League of Legends fans have concerns about Briar’s ability kit, which can allow enemies to ruin her early game with little effort.
In a Reddit thread from Oct. 12, a player showed how the enemy toplaner ruined their first clear without almost doing anything. He approached Briar’s blue monster and, when she used her W ability, she was automatically taunted by Yone even if she didn’t see him, instead of the monster.
It resulted in Briar missing precious hits while trying to run to Yone for the whole duration of her W. Called Blood Frenzy, this ability makes Briar self-taunt to the nearest enemy, but she’ll prioritize champions who are close to her location.
“Don’t think Riot really thought about a situation like this when they designed Briar, but it’s a massive screw-up. Briar cannot stop her W at level 1,” complained the thread’s author.
This can be devastating for Briar’s early game, especially because she can be forced to run towards an enemy she can’t even see. It might drive players to ask for their allies’ help with warding the camp, to prevent any potential cheesing.
If she could cancel her ability at any time, this issue would be easily fixed, which is why the author considers this a “screw-up” from the developer.
While this can ruin Briar’s first jungle clear, the ability can bear the same dire consequences in other circumstances. “I had an enemy Briar follow me under my tower level 1 unable to do anything about it,” told another user in top-voted comments.
In conclusion, players can cheese Briar easily by heading close to her when they know she’s going to use her W ability to farm minions or jungle camps. In addition to self-taunting, it brings her into a Frenzy, buffing her Attack Speed and Move Speed, as well as granting AoE damage, so players will often use it for farming.
Despite this issue, Briar is considered an incredibly strong jungler. The developer already hit her with a nerf with Patch 13.19 on Sept. 26, and it’s likely we’ll see other adjustments coming to her in the next few weeks.
In any case, she won’t be seen at all in the 2023 World Championship, as she was released too close to the start of the tournament.
