Introduction
The roar of the Elder Dragon, the fiery glow of Infernal Soul, the sudden shift in momentum – these are the hallmarks of a decisive victory in League of Legends. But what fuels these epic moments? The answer, in its core, lies with the often-overlooked, yet undeniably potent, dragons. These colossal creatures, inhabiting the heart of Summoner’s Rift, are not merely impressive displays of visual artistry; they are the keys to unlocking victory. Understanding the strategic significance of the dragons and their related objectives is paramount for anyone aspiring to climb the ranked ladder and dominate the competition. Securing these objectives not only provides your team with crucial buffs but also allows you to control the flow of the game, forcing your opponents to react to your team’s decisions. This guide will provide you with a comprehensive understanding of the dragons in League of Legends, from their individual powers to effective strategies for securing them and maximizing their impact on your path to victory.
The Essence of Diverse Dragon Types
The heart of objective control in League of Legends lies with the elemental dragons that periodically spawn in the dragon pit. These powerful creatures offer unique buffs that can dramatically alter the dynamics of teamfights and overall game strategies. Knowing the strengths of each dragon is the first step to mastering objective control and achieving consistent success.
The Fiery Breath: The Infernal Dragon
The Infernal Dragon, a fiery behemoth, bestows a buff that directly enhances your team’s offensive capabilities. Every Infernal Drake conquered grants bonus attack damage (AD) and ability power (AP) to all members of your team. This increase in damage is especially valuable for damage-oriented compositions. The more Infernal Dragons you secure, the greater the damage output of your team, allowing for quicker objective takedowns, and decisive teamfight victories. This drake is often the primary target for teams that focus on aggressive early-game strategies and snowballing. Its impact is usually more felt in the early to mid game phases.
The Rock Solid Fortress: The Mountain Dragon
The Mountain Dragon provides a defensive advantage, increasing armor and magic resistance for your entire team. This allows for better survivability during teamfights and offers a significant advantage against teams that rely on burst damage. Tankier compositions and those looking to extend fights can benefit from its defensive buffs. Controlling the Mountain Drake is particularly valuable when your team has a strong frontline or is behind and needs to weather the storm. This gives the team more longevity to last until they can make their comeback.
The Whispering Winds: The Cloud Dragon
The Cloud Dragon grants a bonus to movement speed, both in and out of combat. This increased mobility is invaluable for rotations, flanking enemy teams, and escaping dangerous situations. The team can use this for more efficient map movement and faster engage-disengage timings. Controlling the Cloud Dragon allows your team to dictate the pace of the game, making it easier to catch enemies out of position, secure other objectives and apply pressure on various lanes.
The Tides of Life: The Ocean Dragon
The Ocean Dragon promotes sustain by granting your team health and mana regeneration. This allows for prolonged skirmishes, enables safer farming, and reduces the need to back to the base for healing. The Ocean Dragon is exceptionally useful for teams with champions who rely on extended fights or those with high mana costs. This is useful for poke comps, where the team has range and wants to chip away at their enemies.
The Electric Current: The Hextech Dragon
The Hextech Dragon buff offers a combination of power and utility. It grants bonus ability haste and attack speed. Champions with powerful abilities benefit greatly from this buff, as it allows them to spam abilities more frequently, applying pressure and control. The attack speed component is a bonus for those who enjoy both sustained damage and ability spamming.
The Toxic Gas: The Chemtech Dragon
The Chemtech Dragon gives a mix of sustain and damage. It grants increased damage to the team based on health differences. It is also a very useful buff for tanky compositions. It provides benefits for the teams, so the objective is a good option.
The Apex Predator: The Elder Dragon
After a certain amount of time, after several elemental dragons have been slain, the Elder Dragon appears. Its power goes beyond the standard buffs and grants a unique execute effect against low-health enemies. This can be game-changing, making it a primary objective late in the game. The Elder Dragon buff also amplifies the effects of your elemental dragon buffs, greatly increasing the overall strength of your team.
Strategies for Dragon Domination
Successfully securing dragons is not simply about killing the objective. It requires careful planning, coordinated teamplay, and effective execution. The following strategies will help you take control of these crucial objectives and propel your team toward victory.
The Unseen Advantage: Vision Control
Vision is the cornerstone of objective control. Before even considering taking the dragon, establish vision around the pit. This allows you to see the enemy team’s movements, anticipate their attempts to contest, and prevent potential ambushes.
Proper Ward Placement
Place wards in the river, entrances to the jungle, and around the dragon pit itself. This comprehensive coverage provides critical information about enemy movements.
Denying Enemy Vision
Sweep wards and place your own, taking away the vision from the opposing team, giving your team a significant advantage.
Timely Exploitation: Objective Timings and Planning
Knowing when to contest a dragon and planning your approach is crucial.
Early Game
In the early game, dragon control is often a priority, but it can be tricky because it requires taking the objective before the enemy team is set up. Assess the enemy jungler’s position and consider your team’s strength.
Mid Game
With a better understanding of the game flow and more completed items, the mid-game is the prime time to hunt for dragons. Secure vision, rotate as a team, and be prepared for a fight.
Late Game
With Elder Dragons being a high priority, team compositions and item builds should also be considered.
Synergy of Forces: Team Composition
Your team composition plays a huge role in the success of dragon fights.
Champion Selection
Choose champions that can safely contest objectives, have strong teamfight abilities, and provide good vision control. Consider who has good damage, crowd control, and map mobility.
Early Game Considerations
Prioritize compositions that can contest dragons early if that is your goal. Choose champions that work well with each other.
The Power of the Stacking: Dragon Stacking and Priorities
Securing multiple dragons will give your team a substantial advantage. Prioritize dragons to ensure you are able to get the most from them.
Dragon Priorities
Determine your top priorities for the current game. Consider team comps, and the type of dragon that has spawned. Infernal is often good early on, but a Cloud Drake is good for map mobility.
Countering the Enemy: Counterplay and Interference
Anticipating and responding to the enemy team’s plans is critical.
Recognizing Intentions
Pay attention to enemy movements and ward placement to predict their intent to contest.
Objective Steals and Counter-Jungling
If the opportunity presents itself, try to steal the dragon.
Baiting and Ambushing
Use the dragon pit as bait to lure the enemy team into a favorable teamfight.
Sealing the Victory: Dragon Soul and the Endgame
The ultimate prize for dragon control is the Dragon Soul.
The Dragon Soul Power
Getting the soul is the pinnacle of the team’s dragon-securing efforts.
Closing Out the Game
Use the advantage of the Dragon Soul to push objectives, secure the Baron, and ultimately close out the game.
Avoiding Mistakes
Never give up the advantage after getting the Dragon Soul, and stay focused on winning.
Conclusion
The dragons objective League of Legends is the heart of strategic play in the game. By gaining knowledge of their benefits and mastering the art of securing them, you can drastically increase your chances of winning. From establishing vision control to knowing when to contest, effective strategies are a must. By understanding the different types of dragons, adapting to your team’s composition, and effectively countering the opponent’s moves, you’ll be well on your way to conquering Summoner’s Rift. Remember that practice, patience, and ongoing learning are key. So, step onto the Rift, gather your team, and master the art of dragon objective control. Your victories await!
