It looks like Riot Games may be listening in on the conversation surrounding its dragon system. Earlier today, Team Liquid ADC Yiliang “Doublelift” Peng voiced some criticisms on how the Mountain Drake is “gamebreaking,” especially for pro play.
Doublelift said that “the other three drakes are basically stat buffs, but playing around paper Baron/Elder/towers always feels cheesy.” As a result, Rioter Nathan “Blaustoise” Blau responded with a 10-part tweet on possible changes Riot could make to the dragons.
He gave three options to fix the balance issues with League’s dragons. The first option was to make the other dragons more impactful or strategic. As mentioned in the tweet, you never see anyone say, “Oh, they have Cloud Drake, so their rotations are faster.” But whenever a Mountain Drake is taken, everyone pings Baron because the enemy team can rush it down.
The second option was for the first one or two dragons to be shown during champion select. This way, teams can build their draft around the dragons, instead of some team compositions getting handicapped due to drake RNG.
The last option that Blaustoise offered was to change Mountain Drakes entirely. One adjustment that he offered was that Mountain Drakes could give teams reduced damage from epic monsters. But he said that although this makes sense thematically, it doesn’t provide players with the same satisfaction compared to the 16-percent damage amplification granted by the current buff.
Ultimately, Riot Blaustoise says that a combination of option one and two could work best, since these potential changes allow for more strategic planning around important objectives. Although these changes may seem great, they’re probably far from being implemented into the game—don’t hold your breath for any dragon changes just yet, League fans.
