Boards›Gameplay

Dragons a missed opportunity

Virtuoso Loki·10/13/2016, 3:28:49 PM·4 votes·722 views
dragon view example

I love the 4 different types of dragons that were implemented and ever since you buffed AirDragon it has felt super balanced, you just want any dragon that comes up. There is one glaring problem I have with the dragons that I believe would be easily fixed and create an interest and more variable game to play and watch at the pro-level.

The change I am talking about is show the spawn order of Dragons in champ select. This would simultaneously create a more interactive meta while also removing the small variable from games that sometimes the spawn order of Dragons overly benefits certain comps.

I just want to point at the benefits of this action.

Pro-level - Its not necessarily a bad thing to see champions that are "Pro-Picks" that frequently show up, a lot of these champs just have very powerful move sets under coordinated and practiced teams, but lets get real it is just a little stale to see every jungler pick Elise, Gragas, or Rek'sai. I don't think these champs need to suffer the wrath of the Nerf Hammer that Azir did, because we all see how much he is played now. I do think if a team knows what Dragons are spawning before the game starts a really interesting banning and pick faze could spring from this. If we have a game were lets say 3 Earth Dragons are going to spawn in a row, one team might want to either build a team comp that benefits that spawn order like a Split push comp or siege comp this would shift what champs they might normally pick and it would effect how both teams ban. We will always have at least 1 must ban champion, but it would be cool to see variable picks and variable bans, that are based on a game to game shifting meta.

Pleb-level - For the rest of us plebs it would just kind of help mix up the trend of ranked and take away some of that SALT that we all feel when a team picks a poke comp and happens to get 3 rock dragons. On the more useless end you pick a team of spliters or squishes and get 3 Ocean Dragons in a row and your like "well wish we had some tanks to take advantage, or a siege comp, guess we got to be grateful that we slowed the game down to grab an objective that doesn't help us, but only denies our enemies the same minimally helpful objective."

Anecdotal - I just cant tell you how many games we get 4 dragons that don't help at all for our team comp, or don't have any effect on the outcome of the game because there was no one to take advantage of them.(of course we win because we were winning hard enough to get 4 dragons)

So I specifically hope to hear from a Riot employee on this, I can't imagine a thought like this wouldn't be something you Rioters have thought of, since the big preseason and season changes are about to come up this is a small aspect that I hope you guys consider. I would imagine it would be remarkably easy to implement with your new client that will be coming out.

6 Comments

nm101010/13/2016, 3:32:37 PM3 votes

Picking and banning champs to benefit the actual game objective? This is actually quite genius as it would cause a much more fluid and dynamic meta. 2-3 fire dragons spawning? Ban Jhin since he is broken with fire drags. 3 air coming up? Splitpushers become incredibly powerful.

Talisid10/13/2016, 3:37:08 PM2 votes

Its not directly related to what you're talking about but personally I am disappointed that there is a dragon buff for Offensive combat stats but no corresponding buff for defensive combat stats. In games with a bunch of infernal drakes it artificially nerfs tanks and buffs squishies. Ocean Drakes are certainly helpful to a few tanks who can disengage like Lee Sin or Gragas but somebody like Amumu or Kled who is full-on fight commitment actually doesn't benifit from Ocean Drakes very much at all.

Even in a situation where we know that we are getting a bunch of infernal drakes before hand in champ select it really doesn't feel satisfying to know that your favorite pick is going to be rendered less effective by drake RNG and it makes the game overall more burst-heavy.