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Riot releases emergency Briar buffs with League of Legends hotfix

As new League of Legends champion Briar continues to struggle post-release, Riot has buffed LoL's newest bloodsucker's stats to help with her survivability.

A vampiric creature with glowing pink eyes, white hair, and a lashing pink tongue crouches, staring menacingly into the camera

As much as I hate to say it, Briar is struggling in League of Legends. Enchanting players across the Rift with her adorable (if not vaguely terrifying) personality, the MOBA‘s newest bloodsucker has failed to make a dent post-release, leading to a quick hotfix that League of Legends lead champion designer August ‘August’ Browning claims should “give her a bit more resilience.”

League’s newest jungler has debuted with a pretty abysmal 30% win rate in both the jungle and the top lane, leaving her second only to LoL’s resident Magical Cat, Yuumi, when it comes to disappointing release stats.

As a result, August confirms that a hotfix has gone through for The Restrained Hunger, aimed primarily at giving her a bit more tankiness as players get used to her Head Rush (Q) and Certain Death (R) dashes – after all, if you haven’t had a Briar rush under tower and die in the last 24 hours, have you even been playing League?

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“A hotfix buff for Briar is now live that gives her a bit more resilience when things go wrong,” August writes in a Thursday September 14 tweet. “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 relatively small, but still impactful. Her HP has been pushed up to 610 from 590, and damage reduction on her Chilling Scream (E) has been upped to 40% and its cooldown decreased to 16s.

A comment from League of Legends lead champion designer August discussing buffs to Briar

The former will give her a bit more survivability if she’s ganking under tower, which is the main issue we’re seeing at the moment. Hopefully this helps boosts her win rate up a little – she’s now currently sitting at 35.21% in jungle and 32.62% in the top lane, so the changes do appear to have had some impact already.

If you’re still not convinced, though, check out our LoL tier list to see what other junglers you should try out instead. Or, if you’re more interested in decking Briar out in some new gear, make sure you’re keeping an eye on all of the upcoming League of Legends skins – Halloween is just around the corner and she’s the perfect fit, after all.