Can we discuss elder dragon?

SwiftKitten88·Jul 17, 2016·11 votes·1,898 views

with the change to cloud drake i feel like it is is a good place. because with the nerfs to the extra movement speed to get around the map is crucial.

but right now i feel elder drag is just a noob trap. people are prioritizing it for no reason, even when a baron would have ended the game. half the time they kill themselves in the fight and we get aced.. and even when we do take it nothing good happens because my team cant push an objective because they wont communicate.

overall it just seems like a waste of time.. i would much rather just have more elemental drags.

8 Comments

Sire HippingtonJul 17, 20165 votes

I think elder dragon's buff lasts to short for how much effort it is to get it and how long the respawn timer is. Usually you would recall after the buff, so half the buff expires till you get in a position to pressure any other objective. I think he atleast needs an empowered recall like baron, and maybe 30-60sec longer duration, else he's a luxority objective that you can get when you know you won't get contested and then sraight go for baron or a tower afterwards.

Another thin i dislike is how much his power is tied to previous dragons, so with only few dragons, the only point on takeing it is to deny him from the other team. I'dprefer it if the truedamage was a fix amount while he stil increases the power of other dragon buffs, or atleast a fix base damage+a but aditional damage for each drake.

Avarosa Guide MeJul 17, 20165 votes

Elder drake, even without a large number of dragons, give a vast combat stat boost. Getting it can easily lead to ending a game if your team is smart, the problem is most people don't utilize the major damage boost they get from it.

SohleksJul 17, 20162 votes

Actually agree [that elder dragon is a bit of a trap]

It's more difficult than baron, typically less rewarding, and requires a collection of elemental drakes.

It seems to me whenever it's taken it's either A) just icing on the cake of an already stomping team or B) makes little difference in a close game. It is usually C) people get thrilled to cash in on their elemental stacks and take down the big bad dragon but then get rekt or backdoored.

It doesn't have empowered recall and is so tanky so it is pretty easy to make elder drake a trap.

Is this necessarily a problem? Not exactly though. Not a glaring issue for me.

Omega360Jul 17, 20161 votes

It seems that the problem with elder dragon is that it is hard to kill and utilize.

Possible idea maybe reduce the total damage increase you get from the burn and maybe buff how long the buff lasts and reduce the amount of hp the dragon has.

Just my two cents, but usually I do completely agree that it typically means nothing in a game and just solidifies a win, and having a longer duration and being a little easier to kill might make it easier to trade for a baron and be actually a worth it trade to take the dragon.

LuluInWonderlandJul 17, 20162 votes

To be fair, the exact same can be said of baron. Even very high elo matches have baron throws because of either a direct mistake or miscalculating if they could take it safely.

That said, taking elder is significantly easier than baron. Baron's debuff stacks mean you generally need 3+ team members that can (combined) tank and deal sustained damage. Elder is resilient, sure, but only pumps out a fraction of damage and only in a direction that you control. So you can take it with just 2 champs if necessary...especially with hypercarries and life steal. The lack of the debuff means you can actually life steal back the damage fairly easily, and isn't even necessary if you have a tank who can then soak 100% of the damage in his direction.

Why this matters is it's much easier to "sneak" elder if you have vision control, or to have 3 members of your team zone out the other team to secure it. With baron, that's much more difficult as both baron damages everything around it and requires more team focus...generally only 1 or maybe 2 team members can try to zone/stall effectively in the meantime.

I like the differences between elder and baron, actually. Elder gives you lots of combat stats whereas baron gives you more siege power. Elder also capitalizes on planning better earlier.

That said, I do have a few issues with the dragon setup...

Why can't they tell us in champ select the dragon spawn order? That's unnecessary randomness existing in the game. For example, If I knew dragons would spawn cloud -> mountain -> cloud -> infernal, then we could pick a team comp to make the best usage of those buffs and at those times. Right now, you can pick a good team comp and then get dragons that are only minimally effective and therefore the largest value in taking them is to deny the other team of having them. As a result, some dragons just feel too weak in general and get buffed, but then are too strong with certain team comps. You can't balance around randomness...Riot seemed to miss that point.
The bonus on-hit damage from elder with each previously-taken dragon is too strong IMHO. If you're in an early/mid game comp and can take dragons easier because of it, then elder is a huge boost in a time (late game) that you should be generally weaker. Whereas a late-game comp will have more trouble taking early dragons, so taking elder has far less value for them (less double-stat bonuses and less on-hit damage). It leads to a lot more early and mid game snowballing, and less late-game focused champs, than would naturally be there. It's basically an artificial way of closing games out faster, but I think it's taking away from the game as late-game champs are still out of meta in favor of early and mid game carries.

SwiftKitten88Jul 17, 20161 votes

or at least make it last longer for each dragon you have

Jeanne fan clubJul 18, 20161 votes

I strongly disagree. Elder drags True damage dot can be OP with the right setup. It goes well with wave clear and DOTS. The poke that can be achieved from drag is astronomical, as well as the turret damage you can put down. The fact that it can buff the elemental you got is absolutely insane as well. Champions like Zyra Xerath Azir Ziggs and other poke/dps mages gain HUGE advantages from the dragon buff.