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Dragon buff sounds great on paper.. buuut..

Nitrogenic7N·11/22/2014, 10:40:59 AM·18 votes·4,129 views

It's already hard enough to win games if your bot lane, and jungle are doing poorly. The dragon buffs are putting way too much emphasis on the bot and jungle doing good.. And of course people can say "well tp down and help your team then" Sometimes you just don't get good tp chances, it just doesn't pan out mean while the enemy is already ahead of you from killing your team, and now they have dragon buffs. The way it's working right now is literally killing any chance of getting back into a game, if the other team denies you any dragons not because of smite steals or what have you, but simply because their team is stronger and they can bully it form you, you have literally ZERO chance of winning the game currently. Where is the competitive nature that league games are supposed to have? Since this update I haven't been in any games that have felt like it could go either way, which ever team starts winning just begins to win lopsidedly at the moment. I'm sure plenty of people have complained about this already but I wanted to throw my 2 cents in.

53 Comments

Jungle Lux God11/22/2014, 9:39:33 PM3 votes

I think the dragon buffs are a good reward, but I feel like the problem is that the first tier of dragon rewards may be too strong right now for the fact that they can be gotten so early.

Like seriously, why does the tier 1 buff give offensive stats when the second and fourth buffs give situational damage buffs and the third buff gives movement speed buffs?

The damage buffs should not come until the second buff at the earliest, and the minion and monster extra damage should come as the first buff.

Learn 2 Swim11/22/2014, 11:21:59 AM3 votes

your telling me riot failed with small jungle changes in the past 8 months so their grand idea of changing everything all at once isnt working?

shocking

EL3V1N11/22/2014, 10:52:54 AM3 votes

I think it's too early to make statements like that atm. Because of all the changes, the "meta" will change. i.e. If you know the other team is bullying you for dragon, set up fights based around that objective rather than going for the objective itself.

Nerphs11/22/2014, 10:40:04 PM3 votes

tbh the dragon buffs should be rearranged.. the bonus damage as the 1st one is strong for "trades" in a returning lane. mayb putting the bonus minion damage, or movespeed first then making the 8% bonuses a later buff could help. i disagree that the buffs are "overpowered" however i think the solution to the 1st dragon being the "snowball" is to make the "better buffs" appear later. (thoughts on this?)

Kurru Mitsumi11/23/2014, 3:04:12 AM2 votes

seriously if your doing so bad that you cant contest the first dragon, your gonna loose regardless of if they take it or not. once its about 2mins for the first dragon to spawn your team should be setting up to secure the kill, the supp should be placing wards then about 50secs before it spawns the midlaner or jungler and adc take the scuttle, if your bot lane is so behind that there getting rolled the rest of your team needs to step up and take the drag, its not rocket science. this buff adds alot of dynamic play to the game and those who dont step up are gonna lose alot of games before they learn.

Enraged Piglet11/23/2014, 6:57:01 AM2 votes

early game dragons aren't worth as much as they used to be though it is better late game I believe. Barron was made that it's easier to end the game with since it buffs your minions but now it can't be used to stall as well since the hp regen is gone so now it's easier to end games. (the hp regen was huge gave like 600 hp in a teamfight. and healed a lot of poke)

Though if you want dragon get a champion like rumble and make sure you can tp. You might sya sometimes you can't but league revolves around things sometimes happens or doesn't happen

Though I do believe that top might use some buffs here or there though it's sort of hard because it seems anything slight makes top really overbearing especially if it makes it into a tank meta but I think mayby increased exp top for first creep wave or two might do something. Though it would probably be smart to make mid hit 6 first still. Though it is possible they could give the exp advantage middle and transfer it top. Though that would make lane swaps and stuff weird and might have effects that are unnintended. I mean it's already tacticly smart to lane swap in certain situations but if the adc would get an exp advantage and gold and the top laners get zoned this would take away all the reasons not to lane swap by giving advantage to the top and then top laners would probably have it even worse.

tldr: early dragons aren't worth that much compared to old cost. having 2 teamates die for a first 2 or 3 dragons isn't worth it. Though it starts becoming important to not let your enemy get 4 and 5.

Hayaishi11/22/2014, 5:38:18 PM1 votes

The dragon buffs are retarded.

Putting more weight on the jungler to carry game is the last thing we needed, they already decide most of the games.

Just like in S4 the best jungler wins, nothing else matters.

CoolKnightST11/22/2014, 6:40:14 PM1 votes

The jungler really has to many controle in the game just like the previous season. However the mistakes a jungler makes get punished 10 times harder than the previous season. Additionaly the changes that are made to this season even buffed the effectiveness from the jungler in the lategame. Their is like no downhill in it's powercurf anymore. The jungler will keep his strong position. Their is litterly nothing you can do about it. Even if you manage to win all lanes. You finaly will lose against the spitpush. Even when your a waveclear mage.

Mogarl11/22/2014, 8:45:34 PM1 votes

Currently it seems to me that whichever team has the better bullies bot will win because the towers are too weak to take more than 1 back, after the second back they will die or be at that worthless amount of hp where you'll get 3v2'ed, the turret will die, and possibly you too. All together it seems to me that Dragon and towers are weak now, they don't provide any defense for themselves.

Drogeist11/22/2014, 12:12:32 PM1 votes

I do think it's too early to tell, and they still have plenty of room to balance the different stages of the buff. But I have been enjoying the concept of dragon so far. It seems to force your team to make some decisions: essentially, towers or dragon; and later in the game towers, dragon or baron?

Check out this game in my match history

We were behind HARD. 1 tower to 6 towers at one point. 7.5 k gold down at 21 minutes. But the thing that eventually made all the difference was that our Udyr was able to get an early dragon, and then he got another one while the rest of us lost a big team fight. This was key because had they contested the drag instead of grabbing 4 kills, they probably would have aced us AND got the drag.

Then we got a 3rd dragon, won our first team fight of the game, and got a few towers (paying the price in blood). Eventually, they countered taking an inhib, 4 kills, and their first dragon. A few people wanted to quit at that point as it seemed they'd get a free baron and squash what remained of our base (and our morale). But we rushed our 5th drag when they decided to grab baron (maybe they didn't have a timer up for drag?). This was AWESOME for us. We didn't care about their baron buff or super powered minions. We just steamrolled them with 2 aces to win the game. Ended up ahead 12k at 50 minutes.

I'd say dragon gave us some excellent comeback chances in that game, but of course a better opponent would have denied us drag. However, had they done that, they might not have had all those towers! Who knows?! All I know it was fun as shit coming back in that game.

Kuroi8611/22/2014, 12:01:41 PM1 votes

Have one person split push top, ward up around drag and wait for them to go top. Have your split pusher hold them as long as possible while your team takes dragon. This will be the beginning of turning the tide.

KzooCrasher11/22/2014, 11:27:05 AM1 votes

I haven't found the dragon buff to be over powering at all. I've had lots of games where the enemy went up 3+ dragons to our none and we would get some later or none at all and win the game anyway

SleepyLionCub11/23/2014, 3:05:33 AM1 votes

Give the new changes about a month to solidify. Before you know it champions and strategies we laugh at will be in the LCS

Phil Fly11/23/2014, 4:03:50 AM1 votes

Aspect of the Serpent can effectively increase Cassiopeia's ability power up to 30%. Aspect of the Serpent's stacks multiplicatively with both Deathcap and Archmage mastery, and the level one dragon buff. #For a total of 91.646% bonus AP.

EvilRabbitt11/23/2014, 6:14:31 AM1 votes

Sustain vs Burst: The trade is sustain can have zone and objective control, while burst is capable of dominating players. I'm sure everyone has played the games with the one shot thief that sits around for 6 seconds waiting while the knight charges in for days (or similar ideas). Think like GW2 perhaps. The Warrior gets to sit in the middle of the zerg and duke it out while the Thief is made to mop up squishies and lowbies. Same here. Burst is used to clean up characters surviving by the skin of their teeth and sustain is made to take things down when not pressured. (trying devils advocate stuff today, challenge accepted kinda thing)

Gafugarion11/23/2014, 6:47:55 AM1 votes

I'm just sick of certain jungles that can destroy dragon solo in no time, much less with a team helping them.

Siyou11/25/2014, 5:52:00 AM1 votes

I'm just going to put this out there. It feels with the new dragon buff that the late game champs will end up less worthwhile. Dragon buff to me inspires an early game snowball advantage. Champs who favor both the AD and AP will deal a substantial amount of additional damage. Truth be told, I think dragon needs to be reverted and reworked until something more balanced is brought about. Right now you're not going to get your comeback games, you're going to spend more time waiting for the match to be over, or you're the one pulling the triggers on the enemies. The game doesn't leave much gray area unless the team that's behind can score a dragon. Even then, the advantage the enemy team had is still very much there and it's likely too late to comeback from it.

If I had the choice of taking bot turret or nabbing dragon. Dragon. Every time.

Onegarion11/23/2014, 7:49:44 AM1 votes

Janna has always had a high WR and I can tell you since they nerfed it and she is still towards the top that the global MS boost isn't why. Only reason they nerfed it and why they are nerfing Zil passive is because it gives an unfair advantage to the team with them. Killing dragon to get a global MS isn't an unfair advantage because you earned it instead of just picking the champ with it.

There is no way to give a good buff for everyone. Its going to benefit some more than others. A class base buff would be very annoying and require WAY to much balancing. If they do it based off of items they might as well just have a boost in overall stats. Going from like 1% and scaling upwards.

I don't think the buffs themselves are gamebreaking or OP just the order in which they are given as a whole.

Drogeist11/23/2014, 10:20:27 AM1 votes

Good points! Well said.

Ale non è male11/23/2014, 10:21:13 AM1 votes

Buut...new dragon buffs are great. Now dragons aren't anymore the initiative of a pair of guys in your team that just want some cheap gold a d can't do anything else, your whole team got to fight for that. You know that enemy team will often fight for that, so you can use that to trap them or push anywhere else in a way they can't get you(and the new Ohmwrecker sounds really fine for this purpose) And also, all the buffs are very valuable, not only the first(unless you have your mind set only on kill enemies and win the game). The 2nd buff give you so much push/clear power that it almost gives you more mobility across the map than the third buff(extra movement speed that is never bad to have) 4th buff is important for more than for its effect(that is indeed useful in stalemate situations), because put extra pressure on enemy and give you possibly access to something that is even more powerful than Baron buff. And even if you are behind, the first buff can put you back on track because even if done late, 8% additional Ad and AP are a lot of stats to have

Muted Summoner11/23/2014, 11:35:43 AM1 votes

wonder if top lane will become the new bot lane. Its too dangerous down there near dragon. Sit here next to baron...Nothing happens here til 20 mins.

Onegarion11/24/2014, 7:42:15 PM1 votes

In thinking about it though I think the damage boost isn't as bad of an early buff, but it scales much better than the MS into late. Since MS is % increase its static for the most part. Its not constantly moving up. Damage though scales off of bonus AD/AP meaning as you build more it makes it even more important. SO early on it might be a bit more fair overall.

I'm going to give more thought on this overall and see where the tradeoff is really worth it for each.

I don't think that the % increase to minion/monster damage should be first. With dragon already being a rather easy kill it would only make it easier for the second and making it easier for your jungler to take a huge edge on your opponents. This would put a MAJOR emphasis on taking the first dragon so your jungler can get that early damage to clear faster and gank more. Think of an early WW/Udyr with 15% increase damage to monsters on a tank jungler. That tank jungler is going to be way behind.

TheFallenShaw11/22/2014, 12:33:45 PM1 votes

Basically the dragon buff just made tanks alot less tanky since it just upped every burster in the game by 8%

for an example of AD i'll use Talon Talon who's an ad burster

with this common build he burst for 1710 on crit. item 3074 item 3142 item 3035 item 3078 item 3006 item 3031 Now with dragon level 1 buff he crits 50% of the time for : 1846

Basically the buff gives him 134 more damage