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Little trick most people don't know (Jungle)

Shiroi Kitsune··5 votes·1,597 views

Most Attack damage based junglers can solo drag after their first clear. The nice thing about this is it gets you quick drag control, and usually the enemy will not get a timer. Also, since they've implemented scuttle crab, you have a free walking health pack you can use to heal back up. I don't play a lot of these kind of champs but I'll give some examples.

Udyr Of the people I play who are able to do this, Udyr is by far the best. Start tiger stance, and do your first clear, grabbing turtle stance, and then another point in tiger/bear. Go back and grab your first jungle item and 2/3 hp pots. Run straight to drag and whomp on his face. Alternate between tiger and turtle stance, using turtle to block the damage on dragons fireballs (using turtle just before it attacks, and not before. You want to get in as much time in tiger as possible). If you do it correctly, you'll finish around 4:45 with around 75% hp.

MasterYi Master Yi is someone I initially did not expect to be able to solo drag, but I've found is actually quite capable of doing so (of course, I prefer ganking with the old guy, but then again, this is just another strategy to consider). With Yi, you can level three as above, but it's pretty close. Wait till level 4 (aka do a full first clear) if you're not confident about being awesome enough that level 3 drag. With Yi, you should grab one point in Alpha strike, Meditate, and Wuju style. During the fight with drag, do not use either meditate or wuju style, as meditate is going to be largely useless with drag whomping on you, and activating wuju style will actually decrease your overall damage since you lose the passive buff while it's on cooldown. Another important thing to note is that you should be using alpha strike right before dragon barfs on you, since it will lose it's target and is another way to avoid damage. If you do it correctly, you'll finish around 5:00 with around 100 hp (but you got meditate, so it's not a big deal).

Rengar The kitty is the one I first learned to do this on. You're going to want to do a normal clear, grabbing one point in q, one point in w, and one point in e. So, the kitty is a little difficult as he struggles on his very first clear. I would highly recommend starting q, and only using empowered q's on your first clear, starting at krugs for the stun. If you get too low on the second buff, you can pop an empowered w, but generally speaking, empowered q's actually keep you healthier as you proc the krug bonus more often. After you grab you're second buff, head back and grab your upgraded jungle item and 2 hp pots. Proceed immediately to drag. Show drag that kittens always kill lizards by making sure to use your empowered q for the attack speed steroid and extra damage, plus the auto reset. Once you get below 300 hp, start popping empowered w's as they scale on your missing health (aka, they're worthless earlier in the fight). If you do it correctly, you should finish drag around 5:00 with around 300-400 health. Remember though, after drag you can hunt yourself some crab, which will allow you to grab ferocity stacks for another empowered w, getting you up to 500ish hp.

Generally, this is something of a "cheese" tactic as it does put you slightly behind, and takes away your early ganking potential, unless you decide to gank bot before you drag. This is something I would just keep in my pocket, and do when I know that the other jungle is generally going to be outperforming me other-wise ( Hi LeeSin ). I have only tried it on these three, but I'm sure there are plenty of other junglers who are also capable of this doing this. Elise LeeSin Aatrox JarvanIV all come to mind as people who might be able to as well. Anyways, just thought I'd share this tip with you guys, since it's something relatively unknown, but quite useful in games where you want to get a quick, reliable advantage.

tl;dr ...I spent half an hour writing this. You can spend 2 minutes reading it.

12 Comments

Only Play Darius4 votes

Many junglers can solo drag at level 4. The main problem is that it will take a long time, so if the enemy jungler decides to show up in the middle your screwed.

The problem isn't killing the dragon, it's not getting all your hard work lost because the enemy jungler started attacking you while you still had dragon aggro, therefore giving him an easy kill AND a free dragon.

Shiroi Kitsune1 votes

That's why I advocate only doing this if you're gonna go for the level 3, and particularly if you're on north side. At level 3, the jungler is either going to be going for another clear of their own, or going straight for a gank. If they decide to clear, you'll have plenty of time to grab the drag. If they go for gank, you're in the clear unless they are on north side, and decide to go straight for a bot gank after their first clear. I've done this numerous times, and I've only ever been caught once by the enemy jungler.

Yulen Xoshxius3 votes

Upvoted for the tldr. Also couldn't Fiddlesticks and/or {{champion:90} solo dragon at level 1/2 awhile back?

Shiroi Kitsune1 votes

I don't really play fiddle, but he definitely used to be able to do it super early because of his drain. The only issue is it takes much longer than the level 3 clears of the other junglers I mentioned, putting him substantially behind, especially if he is using his blue for the mana and cdr on drain when he could be using it to clear. (by the way, the second champ you listed doesn't show)

Yulen Xoshxius2 votes

Second was Malzahar, I am not sure how he did it early.

And you are right about fiddles, but as you said: He takes longer, and its already a risk to solo drag early if others might come by. My favorite experience with him was one time a tank tried to solo me so I just kept spamming drain on him for about a full minute and he did not once think about running away.

GildedCreed3 votes

Jungle Yorick can solo Drag at level 3 or 4 with blue buff (depends on when you back at, but you'll need all your ghouls) because of the CDR and mana regen, plus his ghouls, depending on the ghoul, is placed behind Drag and closer to it (almost like it was directly underneath it) and it will aggro to the ghoul, giving you time to lifesteal with Pinky (or the Red Ghoul)

IcyPepper3 votes

Of course, *Pantheon *gets nerfed when he does this...

Skia Asteri2 votes

Considering pretty much anyone can solo dragon at level 3, it should be warded if the other team knows what they are doing. It is just a matter of how fast.

Really, it is pretty much anyone that can reach level 3 in the jungle before backing. (I could have had health pots to finish with higher HP, but I opted out to make a point)

Shiroi Kitsune1 votes

Well there you run into the problem of theory versus pragmatics. Sure, it might seem to be a good idea to ward dragon early in anticipation of something like this, but 95%+ of the time, that's not going to happen. So it really doesn't matter. By the way, I liked the video. I wouldn't have expected Morgana to be able to do it, but apparently I was wrong (of course, I usually go for stalker's blade over hunter's machete since I usually do this with duelist/assassin champs myself, so when I do it, I need the hp pots).

Skia Asteri2 votes

[{quoted}](name=Shiroi Kitsune,realm=NA,application-id=WEuoGbmp,discussion-id=Q0MJcLY5,comment-id=00010000,timestamp=2015-02-26T07:01:40.961+0000)

Well there you run into the problem of theory versus pragmatics. Sure, it might seem to be a good idea to ward dragon early in anticipation of something like this, but 95%+ of the time, that's not going to happen. So it really doesn't matter. By the way, I liked the video. I wouldn't have expected Morgana to be able to do it, but apparently I was wrong (of course, I usually go for stalker's blade over hunter's machete since I usually do this with duelist/assassin champs myself, so when I do it, I need the hp pots).

Getting back 15% of missing health and mana helps a lot for soloing dragon. Having two smites up to do so is better. Sadly, it will now cost something to switch afterwards if you are not going to keep item 3713 .

When they changed the attack speed of dragon someone worked out how to do it with Anivia at 3. I never looked into the details of that though.

OmniMoto2 votes

To do it with Anivia, I would think you would wall the dragon off in the pit, and walk out of range of his attacks, then just spam abilities when he isn't attacking. That would be my guess, but I have no idea how Anivia works either so idk.

ActualPain1 votes

Vi can do a level 4 drag as well

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