League of Legends lead champion designer, Riot August, recently announced during a livestream that the win rate of the character, Briar, is currently higher than external stat sites might suggest.
Briar’s win rate upon launch sparked numerous debates within the League of Legends community. Given that Briar has very limited capacity for escaping fights, her initial win rate was less than stellar. Despite some minor boosts, her win rate appears not to have increased much on statistical aggregating sites.
During a recent livestream, Riot August challenged this perspective, asserting that Briar’s win rate is much higher than generally believed and that she is in a significantly better position than when she first launched.
Briar's win rate is closer to 50%, suggests Riot August
For most League of Legends champions, an ideal win rate hovers around the 50% mark. There are always going to outliers disturbing the game’s balance, but it is rare that champions deviate greatly from this 50% ratio.
Upon her release, Briar reportedly had a win rate of just over 30%. Using win rate alone, her performance would be categorized as being poor when it was initially launched, and even after minor tweaks since her release have made the performance better.
Although Briar has received some minor tweaks, they were not substantial enough to drastically influence her win rate on their own. Despite this, Riot August's internal statistics suggest a different story than the one told by outside aggregating sites.
During the same livestream, Riot August stated that her win rate was around 46%, suggesting an increase of about 10% compared to her initial performance. According to him, external stat aggregating sites might present a skewed picture due to the fact that they base their findings on an entire patch rather than just recent games. He attributes this discrepancy to the fact that initially many players gave up on Briar after failing to find success. Now, primarily those who are genuinely committed to learning more about the character continue to play as her.
Despite this clarification, many players are still requesting further enhancements, arguing that the character remains under-powered. In response to these critiques, Riot August had one succinct response: “Skill issue.”
