Summoners are slowly being introduced to the hungriest champion in League of Legends, Briar. But in a recent roundtable, Riot Games’ lead champion designer August Browning revealed that the ravenous jungler would be so hungry that she’d even attack her own teammates.
The small-but-powerful diving jungler will be one of the most intriguing champions to master, since one of her abilities, Blood Frenzy, causes her to lose control and attack the nearest enemy without pause. It is one of the most unique effects for a champion to date, since she practically self-taunts herself, and can only break out of this effect by using her E, Chilling Scream.
Related: All Briar abilities in League of Legends
But in her original build, she would have been even tougher to perfect since her Blood Frenzy would even affect allied champions, allowing her to create killing sprees from anyone in the server. Briar even had 300 percent more movement speed and attack speed in this previous edition of Blood Frenzy, making her a grave danger to friend and foe alike.
Developers quickly realized that, while this type of effect would be interesting to explore, it would lead to more frustration than skill expression. As a result, they opted to tone down her deadliness by shifting her ability so that she would only focus on enemy champions.
“Additionally, in her head, she has a concept of people, and she’s working really hard not to kill her friends,” August said. “She doesn’t wanna eat her besties. Thematically, Briar does not want to kill her allies, she wants to be more of a person, and part of that is knowing other people.”
This wouldn’t have been the first time that Riot has experimented with champions attacking allies. With Renata Glasc, for example, the cunning support can use her ultimate ability to force her enemies to fight their teammates, but this effect is much more predictable and can be easily played with and countered.
Briar, on the other hand, would need to be avoided by her allies, unless they wish to be on the wrong end of her razor-sharp teeth.
