Boards›Gameplay

Infernal Drake is the worst designed of all the dragon buffs.

aperson1·11/10/2016, 6:02:17 PM·127 votes·7,394 views

It's just a big stat amplifier. It makes you better at teamfights, at pushing, at objectives, at jungle clearing, pretty much everything that requires damage is improved by Infernal Drake. More importantly it closes off the possibility of comebacks via a slick teamfight or a smart splitpush duel in a way no other drake can.

If the enemy has Mountain Drake we can delay access to objectives by keeping our lanes pushed out. If the enemy has Cloud Drake we can force them to come to us by grouping at an objective. If the enemy has Ocean Drake they are susceptible to hard engage. These are all strategies that are largely teamcomp independent and possible to build against. No such luck with Infernal Drake.

What's worse is the power of it skews heavily towards damaging classes - this is an RNG element known only during the game whose power is skewed to pre-game decisions. Ocean and Mountain technically have this problem too, but as I said above it can absolutely be ameliorated during the game. Whereas the more AD/AP ratios your comp is expected to build around, the better having an Infernal gets. I dread seeing an Infernal spawn when I'm up against an all-AD team, because all of a sudden your armor stacking tank melts like butter when confronted with +16%/+24% AD assassins who built a Last Whisper and/or a Black Cleaver.

I can't claim to have any great ideas about how to fix it, but I just wanted to open a thread to discuss the state of Infernal Drake since I don't see any players or Rioters talking about it.

87 Comments

Oglaf11/10/2016, 6:23:42 PM20 votes

Speaking of which, why isn't there a "Tank Drake"?

I'd love that.

Lucifer11/10/2016, 9:45:14 PM12 votes

What's amusing to me is that infernal is supposed to be just an increase in damage to champions - In reality, it augments both your numerical AP and AD, so it's much more than that... Not sure if this is a design oversight or a tooltip error.

Ale non è male11/11/2016, 11:56:34 AM6 votes

NOPE Infernal is well designed, it is just that people overrate it over other drakes because they works somewhat in an inverse way which people don't understand

Infernal gives you universal raw damage stats, but you can fight those with better strategy than them.

The other drakes empower enemy team strategies that you can fight by NOT falling in the enemy team strategy

So they have different premises and enable different thinking paths...which is better or worse depends largely on situation, and infernal is not necessarily the most powerful, and aside partially from Cloud (but after the buffs it became good too), everyone of them can be the most powerful.

The reason why infernal seems better is because it is the more "reliable" and with the higher power floor between them so even if it is not the most powerful you always feel you can use it unlike the others...but it is not enough to argue that the system and infernal is badly designed

Swiftstrike411/10/2016, 6:26:00 PM5 votes

The drake only affects damage to champion, not to objectives on the map.

As I understand it, the drakes all equally effect the win rate of teams, with mountain improving win rate the most.

ModKnightsKemplar11/10/2016, 7:40:09 PM5 votes

Well, I can tell you Meddler's position on it without even looking.

All the dragons have a similar effect on win rate. So they are balanced. I'm sure the rationalization for that statistic is that Infernal Drake gains are lower than the others in exchange for being more generalized.

So yes, it's a bit boring. But it's also balanced.

Golden Tager X11/11/2016, 3:13:44 AM5 votes

"Complaining about a problem without proposing a solution is called whining" Teddy Roosevelt

Bladerunner777711/11/2016, 12:38:33 AM3 votes

You do realize the past dragon that a lot of people seem to praise literally only gave gold?

and gold is a stat amplifier

What do you want? For Dragon to give a sticker that says "I killed the Dragon!" and do nothing else? Fight for the damn objective if you think it's so good.

You shouldn't be able to freely negate the enemy team's dragon buff(s), otherwise what is the point of getting it?

League of Legends has an economy, the team that's ahead gets more stuff. I personally hate Overwatch because the game boils down to "stand around grouped for x minutes until Overtime where everyone uses their ults at once to determine the game"; I personally don't see much complexity to that, or fun for that matter.

6Sfool11/11/2016, 1:03:11 AM3 votes

What do you want out of drag? Every third attack does 30% extra damage? Drag buffs are passive, and are meant to be changes under the hood. If it were not so simple, then League would get absurdly complicated. The way it is currently lets you just assume "they do more damage." Also, it helps more than damage heavy classes. It benefits everyone who has good ad/ap scalings, which is not just glass cannons.

Tobias Brackner11/11/2016, 1:06:26 AM3 votes

You say "worst designed" like you have any idea what you are talking about.

Then you list a bunch of "counters" or "responses" to the other dragons that completely ignore the options available by the other team.

You've created a one-sided argument with no acknowledgement of counterpoints, assume there are no counterpoints, and then declare yourself correct.

Also your argument of teams going crazy with scaling sounds like you are playing a game where you have absolutely no dragon control and the enemy team was really on top of dragons. I'd think that if you were that afraid of the enemy team scaling crazy with Infernal Dragons then you'd try and take the dragon, wouldn't you? Or are you afraid of actually having to use teamwork and come up with strategies to win?

Scoroct11/11/2016, 2:39:17 AM2 votes

I personally feel Infernal should be changed to % dmg to champions increase (similar to how mountain only affects objects) which thus promotes teamfights/fighting in general. This also means that your top lane nautilus gets to feel like it actually gets something out of the Drake, not just his carries.

Azure Hamster11/10/2016, 6:27:31 PM2 votes

So... don't let them have infernal drakes. When I'm on a good team, we work really hard not to allow these to go to the other team. Certainly not let them have a second or third.

Caitlyn

N Pelosi11/10/2016, 6:31:27 PM2 votes

Nah, air drake is the strongest. The ability to move position on the map much faster is huge. Way better than fire.

junglerboy1611/11/2016, 1:30:37 AM2 votes

If they made it so that Infernal somehow only applied to situations where champions are fighting other champions, thus removing the overlap/general versatility of the buff compared to the other drakes (i.e. no direct help in objectives, sieging, etc.), I think a damage based drake is still an appealing concept.

If anything, I'd suggest partially equalizing the benefits of the buff across the board (in order to eliminate/reduce the over-buffing of damage comps and the under-buffing of utility or tank comps). Probably something along the lines of:

"Your next damaging ability or attack against a champion burns them for 6/12/18% of their current/max (whichever works better) health as bonus magic/physical damage over the next 3 seconds based on the damage type of the attack used. 1/3rd effectiveness for AoE abilities, only applies once on DoTs. 20 second cooldown."

What this does for the infernal drake is turn it into the champion fighting buff (no more power for pushing objectives or wave clearing). The % damage makes it more equal across the board for tanks and damage dealers alike, while still allowing a slight edge for damage champs (since you get more out of it with more armor/mr pen). Values could obviously be tuned based on actual testing, but this is a good way to deal with the generally excessive versatility of the current infernal drake. Thoughts?

Irelia Bot11/11/2016, 2:40:45 AM2 votes

It looks like they are changing it from % increase to AD and AP to being a % of your damage being changed to true damage

Poske11/11/2016, 10:48:25 AM1 votes

1 infernal drake has an aproximate worth of 4 Mountain drakes

Thats the main issue with the dragon RNG

The fact that there is so huge difference between best drake and worst

INB4 SOMEONE SAYS BUT CLOUD IS THE WORST NOOOO IT IS NOT IT GOT BUFFED KEEP UP WITH PATCH NOTES

Dengeden11/11/2016, 6:32:52 AM1 votes

It's ridiculous to say you can deny access to objectives. Towers, Jungle camps, Drk/Baron/Herald, you want to deny access to all 3? How?

Infernal Drake is the scaling buff, since it'll do very little early-mid game. (When compared to the other 3). Tanks will get demolished late game anyway, that's how it works, accept it. The increased damage has nothing to do with it. Tanks aren't unkillable juggernaughts for simple balance reasons, they provide CC and anti-siege.

Yordle Xayah11/11/2016, 1:56:11 PM1 votes

I never liked Elemental Drakes, RNG along them. The only true reason they exist is because they couldn't figure out any other way on how to make dragon valuable for LCS level.

Revali11/11/2016, 5:39:21 PM1 votes

i thought infernal drakes damage is only affected to champs, nothing else.

Noblewind11/11/2016, 10:46:40 PM1 votes

Totally agree. All of the Drakes besides Infernal are cool in that it's clear how to play with the advantage or against them. Infernal just doesn't fall into that category. Also if you just happen to face an enemy jungler that can take early dragons quickly it feels so bad.

BakedLotion11/12/2016, 3:34:36 PM1 votes

Ocean drake is life

InfiniteZodiac1/17/2017, 12:11:43 AM1 votes

Elemental Dragons are stupid because I feel like the idea of random dragons spawning in games is really inconsistent. Whenever I have games that I am losing, 3 infernal dragons spawn and it's difficult for us to get them so enemy takes it, but whenever I have games I am winning only Ocean and Cloud Drakes spawn....wtf rito scripts much .. and what about that SKT vs ROX game 3 infernal 1st game, 3 mountain/cloud/ocean 2nd game, 3 M/C/O, 3rd game etc. Intentional game modification to make SKT win???