Over the last few patches, League of Legends’ solo queue ladder has been home to one of the game’s newest and deadliest champions, Briar. Riot Games has also taken notice of her newfound top spot in the meta, forcing the developers to make some changes to her kit.
Lead designer August Browning said on social media today that Briar “is too strong in lower MMR’s given how high her banrate is,” which has led to the devs cooking up some small damage nerfs to her Blood Frenzy and ultimate ability, Certain Death. August did, however, mention one small change that could shift Briar’s tactics moving forward.
At the moment, Briar has a 52-percent win rate in Platinum ranks and higher, while still holding a whopping 20.3 percent ban rate in the same ranked distribution, according to League stats site U.GG. She can take over games with ease, especially now that players have had enough time to learn how to maximize her damage while minimizing how much she runs in and dies.
In Patch 14.6, Briar will gain have the ability to use her Head Rush ability on wards, effectively giving her the same ward-hopping ability as Lee Sin. This gives her even more mobility than before, since she no longer has to rely on her ultimate to gank a target. Instead, she can hop over walls, avoid detection, and find even better positions for skirmishes and game-winning teamfights.
Experienced Briar enthusiasts should be very happy about this change since it will give them even more agency when roaming around the map. They can pop over walls, use a ward to get into range for a well-placed Chilling Scream, or use it to close the gap on a fleeing target when her ultimate is on cooldown.
Lee Sin is most well-known for his ability to jump from wards to make plays. Although Briar doesn’t have the same level of explosive ganking power with her kit, she can still be a playmaker for her team as she bounces from ward to enemy in the blink of an eye.
