Mastering Dragon Buffs in LoL - Your Ultimate Guide

Dragon Buffs are a crucial element of League of Legends gameplay, providing powerful enhancements to players who successfully defeat different types of dragons. In this guide, we'll take a closer look at the various dragon buffs available in the game and explore how they can be used to gain an advantage over your opponents.

There are four main types of dragon buffs: Infernal Drake, Ocean Drake, Mountain Drake, and Cloud Drake. Each buff provides unique benefits that can help players dominate in different ways. For example, the Infernal Drake buff increases all damage dealt by 8%, making it ideal for players looking to deal massive amounts of damage early in the game.

Another important type of dragon buff in Summoner's Rift is the Hextech Drake. This rare dragon provides a number of powerful buffs to players who manage to defeat it, including bonus health, increased gold generation, reduced cooldown times on summoner spells, and other benefits. These dragons can be incredibly valuable during the early game when players are still building up their resources and trying to establish their dominance on the battlefield.

The Chemtech Drake is another rare type of dragon that provides significant benefits to players who manage to defeat it. This dragon has a unique ability called Hextech Gate that allows players to teleport across large distances instantly, making it an incredibly useful tool for quickly moving around the map and catching opponents off guard.

Understanding how each type of dragon buff works is key if you want to succeed in League of Legends. By prioritizing certain types of dragons based on your playstyle and strategy, you can gain a significant edge over your opponents and dominate the battlefield.

The Six Dragons in League of Legends and Their Buffs

Elemental dragons have been a crucial part of League of Legends since their introduction in season 6. These neutral monsters offer significant buffs to the team that slays them, and it's essential for players to understand what each dragon type provides.

Firstly, there are six elemental dragons in Summoner's Rift - Cloud, Infernal, Ocean, Mountain, Hextech, and Chemtech. The first three dragons that spawn are always random elemental drakes. Afterward, the same third element will always spawn until a team gets the dragon soul.

• The Cloud Drake, one of the dragon buffs that can be slain in the dragon pit by the dragon slayer team, grants 10 / 20 / 30 / 40 percent ultimate cooldown reduction (CDR), ignoring the CDR cap. This dragons' buff is especially useful for champions who rely on their ultimate abilities to make game-changing plays.
• The Infernal Drake provides a bonus of 4 / 8 / 12 / 16 percent attack damage (AD) and ability power (AP). This buff can significantly increase a champion's damage output and is particularly useful for AD or AP-focused champions.
• The Ocean Drake restores missing health every five seconds; this restoration increases with each subsequent kill. The amount restored per tick is 2.5 / 5 /7 .5/10 percent of missing health every five seconds. This regeneration can help sustain teams during extended fights or sieges.
• The Mountain Drake, found on the Rift, grants dragon buffs in the form of bonus armor and magic resistance. This buff scales up with each subsequent kill, making it a valuable asset for champions seeking hextech power. The amount granted per stack is an additional 6/12/18/24% armor and magic resistance respectively, making dragons even more formidable in battle.
• The Hextech Drake offers attack speed and ability haste to the team that delivers the killing blow (5 Ability Haste and 5% Attack Speed per stack). This buff can be incredibly potent when combined with certain champion kits or items.
• The Chemtech Drake grants a small amount of tenacity and heal/shield strength when slain. This buff is particularly useful for support champions that rely on their healing or shielding abilities to keep their allies alive.

Dragon Souls

Cloud Soul

The Cloud Dragon Soul is one of the most sought-after buffs in League of Legends. This soul grants a bonus movement speed of 10%, which is increased to 50% for six seconds after casting an ultimate. This buff can be a game-changer, particularly in team fights and skirmishes.

The Cloud Soul's swift movement speed can help champions dodge enemy attacks, chase down enemies, or retreat from danger. It also provides an excellent opportunity for players to make big plays with their ultimate abilities. For example, champions like Yasuo, Zed, or Syndra can use their ultimates to engage or disengage quickly and effectively.

Infernal Soul

One of the powerful dragons in the game is the Infernal Dragon Soul. This dragon soul creates an explosion around the target when one champion from a team deals damage with an ability or auto-attack. The explosion deals significant damage based on bonus AD and AP while adding 2.75% bonus health as true damage.

The Infernal Dragon Soul can turn any champion into a potent damage dealer capable of taking down multiple enemies at once. Champions with high burst damage like Annie, Katarina, or Lux can take advantage of this buff to eliminate enemies quickly and efficiently.

Ocean Soul

The Ocean Dragon Soul, one of the many powerful dragons in the game, provides sustained healing power for the team during battles by restoring health and mana whenever a champion deals damage to enemies. With this soul's buff, each instance of dealing damage restores 160 health and 80 mana while adding bonus AD (36%), AP (22.5%), and bonus health (9%) as additional healing.

This dragon soul is particularly useful for champions who rely on mana such as mages or supports who need to sustain themselves throughout extended fights. Champions like Soraka, Nami, or Sona can benefit greatly from this dragon soul by keeping themselves and their allies alive during team fights.

Mountain Soul

The Mountain Dragon Soul is a powerful buff that can be obtained by defeating dragons in the game. This soul provides a sturdy shield to champions, making it an essential guide for any team. The shield scales with bonus AD (18%), AP (13%), and bonus health (13%) while providing 200 base shielding.

This dragon soul can be a game-changer, particularly in close fights where every bit of protection counts. Champions like Garen, Malphite, or Ornn can benefit from this dragon soul by becoming even more durable and harder to take down.

Hextech Soul

The Hextech Dragon Soul grants a unique ability that adds chain lightning slow to basic attacks and abilities with moderate cooldowns. This buff can be particularly useful for champions who rely on their basic attacks such as marksmen or fighters who need to keep enemies at bay during fights.

Champions like Ashe, Jinx, or Vayne can benefit greatly from this dragon soul by slowing down enemies and dealing additional damage with each attack.

Chemtech Soul

Finally, the Chemtech Dragon Soul grants bonus damage when the champion is below a certain amount of health. This buff can be particularly useful for champions who are willing to take risks during fights and play aggressively.

Champions like Darius, Draven, or Olaf can benefit from this dragon soul by dealing extra damage when they are low on health and turning the tide of battles in their favor.

Map effects of Dragons

The various rift changes are associated with the spawning of different dragons in the game, dramatically altering the terrain and introducing unique strategic opportunities for the teams.

The Cloud Rift generates wind currents in the jungle and dragon pit, granting a 20% increase to movement speed for players who maneuver through them.

The Infernal Rift transforms the map by burning down terrain and brushes around the dragon pit and jungle camps. This exposes more of the map, creating broader vistas for strategic play.

The Ocean Rift makes the jungle and dragon pit more lush, with new bushes sprouting. Additionally, Honeyfruit plants and puddles appear, the latter particularly useful for those with the Waterwalker ability.

The Mountain Rift manifests in a more rugged terrain, forming extra walls around the jungle and the dragon pit, creating more obstacles and potential ambush points for the teams.

The Hextech Drake introduces a high-tech twist to the game. Pairs of Hex-gates appear across the map, allowing champions to quickly traverse between paired locations, provided they can channel uninterrupted by stuns or damage.The Chemtech Drake, the Rift undergoes a transformation into a landscape inspired by Zaunite chemicals and mutated jungle plants.

Notably, Blast Cones can now project those in range twice as far as before. Honey Fruits upgrade into Stim Fruits, providing a small bonus shield without slowing champions who consume them, and offering the typical healing effect. Finally, Scryer’s Bloom upgrades into Stalker’s Bloom, which reveals a small circular area and a cone in the opposite direction it was hit, boosts movement speed towards revealed enemy champions, and weakens wards revealed to 1 health. These changes introduce new layers of complexity and tactics to gameplay.