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Gameplay
Types of Dragons
There are five types of dragons: 
Cloud, 
Infernal, 
Mountain and 
Ocean drakes; and 
Elder Dragon.
The first four types are globally known as elemental drakes. They spawn randomly until the Elder Dragon spawns, after which only the Elder Dragon will spawn.
Killing an elemental drake permanently grants the killing team a 
Dragon Slayer stack, which provides a buff, different for each type of drake killed.
Killing the elder dragon for the first time instead grants a temporary buff called 
Aspect of the Dragon.
Cloud Drake has the fastest movement and attack speed, delivering high DPS to single targets while being better at chasing than other dragons.
Infernal Drake deals AoE attacks, but can otherwise be considered the most generic of the elemental drakes.
Mountain Drake has slow, AoE, hard hitting attacks. It has the greatest armor and magic resist of elemental dragons. Its significant toughness makes it harder to secure, giving the opposition a longer opportunity to contest.
Ocean Drake's auto attacks
slow the target's movement speed by 30% for 2 seconds. This limits its target's ability to disengage quickly, making it more vulnerable to ambush. Getting this drake to attack an enemy for the slow can be potentially useful during a fight.
Elder Dragon is a much more powerful caliber of dragon, requiring multiple champions to secure quickly.
Due to its durability and the strength of the reward, attempting to kill an Elder Dragons usually prompts the enemy team to contest the kill. Therefore, teams wishing to slay it must take great caution when doing so while the majority of the enemy team is alive, much like
Baron Nashor.
- Before patch V6.9, the Dragon was a unique monster.
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Dragons are among the most powerful neutral monsters in Summoner's Rift. Slaying a dragon grants the team one of the Dragon Slayer buffs. The levels of dragons range from 6 to 18.
- Background
Game Mechanics
Combat
- When a dragon starts fighting, it takes flight,
knocking back nearby enemies. The knock back cannot be blocked by spell shields but it can be resisted by effects that makes you immune to displacements ( crowd control immunity and Unstoppability). - Dragons have 30% armor penetration.
- Their basic attacks deal bonus physical damage equal to 7% of the target's current health. These basic attacks are treated as spells. They're not affected by effects that reduce or block basic attack damage, such as Ninja Tabi's passive and Shen's Spirit's Refuge, with the exception of Jax's Counter Strike. They can be blocked by spell shields. Dragons cannot damage other monsters.
- Elemental drakes have a Unique Passive called Ancient Grudge, which grants them a buff against enemies with Dragon Slayer stacks. This buff gives 20% bonus damage and 7% damage reduction per stack.
- If the team that slays a dragon has a lower average level than that of their opponents, they receive 25% bonus experience per average level difference. The bonus experience is sharply increased for the lowest level members of the team, equal to 15% per number of levels behind the dragon squared, up to a maximum of 200%.
Spawning
- First Drake: At 5:00 into the game, an elemental drake ( ) of a random type spawns in the dragon camp.
- Second Drake: If it is slain, an elemental drake of another type spawns after 5 minutes.
- Rift Changes: After the second drake has been slain, an element, that is different from the two previous drakes, is selected and the Rift is changed based on that element. From now on, the elemental drake of that element will be the only one to spawn.
- Rift Drake: 5 minutes after the last drake has been killed, an elemental drake of the Rift's element spawns. This repeats until a team has killed their fourth drake and acquired its respective Dragon Soul.
- Elder Dragon: Once a team has killed their fourth drake:
- The remaining elemental buffs will be locked.
- The next dragon to spawn will be the Elder Dragon, which spawns 6 minutes after the last drake has been killed. If it is killed, another Elder Dragon spawns after 6 minutes, and so on.
- The remaining elemental buffs will be
The next dragon to spawn has their insignia noted in both the spawn timer and the wall of the alcove.
Elemental Rift
- The third drake transforms the Rift before it spawns and after that, its element will be the only one to spawn for the remainder of the game. The transformation on the Rift occurs on the same areas, which are the dragon pit and the buff camps. The first three dragons are now always different from each other.
- Cloud Rift: The Cloud winds quicken! Air currents flow throughout the area around Blue and Red buffs, granting speed boosts to everyone inside, even units that are untargetable. Dragon Pit also becomes a speed boosting wind tunnel. These speed zones grant 20% bonus movement speed.
- Infernal Rift: The Inferno blazes! Sunders the Rift. The brush nearest to Blue and Red buffs burn away, and new pathways open up through the Blue and Red buff pits. The entrance to Dragon pit widens.
- Mountainous Rift: The Mountains rise! Triggers a seismic shift throughout the Rift. Two new bluffs of rock emerge in each jungle quadrant. A rock formation rises in front of the Dragon pit.
- Ocean Rift: The Oceans bring life! Brings new life to the Rift. Most of the brush in the jungle grows larger and new Honeyfruit spawns near the buff camps. Water pools into puddles throughout the jungle, which functions with Qiyana's Terrashape and Waterwalking. New brush patches sprout up around the Dragon pit.
Strategy
- Killing dragons is one of the main tasks of the Jungler. Junglers often require assistance from their team for this task, and the champions best positioned to provide this assistance are usually the mid laners and bottom laners.
- When a team attempts to kill a dragon it usually gets weakened during the fight. Given the nature of the dragon pit, the team attempting the kill has limited escape paths. For this reason it's usually a good idea to gank the enemy team when they're trying to kill a dragon. A good gank may score several kills, steal the dragon kill, or both.
- Dragons (and other epic monsters) should be finished with effects that instantly deal high amount of damage (i.e Smite, Cho'Gath's Feast, Nunu's Consume) to prevent the enemy team from stealing the kill.
- When initally attacked, dragons will knock back every nearby champion, and begin attacking and chasing the closest champion. Attacking the dragon from a safe distance to get it to attack an unprepared enemy champion can be useful.
Tips to prepare dragon ganks
- Have a ward in the river close to the dragon camp entrance, providing complete vision of the pit. This will reveal enemies attempting to kill the dragon while also spotting enemies standing guard at the entrance. Killing the Rift Scuttler is a good way to provide vision in front of the dragon pit, but it does not provide vision inside the pit itself.
Tips to prevent dragon ganks
- Use a Control Ward or Oracle Lens to check for wards before attempting to kill a dragon, do not destroy wards unless you absolutely must eliminate their vision.
- Eliminate the bottom lane enemies and then attack the dragon with the help of your bottom lane teammates. The enemy middle lane and jungler are usually not strong enough to fight three champions at once.
- If you are in the Red team, lure the dragon out of its pit. This makes the dragon chase you into the river, making it harder for the enemy team to steal it by engaging over the wall of the dragon pit.
Recommendations for each type of elemental drake
The buff provided by 
Cloud Drake is useful for both teams regardless of their gold lead or deficit; leading teams can create pressure, split push, and rotate around the map faster for positioning, while trailing teams can still use it to expand vision, respond to split pushing, and position defensively. Even with a single stack, Cloud Drake can be very powerful in split push compositions, especially if it's denied to the enemy team.
The buff provided by 
Infernal Drake is considered by many players the strongest, due to its raw power boost. If viable, contest the dragon at all costs. In the early game it doesn't make much difference, but its power in late game is massive.
The buff provided by 
Mountain Drake allows teams more durability for extended fights, and its effectiveness increases the more resistances the team builds - it can be useful to build more armor and magic resistance when you have multiple of this buff.
The buff provided by 
Ocean Drake is deceptively powerful during the laning phase: the healing during downtime allows less assertive laners to extend their presence. Another benefit is its ability to mitigate damage against poke teams, forcing the enemy team to spend more mana and delaying or even preventing potential flanks.
Focus on killing the drakes with the buff that can benefit most your team. For example, focus on infernal drakes for team fighting, and on cloud drakes for roaming and split pushing.
Trivia
- Shyvana's old lore explained a bit of Dragon physiology. Dragons have a form of sexual dimorphism, where the females are always born with an 'Elemental Rune' for a heart. In Shyvana's case, she was born with a fire rune. This suggests that all the elemental drakes are females and elder dragons are males, since only females are linked to an element.
- The Dragon World skin line depicts a world where Dragons roam free in vast numbers.
- A layer of Elder Dragon’s roar came from using a violin bow across chicken wire and a trashcan.[1]
- If Baron Nashor and Elder Dragon have a 1v1 fight at Baron pit, Baron Nashor will lose.Cite error: Invalid
<ref>tag; invalid names, e.g. too many- Elder Dragon’s HP regen is so high (250 HP per second) that Baron can’t even deal damage to him.
- In Teamfight Tactics Sets 1 and 2, a Dragon features as a PvE Round monster in Round 8-7.
- In Set 2, the Dragon's element is different depending on the game's element.
- In Sets 1 and 2, the Elder Dragon features as a monster in Round 10-7.
Media
- Related Music
Aurelion Sol, the Star Forger - Login Screen
2016 Season - Login Screen
World Championship 2017 - Login Screen
Worlds 2018 - Login Screen
- Related Videos
Shyvana Champion Spotlight
He has returned
Aurelion Sol Champion Spotlight
Aurelion Sol The Star Forger Returns New Champion Teaser - League of Legends
Preseason 2020 Spotlight Gameplay - League of Legends
Gameplay & Ranked in Season 2020 Dev Video - League of Legends
Patch History
- This patch history concerns only the changes about dragons, for changes on the Dragon Slayer buff, see the Dragon Slayer patch history.
- V10.10 - May 15th Hotfix
- Bug Fix: Fixed an issue where Cloud Terrain was not granting speed boosts.
- Bug Fix: Killing drakes with Shaco's Hallucinate will not affect how Souls are granted, impact the type of drakes that spawn, or block Elder Dragons from spawning.
- Reduced the intensity of the map-wide tint for Infernal and Ocean Rifts' ground and Fog of War.
- Infernal Rift: More clearly defined the terrain, improved gameplay clarity, and polished the texture of the map.
- Mountain Rift: More clearly defined the terrain, improved gameplay clarity, and polished the texture of the map.
- V9.23 - November 25th Hotfix
- Elemental drakes
- Kill gold reduced to 25 from 100.
- Kill gold reduced to
- New Spawning Rules:
- First Drake: At 5:00 into the game, an elemental drake ( ) of a random type spawns in the dragon camp.
- Second Drake: If it is slain, an elemental drake of another type spawns after 5 minutes.
- Rift Changes: After the second drake has been slained, an element, that is different from the two previous drakes, is selected and the Rift is changed based on that element. From now on, the elemental drake of that element will be the only one to spawn.
- Rift Drake: 5 minutes after the last drake has been killed, an elemental drake of the Rift's element spawns. This repeats until a team has killed their fourth drake.
- Elder Dragon: Once a team has killed their fourth drake:
- The remaining elemental buffs will be locked.
- The next dragon to spawn with be the Elder Dragon, which spawns 6 minutes after the last drake has been killed. If it is killed, another Elder Dragon spawns after 6 minutes, and so on.
- The remaining elemental buffs will be
- Example: First drake: Cloud Drake. Second drake: Infernal Drake. Rift changes: Mountain Rift. Rift drake: Mountain Drake. Afterwards: only Elder Dragons.
- First Drake: At 5:00 into the game, an elemental drake (
- Old Spawning Rules:
- At 5:00 into the game, an elemental drake ( ) of a random type spawns in the dragon camp. If it is slain, another random elemental drake spawns after 5 minutes; this continues until the game reaches 35 minutes. The same type cannot spawn more than 3 times. After 35 minutes have elapsed, the next dragon with be the Elder Dragon. If it is killed, another Elder Dragon spawns after 6 minutes, and so on.
- At 5:00 into the game, an elemental drake (
- Elemental Drake health changed:
- New Health: 2650 (+ 240 per level, minimum level 6) before the Rift transforms; 4350 (+ 240 per level, minimum level 6) for the third drake onward.
- Old Health: 3500 (+240 per level, minimum level 6).
- Elemental Rift
- The third drake transforms the Rift before it spawns and after that, its element will be the only one to spawn for the remainder of the game. The transformation on the Rift occurs on the same areas, which are the dragon pit and the buff camps. The first three dragons are now always different from each other.
- Cloud Rift: The Cloud winds quicken! Air currents flow throughout the area around Blue and Red buffs, granting speed boosts to everyone inside. Dragon Pit also becomes a speed boosting wind tunnel.
- Infernal Rift: The Inferno blazes! Sunders the Rift. The brush nearest to Blue and Red buffs burn away, and new pathways open up through the Blue and Red buff pits. The entrance to Dragon pit widens.
- Mountainous Rift: The Mountains rise! Triggers a seismic shift throughout the Rift. Two new bluffs of rock emerge in each jungle quadrant. A rock formation rises in front of the Dragon pit.
- Ocean Rift: The Oceans bring life! Brings new life to the Rift. Most of the brush in the jungle grows larger and new Honeyfruit spawns near the buff camps. Water pools into puddles throughout the jungle, which functions with Qiyana's Terrashape and Waterwalking. New brush patches sprout up around the Dragon pit.
- The third drake transforms the Rift before it spawns and after that, its element will be the only one to spawn for the remainder of the game. The transformation on the Rift occurs on the same areas, which are the dragon pit and the buff camps. The first three dragons are now always different from each other.
- Elemental drakes
- Respawn time reduced to 5 minutes from 6.
- First drake spawn increased to 5:00 from 2:30.
- Kill gold increased to 100 from 25.
- Experience increased to 150 − 330 (based on level) from 75 − 300 (based on level).
- Elder Dragon
- Respawn time reduced to 6 minutes from 8.
- Now says if Dragon was stolen.
- V8.7 - April 5th Hotfix
- Bug Fix: Fixed a bug where the Cloud Drake took bonus damage from behind periodically, as though it had Rift Herald's Eye mechanic.
- Elder Dragon respawn time reduced to 8 minutes from 10.
- Elder Dragon
- Removed: No longer deals more damage and takes less damage based on how many elemental drakes your team has secured.
- Dragon is now randomly one of the following dragon that grants a unique stacking buff:
- Infernal Drake
- Grants +Error: Parameter '3' is not accepted.% attack damage and ability power.
- Mountain Drake
- Grants +Error: Parameter '3' is not accepted.% bonus true damage to epic monsters and turrets.
- Cloud Drake
- Grants +Error: Parameter '3' is not accepted. bonus movement speed while out of combat.
- Ocean Drake
- Every Error: Parameter '3' is not accepted. seconds, restores 10% of missing health and 10% of missing mana.
- After the 35 minute mark, only the Elder Dragon will spawn. It grants a 120 second buff that increases other dragon's buff by 50% while also granting a burning effect on basic attacks.
- Basic attacks and spells burn the target for (45 × Elder Dragons slain) (+ 45 per Elemental Dragon Mark) damage over 3 seconds and increases the strength of Elemental Dragon buffs by 50%. This stack only lasts 120 seconds or until death.
- Basic attacks and spells burn the target for (45 ×
- Enhanced Infernal Drake: + Error: Parameter '3' is not accepted.% attack damage and ability power.
- Enhanced Mountain Drake: + Error: Parameter '3' is not accepted.% bonus damage to epic monsters and turrets as true damage.
- Enhanced Cloud Drake: + Error: Parameter '3' is not accepted. bonus movement speed while out of combat.
- Enhanced Ocean Drake: Every Error: Parameter '3' is not accepted. seconds, restores 10% of missing health and 10% of missing mana.
- Dragon's Wrath / Dragon buff (second stack)
- Basic attacks burn turrets for 10 - 180 over 2 seconds.
- Dragon's Dominance / Dragon buff (fourth stack)
- You take 20% less damage from turrets.
- Dragon timer is updated instantly for both teams, regardless if you have vision of the objective at the time of its death.
- Dragon now has a new global death sound.
- Attack speed increased to 0.5 from 0.45.
- Attack damage increased to 100 from 75.
- Dragon's Might / Dragon buff (first stack).
- Auto attack damage for champions with Dragon's Might and AD items will now be slightly higher.
- Physical damage spells will now deal slightly less damage when interacting with Dragon's Might (unless the champion has a lot of bonus AD or their abilities scale higher than 100% AD).
- Dragon Buff Counter for Spectator was added.
- Attack range increased to 500 from 350.
- Attack speed increased (base damage has been reduced so that overall damage-per-second remains the same).
- Now knocks away wards when he's at (or moves to) his starting location.
- Tooltip bonuses for second and fourth Dragon buffs have been swapped to accurately reflect the change made in patch V4.21.
- Fireball is now treated as a spell and not an auto attack (can be spell shielded).
- Fireballs track the target like a normal attack or targeted spell.
- Dragon will always finish his attack before switching targets.
- Dragon no longer gets stuck outside his pit when hit with terrain abilities.
- Dragon once again drops a soul for Thresh.
- Dragon Slayer buffs:
- First Stack: 6% attack damage and ability power from 8%.
- Second Stack: (switched with the fourth) Now gives +15% damage to turrets.
- Fourth Stack: (switched with the second) Now gives +15% damage to minions and monsters.
- Killing the Dragon nows grants a permanent stacking buff called Dragon Slayer:
- Dragon's Might (1 stack): +8% total attack damage and ability power.
- Dragon's Dominance (2 stacks): +15% damage to minions and monsters.
- Dragon's Flight (3 stacks): +5% movement speed.
- Dragon's Wrath (4 stacks): +15% damage to turrets and buildings.
- Aspect of the Dragon (5 stacks, repeatable): Doubles all other bonuses and your attacks burn enemies for 150 true damage over 5 seconds. Lasts 180 seconds.
- Dragon no longer gives global gold but still awards experience and a small amount of gold to the slayer.
- The experience Dragon grants to the killing team has been reduced by 50%.
- Base gold increased to 180 from 145.
- Gold per level reduced to 10 from 15.
- Global gold reward increased to 145 from 125.
- Fixed a bug where abilities that dealt damage based on maximum monster health were being calculated on base health instead of actual maximum health (this is a mid-lategame buff in all affected cases).
- Attack damage reduced to 110 from 145.
- Basic attacks deal bonus physical damage equal to 5% of the target's current health, increasing by 0.5% of the target's current health every level after level 9.
- Dragon basic attacks no longer deals attack speed slow.
- Dragon basic attacks reduces damage dealt by 20%.
- Gains 13 armor and 5.85 magic resist per level after level 9.
- Dragon level minimum: 6, maximum: 15
- Dragon local XP: 150 to 510 based on Dragon's level, divided between nearby allied champions.
- Dragon global gold: 125 to 260 based on Dragon's level given to all allied champions.
- If the killing team is lower average level than their opponents, Dragon grants a bonus XP of +25% per average level difference.
- Bonus XP is sharply increased for the lowest level members of the team, +15% per number of levels behind Dragon squared (max total +200% extra).
- Base health increased to 3500 from 3200.
- Health per minute increased to 240 from 220.
- Attack range reduced to 350 from 500.
- Fixed the tooltip of the burning debuff.
- Dragon is now immune to armor and magic resist-shredding effects.
- Dragon is now immune to disables.
- Global gold reward reduced to 190 from 240.
- Magic resistance increased to 30 from 0.
- The on-hit burning debuff now affects the target of his attack but nobody else (previously it afflicted enemies in a cone but ignored the attack target).
- The burning debuff now also reduces attack speed by 20%.
- Updated the tooltip to reflect that the Dragon no longer grants global experience.
- Global experience reward reduced to 0 from 200.
- Global gold reward increased to 240 from 130.
- Now spawns at 2:30.
- Respawn time increased to 6 minutes from 5.
- Global gold reduced to 130 from 165.
- Global experience reduced to 145 from 250.
- Global gold increased to 165 from 125.
- Health increased to 2980 from 2780.
- Damage increased to 190 from 175.
- Magic resistance increased to 0 from -30.
- AoE DoT reduced to 15 every second over 4 seconds from 20 every second over 5 seconds.
- Base damage increased to 175 from 140.
- Base health increased to 3000 from 2450.
- Maximum health scales by 220 instead of 200 per player level, leading to a max HP of 6740 instead of 5850.
- Global gold increased to 125 from 100.
- Respawn time increased to 300 seconds from 240.
- Now scales per player level and gives 100 global and 400 global experience to the team that kills him.
- Respawn time increased by 60 seconds.
- Removed Exalted with Baron Nashor from the Dragon.
- Gold reward reduced to 180 from 235.
Units
| Champion · Champion summoned units · Little Legend · Structures (Turret · Inhibitor · Nexus) | |||
| Minions | Small | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| Large | |||
| Monsters | Lesser | ||
| Large | |||
| Epic | |||
| Featured game mode | |||
| Removed content | |||
