Antdrioite
2015-07-20 08:11:13
When I hear people and teams talk about 5th dragon as a win condition, I cringe.
Dragon has changed; it doesn’t give 975 gold anymore, it’s not a strong side objective that you have to fight for around 10 minutes or need to sneak it early with Nunu/Udyr to get ahead. Dragon right now is something extra. It’s whipped cream on ice: you like having it but don’t need it to enjoy your sundae.
“But what if our enemy gets 5 stacks, then it’s automatically GG, we have to fight for all the dragons!” NO, and I’ll explain why.
1. The actual value of each stack
There is value in every dragon but it’s overall not worth much, especially in the early game. Buff 1 and 3 give combat stats but nothing major, while 2 and 4 help with pushing and jungling. Buff 5 is what you work for and is definitely something you want but only if you can get it without sacrificing other important win objectives.
A nice buff to get a lead in fights, not massive or huge. It doesn’t help tanks or supports that much but it can help you win that deciding teamfight. This buff becomes a lot more value the later you are in a game. Early that 6% will result in in a few extra points of AP and AD but lategame this can ramp up to 30, 40, 50. So getting your first dragon late in the game can be a huge impact.
It makes sieging and pushing turrets easier, which is still the main objective of the game: destroy turrets, destroy an inhibitor, and kill the nexus. This buff won’t help you win teamfights but makes it easier for every composition to break open a siege and get closer to victory. It’s a nice thing to help destroy turrets in the midgame and snowball to victory, but nothing major. It’s not worth any gold, which is the factor we compare the new dragon stacks with.
Movement speed is hard to translate into gold or teamfight effectiveness but it’s a useful buff. MS helps poke comps to kite away and pick comps to get that crucial kill. It’s a useful but not game deciding buff. Still not worth much gold, MS gets overvalued a lot as a combat stat. It doesn’t help with wave clear or pushing.
This buff is almost worthless in terms of winning a teamfight unless you’re playing vs Annie or Malzahar. It helps in wave clearing and clearing the jungle faster. This is a nice buff if you’re behind and want to defend or splitpush. This is nice but almost worthless in terms of gold.
(BURN: Basic attacks deal 150 true damage over 5s)
An amazing buff, the creme de la creme, everything you worked for with your team. The stats and effectiveness easily rival baron, it just takes so much work and time to get it. Getting this buff even makes your support deal damage; turrets melt and acquiring baron is a piece of cake. With this, winning becomes easier but is still not a guarantee. It takes at least 24 minutes to get 5 dragon stacks from the moment you got your first, so going for 5 dragons as a win objective pushes the game already to the mid/lategame. As a result, you’ll need an early game team comp to make sure you can pressure all the dragons, hope you don’t lose one by accident and make sure you’re enough in the lead that your early game comp doesn’t get outscaled by the time you can take your fifth dragon.
2. overvaluing dragons
I’m not saying dragons are worthless, but it’s not even a strong secondary objective anymore. In general it’s a better red or blue buff but even blue is sometimes more valuable than dragon and a lot less risky to take.
Let’s take some examples of trades you don’t want to make but many teams still do.
Dragon for a kill
A normal kill + assist is worth 450 gold, You could argue trading a dragon for that is good, but early game that kill is far more valuable. The person getting the kill will get his first item earlier than his opponent, meaning in the next fight or gank he will have the edge. One kill can mean the difference between a finished IE or just the components. 6% stats can never be compared with a finished item even if it’s over the whole team. Dragon for a kill is the best; it’s the worst trade you can make but it’s still a risk and can get you behind considerably.
Dragon for a turret
This used to be a highly debated trade before S5, but it isn’t anymore. The team getting turrets will get a gold lead and open up the map. Turret value has been decreased slightly but the overall map freedom and vision denial you get is huge. More freedom to invade, ward, get picks, and just snowball the game further in your favour. Dragon will only really help in snowballing when you get that 5th stack. Why stack up dragons to make turret-pushing easier when you can just get a turret
Dragon for farm
Even Farm is worth more than a dragon sometimes. Laneswapping in particular can cause huge difference in farm for toplaners. Multiple times we have seen in the LCS that during laneswaps, teams start by doing a jungle follow with their toplaner. Afterwards they’ll group up with their botlane and fastpush one turret. The team that pushed in the turret at the dragon side of the map will than proceed and take the dragon. This is a good strategy but often the team won’t bounce the wave right or the toplaner stays too long because they want to secure the dragon.
This can result in a huge CS and XP lead for the enemy toplaner. And now that dragon call results in your toplaner struggling for the rest of the game. In a meta dominated by toplaner, you don’t want that to happen.
Even after laneswapping, toplaners might use tp for a gank, but if it fails, then they’ll go after dragon. This is a good use for the man advantage, but that “failed” teleport will get the enemy toplaner ahead: He’ll get extra damage on the turret and will be able to deny a few waves. His teleport will still be up to make a play later in the game. If you want your top laner to help for dragon it’s almost always better to walk to dragon and then teleport top. Only when your top laner is exerting pressure and can keep his opponent down you want him to stay top as much as possible and TP reactively.
3. When should you take dragon?
Simple answer: when it’s free, that’s it; you want to take it when your opponent has no idea, after you killed someone in mid or bot, just anytime you can get it without trading something for it.
Enemy backed
If one or more enemies from bot, mid, or the jungler backed, you have a number advantage and should be able to get a free drake if you don’t wait too long. This often happens after a gank or invade where one or more enemies gets low and has to back.
Got a kill
Getting a kill will also result in a numbers advantage, just be careful of how many ultimates and summoners you used for that kill. If the enemy team still has a lot of ultimates left and you’re not at full health, they could turn it around and kill you in addition to grabbing a dragon.
Sneak it
If they don’t know you’re doing it, they can’t react to it. Good ward control can result in an easy dragon. Use only 1 or 2 members and make sure the enemy can’t see you. This is a safe and perfect way to control an objective. This works the best early in the game when sightstone isn’t a factor yet but even later it’s possible. Sneaking one dragon can delay the game much longer and delay a fifth dragon timing until the point it’s no longer relevant.
Winning a teamfight
This is a pretty obvious one but consider that pushing turrets or attempting baron might be more fruitful, dragon should be the last objective you attempt or take after winning a teamfight.
4. Dragon’s use to start a teamfight.
Many teams love to still fight around dragon and it’s the perfect way for several poke or teamfight comps to get a lead, not by taking dragon but by fighting around it and getting kills or objectives out of it. I mentioned multiple times the risk of dragon, but use that risk on your enemies, even when you don’t want dragons. You still want to have plenty of vision around it to win fights and not give them up for free. There are two sides of every coin, and dragon is definitely a 2-sided coin at the moment. When teams learn and know how to use and acquire dragon by putting the enemy on their back foot and not themselves, victory is almost guaranteed.
I just want to point out that dragon should never be a win condition and that you shouldn’t attempt to take it if it could blow up in your face. Getting a first dragon lategame is nice but you shouldn’t trade it early for actual objectives or a lot of gold.
TL:DR Dragon is just an extra buff, don’t take it unless it’s free and use it to bait fights.
If you enjoyed this content, feel free to follow the author at @Antdrioite on Twitter.
