LoL Patch 13.18 just dropped and Briar was a little too underpowered. So, Riot gave her some hotfix buffs, along with some bug fixes.
Briar has been released onto live servers with LoL Patch 13.18 and while many players thought she would be completely broken due to her insanely high damage numbers and lifesteal capabilities, she ended up being much weaker than anticipated.
So, what will happen in such a case? Of course, Riot is going to be pushing for a quick hotfix to make her as attractive as posisble for players to test her out and play her.
LoL Patch 13.18: Hotfix For Briar And Bug Fixes For Bard
Briar landed on live servers and quickly joined the likes of Yuumi, Akshan and Syndra in the 'lowest win rate upon release' department. She landed on live servers with a win rate barely above 30% and in high elos it isn't looking much better, which is why Riot decided a hotfix was needed.
Lead champion designer August "August" Browning posted on Twitter about the hotfix and what exactly the balance team have done to help out Briar in her first week on Summoner's Rift.
- Base Stats
- HP: 590 >>> 610
- E - Chilling Scream
- Damage Reduction: 35% >>> 40%
- Cooldown: 18 >>> 16
These stats should make her a little more durable, as well as help her out when she is going berserk thanks to her W or her ultimate. The damage reduction increase on her E is also going to be great, since it does take a while to charge up the ability to its full potential.
Also hotfixed a bug that was causing bard to lose a charge of his W if he cast it outside of range and cancelled the ability. https://t.co/804MK2ldqT
— etlios (@RiotEtlios) September 14, 2023
Along with Briar, Bard also got some fixes in this patch update. Riot Etlios added to August's tweet that a bug which cancelled the W ability when it was cast out of range was fixed. So now you don't need to worry about losing charges of the updated ability either thanks to the hotfix.
For now, Briar is still trying to find her place in the meta, but these changes to her kit will help her stay alive a little longer. So go out and test out these changes to see whether they've helped improve the character.