Riot has just announced that they plan to change Dragons in the upcoming 13.6 Patch. The update is scheduled to release on the 22nd of March. These changes are aimed at making the game more balanced and addressing the issue of Dragons being too powerful.
Here is when you can roughly expect the new patch to land:
- 3 am PT (NA servers)
- 5 am GMT (EUW servers)
- 3 am CET (EUNE server)
Why is Riot nerfing Dragons?
It is no surprise that since their introduction, Dragons and the Dragon Soul have an extremely powerful buff to the team that has them. But by exactly how much do Dragons improve your team’s chance of winning? Luckily, we have stats for that and they may surprise you.
As can be seen, even the worst soul, percentage-wise boasts an impressive 88.6% winrate. In addition, if we take a look at the statistics about 3 drakes they tell a similar story.
The top ten 3 drake combinations all have at least an 84.7% winrate. Even the worst 3 drake combination (triple Chemtech dragons) sits at a 70.9% winrate. These statistics show that Dragons are providing too much of an advantage, hence the need for the nerf.
However, all these statistics should be taken with a hefty grain of salt. Usually, if a team is able to secure 3 dragons or a soul that means that they are already far ahead of the enemy team. Taking that into account, it is rather tricky to balance the objective as a powerful tool to close out games, while allowing the enemy team a healthy chance of a comeback victory.
What exactly are the changes to Dragons?
The nerfs Riot has in mind for Dragons in Patch 13.6 are aimed at reducing the early game impact of the neutral objectives. The goal is to keep the mid and late-game power of the dragons which is vital for the health of the game. Additionally, the nerfs should allow for opposing teams to not get snowballed on as hard when transitioning into the mid-game.
- Ocean Drake: The Ocean Drake’s healing buff will be reduced from 3% to 2.5% of missing health per 5 seconds.
- Infernal Drake: The Infernal Drake’s attack damage and ability power buff will be reduced from 6% to 5%.
- Mountain Drake: The Mountain Drake’s bonus armor and magic resist buff will be reduced from 9% to 8%.
- Hextech Drake: The Hextech Drake’s ability haste and attack speed buff will be reduced from 9% to 7.5%.
- No changes to Chemtech Drake and Cloud Drake
In addition, the Dragon Soul buff will be adjusted accordingly based on the new values of the individual dragon buffs.
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