Dear Fellow Toplaners: I'm Sorry

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nice poke, just give me 20 seconds while u wait for cooldowns, yeah k I'm good.

Yeah, is the go-to ban. :) Self-healing tanks generally spoil 's particular hustle. can wreck him pretty good too.

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Honestly I'm kind of wanting to try this. We're seeing tankier top laners recently so Brand top with his %HP damage might be kinda ridiculous. Only problem is how long of a lane it is and ganks.

So far it's a very good pick against anyone immobile with no healing in the kit. Bad against healing generally and self-healing tanks in particular.

He's not the best blind because there are four hard self-healing tank tops out there and really smart players will certainly be able to counterpick at least one, but he's a great sneaky counterpick against a lot of fighters if the team comp can handle the squishier frontline.

You do have to be careful past the river but you're actually fairly safe behind it, especially with tankier items in the build like . Tanky can be astonishingly hard to bust down, and he can be built double-pen and tank for surprisingly high damage, tankiness, and utility even without a lot of AP.

Great as a counterpick to:

Skill-dependent against:

Dubious against:

Countered/shut down by:

Doesn't really help against Brand. He can E-Q Xin Zhao very easily following Xin Zhao E. This stun in turn ruins the attack speed bonus and buys him more then enough time to get off W and distance. This sets off Brand passive giving him more then enough Dmg to make up for what little you did. If you applied one auto his minion wave is now on you while he is safe as his abilities wont attract your minions agro.

He would need to play passively yes, as wasting his e or q gives you a reasonable opening. However he needs neither to clear pretty damn fast.

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I feel like Brand should get stomped by most decent toplaners, especially fighters/bruisers

If you're talking about pure out-of-the-kit - then self-healing tanks beat him. Not fighters, not bruisers. I've watched top absolutely stomp on a all, but not a single victory yet.

It's not a question of any single engage but of the length of the early lane phase and CS. League is more often a marathon than a sprint, but the most reliable way to beat a solo-lane is simply to exhaust his mana pool without being anywhere near death, which is why absolutely dominates him.

I believe I understand what you guys are trying to say - and yes, if someone like gets ahead, is in trouble. Last time I played an , though, I essentially dominated her. The issue for these fighters is very simply that their pre-6 lane phase against is very, very difficult. They have to get up close to their CS in order to take it, and Pillar of Flame has a very wide area that's almost impossible to dodge. Very few fighters early have the waveclear to match and his own early CS is pretty easy, and you can't build health as a defense against him, which really messes with the build paths in the toplane - for instance, a is pretty bad against .

seem like capable fighters vs. because they have insane mobility and jukes and shields. I wouldn't put money on the rest. The matchup just plays out very differently in most cases than you all seem to be thinking. A good toplane stays very far back, makes your all-ins very difficult, and just about always holds QR until after you gap-close (or you're running away on fire with low health), so it's really not just a matter of catching him on cooldowns and beating him up. Brand's W and E are more than enough to use for laning and skirmishing and are pretty easy to tag melee champs with, and you'd be genuinely surprised how hard a time a fighter has trying to all-in before the QR combo they save blows you to little bits.

Tanks, though. is just disgusting versus . You can't even lane. I promise.

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I have many questions.

What's your win percentage? Is this a "win lane, lose game" strategy? With no tank, how do late game teamfights proceed? Is there a point where Brand falls off and you're likely to lose? Does having an immobile mage in the longer lane hurt your prospect of surviving ganks?

Basically, all these boil down to... I assume there's a counter. What is it?

Lane, or just overall on him? I win lane about 65-70% of the time, I'd guess - as for late game, it really depends on the comp. If he wins the lane and everyone else goes even or better I don't find him a bad late game top at all. If he wins and everyone else loses I can get dumpstered, but even then he has a better chance than a lot of tops because he can still put out damage. As far as ganks go - only really past the river is he seriously vulnerable. Q-stun and the natural distance he can keep is usually enough in even circumstances. I do build and often other tanky items so he's far from a one shot. Past the teamfight phase, he can't "tank" per se but the "frontline" he creates simply out of respect for the damage he puts out is often as effective in its own way as having a more serious frontliner. He's definitely a lot less vulnerable to getting dived on than many think, because as long as his R is up a hard engage on him often costs the enemy team more than it's worth - sure, they'll kill him on a dive sometimes, but only after the R combo has burned their entire frontline down to 40% health or so, and after that it's an easy cleanup if my team is in any way good. He's definitely much weaker as a frontliner when his ultimate is down, however, or against a tanky CC chain. I do not find that he falls off late game at all, but it depends a lot on the comp, and this is all Normals so far as taking this strat to Ranked unproven would be a good way to get reported.

As far as the counter strat - well, like I said, any major self-healing tank as your opponent is a shutdown. are all likely to give him fits, basically anyone who can soak up his mana pool and then just heal back to full shuts down this strat entirely, even is actually a pretty bad matchup, though oddly don't count because of their weak early games.