pyromaniac221this just might bean interestin YTRegistered Userregular
Just got back from visiting family and played my first game in a few weeks. My mechanics are hilarious dogshit but I went 10/3 anyway because Kha'zix is apparently stupidly OP in the jungle.
And back to gold 3, again. I have a vicious cycle of drinking, playing, dropping a bunch of lp or falling down, then playing sober and going straight back up.
Also, I got to play mundo. Wow. No wonder everyone says he's op.
"The only way to get rid of a temptation is to give into it." - Oscar Wilde
"We believe in the people and their 'wisdom' as if there was some special secret entrance to knowledge that barred to anyone who had ever learned anything." - Friedrich Nietzsche
Dear people on my team: Please don't dive. Before level 9 or so, it isn't really worth it unless they are literally one hit from death. Elsewise those two or three tower hits will do enough to chunk off 2/3rds of your life, and odds are you aren't full health.
Also don't get mad when I don't dive with you. I'm well aware I am not going to survive those tower shots and the odds of you going in and dying then me getting stuck with tower aggro are high and I'd rather just watch you die while farming their wraiths then feed them a double.
Basically, what I'm saying is, I sure hate people who dive and die. Like, a lot.
What's all this business about getting a doran's shields on supports? Is this the initial buy against ranged supports or a first back item? Does starting the shield expose your lane to ganks since your vision is decreased?
I'm seriously enjoying free week Brand. Is there any reason not to try to make him my main mid pick? I haven't played enough games with him (played vs Zed, Lux, and a really awful Kassadin), so I don't know who counters him/whether it would be bad to pick him before seeing the opponent's mid.
Of course, if I'm playing mid in ranked something has gone pretty wrong anyway, so it's sort of a hypothetical question.
I am tired as hell of dealing with Brand. It used to be nothing but Brand until Annie stun came a charge faster + the shield changes, then we get a pretty even split between Brand and Annie but everyone dies the same way, either in a sudden blaze of agony or in a slow but sure burn afterwards.
Brand just feels so good. I have played no other champions that can 100-0 an enemy like that. If anything, I need to be more aggressive--had a good moment last Brand game where my jungler came to gank for me but I was pushed up and he chilled in the bush; I was inspired to go for my combo and murdered my opponent while the jungler watched without helping.
I'm definitely not getting the combo every time, but it happens enough so that I'm effective in lane, and when I do make it happen I feel satisfied and skillful. I need to improve at farming, but that's par for the course on every mid except for Lissandra.
I'm buying chalice because I am still at the point where I'm spamming spells due to not having great judgment, but I can see that if I get better at Brand and jungler gives me blue, I shouldn't need chalice.
Definitely dropping the 4800 IP for him once I get it (a couple more games). I bought another movespeed quint and it was surprisingly expensive.
("But credeiki, do you mean you've been jungling with a single movespeed quint that you got for free with your mouse?" No comment on the atrocity that is my jungle rune page.)
I am tired as hell of dealing with Brand. It used to be nothing but Brand until Annie stun came a charge faster + the shield changes, then we get a pretty even split between Brand and Annie but everyone dies the same way, either in a sudden blaze of agony or in a slow but sure burn afterwards.
On Dominion? He's actually good there? I am surprised.
I am tired as hell of dealing with Brand. It used to be nothing but Brand until Annie stun came a charge faster + the shield changes, then we get a pretty even split between Brand and Annie but everyone dies the same way, either in a sudden blaze of agony or in a slow but sure burn afterwards.
On Dominion? He's actually good there? I am surprised.
He has great harass/utility and can build CDR first while still being effective. I'd imagine the narrower lanes of Dom help too.
I am tired as hell of dealing with Brand. It used to be nothing but Brand until Annie stun came a charge faster + the shield changes, then we get a pretty even split between Brand and Annie but everyone dies the same way, either in a sudden blaze of agony or in a slow but sure burn afterwards.
On Dominion? He's actually good there? I am surprised.
Good? For about a solid year he was THE mage of Dominion, only rivaled when Zyra showed up, and then later Annie after buffs. You pick J4 and Brand and you have your team for top set, everything else is filler.
I like both Vandal Brand and the default skin. This is entirely because they feel like Planescape:Torment's Ignus.
Now I really want to burn some dudes, but I am hard at work on my application for an internship at Riot. It would be unbelievably ridiculous to fail to complete this in time due to playing too much League of Legends.
Brand isn't picked because he's a very unsafe pick. He's Mordekaiser level easy to gank in mid lane. Plenty of champs do tons of damage while also not being as easy to gank as him, and he's not even that hard for some champs to 1v1.
That being said, it will never not be hilarious to play him, because the split second you get ahead, every gank the jungler tries to bring to your lane will turn in to a double kill for you if you land your spells. He's a fine pick, but most people on average just play the safest most consistent picks.
The difference between a regular mid playing brand and a good brand player is that the brand player still gets 600g even if he dies to a gank.
Well put. And I don't even think he's that easy to gank. With the free ward it helps his early game tremendously, and if bullies the lane properly, the mid laner won't have an opportunity to assist in the gank.
What's all this business about getting a doran's shields on supports? Is this the initial buy against ranged supports or a first back item? Does starting the shield expose your lane to ganks since your vision is decreased?
Initial buy against ranged supports. Make sure you pick the ward trinket instead of the sweeper trinket. Your ADC should help you ward for ganks.
Those are fair points about Brand often bullying the enemy mid enough that ganks are less threatening, and how he can often get a kill in a gank too, but it's not always true. He has more potential to turn a gank post 6 with his ult, but pre 6 less so, and it also depends massively on who the junglers are. Some junglers can make life utter hell for somebody like Brand who has no escapes whatsoever if they just camp him.
I'm not saying he's bad because of this stuff. I'm just saying he won't ever be a super duper popular pick as long as he has weaknesses that not all mids have.
Those are fair points about Brand often bullying the enemy mid enough that ganks are less threatening, and how he can often get a kill in a gank too, but it's not always true. He has more potential to turn a gank post 6 with his ult, but pre 6 less so, and it also depends massively on who the junglers are. Some junglers can make life utter hell for somebody like Brand who has no escapes whatsoever if they just camp him.
I'm not saying he's bad because of this stuff. I'm just saying he won't ever be a super duper popular pick as long as he has weaknesses that not all mids have.
Plus his skillshot nature means people like fizz can dumpster him pretty easily.
What's all this business about getting a doran's shields on supports? Is this the initial buy against ranged supports or a first back item? Does starting the shield expose your lane to ganks since your vision is decreased?
Initial buy against ranged supports. Make sure you pick the ward trinket instead of the sweeper trinket. Your ADC should help you ward for ganks.
If you buy a Doran's shield first, how soon do you tend to go back and buy a Coin? Do you buy a Coin?
Those are fair points about Brand often bullying the enemy mid enough that ganks are less threatening, and how he can often get a kill in a gank too, but it's not always true. He has more potential to turn a gank post 6 with his ult, but pre 6 less so, and it also depends massively on who the junglers are. Some junglers can make life utter hell for somebody like Brand who has no escapes whatsoever if they just camp him.
I'm not saying he's bad because of this stuff. I'm just saying he won't ever be a super duper popular pick as long as he has weaknesses that not all mids have.
Ahri has no escapes pre-six either, just as a thought. Neither does Nidalee for that matter.
Those are fair points about Brand often bullying the enemy mid enough that ganks are less threatening, and how he can often get a kill in a gank too, but it's not always true. He has more potential to turn a gank post 6 with his ult, but pre 6 less so, and it also depends massively on who the junglers are. Some junglers can make life utter hell for somebody like Brand who has no escapes whatsoever if they just camp him.
I'm not saying he's bad because of this stuff. I'm just saying he won't ever be a super duper popular pick as long as he has weaknesses that not all mids have.
Ahri has no escapes pre-six either, just as a thought. Neither does Nidalee for that matter.
I know, but those two champs stop being easy to gank post 6. =P Brand can get a kill in a gank post 6 IF he isn't against a jungler/mid combo that just CCs and wrecks him too easily, but it's not guaranteed. I'm just giving reasons why other champs are more popular. Basically if you can go "Brand does lots of damage but X champion does similar damage and has Y thing that makes them safer/easier to play/Bjergsen played it" then that other champ will just be more popular.
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SummaryJudgmentGrab the hottest iron you can find, stride in the Tower’s front doorRegistered Userregular
@spool32 I'm so glad we decided to swap roles in that game last night. I know it worked out better for me than it did for you, but I was worried about going top. I'm glad my Udyr skills haven't degraded.
To the people from that first game; I'm sorry I sniped support. As an aside, I had no fucking idea how to deal with that Gallio.
Yes. It provides 1233 gold worth of combat stats for 1600 gold.
The stats it provides are bad and situational. Most junglers don't need much armor to prevent themselves from dying to jungle creeps. Most jungles don't need attack speed to clear. Almost no junglers scale on attack speed and armor in any meaningful way.
So you spend 1600 gold for armor and attack speed and the 40% gold passive. This means you have to make up that money by power farming. But you can't power farm because you can't fight anyone that you run into because you spent 1600 gold on stats that don't help you.
Compare to Spirit of the AG, which was just nerfed, 2100 worth of stats for 2000 before the passives, which are just as strong if not stronger than the wriggles passive. Conservation is so strong that every jungle item(except wriggles) was given it because when it was released AG was the only item which was being built. Conservation is basically 6.66 GP/10 so long as you kill a jungle creep every 40 seconds or two every 80.
Junglers who completely ignore the lanes are the worst. Farming while the enemy team has an Elise non-stop ganking is just throwing the game.
Since every legitimate jungle item has conservation stacks on it there is no excuse to not gank lanes.
Often, as in nearly daily, I jungle and my lanes are never in a good position to gank
they push the wave hard to the enemy tower and wait patiently to provide a meal to the enemy jungler who can of course hit their unwarded backside and leave them with nowhere to go
the best I can do is hang around and hope I'm in the right place to assist at the right time in those situations, bronze players don't seem to understand that the friendly jungler can't do much if they've pushed all the way up
Why don't you dive? Or counter gank? Or communicate with your lanes? Because as a support the only time i am not going to be shoving the lane down the enemies throat is if i get an advantageous position to freeze and starve them.
I do do all of those things
but either my team won't work with me or the other team doesn't work with their jungler, so it's either easy as hell ganks or impossible ganks
a balanced game is super rare
edit: and diving as a jungler early on is almost never, ever worth it unless the enemy is almost dead under their tower
Those are fair points about Brand often bullying the enemy mid enough that ganks are less threatening, and how he can often get a kill in a gank too, but it's not always true. He has more potential to turn a gank post 6 with his ult, but pre 6 less so, and it also depends massively on who the junglers are. Some junglers can make life utter hell for somebody like Brand who has no escapes whatsoever if they just camp him.
I'm not saying he's bad because of this stuff. I'm just saying he won't ever be a super duper popular pick as long as he has weaknesses that not all mids have.
Ahri has no escapes pre-six either, just as a thought. Neither does Nidalee for that matter.
I know, but those two champs stop being easy to gank post 6. =P Brand can get a kill in a gank post 6 IF he isn't against a jungler/mid combo that just CCs and wrecks him too easily, but it's not guaranteed. I'm just giving reasons why other champs are more popular. Basically if you can go "Brand does lots of damage but X champion does similar damage and has Y thing that makes them safer/easier to play/Bjergsen played it" then that other champ will just be more popular.
I actually think the there are two main reasons he doesn't see more/competitive play:
1) He doesn't fill a niche. If you need a burst mage, there are better burst mages with more reliable CC. If you need an AOE mage, Oriana has slightly less damage output for a massive increase in utility, and Zigs does insane damage from a longer range.
2) His ult is unreliable. Most of the time it does what you want, but at a competitive level, you want your champs to be consistent. You can't afford to have one or two bad bounces in a very close game, or need to kill someone but not have any bounce targets. Especially, when some games are decided by a just a few autoattacks.
Those caveats aside, I still think he's incredibly solid and I'm playing him mid every chance I get. He's about the only hero who I'm not failing with recently.
Last night I was playing Brand mid and I played a ward on the top bush in the river. Fucking Amumu pops up twice from below to gank me. Ok, place ward below, fucker pops up from amove and ganks me.
Brands movement speed really is he's weakness. If I play him again Im goong to get Ghost.
What's all this business about getting a doran's shields on supports? Is this the initial buy against ranged supports or a first back item? Does starting the shield expose your lane to ganks since your vision is decreased?
Initial buy against ranged supports. Make sure you pick the ward trinket instead of the sweeper trinket. Your ADC should help you ward for ganks.
If you buy a Doran's shield first, how soon do you tend to go back and buy a Coin? Do you buy a Coin?
Coin is usually first back. But if you're losing and need some "now" power something else might work too (like starting your sight stone)
The gp/10 on coin is like 6. This is similar to the gp/10 on sight stone but sight stone had a significant base cost. It's 2 from the raw gp/10 and 4 from 12 gold/30 seconds. So you want to get it running ASAP. But don't want it at a point where you could be harassed out for having it due to lack of "now" stats.
If you have trouble in lane rush sight stone before coin. This will give you more oomph and get you to a similar effective gp/10 position. If you're secure in the lane get coin. It will let you catapult your gp/10 a bit faster and provide some lane sustain to help you win extended trades.
What's all this business about getting a doran's shields on supports? Is this the initial buy against ranged supports or a first back item? Does starting the shield expose your lane to ganks since your vision is decreased?
Initial buy against ranged supports. Make sure you pick the ward trinket instead of the sweeper trinket. Your ADC should help you ward for ganks.
If you buy a Doran's shield first, how soon do you tend to go back and buy a Coin? Do you buy a Coin?
Coin is usually first back. But if you're losing and need some "now" power something else might work too (like starting your sight stone)
The gp/10 on coin is like 6. This is similar to the gp/10 on sight stone but sight stone had a significant base cost. It's 2 from the raw gp/10 and 4 from 12 gold/30 seconds. So you want to get it running ASAP. But don't want it at a point where you could be harassed out for having it due to lack of "now" stats.
If you have trouble in lane rush sight stone before coin. This will give you more oomph and get you to a similar effective gp/10 position. If you're secure in the lane get coin. It will let you catapult your gp/10 a bit faster and provide some lane sustain to help you win extended trades.
Hrm. I've been starting coin or relic shield first and then picking up a doran's shield on my first back when I'm on a tanky support. I can see how that's doing it backwards.
Relic shield just doesn't seem worth it. The passive is nice, but I love that the coin builds into an item with a nice group buff.
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Also, I got to play mundo. Wow. No wonder everyone says he's op.
3ds friend code: 2981-6032-4118
Seriously. You alright buddy?
"We believe in the people and their 'wisdom' as if there was some special secret entrance to knowledge that barred to anyone who had ever learned anything." - Friedrich Nietzsche
Also don't get mad when I don't dive with you. I'm well aware I am not going to survive those tower shots and the odds of you going in and dying then me getting stuck with tower aggro are high and I'd rather just watch you die while farming their wraiths then feed them a double.
Basically, what I'm saying is, I sure hate people who dive and die. Like, a lot.
Nintendo ID: Pastalonius
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Brand is great. More people should main him.
I'm definitely not getting the combo every time, but it happens enough so that I'm effective in lane, and when I do make it happen I feel satisfied and skillful. I need to improve at farming, but that's par for the course on every mid except for Lissandra.
I'm buying chalice because I am still at the point where I'm spamming spells due to not having great judgment, but I can see that if I get better at Brand and jungler gives me blue, I shouldn't need chalice.
Definitely dropping the 4800 IP for him once I get it (a couple more games). I bought another movespeed quint and it was surprisingly expensive.
("But credeiki, do you mean you've been jungling with a single movespeed quint that you got for free with your mouse?" No comment on the atrocity that is my jungle rune page.)
On Dominion? He's actually good there? I am surprised.
He has great harass/utility and can build CDR first while still being effective. I'd imagine the narrower lanes of Dom help too.
Good? For about a solid year he was THE mage of Dominion, only rivaled when Zyra showed up, and then later Annie after buffs. You pick J4 and Brand and you have your team for top set, everything else is filler.
I prefer Cyrocore brand
gotta MR.FREEZE it up
I prefer Apocalypic Brand. Gas masks are the coolest.
Now I really want to burn some dudes, but I am hard at work on my application for an internship at Riot. It would be unbelievably ridiculous to fail to complete this in time due to playing too much League of Legends.
Brand is not a Bear.
Are you okay Roz?
Not easy mechanically, poor mobility, high mana costs, RNG ult.
That being said, it will never not be hilarious to play him, because the split second you get ahead, every gank the jungler tries to bring to your lane will turn in to a double kill for you if you land your spells. He's a fine pick, but most people on average just play the safest most consistent picks.
Brand is a great mid.
I'm having a crisis of confidence
Well put. And I don't even think he's that easy to gank. With the free ward it helps his early game tremendously, and if bullies the lane properly, the mid laner won't have an opportunity to assist in the gank.
Brand is a good reason to rush Banshee's Veil.
Initial buy against ranged supports. Make sure you pick the ward trinket instead of the sweeper trinket. Your ADC should help you ward for ganks.
I'm not saying he's bad because of this stuff. I'm just saying he won't ever be a super duper popular pick as long as he has weaknesses that not all mids have.
Plus his skillshot nature means people like fizz can dumpster him pretty easily.
Ahri has no escapes pre-six either, just as a thought. Neither does Nidalee for that matter.
I know, but those two champs stop being easy to gank post 6. =P Brand can get a kill in a gank post 6 IF he isn't against a jungler/mid combo that just CCs and wrecks him too easily, but it's not guaranteed. I'm just giving reasons why other champs are more popular. Basically if you can go "Brand does lots of damage but X champion does similar damage and has Y thing that makes them safer/easier to play/Bjergsen played it" then that other champ will just be more popular.
"Benefit"
To the people from that first game; I'm sorry I sniped support. As an aside, I had no fucking idea how to deal with that Gallio.
I do do all of those things
but either my team won't work with me or the other team doesn't work with their jungler, so it's either easy as hell ganks or impossible ganks
a balanced game is super rare
edit: and diving as a jungler early on is almost never, ever worth it unless the enemy is almost dead under their tower
I actually think the there are two main reasons he doesn't see more/competitive play:
1) He doesn't fill a niche. If you need a burst mage, there are better burst mages with more reliable CC. If you need an AOE mage, Oriana has slightly less damage output for a massive increase in utility, and Zigs does insane damage from a longer range.
2) His ult is unreliable. Most of the time it does what you want, but at a competitive level, you want your champs to be consistent. You can't afford to have one or two bad bounces in a very close game, or need to kill someone but not have any bounce targets. Especially, when some games are decided by a just a few autoattacks.
Those caveats aside, I still think he's incredibly solid and I'm playing him mid every chance I get. He's about the only hero who I'm not failing with recently.
This is it. This is the week I do my placements. Base Elemtent Division 5 HERE I COME!
Brands movement speed really is he's weakness. If I play him again Im goong to get Ghost.
Good luck!
Don't sweat your placements too much, because they are pure chaos.
Coin is usually first back. But if you're losing and need some "now" power something else might work too (like starting your sight stone)
The gp/10 on coin is like 6. This is similar to the gp/10 on sight stone but sight stone had a significant base cost. It's 2 from the raw gp/10 and 4 from 12 gold/30 seconds. So you want to get it running ASAP. But don't want it at a point where you could be harassed out for having it due to lack of "now" stats.
If you have trouble in lane rush sight stone before coin. This will give you more oomph and get you to a similar effective gp/10 position. If you're secure in the lane get coin. It will let you catapult your gp/10 a bit faster and provide some lane sustain to help you win extended trades.
Hrm. I've been starting coin or relic shield first and then picking up a doran's shield on my first back when I'm on a tanky support. I can see how that's doing it backwards.
Relic shield just doesn't seem worth it. The passive is nice, but I love that the coin builds into an item with a nice group buff.