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"Dragon pit" redirects here. For other uses, see Dragon (disambiguation).
Dragon's pit
The location of the dragon pit.
The dragon pit is one of the game's most unique jungle camps on 
Summoner's Rift as its occupant varies throughout a match of League of Legends, with even the initial spawn being determined at random. These dragons serve as a neutral objective that rivals 
Baron Nashor.
One of six monsters may occupy the pit at any one time:
Prior to V6.9, 
The Dragon was the sole occupant of the dragon pit and there was generally no need to distinguish the camp from the monster in terms of gameplay. With the introduction of the elemental drakes, it became necessary to document the objective separately from the individual dragon units. The dragon system received a substantial overhaul in preseason ten, modifying the spawn mechanics, rewards and even the layout of the pit.
On V12.2, a hotfix update was issued to temporarily disable the 
Chemtech Drake and its associated systems (
Chemtech Fog, 
Chemtech Blight, and 
Chemtech Dragon Soul) as a result of their higher impact on matches than other elemental drakes and the negative feedback they received by the majority of the community.[1]
Game Mechanics
Spawn
- Random Drakes: At 5:00 into the game, an elemental drake (
) of a random type spawns in the dragon pit. When a drake is slain, the next drake will respawn after 5 minutes elapse, spawning with a random new element not yet chosen from the pool. - Rift Shift: After the second drake has been slain and the third drake has been determined, the map will transform into Elemental Rift based on the drake's element. From now on, the drake will not change elements between respawns.
- Elder Dragon: Once a team has killed their fourth drake, the camp will now instead spawn the Elder Dragon with a 6:00 respawn timer.
The next dragon to spawn has their insignia noted in both the spawn timer and the wall of the alcove.
Cloud Drake
Hextech Drake
Infernal Drake
Mountain Drake
Ocean Drake
Elder Drake
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 
Dragon Soul type is determined by the element that dominates the rift.
- Air currents flow throughout the area near the camps for Blue Sentinel and Red Brambleback, as well as the Dragon pit. These currents create speed zones that grant champions within 20% bonus movement speed, increased to 35% while they are out of combat. 6 additional Scryer's Blooms each spawn in front of both bases' gates and by the tri-brushes near the river.
- Industrializes the map with hextech technologies, summoning pairs of hex-gates within both teams' bases and near the pits for Baron Nashor and Dragon, functioning as portals for transit. Champions can interact with these gates to initiate Hexgate Warp, causing them to channel for 0.75 seconds. Upon completion, they dash to the other side of the gate over 2.25 seconds, during which they are untargetable and unable to act. They may also choose a location to dash another time up to 500 units away from the gate upon reaching their destination, though not through terrain. Pairs of hex-gates have a 30 second cooldown after being activated.
- The channel will be interrupted by taking damage, performing another action, as well as becoming grounded. If this occurs, the gate is placed on a 1.5 second cooldown.
- The channel cannot be started while affected by cast-inhibiting crowd control or ground.
- Champions taking gates will also blink to their destination after the same time spent dashing.
- The blink occurs regardless of the dash completing or not.
- The gates that lead from the hex-gates within each team's base cannot be interacted with.
- Champions being transported through a hex-gate will be indicated by the portal.
- The untargetability gained from completing Hexgate Warp will not destroy inbound projectiles.
- The channel will be interrupted by taking damage, performing another action, as well as becoming
- The following tables refer for interactions while a champion is channeling Hexgate Warp as well as being locked out from travelling through a hex-gate:
hex-gates within both teams' bases and near the pits for 
| Type | Channel | |
|---|---|---|
| Attacking | Interrupts | |
| Abilities | Interrupts | |
| Movement | Interrupts | |
| Items | Usable |  Shurelya's Battlesong  Turbo Chemtank  Youmuu's Ghostblade  Gargoyle Stoneplate  Randuin's Omen
|
| Disabled |  Hextech Rocketbelt
| |
| Interrupted by | All item-actives not specified above interrupt | |
| Consumables | Usable | |
| Spells | Usable |  Barrier  Clarity  Cleanse  Exhaust  Ghost  Heal  Ignite  Smite
|
| Disabled | N/A | |
| Interrupted by |  Flash  Teleport  Recall  Hexflash
| |
| Interrupted by |  Grounding effects Cast-inhibiting effects
| |
| Type | Channel | |
|---|---|---|
| Attacking | Disabled | |
| Abilities | Disabled | |
| Movement | Disabled | |
| Items | Usable | N/A |
| Disabled | All items are disabled | |
| Interrupted by | N/A | |
| Consumables | Disabled | |
| Spells | Usable | N/A |
| Disabled | Barrier Clarity Cleanse Exhaust Ghost Heal Ignite Smite Flash Teleport Recall Hexflash  Mark  Dash
| |
| Interrupted by | N/A | |
| Interrupted by | ||
- Burns up the walls near the entrance of the Dragon pit and the patches of brush and sections of the walls surrounding the camps for Blue Sentinel and Red Brambleback, opening up a pathway in their pits. 10 additional Blast Cones each spawn in front of both bases' gates, near the camps for Gromp and Murk Wolves, and within the alcoves.
- Triggers a seismic shift throughout the map, causing rock formations to emerge near the camps for Blue Sentinel and Raptors as well as near the entrance of the Dragon pit.
- Sprouts life throughout the map, causing 6 patches of brush to grow larger and 12 puddles of water to form in the jungle. Two patches of brush grow near the Dragon pit. 4 additional Honeyfruit each spawn near the middle lane and the camps for Red Brambleback.
- These puddles of water can be interacted with by Qiyana's Terrashape and Waterwalking.
- These puddles of water can be interacted with by
Rewards
- Main article: Dragon Slayer
Slaying an elemental dragon will grant the Dragon Slayer buff based on the element of the dragon slain. Slaying four elemental dragons will grant the Dragon Soul of the dominating element after the rift changes. Slaying the 
Elder Dragon grants the 
Aspect of the Dragon buff.
Features
Passives
- Resistant Skin: Dragons are immune to all crowd control, except stasis. Additionally, Dragons' stats cannot be modified by any means.
- Ancient Grudge: Elemental Dragons gain 20% bonus damage and 7% damage reduction per stack against enemies with Dragon Slayer stacks, up to 80% bonus damage and 28% damage reduction at 4 stacks.
- Dragon Breath: Dragons deal bonus physical damage equal to 5% of the target's current health with their basic attacks. Additionally, Dragons gain 30% armor penetration.
Abilities
- Taking Flight: Dragons knock back all enemies within 550 units of them upon starting the fight, displacing them further based on proximity and not through terrain.
Notes
- Dragons' basic attacks are considered spells - they're unaffected by any effect that would behave with basic attacks, and can be negated by spell shields.
- Dragons cannot damage other monsters.
- 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%.
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 a high amount of damage (i.e. Smite, Cho'Gath's Feast, Nunu's Consume) to prevent the enemy team from stealing the kill.
- When initially 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.
- While on 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.
Benefits of Dragon Slayer
The stacking buffs provided by Dragon Slayer grant powerful effects which boost the overall strength of champions that are empowered by them.
- Cloud Drake's buff speeds up a team as they move across the map faster than their enemies can. It gives a team enough time to head towards an important objective and gain control over it. The decreased slow effectiveness also helps with outrunning a chase.
- Hextech Drake's buff greatly increases the attack output of a team as their cooldowns come up quicker and their attacks come out rapidly.
- Infernal Drake's buff becomes more and more effective as a game continues as a team builds up their stats, with the buff giving even more stats which in turn leads to a massive boost in attack power.
- Mountain Drake's buff toughens up a team and allows them to take more extended fights, making it difficult for the opposition to deal with.
- Ocean Drake's buff restores tons of health after having taken lots of damage. It is particularly useful for taking down an objective after a skirmish as the team will restore their health overtime and be healthy in time for the next fight.
Trivia
- In League of Legends: Turret Defence, its old version featured as a wave enemy.
- 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.
- Prior to V6.9, there was only one species of Dragon to fight, this retired dragon can still be seen flying at the west edge of Summoner's Rift as ambient wildlife.
Media
- Related Music
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Patch History
This section is about the changes to dragons. For the changes to the Dragon Slayer buff, see Dragon Slayer#Patch History.
Dragon Slayer buff, see Dragon Slayer#Patch History.- Elemental Drakes
- Pre-elemental rift health increased to 5730 − 10290 (based on level) from 4090 − 6970 (based on level).
- Post-elemental rift health increased to 9230 − 13790 (based on level) from 5790 − 8670 (based on level).
- Elemental Drakes and Elder Dragon
- Dragon's Breath health ratio reduced to 5% of target's current health from 7%.
- Cloud Drake
- Attack damage reduced to 35 from 50.
- Elder Dragon
- Attack damage reduced to 105 from 150.
- Health per minute increased to 290 from 180.
- Hextech Drake
- Attack damage reduced to 47 from 66.7.
- Infernal Drake
- Attack damage reduced to 70 from 100.
- Mountain Drake
- Attack damage reduced to 105 from 150.
- Ocean Drake
- Attack damage reduced to 70 from 100.
- Hex-gates
- Bug Fix: Fixed a SFX bug where players would sometimes hear Hexgates being used, even if they were not looking at them.
- Hex-gates
- Bug Fix: Champions taking hex-gates are no longer able to cast their non-movement summoner spells after inputting a command for the second dash.
- Hextech Rift
- New Effect:
- Champions taking hex-gates channel for 0.75 seconds, then upon completion dash to the other side of the gate over 2.25 seconds while being untargetable. They can choose a location to dash again up to 500 units away from the gate upon arrival.
- Champions taking the gate will still always blink to their designated location.
- The location still cannot be chosen over terrain.
- Champions taking hex-gates
- Old Effect:
- New Effect:
- V12.2 - January 24th Hotfix
- Chemtech Drake - Removed
- Removed from the game.
- Chemtech Fog - Removed
- Removed from the game.
- Chemtech Fog
- Maximum bonus damage increased to 12% from 10%.
- Stealth timer increased to 2.5 seconds from 1.5.
- New Effect: Camouflage is now based on out of combat timer instead of instantly stealthing upon entering.
- Bug Fix: The exclamation point stealth indicator has been fixed and will correctly reappear above your champion if you are visible to an enemy inside the Chemtech Fog after completing certain stealthing abilities.
- Chemtech Fog
- Bug Fix: Stealthed champions within gas zones now properly shimmer when taking damage.
- Bug Fix: Invisibility effects for LeBlanc's Mirror Image and Qiyana's Elemental Wrath with Brush element while they are within gas zones now properly take effect.
- Hex-gates
- Bug Fix: Champions taking hex-gates no longer briefly appear at their destination upon completing the channel.
- Bug Fix: Bard's Meeps, Elise's Spiderlings, and Yorick's Mist Walkers now arrive at their destination with their owner, rather than before them.
- Bug Fix: Fiddlesticks' Effigies are no longer affected by hex-gates.
- Chemtech Drake - New Elemental Drake
- When the map transforms into the Chemtech Rift, summons foggy zones within each jungle quadrant. Units within these zones are empowered by Chemtech Fog, which grants them camouflage if they haven't declared an attack, casted an ability, or channeled within the last 1.5 seconds, and up to 10% increased damage against enemies with 340 − 1020 (based on target's level) greater current health than them.
- Units cannot gain the camouflage while channeling.
- When the map transforms into the Chemtech Rift, summons foggy zones within each jungle quadrant. Units within these zones are empowered by
- Hextech Drake - New Elemental Drake
- When the map transforms into the Hextech Rift, summons pairs of hex-gates within both team's bases and each jungle quadrant. Hex-gates can be interacted with by champions to channel for 0.75 seconds. Upon completion, they blink to the other side of the gate but become vanished for 2.25 seconds. Pairs of hex-gates have a 30-second cooldown after being activated.
- The channel can be interrupted by taking damage, performing another action, as well as becoming grounded. If this occurs, the hex-gate is placed on a 1.5-second cooldown.
- The channel cannot be started while unable to cast abilities or grounded.
- The blink location can be chosen a slight distance away from the gate, otherwise the blink location is always at the gate.
- This location cannot be over terrain.
- The gates that lead from the hex-gates within each team's base cannot be interacted with.
- The channel can be interrupted by taking damage, performing another action, as well as becoming
- When the map transforms into the Hextech Rift, summons pairs of
- Cloud Rift
- New Effect: Cloud zone bonus movement speed is increased to 35% while out-of-combat with champions.
- New Effect: Bonus Scryer's Blooms added to the entrances of the jungle.
- In front of each base's gates.
- In front of each tri-brush in the river.
- Infernal Rift
- New Effect: Bonus Blast Cones added to the entrances of the jungle and Alcoves.
- Near each tri-bush near Gromp.
- By the Wolf Camp.
- In front of each base's gates.
- In the alcoves.
- New Effect: Bonus
- 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.
locked.- 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.
- No longer levels up during combat and now waits to level up until they've been out of combat for 30 seconds.
- The dragon pit became distinct from The Dragon with the introduction of five distinctive dragon units.
- One of the four elemental drakes will spawn at random, with each kill granting a distinct by stacking buff.
- Infernal Drake
- Grants +8 / 16 / 24 (based on Stacks)% attack damage and ability power.
- Mountain Drake
- Grants +10 / 20 / 30 (based on Stacks)% bonus true damage to epic monsters and turrets.
- Cloud Drake
- Grants +15 / 30 / 45 (based on Stacks) bonus movement speed while out of combat.
- Ocean Drake
- Every 18 / 12 / 6 (based on Stacks) 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: + 12 / 24 / 36 (based on Stacks)% attack damage and ability power.
- Enhanced Mountain Drake: + 15 / 30 / 45 (based on Stacks)% bonus damage to epic monsters and turrets as true damage.
- Enhanced Cloud Drake: + 22.5 / 45 / 67.5 (based on Stacks) bonus movement speed while out of combat.
- Enhanced Ocean Drake: Every 12 / 8 / 4 (based on Stacks) seconds, restores 10% of missing health and 10% of missing mana.
See Also
- Cloud Drake
- Chemtech Drake
- Hextech Drake
- Infernal Drake
- Mountain Drake
- Ocean Drake
- Elder Dragon
- Dragon Slayer
- Aspect of the Dragon
References
Units
| Champion · Champion summoned units · Little Legend · Structures (Turret · Inhibitor · Nexus) | |||
| Minions | Small | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| Large | |||
| Monsters | Lesser | ||
| Large | |||
| Epic |
|
||
| Featured game mode | |||
| Removed content | |||
