League devs claim Briar’s win rate is much higher than it appears

Riot August, lead champion designer for League of Legends, revealed on stream that Briar’s actual win rate at the moment is much higher than stats sites would have you believe.

Briar’s win rate upon release became a massive topic of discussion in the League of Legends community. Seeing as the champion is genuinely built to int with her having next to no ability to escape fights, her win rate upon release was less than stellar.

And, though she got some small buffs, her win rate hasn’t climbed much. At least, if you’re going by stat sites that aggregate her win rate across the entire patch.

Riot August spoke about this on stream, saying that Briar’s win rate is much higher than most believe it is and that she’s already in a much better spot than she was on release.

League dev claims Briar’s win rate is close to 50%

When it comes to win rates in League of Legends, ideally most champions are hovering around the 50% mark. There are always going to be outliers and champions that throw off the game’s balance, sure, but it’s rare that champions stray too far from that 50% ratio as long as all is well.

Meanwhile, Briar released with a win rate that was barely above 30%. She was bad if we’re going purely by win rate metrics. However, there’s past precedence for win rates being incredibly low on release for new champions as players learn them followed by said champions getting overbuffed.

Though Briar’s been buffed slightly, it wasn’t a big enough buff to drastically affect her win rate on its own. Yet Riot August claims that her win rate according to internal statistics is much different than what you’d see on a stat site.

Riot August was discussing Briar on stream and claimed that her win rate was around 46%, a 10% increase in comparison to the day she was released.

As a result of stat sites aggregating statistics based on the patch, not just the most recent games, he claims that the stats are a bit skewed. And, as a result of players hopping in and playing Briar when she came out and dropping her after they weren’t able to find success, only those willing to learn the champ are still playing her.

There are still many calling for buffs and saying the champion isn’t good. Riot August had a few words for those people: “Skill issue.”