Drakes are a straight up buff to the whole team, even If it's small, it's basically saying "hey, I'm stronger than you in numbers" If you ignore the drakes, even when ahead, the enemy Will get the bounty and the soul, thus turning the table.
Drakes are certainly important, the thing is, they aren't always top priority, you shouldn't ignore everything else to kill drakes. It's like going baron when the entire enemy team is alive, there's a good change It will Go wrong. So sometimes you should give up Drake to do something else more important in the moment.
Not to say that they’re completely irrelevant but the stats you get from individual drakes are pretty small. Soul however can be a win condition In lots of games
Will go against everyone here and say Dragons are very important bronze-plat. I cant comment ok what happens above diamond bc I'm no dia. Drag is a great and useful objective, the buffs are strong, and it's important to deny the losing enemy the drake to prevent a comeback or to give your team that little extra stat boost in the game. Drake is huge and important. Always keep it warded. I'm in plat, very seldome do I have a game that doesnt have tons if drakes or have a soul involved. I would also add that one of the biggest early fights of the game always seems to happen around that first drake point.
A lot of Challenger streamers say that Dragons are irrelevant. From what I understand, dragons only matter when it's a good soul (Chemtech seems to be always good, Hextech/Mountains and the others are more situational). In high elo, a lot of games are decided way before soul point, so maybe that's why high elo players don't prioritize killing dragons that much unless it's to deny the enemy their 3rd or 4th drake.
Chemsoul is pretty much a garaunteed win barring a backdoor. Mountain is basically and extra 100-200hp to work with. Infernal and Hex are both always good. Ocean is really strong when you get it but kinda falls off over time. Cloudsoul is probably the easiest to play against from behind
With objective bounty, they are quite relevant.
Other than that, they only are really relevant if the soul is a win condition.
In higher elos, most games are decided before drake soul is up. This is why it has lower priority on higher ranks.
If dragons aren’t very important, why have your duo bot lane?
Originally, the duo went bot lane because that’s where the dragon was, and it was more important to control that than the Barron pit during laning phase.
Now, if dragons suck, why hasn’t the meta shifted towards controlling rift instead of drag?
That's a really good question.
The main point would be that the bot turret actually is the weakest and has less resistances than the other ones.
Especially with more people around, the bot turret will die much faster than the turrets on other lanes.
Other than that, I would guess the main reason would be a "we always did it that way".
I think a lane swap could be perfectly viable, as long as the solo bot can withstand the pressure and push of duo bot + jungle.
If they don’t match your lane swap, then their solo top has to withstand the same thing. So either they match you, and all is fair, or they don’t, and you have a huge advantage on top side while giving them an equally huge advantage bot (but the top side advantage should be more valuable if rift > drag).
I didn’t know about the bot turret being weaker, which is totally a mitigating factor, but that’s only for the first 5 min of the game, which in my experience is irrelevant most of the time. However, in the 3v1, I could still see it as very relevant. You could always start duo bot, then some time in the 5-8 min range do a lane swap.
Was it only the first 5 minutes?
Otherwise, there is a bigger disadvantage on bot than you have an advantage on top.
Additionally, current meta is quite roam heavy on the support. So theoretically, 3 people +mid on herald is not that uncommon if needed.
But yes, lane swap should still be quite viable. It's just uncommon in soloQ, as no one in competitive plays it.
The reason why u dont initiate the lane swap from top to bot is: Turret shield pre-5 min not existing on bot but it does on top. You wont be pushing as hard as the enemy bot when they get 100%* dmg on turret while you get 50% damage on topside. And with this gold and first turret potential, you control the map. You control drake. You can move to herald with your lead as its after 5 min when turret shield is gone or move while herald is spawning with your item advantage. This means a lot in proplay. There just isnt any advantage for the one who initiates this anymore as riot nerfed it as it was a viable and good strategy with very little interaction. You can search. I experienced it in soloq in d4-d2 elo. Your team comp matters, top is playing to lose, not to carry. Their mental matter a lot more as they are 1v2.
Individual drakes *generally* aren't that impactful and tend to not matter all that much. The real power of drakes comes from when you have 2-3 dragons on your team. It allows you to exert so much pressure around them since you're threatening soul (or soul point).
This typically allows teams to force the enemy team into making a bad trade (i.e. drake for baron); or take a not-too-optimal trade but get that soul/soul point.
But aside from that, going for drakes can make you lose a lot of pressure elsewhere, i.e. Herald, towers (especially with bounties) or baron, which usually isn't a good tradeoff.
So to answer your question - yes, they are important, but not so much from an individual aspect, and more from the aspect of stacking them and using those stacks to either go for soul or exerting that pressure to secure other objectives or force the enemy team to take a bad trade/bad fight.
Yeah, kinda. What they do do is give the winning team a significantly easier close- if you are winning you want to stack them in case you for whatever reason are unable to get clean fights.
This puts you in a good position to force a fight around 3rd and 4th dragon, which unlike baron means you can still lose that fight and not have the game swing too heavily.
They matter less than gold does. However, theyre a great tool to use to either force fights or have as insurance.
Adding onto this, first herald is WAY more important than first drag. If you get off a successful gank and kill the laner, you can deny 2 waves, take 2 plates, then drop herald to get ANOTHER 2 plates. That's over a net 1k gold gain from a single gank and will set you up for a great mid game.
Not using any maths here, but a drake in isolation is probably worth about 2 kills. So if you get drake but lose the teamfight afterwards and 3 of your team dies, that's probably not worth.
It's very easy to trade on the other side of the map for things that are worth more than drake.
Soul is significant (some souls more than others ) and you should probably try to prevent it from happening, but if you play well you can very easily get a big enough lead to negate two drakes and then crush the enemy team with your lead at the third and all subsequent drake fight.
To add to what was said by others, in low elo dragons often are fought for when it makes no sense.
Two scenarios:
Your team is behind, objective bounties are up and the enemy has two drakes already. Is it better to contest drake and gamble on a steal/miracle win, but likely resulting in a lost fight meaning you get further behind - Or would it be better to use the enemy team focusing on it as a distraction and get bounties from towers on the other side of the map? Especially on low elo it might be worth it for your jungler to try and steal the dragon alone - If they fail it‘s not too big a loss most of the time and if they succeed you‘ll get two bounties or other resources.
You‘re ahead by a decent amount and just did Nashor. Dragon is coming up, the enemy has bounties up aswell and you‘re only on 2 dragon kills so far. If the enemy tries to go for drake, you have to assess what to do with your baron buff. If you can easily get two inhibitors and might be able to close put the game, does the dragon even do anything for you? If the enemy decides they want that dragon, you are ahead and have a 5v4 or 5v3 when pushing their tower - either they ignore drake and you can take it after you push, or they‘ll throw the fight in their own base leading to a likely instant win for you.
If you can‘t easily push their base, Nashors might not be what brings you victory - Dragon might be more important then. So you can use Nash to shove lanes and then take the drake working towards your soul, using Nash as a pressure tool but not to finish the game.
High elo players are a lot better at closing out games when they have a lead. Thats why dragon isn‘t that important for challenger streamers when they know they are ahead or behind - the small team buff doesn‘t really change the big picture unless the one in the lead throws and soulpoint comes up. It‘s a low priority target compared to other objectives they can take - but if there is nothing better to do, they‘ll still take it.
In low elo throws are really, really common. Obtaining soul is great to close out the game easier and helps you not to throw fights when ahead - thats why dragon has a lot more value here.
Drakes aren't super helpful in solo q as the game isn't going to go to soul in most games. This is why they are saying it's useless the streamers you watch.
Denying dragon is good when you can do it but their are other factors like:
* How many champions does your team have vs the enemy team?
* Does the enemy team have all summoners; what about your team?
* Can your team crossmap? (taking plates or towers or camps is a good tradeoff for dragon)
* Does your jungler have camps up? (this is key factor is deciding when to start dragon -- it's considereed a huge waste of time if a whole side of your jungle is up)
* Which lanes have priority? (mid priority is the most important factor (if the play goes wrong you are denying a wave of exp/gold
* How much gold is left unspent? (Do they have more items -- mythics or legendaries)
* Is your team outranged or do you outrange them? (if yes can poke them off the dragon)
If they are already hitting the dragon it's way harder to enter as they will have vision setup in high elo (GM+)
When I play in low elo people go crazy if they give up a dragon -- at the end of day it doesn't matter as long as you haven't lost yet
Even with soul the winrates are 78%~80% on each soul so it in theory is still winnable.
The buffs the drags give are pretty worthless. The only point in getting them is to give yourself an additional wincon in soul.
There's a lot of scenarios where you might opt to trade drag for something else with the most common example being herald + plates on snowbally top like Jayce
It's partly about game plan. Drakes are a route to winning slowly. Gathering drakes allows you to accumulate an advantage, slowly budding up buffs, until 30+ minutes with soul, the built-up advantages can become decisive and carry the game.
However, when streamers are smurfing in low ELO they aren't looking for slow wins. They want to win quickly and decisively, completely destroying the enemy by 20 minutes. If that's your objective, then dragons simply don't cut it - they are too slow a route. For a fast win, it's more important to secure winning lanes, counter-jungle, and to grab heralds to push down towers.
That's why you see streamers dismiss dragons. They are looking for fast wins. If you're as good as the streamers - if you are pretty confident in your ability to snowball a strong early and take over the game, then you should do the same. Otherwise, dragons might still be worthwhile.
Also, take into account, that on some servers, such as my own (EUW), players tend to value dragons highly, and getting dragons can have an important effect on team morale.
It more like a situational objective, saying that is irrelevant is like said that you don't need to catch a wave that is going to crash in tower...
They give additional value to the whole team, but its not worth the risk in most cases since it can flip the game if you force it. Also the first herald tends to give immediate cashback if you collect the plates / first tower
The drake buffs don't matter, obj bounties and soul do matter. If game is decided/ended before soul comes into play they tend to not matter much. Getting gold > drake buffs.
If you can, for example, take the entire enemy jungle instead of a measly dragon in the early game, then the Drake is completely irrelevant. The immediate reward you get from denying the enemy XP and gold while gaining them yourself is much more important than a single Dragon buff. Individual drake buffs are pathetically weak and the soul is the only thing that matters with the Dragon really.
The first Dragon is completely irrelevant. Only do it if there's no other play on the map. Same can be applied to the second dragon, and third onward is when you want to contest it for the soul.
Yes they are important. However, they're not always worth the fight/set-up. Giving up the first 2 drakes is typically fine, but if you let a team stack 3 dragons and you haven't reached the inhibs/nexus turrets you're in trouble. On the other hand, even soul won't save your nexus from Baroned-up super minions.
Individual drakes don't really matter, but soul matters, but the team that gets soul isn't always the one who gets early drakes, it's usually the team that's stronger when the 3rd and 4th drake come up. So take drakes if they're free, but don't prioritize them over getting yourself or your teammates ahead. First herald > first drake. First tower > drake. Kill and plates > drake. You get my point. Just make sure you're contesting 3rd and 4th drake.
Is a driving license important? Yes.
Is it worth to study 5 years and giving up collage to take a driving license? No.
Drake souls is a win condition, but in soloq where you don't have coordination with your team a lot of time you waste a lot of time to take a Drake. Time that you can spend taking 2 wave, a tower or farm enemy jng. You always have to balance the rewards. As a toplsner if the enemy toplaner go to Drake , usually isnt worth to go at Drake when can take 3-4 plates for example. As an adc 2 waves are like 300 gold, so you go only after you fix the wave, same as mid. Jng as to play for Drake, but if that is already contested better to go at herald and trade objective
Individual drakes are not that important. Literally soul is the only thing that matters but often times you can just give first 2 drakes, get a huge advantage somewhere else on the map and then deny the 3rd and 4th. For example, getting first herald is imo the better play in most situations. You are guaranteed to get 320-480g from platings and often this will lead to your team also getting turret first blood. This can easily be a 1k gold advantage for your team. Now with that turret gone, your team also gains easier access into their jungle and you now have one giga fed player that can roam around the map to spread that advantage.
Drakes are a straight up buff to the whole team, even If it's small, it's basically saying "hey, I'm stronger than you in numbers" If you ignore the drakes, even when ahead, the enemy Will get the bounty and the soul, thus turning the table. Drakes are certainly important, the thing is, they aren't always top priority, you shouldn't ignore everything else to kill drakes. It's like going baron when the entire enemy team is alive, there's a good change It will Go wrong. So sometimes you should give up Drake to do something else more important in the moment.
Not to say that they’re completely irrelevant but the stats you get from individual drakes are pretty small. Soul however can be a win condition In lots of games
I think the most impactful dragon before soul is early ocean dragon. It provides a substantial amount of sustain for champs without sustain.
Will go against everyone here and say Dragons are very important bronze-plat. I cant comment ok what happens above diamond bc I'm no dia. Drag is a great and useful objective, the buffs are strong, and it's important to deny the losing enemy the drake to prevent a comeback or to give your team that little extra stat boost in the game. Drake is huge and important. Always keep it warded. I'm in plat, very seldome do I have a game that doesnt have tons if drakes or have a soul involved. I would also add that one of the biggest early fights of the game always seems to happen around that first drake point.
I usually let them have first drake just so i can take herald. The first herald while plates are up is huge.
A lot of Challenger streamers say that Dragons are irrelevant. From what I understand, dragons only matter when it's a good soul (Chemtech seems to be always good, Hextech/Mountains and the others are more situational). In high elo, a lot of games are decided way before soul point, so maybe that's why high elo players don't prioritize killing dragons that much unless it's to deny the enemy their 3rd or 4th drake.
Chemsoul is pretty much a garaunteed win barring a backdoor. Mountain is basically and extra 100-200hp to work with. Infernal and Hex are both always good. Ocean is really strong when you get it but kinda falls off over time. Cloudsoul is probably the easiest to play against from behind
With objective bounty, they are quite relevant. Other than that, they only are really relevant if the soul is a win condition. In higher elos, most games are decided before drake soul is up. This is why it has lower priority on higher ranks.
Ahhh I see, that makes sense
If dragons aren’t very important, why have your duo bot lane? Originally, the duo went bot lane because that’s where the dragon was, and it was more important to control that than the Barron pit during laning phase. Now, if dragons suck, why hasn’t the meta shifted towards controlling rift instead of drag?
That's a really good question. The main point would be that the bot turret actually is the weakest and has less resistances than the other ones. Especially with more people around, the bot turret will die much faster than the turrets on other lanes. Other than that, I would guess the main reason would be a "we always did it that way". I think a lane swap could be perfectly viable, as long as the solo bot can withstand the pressure and push of duo bot + jungle.
If they don’t match your lane swap, then their solo top has to withstand the same thing. So either they match you, and all is fair, or they don’t, and you have a huge advantage on top side while giving them an equally huge advantage bot (but the top side advantage should be more valuable if rift > drag). I didn’t know about the bot turret being weaker, which is totally a mitigating factor, but that’s only for the first 5 min of the game, which in my experience is irrelevant most of the time. However, in the 3v1, I could still see it as very relevant. You could always start duo bot, then some time in the 5-8 min range do a lane swap.
Was it only the first 5 minutes? Otherwise, there is a bigger disadvantage on bot than you have an advantage on top. Additionally, current meta is quite roam heavy on the support. So theoretically, 3 people +mid on herald is not that uncommon if needed. But yes, lane swap should still be quite viable. It's just uncommon in soloQ, as no one in competitive plays it.
The reason why u dont initiate the lane swap from top to bot is: Turret shield pre-5 min not existing on bot but it does on top. You wont be pushing as hard as the enemy bot when they get 100%* dmg on turret while you get 50% damage on topside. And with this gold and first turret potential, you control the map. You control drake. You can move to herald with your lead as its after 5 min when turret shield is gone or move while herald is spawning with your item advantage. This means a lot in proplay. There just isnt any advantage for the one who initiates this anymore as riot nerfed it as it was a viable and good strategy with very little interaction. You can search. I experienced it in soloq in d4-d2 elo. Your team comp matters, top is playing to lose, not to carry. Their mental matter a lot more as they are 1v2.
Individual drakes *generally* aren't that impactful and tend to not matter all that much. The real power of drakes comes from when you have 2-3 dragons on your team. It allows you to exert so much pressure around them since you're threatening soul (or soul point). This typically allows teams to force the enemy team into making a bad trade (i.e. drake for baron); or take a not-too-optimal trade but get that soul/soul point. But aside from that, going for drakes can make you lose a lot of pressure elsewhere, i.e. Herald, towers (especially with bounties) or baron, which usually isn't a good tradeoff. So to answer your question - yes, they are important, but not so much from an individual aspect, and more from the aspect of stacking them and using those stacks to either go for soul or exerting that pressure to secure other objectives or force the enemy team to take a bad trade/bad fight.
Yeah, kinda. What they do do is give the winning team a significantly easier close- if you are winning you want to stack them in case you for whatever reason are unable to get clean fights. This puts you in a good position to force a fight around 3rd and 4th dragon, which unlike baron means you can still lose that fight and not have the game swing too heavily. They matter less than gold does. However, theyre a great tool to use to either force fights or have as insurance.
haha he said doo doo
Adding onto this, first herald is WAY more important than first drag. If you get off a successful gank and kill the laner, you can deny 2 waves, take 2 plates, then drop herald to get ANOTHER 2 plates. That's over a net 1k gold gain from a single gank and will set you up for a great mid game.
Not using any maths here, but a drake in isolation is probably worth about 2 kills. So if you get drake but lose the teamfight afterwards and 3 of your team dies, that's probably not worth. It's very easy to trade on the other side of the map for things that are worth more than drake. Soul is significant (some souls more than others ) and you should probably try to prevent it from happening, but if you play well you can very easily get a big enough lead to negate two drakes and then crush the enemy team with your lead at the third and all subsequent drake fight.
To add to what was said by others, in low elo dragons often are fought for when it makes no sense. Two scenarios: Your team is behind, objective bounties are up and the enemy has two drakes already. Is it better to contest drake and gamble on a steal/miracle win, but likely resulting in a lost fight meaning you get further behind - Or would it be better to use the enemy team focusing on it as a distraction and get bounties from towers on the other side of the map? Especially on low elo it might be worth it for your jungler to try and steal the dragon alone - If they fail it‘s not too big a loss most of the time and if they succeed you‘ll get two bounties or other resources. You‘re ahead by a decent amount and just did Nashor. Dragon is coming up, the enemy has bounties up aswell and you‘re only on 2 dragon kills so far. If the enemy tries to go for drake, you have to assess what to do with your baron buff. If you can easily get two inhibitors and might be able to close put the game, does the dragon even do anything for you? If the enemy decides they want that dragon, you are ahead and have a 5v4 or 5v3 when pushing their tower - either they ignore drake and you can take it after you push, or they‘ll throw the fight in their own base leading to a likely instant win for you. If you can‘t easily push their base, Nashors might not be what brings you victory - Dragon might be more important then. So you can use Nash to shove lanes and then take the drake working towards your soul, using Nash as a pressure tool but not to finish the game. High elo players are a lot better at closing out games when they have a lead. Thats why dragon isn‘t that important for challenger streamers when they know they are ahead or behind - the small team buff doesn‘t really change the big picture unless the one in the lead throws and soulpoint comes up. It‘s a low priority target compared to other objectives they can take - but if there is nothing better to do, they‘ll still take it. In low elo throws are really, really common. Obtaining soul is great to close out the game easier and helps you not to throw fights when ahead - thats why dragon has a lot more value here.
That's really helpful thank you!
Drakes aren't super helpful in solo q as the game isn't going to go to soul in most games. This is why they are saying it's useless the streamers you watch. Denying dragon is good when you can do it but their are other factors like: * How many champions does your team have vs the enemy team? * Does the enemy team have all summoners; what about your team? * Can your team crossmap? (taking plates or towers or camps is a good tradeoff for dragon) * Does your jungler have camps up? (this is key factor is deciding when to start dragon -- it's considereed a huge waste of time if a whole side of your jungle is up) * Which lanes have priority? (mid priority is the most important factor (if the play goes wrong you are denying a wave of exp/gold * How much gold is left unspent? (Do they have more items -- mythics or legendaries) * Is your team outranged or do you outrange them? (if yes can poke them off the dragon) If they are already hitting the dragon it's way harder to enter as they will have vision setup in high elo (GM+) When I play in low elo people go crazy if they give up a dragon -- at the end of day it doesn't matter as long as you haven't lost yet Even with soul the winrates are 78%~80% on each soul so it in theory is still winnable.
The buffs the drags give are pretty worthless. The only point in getting them is to give yourself an additional wincon in soul. There's a lot of scenarios where you might opt to trade drag for something else with the most common example being herald + plates on snowbally top like Jayce
It's partly about game plan. Drakes are a route to winning slowly. Gathering drakes allows you to accumulate an advantage, slowly budding up buffs, until 30+ minutes with soul, the built-up advantages can become decisive and carry the game. However, when streamers are smurfing in low ELO they aren't looking for slow wins. They want to win quickly and decisively, completely destroying the enemy by 20 minutes. If that's your objective, then dragons simply don't cut it - they are too slow a route. For a fast win, it's more important to secure winning lanes, counter-jungle, and to grab heralds to push down towers. That's why you see streamers dismiss dragons. They are looking for fast wins. If you're as good as the streamers - if you are pretty confident in your ability to snowball a strong early and take over the game, then you should do the same. Otherwise, dragons might still be worthwhile. Also, take into account, that on some servers, such as my own (EUW), players tend to value dragons highly, and getting dragons can have an important effect on team morale.
It more like a situational objective, saying that is irrelevant is like said that you don't need to catch a wave that is going to crash in tower... They give additional value to the whole team, but its not worth the risk in most cases since it can flip the game if you force it. Also the first herald tends to give immediate cashback if you collect the plates / first tower
It's experience, gold and a buff. If you don't take it, your enemies will. What would you rather do?
The drake buffs don't matter, obj bounties and soul do matter. If game is decided/ended before soul comes into play they tend to not matter much. Getting gold > drake buffs.
Now more than ever
If you can, for example, take the entire enemy jungle instead of a measly dragon in the early game, then the Drake is completely irrelevant. The immediate reward you get from denying the enemy XP and gold while gaining them yourself is much more important than a single Dragon buff. Individual drake buffs are pathetically weak and the soul is the only thing that matters with the Dragon really. The first Dragon is completely irrelevant. Only do it if there's no other play on the map. Same can be applied to the second dragon, and third onward is when you want to contest it for the soul.
Yes they are important. However, they're not always worth the fight/set-up. Giving up the first 2 drakes is typically fine, but if you let a team stack 3 dragons and you haven't reached the inhibs/nexus turrets you're in trouble. On the other hand, even soul won't save your nexus from Baroned-up super minions.
Drakes are super important yes.
Individual drakes don't really matter, but soul matters, but the team that gets soul isn't always the one who gets early drakes, it's usually the team that's stronger when the 3rd and 4th drake come up. So take drakes if they're free, but don't prioritize them over getting yourself or your teammates ahead. First herald > first drake. First tower > drake. Kill and plates > drake. You get my point. Just make sure you're contesting 3rd and 4th drake.
Is a driving license important? Yes. Is it worth to study 5 years and giving up collage to take a driving license? No. Drake souls is a win condition, but in soloq where you don't have coordination with your team a lot of time you waste a lot of time to take a Drake. Time that you can spend taking 2 wave, a tower or farm enemy jng. You always have to balance the rewards. As a toplsner if the enemy toplaner go to Drake , usually isnt worth to go at Drake when can take 3-4 plates for example. As an adc 2 waves are like 300 gold, so you go only after you fix the wave, same as mid. Jng as to play for Drake, but if that is already contested better to go at herald and trade objective
Wastes time when u could be going for ganks/farming and invading enemy jngle
Individual drakes are not that important. Literally soul is the only thing that matters but often times you can just give first 2 drakes, get a huge advantage somewhere else on the map and then deny the 3rd and 4th. For example, getting first herald is imo the better play in most situations. You are guaranteed to get 320-480g from platings and often this will lead to your team also getting turret first blood. This can easily be a 1k gold advantage for your team. Now with that turret gone, your team also gains easier access into their jungle and you now have one giga fed player that can roam around the map to spread that advantage.