League of Legends: Swarm Briar Guide

The Primordians are invading Final City in the new PvE LoL Swarm mode, here's how to pilot the renegade Primordian Briar to her best potential in Swarm.

Briar is the aggressive drain-tanking Primordian who has turned her back on her fellow invaders to help the Anima Squad repel the threat of Aatrox and his armies. Briar is a fast, incredibly durable character with the potential to solo entire portions of the map all on her own. If you want to master Briar all the way up to Hard and Extreme Difficulties, this guide will give you everything you need to know about how to play her.

Briar's abilities are as follows:

Passive: Briar gains Damage and Movement Speed based on her % missing Health.

E: Briar dashes in the target direction and enters a Frenzy state. In this state, she will run at and attack the nearest target automatically. Her Signature Weapon gains 400 Ability Haste, and every attack that hits an enemy during her Frenzy heals her. During the Frenzy, she can reactivate her E to do damage in an area around her and deal damage.

Ultimate: Briar fires her gemstone in a chosen direction. When it hits a target, she will dash to them while invulnerable, then sets off an explosion around her when she lands. When Briar lands from the dash, she enters an enhanced version of her Frenzy, with does lots more damage but does slightly less healing. Briar will prioritize the target that the gemstone hit before any others.

Briar's best Weapons, just like most characters, are determined by what stat her Signature Weapon evolves with and what stats she otherwise synergizes with. For Briar, Max Health and Duration are the two biggest ones, with Max Health upgrading Pillar Strike and Duration extending how long both versions of her Frenzy state last. Frenzy is Briar's bread and butter, so more of it is great.

S Tier: Statikk Sword, Radiant Field, T.I.B.B.E.R.S, Gatling Bunny-Guns

A Tier: UwU Blaster, Lioness' Lament, Searing Shortbow, Ani-Mines, Iceblast Armor

Lots of the other weapons are great on Briar, but the ones that synergize with Area Size, Ability Haste, Max Health, and Duration are a step above the others. Iceblast Armor gets an honourable mention since you'll be running facefirst into enemies, Armor is hugely important.

Briar's Passives are all about letting her thrive in the thick of the enemy with her Frenzy. For that reason, you'll see a mix of weapon evolution stats and practically useful ones that serve Briar well in most games.

S Tier: Max Health, Duration, Armor

A Tier: Area Size, Ability Haste, Damage

B Tier: Movement Speed, Critical Chance, Projectile Count

C Tier: XP, Pickup Radius

Briar needs to be able to survive her Frenzy, which will cause her to take lots of damage from walking into enemies, so skew your Passives for survivability.

Briar may not be as mechanically intensive as other characters, since her Frenzy takes her controls out of your hands for the most part. Instead, she's all about timing. You can't pop your Frenzy too early, when you don't have defensive stats, or you'll risk dying quickly. Instead, Briar players need to play carefully until they've stacked up enough levels to facetank the enemies.

Her E is her main crowd-clearing tool. When Briar sees a clump of enemies, she's incentivized to pop her E nearby and let her jump into the fray. The more stats, particularly Damage, Armor, and Duration, that you can get to amp up this frenzy state, the happier you'll be. Early on, be ready to preemptively end the Frenzy to heal and back off.

Briar's R should be used when enemies are swarming in from a multiple directions and your team is losing ground fast. Pop it into one of the grounds of Primordians and let loose. This ability and its empowered Frenzy can allow you to single-handedly tank and kill entire swaths of the map on your own, and makes Briar by far the most self-sufficient character when built well. Remember, the lower you get the more Damage and Movement Speed boosts you get.

That's everything you need to know about how to pilot Briar in Swarm, go consume your fellow Primordians!