So riot considers brand a support champion.

Dasdi96·Nov 15, 2016·19 votes·2,670 views

Wtf rito? I saw in the league news that riot is adding 10 support champs to the free rotation. One of the champs is brand.

53 Comments

ShadòwNov 15, 20168 votes

he is a support

Wolfram OxfordNov 15, 201612 votes

So is the whole mage roster, mainly because they all have CC and don't need a lot of items to do damage. Hell these champions right here could thrive as supports; Ahri Cassiopeia Syndra Karthus

JQKAndreiNov 15, 20163 votes

Look! Orianna even has a shield! A SHIELD!

ShadòwNov 15, 20166 votes

thing is Brand is a Champ that is picked very often as Support actually and that was taken into consideration when Riot decided which 10 Champions to take.

resumedNov 15, 20168 votes

support mages Zyra teamfight ultimates, can continuously apply crowd control, high base damages, zone control, peel

not support mages Ahri Syndra ultimates are used to nuke down single targets, limited peel or zone control Cassiopeia Karthus scale with items, mana & gold reliant, little crowd control

get it ?

5000000000000000Nov 15, 20161 votes

Syndra's long range stun can be a useful pick/weak engage tool. Cassiopeia's poison is a good mana-efficient poke tool, and poison also works very well with Rylai's. Karthus has a strong slow and resist shred, and also synergize well with Rylai's.

resumedNov 15, 20163 votes

why would you play karthus or cassiopeia support for the rylais synergy when you could play brand and have all his spells slow for 4 seconds

BreakuNov 15, 20162 votes

Syndra is used as a support in some regions, due to her CC and single target burst.

CookyPrinceNov 16, 20163 votes

I used to play syndra support especially against zyra to throw her plants right back at her

PoskeNov 16, 20161 votes

Ahri is to gold reliant Cass is a hypercarry

Karthus and syndra support can work

HazyCloud7Nov 15, 20162 votes

None of these champions would make good meta supports. They're all off meta cheesy picks.

Edit: Ah you're a yasuo main, that makes sense.

RozzetaNov 16, 20161 votes

Yeah, but a cheesy support got more play in Worlds than most of the actual support roster, so...

HazyCloud7Nov 16, 20161 votes

It was a very specific pick intended to counter Zyra. MF support in general is pretty bad. And it didn't get more play, mostly we saw Karma/Nami/Alistar/Zyra/Bard/Braum/Taric all of which are standard supports.

RozzetaNov 16, 20161 votes

don't remember seeing Taric or Bard much, though there was some Tham here and there. Also, are we seriously going to consider Zyra an actual support now?

HazyCloud7Nov 17, 20161 votes

...wat?

She's played almost exclusively as a support and this has been the case for the entire season.

Wolfram OxfordNov 16, 20161 votes

In pro play they will sometimes come out with something specifically to counter another thing. Like the whole armor pen MF was there to counter Lucian who was dominating competition at the time. MF support was there to counter Zyra and pretty much any ranged poke lane.

RozzetaNov 16, 20161 votes

Yep. Zyra, a mage, could overcome actual supports, to the point another non support, who counters her, saw more action in worlds. That another way to see it.

R18Nov 15, 20168 votes

In my experience, brand is a more common support than midlander.

Stormshadow3503Nov 16, 20161 votes

His stun is longer than a Sona ult

Adrian BlackbearNov 15, 20163 votes

I wish he wasn't in the free rotation. I'm tired of seeing him.

EndlessSorcererNov 15, 20163 votes

He is a champion who can (and has) been played as a support for a couple seasons now.

SanKakUNov 16, 20161 votes

Being the lane partner doesn't mean he's a support champion. It just means he gets a free pass on being in the support slot for a draft. Try drafting something unusual like a Veigar for 'support', even if it's good, people will rage quit on you.

EndlessSorcererNov 16, 20164 votes

The support role came to exist because they could function without farming (allowing the ADC to take all farm in the lane).

Champions were usually chosen for this role due to qualities such as their innate utility, innate durability or innate damage; they were not heavily reliant on gold, items or experience for their damage.

This is the primary purpose for having a support; they enable the gold-reliant ADC to hoard farm and are effective even with low gold income.

Brand is a damage-oriented champion capable of filling the support role due to his low gold reliance. He has some utility (stun, slow from Rylai's Crystal Scepter due to his passive), high base damages (scaling perfectly fine with little aside from magic penetration items) and easily procs the gold-generation from Spellthief's Edge.

He was used in pro-play and has been recognized as a viable support champion for over two years.

What are a few other viable damage-oriented supports? Zyra Velkoz Annie

SanKakUNov 16, 20161 votes

People play Lux/Sona that way also. It might not be reliable like for your examples, but it is done. Lots of marksmen and assassins can be played to varying degrees of success depending on the carry champion. Honestly, I feel like these champions you're referring to are more like 'assassins' than mages or supports...at least that's how you play them in trash tier rankings. Death is the best crowd control kind of attitude can certainly work.

Other champions that essentially play that way are Zilean and Heimerdinger. IIRC Heimerdinger is listed as a support even though he can solo Drake. Of course, so can Nunu and he's also a 'support', hehe. The fact that Nunu is listed as a support but he's a jungle champion makes me just cringe when I see people telling me that Orianna is a mid and that's why she's not a support argument. Honestly, I think Riot just needs to clean up the language a bit more when it comes to what a support is and what it isn't, but I guess it might be too late for that. People still call the bot guy the ADC...oh, you're going ADC Veigar? Yeah...like Veigar scales with AD...WTF.

RequiemsfireNov 16, 20161 votes

Well Nunu's classification amongst many people is a support jungler where Nunu wins the game by being a secondary support in the jungle who provides for their team through objectives and buffs.

EndlessSorcererNov 16, 20163 votes

The "support" tag just means that they have supportive qualities and/or playstyle. It does not necessarily mean that a champion HAS to be played as a support.

Nunu is a supportive jungler. His kit is full of buffs and debuffs to enable his team and disable the enemy team through his utility.

Ivern would also fall under this classification (and was in fact designed for it).

Orianna provides an MS buff and slow, a shield and her ultimate. She generally plays by enabling her team and supporting then during skirmishes and teamfights even though she isn't necessarily a support.

Lux and Anivia are also examples of mid-laners with supportive qualities.

elon wątrobaNov 16, 20161 votes

Fiddle used to be but he had more utility than damage.

137434Nov 15, 20162 votes

Brand is a common support, and the intention was clearly to have a wide range of support types (utility, tank, damage/mage, etc) for people to try out and find out what support style they may enjoy the most.

BALDG1VEN BOOMERNov 15, 20162 votes

http://boards.na.leagueoflegends.com/en/c/gameplay-balance/v8kf0URG-riot-considers-brand-a-support

Here you go

Kirius DarkNov 15, 20162 votes

So apparently more of a support than Lulu, Kench, Ali, Zilean or Morg?? WTF If they wanted to give a mage at least make it Karma

Imperial JapanNov 15, 20161 votes

[{quoted}](name=Level 18 Feeder,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=sYHvd0VA,comment-id=0009,timestamp=2016-11-15T21:32:45.224+0000)

So apparently more of a support than Lulu, Kench, Ali, Zilean or Morg?? WTF If they wanted to give a mage at least make it Karma

Lulu is a Mid and top lamer but you're classifying her as a support? Sounds a bit hypocritical. Kench can be played top, Ali is likewise and there was an AP Ali main high elo (he can also be jgld) and zilean and morg both can be brought Mid. Hell I've seen my friend bring morg jg

SpecterVonBarenNov 15, 20163 votes

No Lulu isn't a fucking top or mid laner, she is a support that has been taken top and mid.

Imperial JapanNov 16, 20161 votes

{quoted}

No Lulu isn't a fucking top or mid laner, she is a support that has been taken top and mid.

And you are the one to decide... how? She has been taken Top Mid and Support in LCS games and many players pick her in the jungle and ADC role.

morris1Nov 16, 20161 votes

[{quoted}](name=DLTD Stuart,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=sYHvd0VA,comment-id=0009000000000000,timestamp=2016-11-16T03:01:52.126+0000)

And you are the one to decide... how? She has been taken Top Mid and Support in LCS games

They nerfed her solo lane.

and many players pick her in the jungle and ADC role.

1k+ games, only seen 3 ADC Lulus and none jungle. By this logic Vayne and Teemo are junglers too, right?

Imperial JapanNov 17, 20161 votes

[{quoted}](name=Moraru Maurice,realm=EUNE,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=sYHvd0VA,comment-id=00090000000000000000,timestamp=2016-11-16T12:12:33.956+0000)

They nerfed her solo lane.

1k+ games, only seen 3 ADC Lulus and none jungle. By this logic Vayne and Teemo are junglers too, right?

Okay so then you're saying that if they nerf Brands solo lane then he'd become a support regardless of what he was?

Oh wow aren't you cool. I've seen maybe a total of 15 Lulu's within 1000 games. Also I have a friend that's a jungle teemo main with the name of CottonTaiITeemo so yes I suppose so. Besides I'm only arguing the fact that you called some champions (such as Lulu) a support to defend how Brand is supposed to be a mid laner when that Support could and has and would be brought in other lanes such as midlane

EnlegacyNov 15, 20163 votes

They wanted to provide a variety, and Karma is on the normal free rotation, and people normally don't build full AP on her, making her less of a mage support.

Athenes LuluNov 15, 20161 votes

It's to get non support players to play support, duh.

Implying that playing Brand support requires any prior support knowledge to be decent.

Legacy HydralphaNov 15, 20161 votes

Brand Support is useful for his poke and CC from his Q stun, IMO he works pretty well as a high-damage support and he can work in teams that already have tanks or stronger utility.

Squidward DabNov 16, 20161 votes

Brand support is best picked when paired with an aggressive early game adc as well

HazyCloud7Nov 15, 20161 votes

One of his roles is support.

Teridax68Nov 15, 20161 votes

Brand is a champion often played in the support position, even if he doesn't belong to the support class. His identity isn't that of a support in the same sense as Janna, Nami, Soraka, etc., but when he goes bot to support, he suffers from many of the same problems as anyone else who goes into the support position, i.e. sub-par gold and experience, unappetizing mandatory items, and the typical set of unfun restrictions imposed on supports, like not taking CS and having to go out alone to do the majority of the team's warding. He does have an advantage in that he's more independent and a lot more likely to get kills, but otherwise it's valid to test him out in order to find out what the support position needs.

Chembaron YamadaNov 16, 20161 votes

Maybe they put him in there because they had no other choice? Think about it, support has actually a really small champion pool and they had to take 10 of them. Additionally, they have to keep in mind that they have to provide 2 more changing supports every week. These 10 supports are staying for a month, the other 10 champions they are giving you free changing every week always include 2 supports as well.

If they wouldn't include champions like that, they would have to double some champions in this month. At least that is my opinion about the reason they did it.

PrimaquariusNov 16, 20161 votes

Blitzcrank isnt a support champion either, but he was shunted into it since season 1

Ariel the CruelNov 16, 20161 votes

That's just because of how strong his Q is in a duo lane. It's the only reason sees play, much less in support roll.

The Space CowboyNov 16, 20161 votes

If Brand is a support can we nerf his base damage and lower mana costs? Same with Zyra.

RequiemsfireNov 16, 20161 votes

Brand is a really strong support due to his base damage and passive providing him with less reliance on itemization than other mages who need to ramp up over time. Furthermore he forces an enemy team to respect his presence and force them to divide or otherwise they are punished for it.

PikmintsNov 16, 20161 votes

It's not called the banana-burn index for no reason. Soraka

NoDaddyItHurtsNov 16, 20161 votes

Mage supports. Ever heard of those? Because he can deal damage without many items. You probably didn't play one or two years ago when he was a big deal.