Anybody else notice the sudden rise of "dragon throws"?

Goth Thot·12/1/2014, 8:06:25 AM·1 votes·1,096 views

Ok so in my elo (I'm Silver V. This probably isn't the case up higher, but it sure is a thing here) prior to 4.20 people only ever did drag when they got a gank double kill bot lane so there was rarely any threat of throwing your advantage but ever since the patch and the arrival of the magical +8% damage the kids in my games have started to randomly ping dragon somewhere around level 5 and everyone goes off to do it without so much as pushing out their lanes only to get flanked by enemy jungler/mid/bot lane/top lane tp who half the time have a better teamfighting comp (doesn't help that dragon does AOE damage now so everyone's already kinda poked down) and the team that started drag wind up completely throwing lanes that were previously going even or even winning and the game spirals out of control from there.

Even lategame you get situations where it's in one team's best interests to turtle the game out and not fight but nah gotta contest that +5% movement speed what 50 second death timers (just happened in my last game). Or make a habit of making it plainly obvious that they're going to be at that precious dragon right as it spawns so the enemy team knows exactly when to go for that free baron.

Don't get me wrong I'm glad people are more aware that drag's a thing that exists but I highly doubt it's worth forcing a fight where you're disadvantaged every 5 minutes and throwing any semblance of a lead you might have had. Previously you only had to worry about this kind of shit with Baron but at least that was far less frequent for various reasons. These dragon throws seem to be happening every other game now, anybody else notice this? item 3070

12 Comments

OJ19112/1/2014, 8:44:27 AM3 votes

Statistics speak for themselves. 74% of the time the first team to get a dragon wins. Do however have in mind that, that statistic is early and might change severely.

the question is, are 74% of the first teams to get a dragon winning because they got dragon, or are they getting first dragon because they were already winning

Learn 2 Swim12/1/2014, 8:38:00 AM2 votes

whats the problem? bad players are gonna make bad plays

Poptart Evelynn12/1/2014, 8:07:47 AM2 votes

First dragon is securing too large of a snowball atm so the lower elos panic to get it as soon as possible without thinking.

Goth Thot12/1/2014, 9:18:02 AM1 votes

Oh, don't get me wrong I'm not trying to say the new buffs aren't worth something! I'm getting the feel that they do cause quite a bit of snowball and teams should make a point of securing the dragon but 'securing' means doing things like jungler camping bot lane to force the double kill/recall so you can get a dragon that'd be difficult to contest - it doesn't mean randomly go and do dragon when you have no map pressure (even if you are winning in terms of kills/cs) because unless you have a huge gold advantage as is the contesting team is probably going to win the fight 3v3/4v4/5v5 (due to not having suffered poke from the dragon and also having a positional advantage (in my elo everyone doing dragon crowds in the dragon pit and gets stuck in there taking AoE to the face). And the enemy team getting 3-5 kills worth of gold is going to cause a snowball equivalent or greater than the 8% damage increase - and in the event that you did manage to get the dragon, that's still their's for the taking too leading to only a bigger prospective snowball. I've seen more pre-20 minutes Aces in the last week than I have in the last few months of playing league.

Fed by Snu Snu12/1/2014, 9:51:37 AM1 votes

How can you throw at dragon? It dies in like 5 seconds...

Kowe The Ewok12/1/2014, 12:32:15 PM1 votes

Wards and your day is saved.

Kynami12/1/2014, 8:45:58 AM1 votes

Not too frequently, usually its just a collapse on a jungler trying to sneak it early but who didn't catch the second ward... but I'm usually grouped with with silvers and golds with the occasional plat thrown in for good measure when I'm playing Draft Normals. (And in general, usually the first team to try for dragon loses it unless at least a couple people are down. Far too many wards all over it.)

Usually the throws are a result of a team already having two dragons and the other team being desperate for their first... and either not clearing or counter warding sufficiently to avoid getting boxed. Even if they do get their first dragon, its usually going to be a FF in short order if they get aced and we take two or three towers and an inhib.

Hullabaloo90712/1/2014, 8:50:28 AM1 votes

I agree with most of this, but the first part. Getting that early dragon is huge, and you really need to get dragon at least once in a game. While you should be going for it in a smart way, getting that first dragon is probably more important than keeping an outer tower now.