Dragons Offer Too Much Incentive
Maybe it's just my elo, but in all honestly I got pretty numb to botlane getting ganked over and over throughout the season with no real repercussion for the camp on the map. This is highlighted even more so when a permanent dragon buff is up while a possible take tower advantage is present. Mostly cause it feels useless to go for herald. It may be too early to tell, but in every game the dragons have taken priority even over baron. My suggestion is this;
- after a dragon is killed the newly spawned dragon switches places with herald
- if herald is taken before a dragon dies the dragon does not move, meaning they switch ONLY when a dragon is killed
- this system will repeat until elder
- this now shifts vision and objective control and alleviates some of the pressure bot, if only slightly
- of course this could be abused by a camp that also uses herald to their benefit, but hopefully your team is reacting
- the cost of losing dragon to herald should be more weighted
- i think it would be cool if there was a territorial dispute animation between herald and the dragon
- the symbol doesn't have to move to let everyone know what dragon is next
I also think the idea below would be pretty neat but, honestly it doesn't need to happen. Both elder and baron are decent advantages, though baron might need some more oomph.
- every five minutes baron and elder have a little dispute between themselves and switch places
- this fight takes place over one minute, so teams have time to scramble and/or scrap themselves
- this would make the vision battle a little more harder and decisions to be more decisive, as you could baron prep only to have baron take a trip botlane
In my opinion baron now doesn't measure up to the elder dragon buff. So as a counter, I think if your team prioritizes baron, the buff could also have an addition of "being near an [x] amount of friendly champions means you can't be Elder Executed". Like a sorta "band together buff" versus "death from above". If you have the damage they're dead anyway, and as enemies dwindle you get that amazing animation.