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Problem with Current Dragon (long read)

Spacesuit Spiff··3 votes·555 views

So as we know, the first dragon buff is currently "+8% AD/AP", which has become 6% on PBE. I'm not going to discuss the numbers, my issue is the fact that a global AD/AP scaling buff is unbalanced because it favors champions that build two specific stats. Champions that run on AS, Apen, Mpen, Crit, and of course tank stats don't get very much out of this buff, and since in most games both teams will end up with at least one dragon, this is an indirect nerf to all champs that don't stack straight AD and AP.

The flat Apen/Mpen buff we used to have worked much better because it increased all damage (except true damage) regardless of what stats are built. I can't remember the details of how flat Pen works (like whether it increases the damage by the same amount regardless of enemy resistances), but it does seem like it increases damage fairly consistently for all champs.

Why is this important? If you jungle and a dragon, it's unfair to get almost nothing out of it because your team picked champions that don't synergize with it. This is especially true if you solo dragon; you've lost a lot of time and health to get the buff and you've put yourself a little bit behind, and your team doesn't get anything out of it.

The second problem is that flat Pen is useful all game, whereas %AD/AP scalings are more useful lategame. If you take an important objective in the first 15 minutes of the game, and all you have to show for it is single-digit stat points on each carry until they get more items done. This is compounded by the fact that if you're a Devourer jungler, the attack speed and the stacks get nothing from that buff, so the first dragon doesn't even help you (and not to mention Juggernaut, especially since a lot of tanks actually benefit from Pen).

If dragon had worked like this last season, madstone Godyr probably wouldn't have been a thing because a tiny buff like that isn't enough to keep the lanes alive so the jungler can afk farm. And perhaps Riot is attempting to kill that strategy (they did a good job fixing the toxic characteristics of Flare while keeping a scaling jungle item), because even though a lot of champs can solo dragon early now, they're better off ganking lanes or even farming because the first dragon buff just isn't worth falling behind for. Perhaps that's good for the game, but in soloq jungling can be painful (your laner either doesn't notice you ganking or doesn't know not to chase under the tower, pick one) and being able to influence the earlygame through solo dragon control was a lot more consistent and enjoyable than relying on randoms.

So bring back the tier 1 flat Pen buff. Balance the numbers, but make it Pen again so that it actually does something in the earlygame when ADCs aren't juggling swords and all the other damage comes the base damage on abilities. Currently all the first dragon buff is good for is rubberbanding, because odds are both teams have it by the time it becomes relevant. Getting that first dragon is fun, and it shouldn't mean falling behind because the enemy jungler was actually doing something useful.

4 Comments

DefenderOfFaith1 votes

Armor pen has a pretty limited range of items if I'm not mistaken (the unique shared by cleaver/youmuu's, and jungle item enchant warrior). Then of course there is the runes. The champion still gets stats from these items and has base stats, so a real benefit is there. Some champions will have better base stats and base scaling than others, and that is where a lot of the discrimination already is.

Let's look at magic pen. There is more of it in the game (Liandry's, sorcerer's boots, defacto-pen abyssal rod) and of course runes, and if you have Amumu's passive, you could be looking at all these items + runes for a grand total of 85 plus/minus some to the extent of runes you chose to take. But, not everyone is Amumu, and not everone takes all that stuff. However, other than the boots, all of those items do have +AP, which would still benefit from the bonus. I think the discrimination gap you are talking about is just as negligible for mpen setups, if slightly wider, than its AD equivalents.

Attack Speed champions -- Whatever they are hitting for, will be harder, even if they chose to do that harder bit faster. Similar logic as crit below.

Crit champions -- Crit is about doubling or (2.5 if you're rocking an IE) whatever you did before. So if received bonus AD of any kind, then that's going to be benefitting from the multiplier itself. That is, the bonus AD would pass through the crit for 2x. Just because someone itemized to imrpove their chances to crit doesn't mean they are being screwed out of the crits themselves.

Spacesuit Spiff1 votes

You are correct, but my point isn't that the buff should give Pen to champions because there should be more ways to get Pen, it's that Pen is more applicable to more champs. Take Ryze for an extreme example: flat mpen lets him do a % more damage, %more AP does nothing because he runs on mana. Neither are really useful enough to specifically build on him, but if he gets one as a global buff every single game, ofc he wants the one that's useful. This also applies to all tanks and all supports; they don't build straight damage that can get scaled up and they usually don't build Pen because they're busy getting more important items, but Pen does help because it increases the base damage on their abilities.

As for AD champs that build crit or AS, yes their attack is still increased, but the question is by how much. Because of the bonus %AD from dragon, AD items naturally scale better. To compare, I recently saw someone rush IE on Vayne. Yes, it increased her damage. Did it increase her damage as much as a BotRK would? Of course not.

Now, 6% isn't a huge deal, it's more the concept that seems dumb to me. That and the fact that if there's ever a team comp built around snowballing off a 4-minute dragon solo, it'll be champions that just stack AD/AP to take advantage of that extra scaling.

Junkο1 votes

This is especially true if you solo dragon; you've lost a lot of time and health to get the buff and you've put yourself a little bit behind

Unless you picked Pantheon

Spacesuit Spiff1 votes

This is especially true if you solo dragon; you've lost a lot of time and health to get the buff and you've put yourself a little bit behind

Unless you picked Pantheon

Well yeah, but by now everyone knows he can do that so any game I see him in dragon is warded better than 75-minute baron until someone takes the first one.

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