Riots Games have announced that the newly added Chemtech Dragon will be removed from the game until further notice. The team will go back to the drawing board and rework the drake before reintroducing it to the live servers.
With League of Legends Season 12, the devs introduced two new drakes that will share the rift. While some players were excited about the new addition, others quickly noticed how overpowered the Chemtech Dragon, terrain, and soul was compared to others.
Since its release, the community argued that this was the strongest drake ever put into the game and begged for constant nerfs to the Chemtech elements.
On January 13, developers said they were considering removing it completely and that surveys would be going out to get feedback. Turns out, Riot decided to listen to the fans as they announced they will be disabling the dragon until further notice.
We heard your feedback and we're disabling the Chemtech Drake 👀
Read all the details ➡ https://t.co/U9XxWvnVw3 pic.twitter.com/Tk079QJyYQ
— League of Legends (@LeagueOfLegends) January 24, 2022
Chemtech Dragon turned off in League of Legends
In a blog post, the devs said, “Effective today, we’re disabling the Chemtech Drake, Soul, and Terrain.” This comes after loads of backlash from the community about how annoying it can be to play against.
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“We’ve heard your feedback across social media and surveys that, even with this goal in mind, the Chemtech addition has just been too frustrating to play with—especially if you’re on the losing team,” the devs added.
It’s been considered overpowered since the team who captures the Chemtech Soul gets a Zombie form upon death. This allows the team to use its abilities and attack enemies for a few seconds. Players claimed it was nearly impossible to win a fight if another team had the soul because you needed to kill them twice.
Even though the drake is being disabled, Riot still plans to bring it back (or at least another drake). “We’ll be iterating on design changes to solve the issues with the current versions,” they said. The team also noted that they want to keep the same spirit that they were trying to get out of the Chemtech theme.
There is no timetable for the reimagined dragon’s return in League of Legends but the hope is that a rework will leave the game in a much more balanced state.