What Happened To Brand? Why NO ONE Plays Him Anymore | League of Legends

[@zoltantakacs3269]

man how i would wish to not see players play this champ

[@WillWoh]

Same, fuck brand

[@DidYouSayChoco]

Hahaha facts

[@simlox3480]

I feel you. I hate any carry Supports as an Aphelios otp . And Brand ist with Senna the Number 1

[@SpookSkellington]

@@simlox3480 I play Brand to make your enchanter support miserable, killing the enemy ADC is just a neat bonus.

[@simlox3480]

@SpookSkellington well i Like Tanks more and i hate Brand because they dont have value in lanr for me. I Just wanna scale and every Brand in my Team Takes the Wave with w e after lyandris Like i hate them

[@codyp9416]

As someone who plays only ARAM (usually with a group of friends) Brand is highly desired in my games

[@elih6087]

Yeah same. I was very confused why he would say no one plays him because I see him all the time. Then I remembered I only play ARAM.

[@worldiefeard8396]

Imagine a champion that relies on enemies stacking toghether, on a map that forces enemies to stack toghether... xdd

[@hrodvithit]

As someone who plays a lot of ARAM, and mains champions like Udyr, Voli etc, Brand finishing Rylai's is the reason Rylai's needs to be removed from the game.

[@KhârnTheAngry]

⁠@@hrodvithitMy friends only wanna plays some rams, and im a. bruiser main, so ashe w spam builds or rylais “abusers” are the bane of my existance lmao Why does Brand E reaches that far 😂😂

[@1dingerr]

​@PainGumbo this is why ARAM games suck. You get lethality Caitlin/Jinx players and ap ashe/kaisa players that sit a mile away under turret and just spam one ability. I feel like these champs should take like 20% increased damage to make it fair.

[@xDarkestDemonx]

The discrepancy between high and low elo is pretty much that the amount of damage Brand can deal is less up to how good the Brand player is, but how bad the enemies are in their movement. He is a unique kind of zone controlling champion that doesn't really control a set zone like Anivia or Orianna do, but instead the area around individual enemy champions. If enemies clump together, Brand can pop off. If they scatter, he loses more than half of his damage, even more if he misses any of his spells. And as you mentioned in the video, low elo is more prone to that not only due to their bad movement, but also due to the champion choices. In high elo it's an absolute rarety to have clumped up fights like this. People play the sidelanes, know how to flank and you simply have team compositions where teams just aren't aligned like that, because you have assassins, engage tanks and mobile marksmen who just all operate on different ranges and don't run around next to one another. And as long as Brands kit operates like this, I don't think they will ever find a middle ground. Current Brand can only work consistently in high elo if his numbers are inflated, so he can work without explosion chains. But that makes him overpowered in low elo. The only way I see that would make him viable in both, is to reduce the amount of power he gets from these chain explosions on multiple people and give him some more power in his own right. Basically, no longer making his pressure entirely dependant on the enemies movement. But that would require extensive changes to his E, R and passive explosion, so I don't really see that happen any time soon. Something like, enemy champions recieve reduced damage from explosions triggered on someone else. Maybe even a reduction in explosion radius. And then more power into his basic spells, probably a completely new E and R being able to bounce off of allies as well, as having more bounces based on rank (similar to Xerath ult with more shots per rank). Basically, just reduce the power in the most ideal event of a 5 man team just stacking together and being hit by all 5 explosions, but increasing his power in less ideal circumstances while also giving him and his team more agency in how to approach situations, rather than to just hope that the enemy team sticks together.

[@hamdepaf6686]

An interesting change to make his zone control better is to have the explosion stay where it was triggered and not follow the enemy around. Giving the player a better option at choosing where it goes off and taking the enemies ability to move it.

[@xDarkestDemonx]

@hamdepaf6686 I also thought about that, but I am actually not sure if that would help him or harm him. The problem with that would be that, while his zone control would be less dependant on the enemies movement, it would only be so once you get it off. Keep in mind that his passive is not the only thing that is victim to the dependance on enemies grouping up, his E and R also fall into that category. They can only be used if an enemy is there to begin with and are weak if only one enemy is there to be hit. Ult can even be completely nullyfied by the enemies movement. So this change would ultimately not accomblish much, as you'd still need to get a combo off first to have any kind of zone control and the spells would still have the same issue. The only thing that would change is that mobile champs would have an easier time to get out of it, of they are the center of the explosion. Pretty much every other mage has zoning tools that just work by themselves. Orianna ball, Viktor W and R, Ziggs E and W, Zyras plants, I could go on. Brand is entirely dependant on enemies clumping together to get anything out of his spells, as E and R deal very low amounts of damage if they only hit one target, and his passive explosion only really pops off if it can chain multiple explosions. And all that on an immobile mage, with medium to low range whose only defensive ability is a skillshot based stun that needs set up and can be body blocked. That's also something to keep in mind, his whole combo hinges on either hitting W and then following up with Q to make it safe to walk up for E/R; or he has to take the risk to walk up and E/R preferably a group of enemies for massive spread damage. He doesn't have a good opener for his combo. So the only way I see how to mend all this is to rework either his E or his R to be something that isn't tied to the enemies movement (so, a target AoE or a skillshot) and also something that can actually open his combo. For Example: New ultimate: Pyroclasm Brand hurls a fireball onto a targeted area (AoE spell, projectile just for flavor, can't be windwalled or anything so a little like a Ziggs ult) that damages all enemies struck and leaves the ground burning for a few seconds, slowing enemies inside. Both the initial blast as well as the burning ground apply a stack of blaze, but an enemy can not gain more than one from this ability. The burning ground will refresh the duration of blaze stacks, tho. An ultimate like that would still work for clustered up enemies, but is way more flexible in its usage, provides zoning that is completely independant from the enemies movement and also can work as an opener for his combo due to the slow (and obviously higher range as its no longer a point and click spell). As much as I love Brands current ult.. as an ability it just doesn't hold up in modern league of legends. It will always be good in low elo and bad in high elo simply because of how it works. It can not be significantly buffed because it's point and click and auto targeted... and only has any value if it has targets to bounce off of. That works in ARAM, maybe even on lane and against enemies who don't know how to position or don't know how to counter it (move apart, use an ability to block it or get untargetable). But against anyone with a brain it just isn't a good ability in the modern, fast paced and dynamic League of Legends.

[@hamdepaf6686]

@@xDarkestDemonx I do think it would help him in the sense of his kit, because not everything is nullified by going further apart now. like for someone who is targeted by your ult to also leave the blast zone might mean they have to dodge much further into your team than they would need previously. Naturally his power budget still needs to be rebalanced, especially with people now being able to get out of his main damage tool. I agree that his Ult is probably the biggest flop in his kit, while the other abilities aren't stellar by any means, his ult is too easily negated by movement.

[@tomwanders6022]

I think degrouping enemy comps is a thing, that you can use in a skill full way as well, protecting each other becomes a lot harder, if your brand land a spell and instant presses e, proccing a rylais Slow on every one. The way I see brand is as an amazing counter card, to protect and tankier teamcomps, but he also works really well into low-mid range, because you usually have to be close to the target with multiple melee champs, which is where brand shines.

[@TStizzle19]

I respect how in depth this comment is.

[@DylanGosseye]

Also the fact that with all the damage in this game, if you miss your Q stun, you are dead 9/10 times (that 1/10 being you having flash).

[@BrutalSalamander1]

There's a high elo Brand mid player who essentially uses him as a debuff champion with Rylais and oblivion orb after buying Liandry. The slow makes it easier to be hit abilities and combos, provides utility for your team and your burn can essentially keep orb's healing debuff on an enemy champion for over 10 seconds. He doesn't care as much about explosions than he does about spreading aoe dot debuffs but he often manages to get kills anyway. I think most people just don't try to delve into his unique strengths and rather focus on how he compares in one aspect to other mages

[@trickle1386]

I got M7 playing him for like 5 days as a ranked support in low elo. He’s free ELO in like silver below maybe gold and below.

[@julsegs]

His passive procing two stacks of support quest makes him fun and easy to abuse as support in low elo ngl 😆

[@narwhalito]

what does m7 mean

[@hammerdev5246]

mastery 7@@narwhalito

[@Charles-kc2vt]

If you're not horrible, you can easily make it to GM with Brand. Free wins.

[@bigsmoke4592]

before watching i wanna say that brand supports in low elo are one of the few who understand the value of agression and pressure. brands tend to farm a lot of your waves and obviously don't heal or peel for you at all but it feels good knowing that your support will actually present a problem to the enemy giving me room to farm. especially enchanters tend to just stand behind you and you will automatically just lose lvl2, lvl3 and you lose lane in general suriving 1v2 trying to get what CS you can under tower.

[@yououttapocket]

While brand does not have strong direct peel, with the assistance of a decent jungler he can very easily convert your dead adc into a dead enemy adc support and jungle, with the right situations. He has some of the strongest late game team fighting in low elo.

[@atomickarate3421]

As a support main this is why Senna,Xerath, and brand are my favorites. In low elo adcs are already having anime battles with the canon minion and don't always pay attention to your goated Renata Q outplay to follow up.

[@StonedDragons]

As an enchanter support main I find it relatively easy to give annoying amounts of poke with any of them (new yuumi aside), the pain I feel playing brand is the mobility creep of the game, unless you manage to land that stun on an assassin and go off they are either one shotting you or going over a wall, probably both. He both cannot keep up and has no inherent survival tools.

[@mozzy2968]

THANK YOU FOR BRING UP THE RANGE. I used to play him a ton in lower elo but once I hit gold(pre emerald). I really felt how low range he was. Considering he has no mobility, delayed cc, and mediocre range. It feels really bad to play once people understand that they can counter engage him. I personally think either bonus movespeed while enemies are burning or just upping his range on his spells a bit would make him a lot better. Brand has to dance on the very edge of his range while other mages have much more wiggle room with thwir range or more reliable cc/mobility to maintain range. He feels outdated. The item update also made his three item core of liandries/hourglass/rylais harder to get and weaker, three items he heavily relies on to be effective.

[@Generic65]

you make a good point there; he could gain stacking movespeed the more enemies are set ablaze. something like 1-2% move speed per champion and .5% per minion/jungle monster

[@CJonesFL]

I really like these ideas for the movement speed. I think that would really help brand. Also I would give his E just a little bit more range because it's way too short. To pull off your full max damage combo you have to be way to close. Also increasing brands R bounce range and speed would help greatly. I don't think that's too much to ask and it wouldn't make him OP. It would bring him up to par imo.

[@tragedy8365]

This aged well

[@Axle_Tavish]

Well, now EVERYBODY play him. Thanks for this video.

[@chaosityinthemaking7427]

This aged like milk

[@Chris_J._Cueto]

I cant wait to see a video on Briar once everyone gets use to her, love to hear your analysis and thoughts on the champion. I personaly love the champ, havnt had much fun on a champ like this without getting frustrated. Love youre vids, listen to vars 1 and 2 at work and once i get into star rail, definitely gonna check your 3rd channel out!❤

[@hrodvithit]

Literally the only thing that's hard about Briar is learning when to press W and when not to press W. (A problem that slowly becomes less important as the game goes on) I actually have no idea what's so hard about it.

[@ruschev2]

My favorite part about Briar is how she says "I'm not just a living weapon"

[@TheCosmicAstro-]

I'm just waiting for her winrate to drop again because she is SO easy to deal with. I get actually annoyed when my team bans briar because it's such a waste of a ban. People learned how to play her but per usual people refuse to learn how to play vs her. Hopefully soon people will stop wasting their bans!!

[@hrodvithit]

@@TheCosmicAstro- I think it's a bit of a weird time to release a healing focused champ when wounds is so cheap and accessible. Given that she literally has a tunnel vision ability, it's a bit of a weird time to release her with tenacity being so shit.

[@TheCosmicAstro-]

@hrodvithit cheap accessible and STRONG. 40% is crazy plus you get the full effect with 800 gold as opposed to before where it was on partially effective till full item. The fact that some people think GW is weak right now is nuts

[@Cocarr0.0]

saw the title and audibly went "thank god"

[@mikey-bl2oc]

aged like milk

[@Viusthas]

that didn't age well

[@Ryan_Samuelson]

As an Emerald Player who forgot about Brand, thank you for reminding me. I'm now going to go play him a few times in normals because I miss seeing him.

[@Jkhb100]

I see him in Emerald pretty often in jungle nowadays

[@Ryan_Samuelson]

@@Jkhb100 a lot has changed since this video was released 😂

[@DanielYolehCow]

Thank you Vars for another great video! I love the series very much, you put a lot of time and hard work into each video, wishing you more subscribers and success!

[@deonm4759]

This video just proves his similarly to ryze He was ryze's apprentice, his abilities play off each other, he's super mana hungry, and he is perpetually nerfed for fear of pro play

[@frobo]

your thumbnails never cease to amaze me

[@cyrdach7578]

I think his passive burn should scale more with ap with less base DMG - making his support form just about the same as the current one but actually intensiving him on mid

[@ryansaniel3913]

Brand with or without items his damage is so massive

[@sekira4516]

Indeed, however as players get better and coordination improves he has more and more difficulty *applying* that damage.

[@PhungBach_nv]

Problem is his item build . burn + slow + ignore mdef = no cd . miss Q = face palm build more cd to do combo = half ass mage . no burst for low hp type nor burn health of tankie . use Q stun for other hit target ? alot champ do much better .

[@AshBlossomWorshiper]

Til brand is bald. I always assumed he had fire hair

[@milanesadearsenico]

You should do Why no one plays Renata

[@fuzzwobble]

TBH what holds Brand back more than anything is the bugs with his ultimate. So, so often it doesn't bounce when it should. Some examples from my most recent game: > Hit the ADC and Sup with W, they were low enough to die to R, throw R, it bounces to minions even with champions with burn in range. > Threw R into an Amumu as he was using bandage. Hit him before he started moving. He was next to a Caitlyn so it was either bounce to her and his teammates, or bounce off of me and kill him during the engage. R instead got confused and despawned and didn't bounce. > Threw R into a clump of low health enemies with 2 stacks of burn on them. An enemy Mordekaiser ults me. This despawns my R to not bounce to him, nor continue bouncing outside of shadow realm. Went from killing at least him or killing all their squishies, to nothing. Those three memorable occasions were in ONE. SINGLE. GAME.

[@LifenKnight]

Brand should be able to W himself and E himself. After that he should be able to trigger his passive on himself XD

[@fortheloveofgodlaugh2981]

I singlehandedly blame this video for what happened last month. 53% WR Brand ADC JG

[@rubixx_6924]

the recent brand buffs just made me sad, cause they show that riot doesnt really understand brands problem his mana sustain was already good enough, his ap ratios werent that amazing but late game brand deals already enough dmg so just buffing his ap ratios seems pretty useless cause he aint lacking dmg but he needs serious qol changes if they want him to be a midlaner again and since he got the buff he will sadly be ignored for the next months

[@rokasb9441]

0:32 garen with cosmic drive confirmed?

[@TheHarimir]

problem: he is to fair. the asassin with mobilety single target burst, reset mekanics and an exicute does burst better and with more flash

[@dylanfarris7647]

Brand is a champion that had a lot of counter play in a game where a lot of champs have no counter play. His kit is just so shit compared to so many other champs.

[@miafiolekova5817]

I would not call it shit, i would call it old. It was fine when champs are slow and lumbering. But now almost every new champ for the last few years comes with one or more dashes to get on him and take him out or just dodge his abilities.

[@Jokrboss99]

@@miafiolekova5817I mean his E and R literally disappear if the enemy champion goes invisible/out of vision while casting them. Most champs have a refund mechanic, but Brand just gets fked

[@Jokrboss99]

The R cast, not bounce ^

[@zzxxccvvkk5]

Brand fall is because of feature creep. Subjectivly did a good vu redesign, but he needs more rage, an stride. why aa no inflict pass, no fire trail, ult he become untargetable pyroclasm fireball, add reposition at end, champs cant become untargetable to it. some much can be done

[@voidgods]

Being unable to miss a single skill otherwise resetting Blaze stacks is actually a good design topic to discuss about Brand. There's indeed not much though to be given other than spam all 3 skills at once, or more realistically, keep trying to E+Q so you can finally W. It's boring and repetitive gameplay. I think a good gameplay rework would be making Blaze affect him instead of the target (so Brand burns brighter/hotter for each stack), and his skills get increased effects based on the stacks, let's say capped at 20 stacks (4 per target - passive no longer deals tick damage until Brand reached 12 stacks). Repeated casts of the same skill on the same target don't add up (so needs at least 3 targets to reach 12 stacks, one target would only stack the passive to 4). All CDs are considerably lower, especially E. At 6-12-20 stacks his skills are modified so you are incentivized to hit skills on as many different targets as possible instead of QWER one target. This would reinforce his role as a teamfighter, also means he is rewarded for landing skills but not as punished for missing them (stacks could last a fair bit longer now), he's also less oppressive in mid/bot lane and only truly shines in skirmishes and TFs where like an ember that turns into a forest fire, you can let Brand cook. At 20 stacks Q pierces all targets hit, W makes a volcano erupt from the ground blocking the path, E spreads to a ground AoE that keeps burning everyone inside, R sends a deathball that tracks all enemies, like a slow moving Final Fantasy limit break/Dragon Ball Spirit bomb. Skill expression would be a lot higher as well as a good players can keep track of how many stacks each enemy has and choose between increasing total stack count and hit new enemies or focusing on an enemy that is already at max stacks but is a higher priority.

[@beigaming8403]

This also would mean that brand will either be insanelu weak in 1v1 or insanely stong in tf. I am assuming that blaze only works on champion

[@voidgods]

@@beigaming8403 I don't think it's a bad thing if he's weak in 1v1, a lot of the area control mages are not really that great in lane and will only really get kills if the enemy makes a mistake. Maybe make it so he can get more stacks per target after a per-champ CD (like J4 passive), so if Brand can land consistent poke he will eventually stack over the cap on a single target and get strong 1v1 (while also giving the enemy the option to not fight during this time and wait for the stacks to fall off or force Brand to play forward to keep the enemy away from the wave - and putting himself at risk). Lots of play/counterplay

[@beigaming8403]

@@voidgods Too weak, he will be a worser version of veigar, lower range and worser waveclear. Monster in if and just dead against assasin

[@voidgods]

@@beigaming8403 yes sure, the specifics don't really matter as much as changing his identity - from an ability spammer with no skill expression that just happens to have fire as a theme to an actual "raging fire" that either burns you down slowly (which Riot already distanced him from) or in this case, burns increasingly brighter/stronger as the teamfight (or the game - but late game scaling Champs are too many already) goes on. Riot likes themes and having champions adhere to core themes nowadays so I believe a change like that makes more sense than just changing skill numbers around or doing minor reworks that at the end amount to the same dilemma keeping him in this limbo

[@Roze_aye]

you know. id love to see a video like this about lux. I'm personally unranked (i have no desire to play rankex whatsoever) so I see her pretty often whenever im not playing her myself. But you well basically never see her at high play. I have my own ideas why, but i'd love to see a video about it none the less

[@frankiecoss7141]

This just sounds like you're reading "The Very Hungry Caterpillar", "... but even that wasn't enough"

[@Nazuiko]

Seems like one solution might be to dump his passive explosion damage significantly, raise his passive damage slightly, and then raise the AP scalings on some of his abilities; rewarding you more for hitting individual skills, similar payoff if you hit *all* of them but not necessitating that you do. Keeping his ceiling at about the same level while the floor drops off, which typically helps a champion succeed in low elo more, but the reliability from that dropped floor would make him more useful in high elo and, hopefully with a reliance on AP scalings and level scaling, into mid lane. Being almost entirely skillshots, Brand is actually very strong into Akali. You could even speed up the activation time and buff the range (Especially want to see W's range go up by 100-150 or so) if his explosion damage is reduced enough to make him that much more effective against her.

[@Sayntz_LoL]

I started playing brand mid and its honestly the most fun ive had in a long time

[@martinconverss2195]

I think it’s honestly fine for some champs to be low Elo only as long as they teach people the game. Brand was one of my first supports and the experience was really good

[@joshsolders5543]

I think this ignore the power he has with Rylai's as a support. Not only do you have the control with trading, but also control in fights with the speed reduction. Its quite powerful and can create opportunities for allies. Slowed enemies have a greater difficulty dodging skill shots which can force out mobility. Plus it inhibits positioning, retreats, and melee characters in general. I do realize Rylai's is contested as whether its worth it or not, but its at least worth considering. It's control addition relieves some of Brand's issues mentioned in the video, makes him safer, and is very useful all around.

[@RiptidexRiltreks]

Flat damage taliyah doing 1800dmg in 2 abilities (she's fed) vs brand missing his q and you get away with half hp and a DH slap (has also fed)

[@Mister_Larrold]

Day 1: Would love to see an in-depth video about the Funneling meta, how it impacted jg/support items today, and why it rose to popularity/efficacy so quickly once discovered.

[@irdestroyer]

I used to main Brand and climbed to Plat with Brand support many seasons ago. Once he got nerfed over and over I can't play him anymore. You can't carry the way you used to; you have to land your combo multiple times at close range as a squishy mage in a meta where tanks can one-shot you. You also can't deviate from building burn + mpen so getting a zhonyas or banshees at any point just kills your damage output.

[@OatsMealz]

tldr Brand has been nerfed over the years to do dmg similar to other mages, but he's a champ thats balanced when he does more dmg than other mages.

[@Black0Fencer]

I believe small QOL adjustments could serve him just right, without touching damage. I'd start from increasing Q missile speed by 100, give W an Vex E treatment (radius changed with cast range, 200->300, also same could be done to Cho), and increase cast ranges of E and R a little. Right now his ranges are all over the place, you can only deliver half of the combo from relatively safe distance, while you need to get on their faces to cast E and R. Also saying this from midlane point of view, Im not a fan of carry mages going supports.

[@firestorm8265]

“Why no one plays brand.” Let’s keep it that way.

[@TheKyrinth]

All that got so much worse with the mythic item changes too. Brand's main damage item suddenly was built out of substantially worse components, losing the damage amp from haunting guise and trading health for mana (which he doesn't need thanks to runes/support item). So it's either "pay 100 gold more (300 initially) for the same effect but with no intermediate power spike and no beefiness" or "get rylais instead but deal low damage until two items". They also forgot to make a proper mage support mythic which certainly didn't help. His gold-to-power conversion felt a lot smoother before. Since games are usually not closed out efficiently in low elo though, he is so much more likely to get to the 2/3/4 item powerspikes at which he can solve teamfights by himself accidentally.

[@JustinSeizure]

It's so sad that well designed champions like Brand are now basically out of date because of power creep. I'd rather have 10 more champs designed properly like him than 1 more overloaded "I have 4 dashes, self healing and reset mechanics" travesty.

[@AkiraSakko]

About 2 weeks ago, I played Brand in Aram. He dominated the first 10 minutes but then fell off real hard.

[@coffeebot7016]

You did it wrong then. He scales very well because his AP ratio is good and a lot of his damage is % based.

[@worldiefeard8396]

@@coffeebot7016sorta, Brand in Aram depends a lot on what the enemy composition is. Against certain long range comps you're completely useless, as well as against too mobile comps. Basically like most midrange mages in aram. If you're against a bunch of melee/tanks though... oh boi BAKOOM

[@1dingerr]

​@@coffeebot7016there's a point in a lot of aram games though where the enemy team will blow you up before you can cast more than 2 abilities. He's still good, but he definitely doesn't feel as strong late when everyone has a FON and can't be killed by one rotation.

[@AkiraSakko]

@@coffeebot7016 if I recalled correctly, their team only have 1 tank, that is Cho'Gath but my team can hardly kill him. I did rush magic pen items and Liandry is my core item but welp, we lost....

[@sekira4516]

@@AkiraSakko yeah Cho'gath and Mundo as well are Juggernauts that eventually outscale your damage output because of the sheer hp they get from Heartsteel. Like they'll get 1.5k bonus hp *just* from Heartsteel almost every game.

[@monache9290]

Would it be fun to revisit this video, Vars? I play in high Emerald/Low Diamond, technically still low elo or maybe mid elo, but I haven‘t seen Brand much before. However, I‘m seeing Brand much more often as an APC and even more often as an jungler now. It would be nice to dig into this topic again and think about how buffs make him more viable.

[@arcanegale285]

No offense Vars, I like your videos, but I wanted to check because 6:27 didn't seem correct to me and the most picked mid laners in every elo below platinum are Zed, Yasuo and Yone. For the record Xerath is 18th in gold so it's much more likely that you'll find an assassin/skirmisher than Xerath in low elo. and I did verify this thus am curious where you got your info from. Now, while these aren't good in low elo, they're more popular than any mage with all 3 of them having around 10% pickrate. I'm not a good player but I'm not a bad player either, I'm in the middle of the rank table being somewhere within the Plat-Emerald line so yeah that's all I wanted to say

[@sirki2885]

Brand has the range of a battlemage without the defences( the stun is too inconsistent) with the skill damage and accuracy of an artillery mage while having to jump through the most hoops to get the burst mage damage. Without doing a full rework the best prob way to make his abilities work better is to tone down the passive explosion damage but let his q straight up stun and have the empowered q do something else (like be better single dps/explode). This will give him back the consistency he needs to at least garuntee his damage goes off without getting jumped on before the damage can even land

[@hqhuy931]

I used to play Brand a lot when I started out for 1-2 years because I got better at skillshot and unlike most mages Brand doesn't really fall off. I gradually stopped for longer range champions like Lux, Ziggs, Xerath and safer options like Malzahar, because I realized just how helpless and punishing Brand is when you don't have a team and/or get chased down, which happens very often in low elo. He's also much less effective at poking because of his range, and his burn is normally worse than liardry's these days

[@Yitze-l6v]

You should make a why no one plays Shen given that many one tricks right now are outright refusing to play the champ.

[@imrengarotp3802]

I think that Brand also profits in low elo from people grouping often and Brand being very good at teamfighting with his R and maybe even hitting e and w.

[@ethanstyant9704]

Laning against brand (especially supp) is miserable because you will lose 1/4 of your health because he pressed W and E on a minion. I've gotten way better at dodging his W due to experience but you can't dodge an ability which can span the width of a lane I hate seeing senna supp for a similar reason, she has fuck off range even in early game and a slow she basically doesn't have to aim. Mid to late game she chunks you with instant Auto q while you can't even see her

[@speedhacks9151]

you literally just back away from minions when he Ws them and wait til his passive is gone. that's what anyone who is good does. and as a brand main its hella annoying

[@walvens3080]

6:25 What happened with Nunu there?

[@torri776]

Thanks for pointing out how unbelievably BROKEN Howard Brand was in Season 7, where I vividly remember he would pair up with Twitch and they would both 1v9 with the best teamfighting ults of all time. I used to ban Brand all the time in Season 7, but haven't banned him once since.

[@Hazy_Fforest]

I really hope I don't have to go back to brand being my permaban now that you've reminded people he exists. He is such a scary champion in teamfights and im not high enough elo that players don't know to not cluster.

[@moza906]

so happy you did this vidoe as a brand main

[@cyvaultwrath]

Something to add about Brands %hp damage. It was so affective he was disabled in "Doom Bots of Doom" because he was simply to affective.

[@eryalmario5299]

I think brand is way too fair of a champion - dodge w and q then move away from your team if he ults

[@shaddollunlimited7792]

the enemies picks brand while im watching this video this has to be some sort of omen

[@goalking7778]

make brand e a skillshot with longer range, make his W cast time slightly shorter and make his ult also a skillshot but slightly longer range as well. would add a bit more potential for brand to play safer as his point and click abilities always force him to walk into dangerous range of his opponent, while adding some skill expression with him needing to land skillshots as opposed to point and clicking.

[@rosegod444]

Would you consider doing an episode on Morgana?

[@leonardouribe2569]

since brand was my first main i have played him a lot, but when i started to notice that the champion depends a lot on his team and started using more self relaiant champs on mid lane i went up two leagues in a very short time, and i never really liked him as a support so now i barely use him in general.

[@sylvieee.]

as a new player who only really plays with friends, i never see brand in my games because i have a friend whose favorite character is soraka and whenever she plays against a brand they buy oblivion orb before anything and the antiheal lasts years so she just bans him when on soraka

[@dontcaredidntask404]

Sustain and mobility creep, as well as really good magic resist items.

[@ja17979]

Also that bigger passive was max E meta which alowed point and click ability to do all the damage through passive... fun... I think Brand would benefit from stacking passive with milestones like kindred or Senna. More room for skill expression.

[@moobo3944]

Him and Swain share similar issues, too low range to fight other mages, too vulnerable early to fight assassins. So they remain as a stain upon low elo botlane much to the dissatisfaction of the people who actually want to play them.

[@nebula6053]

The only difference is that Swain prefers long combat fights with ult

[@diz6383]

What the heck happened to nunu at 6:30 did he just teleport?

[@urmommahouse494]

Thank goodness i dont nerd to worry about my whole team getting wipe from an ult

[@nin.-.]

I’ve been a Brand one trick since season 7 good or bad i just enjoy him midlane for the control (i tried orianna but didn’t like her as much), honestly from my perspective while i now understand why he is in this state id just rather them nuke his mana quality of life in exchange for a bit more damage. This makes it significantly more punishing not to make every rotation count, you can eventually opt into seraphs for mama but you have to get the income for that. Obviously this doesn’t entirely solve the issue as its easier to land rotations on brand in low elo so even with mana nuked early game if the enemies don’t dodge they’re dead faster now but it also makes it easier to push brands wave in forcing him to play smart as he has to choose when to use his abilities on the wave or try to get the damage on you. I’d just rather go for that style of a rough early game where you can barely afford your ability but can scale into a higher damage output later on as long as you collect enough gold to stay relevant. It’s rough but regardless he’s a favorite of mine that i enjoy whenever i do feel like playing the game

[@mohamedarbia9175]

What happened to Udyr from pick or banned to falling to obscurity next title.

[@hienlam0204]

"Why no one plays..(insert a popular champion).?"

[@michealman264]

Can u pls do Nilah next. She was released last yr but immediately just forgotten.

[@Senumunu]

he was quite good back when mana pots existed and auto attack was a more important tool for mages in lane also jungle was harder so you didnt get ganked every 35sec by a mobility monster

[@davidmoak1219]

When mana pots existed AD annie was a superior adc with range, attack speed, and built in stun. Then they thought hey Annie and TF are way too stronk at ADC so one of the steps they took was take away annies insane auto attack range. The community complained about having her auto range nearly halved so they reverted the range change and now we have the annie of today that has GARBAGE attack speed scaling because they don't want to see ADC annie. Yet ADC tf is still now viable. Slightly unrelated note, they took away AP Master Yi because it was 'unfair and largely untargetable and not the intended way to play a hyper carry without a window to counter'. Then they completely make the AP Yi nerf pointless by adding Duskblade, a NEW way to be completely be untargetable. TL;DR: Give is AP yi back since the reasoning behind nerfing it has been completely ignored. League History from a beta player.

[@isaaccho7752]

I swear this champ is hidden op. People who play him have a high death count but always tops damage. He's a suicide ap bomber like karthus.

[@edgarretana8377]

Exactly. Like I’m never scared to die to a brand because just dodge his stun and w but it’s always scary to jump him because even with just his e r he can get you super low and take you out of the fight.

[@petercampbell6051]

that gameplay at 6:25 though

[@einjharrelraca]

The issue with brand is that he is a squishy immobile with an easy to dodge kit. And 1 of those 3 things is a death sentence in league of mobility

[@travituspurebloods3343]

There's a brand jungle 1 trick I've seen in masters, has a high win rate too. Thinking it's sleeper

[@vBurnedWins]

i play him often but i have never played ranked, he feels nice

[@HowardAltEisen]

Just another in my list of champs I loved to play that have ended up being forever low tier, thanks rito

[@anonymoose271_5]

What the 𝐟𝐮𝐜𝐤 do you mean why no one plays Brand, I see him all the time

[@xarao]

why no one plays renata glasc when? my poor Glasc has a 2% pick rate only D:

[@brianlamptey4823]

I'd like Brand as another version of Ryze vs a burst mage with dps.

[@Slotherss]

Tfym in the 3 hours since this videos release i have seen 7 instances of brand being played in a row

[@lolmanboss]

My problems with Brand: Has low range for how squishy he is After one rotation, you may as well not be present at all, since it takes so darn long His DMG output is sub par to many enchanters I play. Eigther give him range or just swap out his %Health dmg to flat dmg and increase his flat dmg or decrease his CD

[@remilia20xx78]

As a Lulu main that had to deal with him a lot in the agony that is queuing alone in draft pick, he can suffer for all I care. Even in bot games he's annoying because he just E Qs you through scripting when you want to jump on him, delaying the inevitable or not. I just have a skill issue with him :(

[@coranhernandez3094]

Guys, can someone tell me which video was not available because no one plays it?

[@kiwwat4139]

As a proud no-elo player (around since season five and never even done my ranked placements), this guy was so annoying these last two years, but I am starting to see him less and less. Though as a support player, I personally think that all mage supports should just go back to midlane except for maybe Lux and Morg, because they at least have shields.

[@radircs9978]

On of my bigest annoyence since the rework Brand is that you can't chain your combo. You turned from a sige mage to a teamfight combo mage but your combo is limitet to be a one and done thing thanks to the limit of reaplieing your passiv after its allredy exploded. This leads to a gameplay moment where you feel like you can't do a right decition. If you manage to get your passiv to hit but the enemy is not dead you are now faced with the decition to hit him with your relativ week spells (since the powerbudged is in you passiv) and hope you don't need another passiv explosion or wait for it to closely run out to reaplie your combo. In most fights you need to hit your combo tice for a real 100-0 situation other then most combo mage where a good execution of your combo basicly win you the fight this do not apply to brand since he have no followup dps since the strong powerbudged shift in his passiv. Another small thing to considr is taht you don't get anny bonus on hitting a enemy more then 3 times. This mean if you use your ult you allredy in a situation where you potential waste stacks and dmg. This mean Brands "combo" is to linear and have a cealing in execution on top of the extra added delay of nearly 4 seconds after you hit it bevor you can do it again. To slow, to week if your combo hit only once but is limitet to hit only once, below avrage neutral in terms of risk reward thanks to low range without compensation(like mobility, burst or sustain). There are just to many champions that do nearly the same but better.

[@JohnDoe-vt8vp]

Mobility and dmg creep of the game made the champ unplayable

[@aez.e]

If the standard is "How many times do I see Brand in 15 games," and I'm at 0, I'm omw to Challenger!!

[@rence234]

As a former Brand main, yeah I can agree he's too slow and inconsistent to be picked. I remember back in the day that you Max E first cause it was just free damage while keeping your lane opponent off the minion wave

[@omfg322]

Because when he's played mid in a 1v1 he has to hit a perfect rotation of abilities that are telegraphed and easy to avoid to get as much damage off as Katarina who spins on you once and just has a long sword

[@kingofbunga]

Thanks for uploading a Brand.... new video

[@david191cm]

Base q roots should slow 50% for like 1.5 seconds, empowered q stuns still. Then e should do smth else. Otherwise his only cc makes it so he needs to be in e range to proc

[@herrscherkiller3432]

I still do play him from time to time. And i plaied him even more after i failed to get Kafka.

[@randeegaming6776]

as someone who has a 53% winrate (77% winrate in ranked) on brand and a brand mid main. i honestly think the community is just building and playing him wrong. usually i see other brand players go liandry's to rylais. It should be liandrys to demonic embrance. from experience, ur dmg just falls off too hard if u go rylais. just double down on the burn not alot of champs like building mr early. and play like an artillery mage. they cannot ignore you. its pretty rare that i see anyone out dps me. (dpm wise)

[@TheNotume]

While I feel you are correct about the damage of those 2 items. The big problem brand has, and why people build rylais is because of his slow cast times. Rylais allows you to be way more reliable with hitting abilities. Your damage does not matter at all if you can't hit your enemy.

[@mingisfixon6452]

6:26 THE NUNU FLASH RANGE???

[@Ichigoeki]

I think that it fits LoL community quite well to first complain that a champion only has neutral, and then move to complain that the same champion requires skill to play after its rework.