 preseason patch going up recently, I limited my support picks to the ones that wouldn't be heavily affected by the modifications to support items so I'd have some time to digest the new information before jumping in. Beyond that, I just wanted to have some fun and be the support-carry all support mains occasionally dream of being. It might be obvious at this point, but I'm talking about Brand. I took inspiration both from my old mid lane tendencies and Likkrit's Brand play at the World Championship.

Ability Overview

Passive: Blaze

Brand's spells light his targets ablaze, dealing 2% of their maximum Health in magic damage over 4 seconds, stacking up to 3 times. When Blaze reaches max stacks on a Champion or monster, it becomes unstable. It detonates in 2 seconds for massive damage in an area around the victim.

Usage: As a support Brand, you'll be working with limited resources and thus lower Ability Power numbers than you might expect. The percentage maximum health damage represents a large portion of your damage output. Success with Brand support relies heavily on getting three stacks of Blaze using your four active abilities and doing both large amounts of area-of-effect damage and creating zones of control in the form of the explosion radii in the process.

Q: Sear

Brand launches a ball of fire forward that deals magic damage. If the target is ablaze, Sear will stun the target for 1.5 seconds.

Usage: This is your stun, but that doesn't mean you should be afraid to use it to get some poke off and apply a stack of your passive. You can prey on enemy tendencies to only be looking for Sear when they're already ablaze and at risk of being stunned. This will leave you vulnerable to counterattack, however.

W: Pillar of Flame

After a short delay, Brand creates a Pillar of Flame at a target area, dealing magic damage to enemy units within the area. Units that are ablaze take an additional 25% damage.

Usage: Placement is important on Pillar of Flame. As your opponents pick up movement speed items, you'll need to lead opponents just a tiny amount to make sure you hit. Pillar of Flame placement is also vital when using it to set up your stun. Every game is a learning process of seeing how your opponents react to your Pillar placement. If you can begin to influence your opponent's movement by offsetting your Pillar of Flame targeting a tiny bit, you'll have a much easier time landing Sear for a stun.

E: Conflagration

Brand conjures a powerful blast at his target, dealing magic damage to them. If the target is ablaze, Conflagration spreads to nearby enemies.

Usage: As support Brand, this ability mostly functions as a guaranteed Blaze stack for a follow-up stun attempt. In teamfighting scenarios, however, the power to spread one stack from an already ablaze target to all nearby enemies can be the difference between getting one Blaze explosion and getting three to five Blaze explosions. Pyroclasm and Pillar of Flame will often stack Blaze twice on multiple members of the enemy team, but Sear can only trigger the third stack on one target. Conflagration fills the necessary role.

R: Pyroclasm

Brand unleashes a devastating torrent of fire, dealing magic damage each time it bounces, up to 5 bounces. Bounces prioritize stacking Blaze to max on champions. If a target is ablaze, Pyroclasm will briefly slow them.

Usage: Aside from being a powerful teamfighting ability., Pyroclasm can be used in lane any time one of the two enemy champions hugs the minions too closely. Because Pyroclasm prioritizes stacking Blaze on champions, it will bounce between the target champion and the minion wave and either trigger a Blaze explosion or force a flash. This works best when your target is already ablaze (as Pyroclasm slows ablaze targets) and you have the enemy duo lane pushed to tower as they will have much less room to simply walk away from the minion wave and cause Pyroclasm to fizzle out or only hit minions.

Skill Leveling

Pillar of Flame, Brand's W, is the first ability to max. It is the ability that you will be using the most, both for its area-of-effect damage and it being the superior setup skill for the stun on Sear (Q). It boasts the best damage scaling with both level and ability power and respectable range.

Sear, Brand's Q, is the stun in his kit as well as the second ability that is maxed. It is Brand's longest range ability and has the advantage of a static mana cost of 50 at all levels. While it can be hard to land, the long range and decent damage scaling place it above Conflagration in priority.

Conflagration is Brand's final basic ability. This is the last ability that is maxed because, as support Brand, it generally only functions as a stun activator or a Blaze spreader in ideal teamfights or skirmishes. More specifically, it has a mana cost that scales up with level, relatively short range, and subpar damage scaling. None of these attributes make Conflagration an attractive ability to level.

Runes

Marks – These are locked on flat magic penetration runes. There's not really a comparable option for Brand in this slot in my opinion.

Glyphs – There are a number of good options for Glyphs. As for any champion, magic resist runes are perfectly fine against magic-heavy teams. Scaling are generally better than flat runes in this particular case as the only real magic damage threat to Brand in bot lane is Zyra. My general, all-purpose suggestions for Glyphs would be either more flat magic penetration runes or scaling cooldown reduction. More magic penetration is always good for Brand, whereas scaling cooldown reduction beats out its flat counterpart due to Brand's limited mana pool.

Seals and Quintessences – I'm grouping these together because your choice of Seal will depend on your greediness level at Quintessences. At Quintessence, you have two options: armor or ability power. If you pick the safer armor runes, your Seals are locked into flat health runes. If you go with ability power runes, you have a decision to make. You can either still go with flat health Seals and bank on scaring off any ADC poke or flat armor Seals and getting the extra value out of your health potions while opening yourself up to getting bursted out by enemy supports or junglers with magic damage.

I'm currently running Armor Quintessences, Scaling Cooldown Reduction Glyphs, Magic Penetration Marks, and Flat Health Seals. This setup gives some much needed defensive stats, magic penetration which works well with the percentage health damage Brand relies on, and later game cooldown reduction to cover the lack of cooldown reduction in Brand's build outside of Eye of the Watchers.

Masteries

The Brand support page is surprisingly standard for aggressive supports. You take your mana and health regeneration, your biscuits, and you magic penetration. None of the newly added Season 7 masteries are really enticing enough to pick up over their counterparts. Greenfather's Gift (3% current health in magic damage on next damaging ability/attack after entering a bush) is intriguing, but doesn't seem quite good enough to replace the extra gold income of Bandit.

An important concept illustrated here is reevaluating mastery choices based on more than just champion. Since the introduction of Deathfire Touch, Brand was one of the obvious users. Brand's passive reapplies it for free multiple times on every spell hit, increasing the value. The problem is that the base damage on Deathfire Touch is abysmal. It relies very heavily on purchasing additional damage stats, which you can't reliably do. Thunderlord's Decree has base damage that scales with level and has a cooldown (25-15 seconds based on level) that lines up nicely with Brand's engagement patterns early in the lane.

Summoner Spells

Flash is far too powerful of an ability to not take on Brand, as he is such a threatening yet vulnerable target. It's been standard on almost every champion for years for a reason.

As for your second summoner spell, the choice is between Ignite and Exhaust. My philosophy on the matter is that Ignite is a great selection when you find yourself in a lane that you "should" have an advantage in, such as laning against a melee support and a short-ranged AD Carry. Ignite is also a good choice when the enemy team has a champion that relies heavily on some sort of sustain or health regeneration, such as a Swain, Vladimir, or Dr. Mundo.

Exhaust is a good choice when you are unsure if you can gain control of the lane you'll be playing in. Exhaust prolongs fights and allows for disengagements and generally safer laning for your AD Carry. Exhaust can also be a choice based on playstyle. For instance, I take Exhaust much more than Ignite because I've never thought of myself as a lane-dominant player. I prefer to try to go even at worst in lane and then outplay the enemy team in the vision and map control games.

Core Items

Support Brand has four core items including Sorcerer's Boots.

Eye of the Watchers : The combined Sighstone/Frostfang item. Eye of the Watchers is a good choice over Frost Queen's Claim for Brand because of the item slot efficiency. As a damage focused support, Brand can rack up quite a bit of gold through assists and kills as the game progresses, meaning having an open slot for control wards can require some serious compromises. It is usually good to consolidate your support item and Sightstone slots.

Rylai's Crystal Scepter: Brand's Blaze passive ticks for four seconds, meaning the slow granted by Rylai's reapplies on every tick. The high ability power and respectable chunk of health make valuable additions to a very strong item for Brand.

Liandry's Torment: The passive on Liandry's synergizes perfectly with the interaction present between his passive and the slow from Rylai's. The percentage health damage from Liandry's is doubled and has its duration extended significantly with the reapplications provided by Blaze. Even just looking at the stats, Liandry's grants flat magic penetration, some health, and ability power. All desired stats in acceptable amounts.

Sorcerer's Boots: With high base damage on most of his abilities and his constant percentage based damage, Brand values magic penetration very highly. He also values flat movement speed lower than some champions due to his medium range, so getting only 45 movement speed from boots is perfectly acceptable. Ionian Boots of Lucidity are an option if you opt for magic penetration or ability power Glyphs in place of cooldown reduction glyphs in your rune page. The extra summoner spell cooldown reduction is a nice bonus in this setup.

Final Item Choices

Beyond these three items and boots, you have two slots: one for control wards, and one for a fifth item. On the occasions that you get to buy a fifth item, there are a few choices.

Zhonya's Hourglass: Being a squishy mage, having a Zhonya's often prevents you from getting blown up before you can find at least a decent use for your abilities. The armor synergizes well with the decent health pool you'll have from Rylai's and Liandry's Torment. The 10% cooldown reduction is also useful as you'll only have 25% at level 18 between your runes and Eye of the Watchers.

Abyssal Scepter: In some ways, this is the magic resist counterpart to Zhonya's with a more offensive special ability. You get a moderate amount of ability power, a respectable amount of magic resist, and 10% cooldown reduction on top of the "Nearby enemy champions take 10% more magic damage" aura. This is a great choice any time you have at least one other big magic damage threat on your team.

Void Staff: If you find that Rylai's and Liandry's Torment are enough defensive stats to keep you alive long enough to blow all your cooldowns in an effective manner, Void Staff is probably the best choice. It is the item that will take you from annoying kite machine to full blown damage threat in even games. The ability power is nice and the percentage magic penetration lets you really start burning down tanks with large amounts of magic resistance. Rabadon's Deathcap can replace this item in fringe cases where the enemy team has no tanks and very little magic resistance.

Mikael's Crucible: This may not seem like a Brand item at first glance, but the crowd control removal can't be overlooked against some enemy team compositions. If your opponents rely on crowd control abilities with long cooldowns, such as Ashe's Enchanted Crystal Arrow or Amumu's Curse of the Sad Mummy, to engage, Mikael's can make a huge difference. Beyond the active ability, the stats on Mikael's are, aside from the shield and healing power increase, very desirable for Brand. Mana regeneration, cooldown reduction, and magic resist all work to negate some of his problems as a support champion.

Laning

Laning as support Brand revolves around attempting to land either a Conflagration or Pillar of Flame followed by a Sear in lane. Sear stuns the target with a Blaze stack from the first spell and then the second part of Brand's passive triggers off the third spell landed. This combo represents a huge percentage of either a support's or an ADC's health in the early game, but also a large mana investment. This is where the mana regeneration from both the Meditation mastery and Spellthief's Edge becomes important. Brand's support build doesn't grant him any additional mana or mana regeneration, meaning he needs to make do with what he can get elsewhere.

Once you get access to your ultimate ability, Pyroclasm, your threat level skyrockets. With the bouncing mechanic and Pyroclasm prioritizing bounces to champions, enemies need to worry about staying too close to minions which, while in lane, is incredibly difficult to avoid.

Teamfighting

In teamfights, Brand has two objectives:

1. Burst out a priority target.

2. Soften up and apply a slow to a clumped group of enemy champions.

These two objectives exist in a "take what you can get" space. Chances are you won't be able to hit a large number of targets with Pyroclasm and stun an ADC or fragile mage. The dream scenario is working with your team to corral the enemy team into an enclosed space and using your spells in a way that leads to cascading explosions from your Blaze passive. The realistic situation is bouncing Pyroclasm between a couple of enemy tanks or bruisers and stunning a threat to your own vulnerable targets. Follow this up with a Conflagration to spread Blaze stacks and trigger the explosions and you'll have a large number of slowed targets and chunked champions for your team to pick off. At worst, with the slow from Rylai's Crystal Scepter, you can sometimes put your team into a winning position with little more than a good Pyroclasm.

In summary, Brand is a high threat champion that can function as a support because of his large percentage health-based damage passive, a long range stun, and his ability to make the most of Rylai's Crystal Scepter and it's slowing passive. Have fun with it and, as always, keep buying p̶i̶n̶k control wards!

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