Brand support ditched as LoL devs push spellcaster into new roles

Riot Games is making a huge change to Brand with next week’s League of Legends Patch 13.22 update, with changes to the Burning Vengeance meant to push him into a core role in the mid lane or into the jungle.

League lead gameplay designer, Matt “Phroxzon” Leung-Harrison, today revealed the team’s intent to enable Brand’s role switch in the Patch 13.22 preview on Twitter, stating the dev team is happy with his current state as a support in Season 13 and now wants to flex him into a damage-dealer role on top of that dual-lane focus.

How Riot plans to make those changes are expected to be unveiled tomorrow.

One could question this sentiment from the devs, however. Brand sits well below the top-tier of League supports and instead languishes with the champions recording a 48.71 percent win rate this patch at high ranks, according to stats site U.GG.

While this win rate does creep above parity at all ranks, it’s been a long slog to get here for the Burning Vengeance who has seen a number of changes throughout Season 13. An ability power ratio and mana restoration increase across his kit in 13.16 did little to budge his win rate as a support before the champ received a flurry of stat adjustments in 13.21.

This is the second update designed to trial Brand in the jungle, with Riot’s Phreak discussing the push for the champion—as well as a number of other mages—into a more central role outside of just as a support.

“There aren’t a lot of viable jungle mages, and realistically it won’t be hard to make these mages work successfully in the position,” Phreak said in his Patch 13.21 rundown last week. The idea, Phreak suggested, is that boosting a champion or group of champions’ versatility across the map opens up room for more team compositions.

“Opening up champions to more than one role is a way to very cheaply create something that people might really enjoy,” Phreak said. “Mages are viable in support, viable in bot lane, viable in mid-lane, but very few can work in the jungle—why not open the class up to more things?”

No one has to convince me, who has attempted—and utterly failed—to make “Brungle” work across a number of League updates and metas in the past. Now Brand jungle is to be Riot-certified, I feel vindicated and can’t wait to give him a spin.

Update Oct. 31, 8:40pm CT: Phroxzon has posted the full League Patch 13.22 preview including an in-depth look into the major change to Brand’s abilities.

Only Brand’s E, Conflagration, will receive a buff with 13.22 next Tuesday. The ability will deal less damage at level one but scales better thanks to a gradual buff at each level thereafter as well as an added 10 percent bonus ability power damage.

To make full effect of this, Brand players will need to set a jungle or lane minion Ablaze first with Brand’s passive, then apply Conflagration afterward to ensure the entire lane or jungle camp takes the damage.

Given Q (Sear) applies a static stun on Ablaze targets and doesn’t scale with level, we may likely see Conflagration maxed second now instead of Sear after Pillar of Flame.