Cover-Credits:
Riot Games
Briar is the newest champion to join the ever-expanding roster of League of Legends champions. There was a lot of hype around this new champion given how interesting her ability kit is. She was only released on 13th September along with LoL Patch 13.18 and just hours after her release, the League of Legends developers pushed out an emergency buff for her via a hot fix since she was performing very poorly with incredibly low win rates in both pubs and ranked mode in League of Legends.
However, a lot of people opined that Briar's low win rate early on could be due to players just learning to play her and that Riot Games should not buff her too much. Regardless, Riot has rolled out a hot fix for the hangry jungler.
Here's all we know about the Briar emergency hot fix buffs in LoL Patch 13.18.
Briar's Win Rate Is Very Low in League of Legends, Riot Tries to Help
Late on 14th September, Riot Games Lead Champion Designer August "August" Browning wrote on Twitter, "A hotfix buff for Briar is now live that gives her a bit more resilience when things go wrong. We're being careful here as we expect she'll get stronger as players learn the in(t)s and outs of her kit."
The buffs are as follows:
Base Stats
HP: 590 >>> 610
E: Chilling Scream
Damage Reduction: 35% >>> 40%
Cooldown: 18 >>> 16
Chilling Scream ability in Briar's kit is predominantly used to break out of her W: Blood Frenzy/Snack Attack. It works like this:
Begin Charging: Briar removes Blood Frenzy and gathers energy, gaining damage reduction and restoring health.
Release: Briar unleashes a scream that deals damage based on time charged and slows for a short duration. When fully charged the scream knocks back, dealing additional damage to enemies that hit a wall and stunning them.
Currently, according to U.GG, Briar's win rate, even after the emergency buffs, stands at 34.43% in the jungle, and 31.69% in the top lane. Note that these stats are for Emerald and higher tiers in League of Legends ranked and these could vary in the lower MMRs.
Though the buffs that Briar received as part of the hot fix are not game-chaning, Riot Games believes that they will allow Briar to survive a bit more in team fights and 1v1s. Additionally, as and when players learn to play the champion better, the win rate will naturally improve.
This is not the first time a new champion has had very poor win rates in League of Legends. The same situation prevailed when Zeri and K'Sante set foot on Summoner's Rift. Notably, these champions with a unique ability kit have a steeper learning curve and it takes time before players get a hang of them.
