Some interesting Ideas Oaklief, however first I believe Vitrium should first add in the remaining quests needed for skill boosts such as breath accuracy, Dragons Gift V (lvl 90 quest), etc. Then make an assesment. The Spiked Scales quest obviously cannot continue (the previous version of questing) because that became a part of ARoP, unless it picks up after ARoP at lvl 90 for spiked scales IX. Once these are in place (easy for devs to do comapred to rest of the suggestions), we can re-examine the playability of meele'ers and casters and go from there....

1) Gold Burst does need to be added so that a Dragon choosing a spellcaster combat style has an alternative to gold rage. Gold Rage recycle varies from I believe 60 seconds for gold rage 1, to 15 seconds for gold rage 7. Gold burst can follow a similiar pattern if desired. On Blight shard, Gold Burst is almost instant recycle.

2) Why make these small RoP boosts into an emblem? They are small enough they do not make a huge end-game difference. The current real end game problem is the lack of gold burst, forcing all dragons who want to stand up decently against Reklar or Daknor, etc, to be Lunus to get the Fangs of Fury crystal. the +150 tooth&claw skill goes a long way during those fights in helping your attacks land. Now the primal version of the crystal would have a use if Gold Burst was in.

2a) My own suggestion along these same lines of thought was to remove the ARoP weapon crystals, and make both sets of bonuses a passive ability to ALL ancients, regardless of faction. Combat style should never have been tied to political faction.

2b.1) An additional thought I have had regarding adulthood quest bonus and ancient quest bonuses was for skill increases. hatchy (and currently adult and ancient as well) get 8 tooth&claw skill per level, 8 primal skill per level, 8 breathskill/level. Hatchlings can begin out this way, but upon completing RoP, dragons should get 10 skill/level of the fighting skills (retroactive to all previous levels obtained). Upon completing ARoP the skills should be boosted to 12 skill/level. This would translate to an additional 400 t&c for a level 100 Ancient. (Boost breathskill now!) [Keep in mind that at the beginning of my suggestion I said missing quests need added FIRST, then we re-asess if any of the rest of this is necessary]

2b.2) An Alternative idea to this would be to allow dragons to use training points to customize their combat abilities as they see fit. Upon completing RoP a dragon gets an additional 600 training points to spend. Upon completing ARoP, another 600 training points are granted. This option is the more customizeable method, and grants the least actual gains. iirc 600 points would only = 200 t&c skill for example (Might only be 150 can't recall and i'm at work). Would help but really wouldn't be earth shattering.... These numbers could be adjusted so that say 150 or 200 skill would be the max allowed: The training window could peak T&C at 900 or 1000 points, therefore both sets of bonus TP's couldnt all feed into T&C necessarily. Dev's could figure that all out tho. [Keep in mind that at the beginning of my suggestion I said missing quests need added FIRST, then we re-asess if any of the rest of this is necessary]

3) Advanced schools, or specializations would be great. However I think they should come after ARoP, and after the missing skill quests are added. (Breath skill is sorely lacking in Ancients.. breath of flame burst misses more than it hits...).(Boost breathskill now!)

These quests could be for Beath of Lightning II, III, Ice Breath II and III, Dragon Stomp (An earthquake style area dmg/chance to stun), or similiar. Or they could break the fighting skills into totally seperate schools. That I think would take more work than the current Dev team could handle.