Preseason 2019 jungle changes: Drakes give better buffs and spawn more often

Sometimes in longer games on Summoner’s Rift, there are awkward points where there’s no available objectives to get. You’ve already got your top laner pushing out, you have a bunch of the turrets already and the enemy team already took Baron and whatever elemental dragon was out there. To remedy those lulls and increase the number of fights in the game, Riot is doing some tuning with the drakes!

All of the big baddies will respawn earlier than usual. Baron Nashor will respawn after six minutes instead of seven. Elder Dragon will also take six minutes to respawn instead of eight. The elemental dragons will respawn after five minutes instead of six.

Each elemental drake is also getting an early buff as well.

INFERNAL DRAKE +8/16/24% AD and AP ⇒ +10/17/24% AD and AP

MOUNTAIN DRAKE +10/20/30% damage to structures and epic monsters ⇒ +16/23/30% damage to structures and epic monsters

OCEAN DRAKE 4/8/12% missing health & mana regen out of combat ⇒ 6/9/12% missing health & mana regen out of combat

CLOUD DRAKE +2/4/6% movement speed, tripled out of combat ⇒ +3/4.5/6% movement speed, tripled out of combat

That being said, the first drake of the game will also spawn a bit later. It spawns at five minutes instead of at 2:30. It also gives a bit more gold (up to 100 from 25) and more experience, especially at earlier levels (up to 150-330, depending on your level, from 75-300).

This should incentivize players to go get those drakes earlier on, as they’ll help you way more than they did before in the early game.