LoL objective priority isn’t memorized, it’s a decision tree: pre-15 minutes you take Herald, between 15 and 20 you fight for drake 3 (the soul point), at 20+ you call Baron unless soul is one drake away, and post-soul you set up Elder. That’s the spine. Everything else – swap drake for Herald, give up Baron to deny soul, contest one objective to set up the next – is a function of map state, vision, and whether your team can actually fight. Below is the full decision tree, the soul math, the empowered-minion calculus, and the swap rules that decide when you trade one objective for a better one.
These are the calls we make on every game we boost. The mechanics behind them are pulled from the Riot Wiki Drake entry, the Riot Wiki Baron Nashor entry, and a season of operator data on what wins low-elo objective fights vs what wins them at Diamond. Skip ahead to the decision-tree table if you’re here to lock in the rules.
The four epic monsters, in plain language
Before the priority calls, the actual buffs. If you can’t recite what each objective gives your team without checking, you’ll never know whether the trade is worth it.
- Elemental Drake (Infernal, Mountain, Ocean, Cloud, plus Chemtech/Hextech rotational). Spawns at 5:00 first, then every 5 minutes after each kill. First kill stamps the element on the Rift; further drakes match that element. 4 stacks unlocks the Soul of the Dragon, the most important non-Baron buff in the game.
- Rift Herald. Spawns at 14:00 in the current patch. When killed, drops the Eye of the Herald – one of your team can summon Herald as a charging minion that slams an enemy turret for massive damage. Used right, a Herald is a tower (sometimes two).
- Baron Nashor. Spawns at 20:00, respawns 6 minutes after kill. Drops the Baron buff: scaling AD/AP for your team, an aura that empowers minions to melt towers and other minions, and the longest-lasting decisive buff in the game.
- Elder Dragon. Spawns 6 minutes after the first team takes Soul. Executes targets at low health under his on-hit. Stacks with Baron for the game-ending teamfight setup.
The decision tree by game phase
The priority you call depends on the clock more than anything else. Here’s the framework that resolves 90% of the “drake or Herald?” pings.
| Game phase | Primary objective | Trade-up condition | Trade-down condition |
|---|---|---|---|
| 0-14 min (early) | Drake 1 / lane prio | Take drake if uncontested; otherwise prio + plates | Don’t fight for drake without lane prio |
| 14-20 min (Herald window) | Herald | Herald > Drake 1-2 if forced choice | Skip Herald if you can’t crash a wave to use the Eye |
| 15-25 min (soul setup) | Drake 2-3 | Take soul point drake even at risk | Skip if it costs the next Baron |
| 20-25 min (Baron window 1) | Baron > Drake 2 | Take Baron if soul is 2+ drakes away | Skip Baron for Drake 3 if soul is one kill away |
| 25-35 min (soul vs Baron) | Whichever spawns first you can take cleanly | Take soul; it lasts the game | Skip Baron if you can’t push it – dead minutes lose games |
| 35+ min (Elder + Baron) | Elder Dragon > everything | Stack Elder with Baron for the close | Don’t engage Elder without vision setup |
The trade-up / trade-down columns are where most calls live. A team with no lane prio doesn’t take drake at 5:30 – they get caught. A team without a wave to crash doesn’t take Herald. A team that can’t push doesn’t take Baron.
0-14 minutes: tempo over objectives
Drake 1 is worth taking if it’s free, but it’s a small buff and not worth a fight at 5:30 if your team doesn’t have priority. The currency that matters early is lane prio – the wave on the enemy’s side so they can’t show up to drake without giving up CS and plates. Bot wins prio, jungle pings drake at 4:45, drake goes down at 5:05 uncontested. That’s the loop. If you lose bot prio, take a tower or plates on the opposite side instead.
14-20 minutes: Herald > almost everything
Herald is the most undervalued objective in low elo, by a lot. The Eye of the Herald is functionally a tower in your back pocket – crash a wave into the enemy side, summon Herald, the tower falls in seconds. A tower is worth 250 team gold plus map control plus better positioning for the next objective. (Public objective stats have first-Herald teams winning notably more than half their games in solo queue, mostly because of the tower it converts to.) Take Herald even if it means giving up drake 1.
The one situation to skip Herald: if you can’t crash a wave into the enemy’s side of the map, you can’t use the Eye, and it sits in someone’s inventory uselessly until they die. Herald needs a setup. Slow-push the wave, take Herald, crash + summon. That’s the sequence.
15-25 minutes: soul setup is the only game
By the time the game hits 15 minutes, your team should have 1-2 dragons. Soul point is at 3 stacks – one more drake away from the buff that lasts the game. From here until the soul lands, drake outranks everything except Baron-with-no-soul-on-the-line.
The math: Soul of the Dragon is worth more than a Baron buff in the average game, because Soul lasts forever (or until the next take), and Baron lasts 3 minutes. A team that gets soul at 22 minutes has the buff for the entire 22-50 minute window where most games end. A team that takes Baron at 22 minutes has the buff for one push attempt. Soul > Baron when soul is on the line.
20-35 minutes: the Baron vs drake call
Once Baron spawns at 20, the question is whether soul is closer than Baron pressure. If you’re at 3 dragon stacks and drake spawns in 90 seconds, soul. If drake is at 1-2 stacks and Baron is up, Baron. The one exception: if your team has the bot inhibitor under 30% and a Baron buff converts that into an open base, Baron’s value goes up regardless of soul math because the next push is the game-ender.
Empowered minions math: one wave of Baron-empowered minions does roughly 25% more damage to towers and minions (Riot Wiki). In practice that means a Baron-buffed wave can take a full tower in 12-15 seconds vs the 25+ seconds an unempowered wave would need. That’s why Baron pushes work even when your team isn’t grouped – the buff carries the siege.
35+ minutes: Elder over everything
Elder Dragon spawns 6 minutes after the first team takes Soul. Elder’s on-hit executes targets below ~20% HP – in practice it means any teamfight under Elder ends the moment a champion drops to a third HP. Elder + Baron together is the game-closing setup; either alone is decisive if your team can fight 5v5. Don’t engage Elder without vision setup in pit, river bushes, and Baron pit (in case the enemy bait-swaps).
Objective vision setup is a discipline of its own – the warding timing windows in the vision score guide map onto every one of these calls. The “30-45 seconds before drake / 60-90 before Baron” rule is what separates teams that fight at the objective from teams that get blown up walking to it.
The swap rules: when one objective beats the other
Most of the priority decisions players get wrong aren’t “drake vs nothing” – they’re “drake vs Herald” or “Baron vs soul.” Here are the swap rules that resolve those calls cleanly.
- Swap drake 1 for Herald. Free trade, always. Herald is worth more than the first dragon stack in raw gold and map control. Take Herald, come back for drake 2 with the lane state Herald gave you.
- Swap Herald 2 for drake 2. If your team has soul on the line at 3 stacks, drake takes priority over a second Herald that you might not be able to convert anyway. The Eye sits in inventory; the soul ticks down a clock.
- Swap Baron for soul drake. If you’re at 3 stacks and soul drake is up in 60-90 seconds, take it even if it means giving up the first Baron. Baron respawns in 6; soul is permanent.
- Swap drake 4 for Baron. Once soul is locked, the next drake is just another stat boost – Baron is the next decisive buff. Take Baron, push with empowered minions, end the game before drake 5 matters.
- Skip both for picks. If your team is down 2k gold and can’t 5v5, drake or Baron is the worst place to be. Catch one pick on the enemy side of the map and convert the 4v5 into one of the above. (This is the read junglers get wrong most often: forcing drake at 30 minutes down two items costs the game.)
(The r/summonerschool thread on drake priority is the place you can watch this exact decision tree get re-derived from scratch by players hitting the same wall.) The cleanest macro climbs we run go from Plat to Diamond on nothing but applying these five rules correctly – players already had the mechanics, they just hadn’t internalized the swaps.
How dragon soul math actually plays out
Soul is the single buff most likely to swing a game. Worth knowing which one you’re fighting for.
| Soul | Effect (Riot Wiki) | Best comp fit | How to play around it |
|---|---|---|---|
| Infernal | Burning circle on takedown, AP/AD burst damage | Burst comps, divers, assassins | Fight 5v5 – soul triggers off any champion takedown. |
| Mountain | Stacking shield out-of-combat | Tanks, frontline comps, scaling | Don’t initiate fights at 1 HP – wait for shield max stack. |
| Ocean | HP/mana regen surge on takedown, scaling with missing HP | Drain tanks, sustain comps | Force long fights; sustain through poke pre-engage. |
| Cloud | Movement speed + ult haste burst on takedown | Skirmish, pick comps, mobile carries | Take picks aggressively; the haste compounds. |
| Chemtech / Hextech | Patch-specific; check current Riot Wiki entry | Varies by patch | Volatile – re-verify on publish day. |
If you find yourself losing fights at 35 minutes against a team with Infernal Soul, you’ve lost the game by virtue of one drake call 15 minutes ago. The whole priority tree above exists to prevent that.
For players who know the theory but can’t get teammates to respect it, this is where boost services exist. Our League of Legends rank boost team handles the climb on your schedule with players who set up the soul / Baron / Elder cycle the same way every game.
The counter-argument: priority is conditional
The decision tree above assumes your team can fight when the objective spawns. If you can’t, the priority isn’t the objective – it’s denying it. Three reads that override the framework:
- Down a tier in gold, can’t 5v5: the objective isn’t yours. Crossmap to a tower or pick on the enemy side while their team is at drake/Baron. Trade objectives, don’t fight them.
- Soul on the line for the enemy team: deny first, take second. If you can’t take their soul drake, you can sometimes group + force a Baron call to drag them off it. Risk is real – both teams in pit at 22 minutes is how 40-minute games end at 24.
- Your win con is split-pushing, not 5v5: Yorick / Tryndamere / Nasus teams shouldn’t always force soul fights. The split-push wins games for them; the soul fight loses them. Recognize when the buff isn’t your team’s win condition.
The jungle pathing that sets up these objective windows is a discipline of its own – the camp-by-camp gold values and clear routes in the jungle camps gold-and-route breakdown are what decide whether your jungler is at drake at 5:00 with leveling and tempo or showing up bottom at 5:30 with a single buff. If you’re playing into a Plat lobby and the objective fights keep going wrong, the diagnostic in the Iron-to-Challenger ladder breakdown covers what each tier above you is actually doing differently.
Frequently asked questions
Which is more important, dragon or baron?
Depends on the clock. Pre-20 minutes, Herald and lane prio outrank both. Mid-game (15-25 minutes) with soul on the line, drake beats Baron. Post-25 minutes once soul is locked, Baron and Elder Dragon are the game-ending buffs. The general rule: take the buff that lasts the rest of the game (Soul) over the buff that lasts 3 minutes (Baron) when both are on the line.
What is dragon soul in League of Legends?
Soul of the Dragon is the buff your team unlocks at 4 dragon stacks. The element matches whichever drake was alive when soul triggered – Infernal burns enemies on takedown, Ocean regens HP/mana, Mountain stacks a shield, Cloud gives movement speed and ult haste. Soul lasts until the end of the game and is the single most decisive non-Baron buff in League.
When does Rift Herald spawn?
Herald spawns at 14:00 in the current era. A second Herald can spawn before Baron’s 20:00 timing depending on the patch. When killed, Herald drops the Eye of the Herald, which one of your team can summon as a charging minion that slams an enemy turret for massive damage. Used right, a Herald is a tower (sometimes two).
When does Baron spawn in LoL?
Baron Nashor spawns at 20:00. Once killed, respawns 6 minutes later. The buff gives your team scaling AD/AP and dramatically boosts your minions’ damage to towers and other minions through the Hand of Baron aura – one empowered minion wave can take a full tower in 12-15 seconds.
Is Herald more important than first drake?
Usually yes, pre-15 minutes. Herald translates into a tower (often two), which is worth ~250 team gold and significant map control. First drake is one elemental stack and a small buff. The clean trade: take Herald, give up drake 1, come back to take drake 2 with the lane pressure Herald gave you.
What does Baron empowered minion do?
The Hand of Baron aura grants your nearby minions massive bonus damage to towers and other minions (around 25% boost to tower damage, plus they take less damage from defensive turrets). One Baron-empowered minion wave can melt a full tower in 12-15 seconds vs the 25+ seconds an unempowered wave would need. That’s why Baron pushes work even when your team isn’t grouped – the buff carries the siege.
Objective priority is the macro skill that separates Gold from Diamond – and the one that’s easiest to learn theoretically and hardest to execute when your team doesn’t follow pings. If you’ve internalized the tree and the LP still isn’t moving, our team can boost the climb on your schedule – same account, same MMR profile, top-tier players running the soul / Baron / Elder cycle the way it’s supposed to go. For the underlying buff mechanics, the Riot Wiki Baron Nashor entry is the canonical reference.