Bring Back Blast

[Shinkuu]

Niv told me yesterday that Dragons used to have a skill called Gold Blast which was essentially Gold Rage based on the Primal Skill but that it was eventually dropped.

I think it should be brought back. This skill would share a timer with Gold Rage OR you would be restricted to taking quests for one or the other. Either situation would be fine, you should not be able to do one followed by the other obviously.

T&C Dragons get Gold Rage, Silver Strike, Tail Whip (We get a Stun Primalists don't), Bite (How can the Primalists do DoT?), and Ravage. The Primalists get... ... ... Ok when they are almost done playing they finally get Prime Cast which is nothing more than Multicast which Bipeds get at MUCH earlier levels along side Perfect Spell which makes theirs better... So really the Primalists get left out in the cold rather hardcore until they are almost done leveling and that is just a bit sad.

I mean, according to the Lore I thought Dragons were SUPPOSED to be very powerful in terms of magic. I thought that the Bipeds learned Magic FROM the Dragons and developed it to try and compete WITH the Dragons... Yet Primalists are honestly pathetic compared to Biped Mages and likewise compared to their fellow Dragons who go Physical. They have practically NO abilities. You MIGHT be able to call Drain Strike and Spike Scales their main "Abilities" but that is rather weak.

Now I am fine with the idea that the Biped magic is much more diverse by comparison because that seems to make sense based on Lore and what Prime is but they really should get SOMETHING to make them worth playing before lvl 80~90 and Gold Burst would at LEAST give them something along the same lines as Gold Rage to stand out with and would be far from breaking them in terms of power.

[Nayuaka]

I believe it was called Gold Burst, and it was never on the live shards. It made it only as far as Blight so far as I know.

That said... I too would love a primal equivalent to Gold Rage.

[Dragonboy]

The fact that dragons are supposed to be powerful does not depend on the availability of Gold Burst sorry. This has been discussed over and over again as well as that dragon casters are currently wimps…

The Dragon Adventure School was made primarily as a Melee class which also had some magic. That some people who are trying to survive this game as pure caster is really a nice challenge, but considering the evidence that dragons have so many melee abilities and so little spells it goes to show that dragons are not created as casters, more like a hybrid like Paladin… Melee with some healing.

Dragons can only hope that in the distant future Dragons are made neutral in concern to the whole melee or casting preference during the faction choosing op RoP (considering Lunus are forced into Melee and Helians are forced into magic) and a totally separate Dragon Caster School is created. Which would mean a extremely limited multi-class with 2 Adv schools and 2 Craft schools. Opening the potential for a new Emblem… Dragon Elder or something like that when having all 4 schools at lvl 100

[meepsa]

ok, just to avoid any more talk about casters being wimps, from what I've heard they are working on it, or atleast, that's what a friend told me, he send some info about our specs to the support team (me being a full-lunus, and him being a full-helian), I healed MORE than him (weeeiiiird), did the same damage with prime bolt, and did about triple the damage with gold rage, and from what he told me, the ticket was forwarded to the team, he also put in some ideas to make casters stronger, and one of them would be a primal version of gold burst (with an added recycle ofcourse, 3 seconds is nothing lol), I cant remember all of them, but I'm sure he talked about it somewhere, his name is Fermi

[Dragonboy]

I did read about that some were on the forums indeed. However before the devs start to change anything major wouldn’t it just be smarter to create a new school for the magic users?

Edit:
Found a nice thread using search:Gets fun at page 2
http://community.istaria.com/forum/s...ad.php?t=23694

[Chasing]

I did read about that some were on the forums indeed. However before the devs start to change anything major wouldn’t it just be smarter to create a new school for the magic users?

Edit:
Found a nice thread using search:Gets fun at page 2
http://community.istaria.com/forum/s...ad.php?t=23694

Ohh this is interesting, I never spotted this 1st time around.



Some things to point out about these comparisons.

Damage dealt (spell or melee)

1. Your not going to get accurate figures comparing this way. It's not taking into account the weapon base dps, delay, target's reduction against damage, gaussian distribution, delay adjusted bonuses. The data you get is going to be skewed until you take them into account.

Spell damage

1. Think its already been mentioned, Focus plays little or no part in spell damage (5% bonus to primal, so 100 Focus adds 5 to current primal which will not really show when damage is calc'd)

Heals (not Heal over Time)

1. Meepsa probably heals more because a. the scaling factors during delay adjustment are generating a higher output and/or b. delay adjusted bonuses are not being taken into account.
2. Assumption - If normal heals were broken for primal heals, then most likely they would be broken for life and nature spells. Same calculation just different variables being picked up.
3. The exact weightings of Focus and Primal are not known (if I was to guess I would think its constants such as 0.75 for Primal and 0.25 for Focus).

[Thenalth]

Ohh this is interesting, I never spotted this 1st time around.



Some things to point out about these comparisons.

Damage dealt (spell or melee)

1. Your not going to get accurate figures comparing this way. It's not taking into account the weapon base dps, delay, target's reduction against damage, gaussian distribution, delay adjusted bonuses. The data you get is going to be skewed until you take them into account.

Spell damage

1. Think its already been mentioned, Focus plays little or no part in spell damage (5% bonus to primal, so 100 Focus adds 5 to current primal which will not really show when damage is calc'd)

Heals (not Heal over Time)

1. Meepsa probably heals more because a. the scaling factors during delay adjustment are generating a higher output and/or b. delay adjusted bonuses are not being taken into account.
2. Assumption - If normal heals were broken for primal heals, then most likely they would be broken for life and nature spells. Same calculation just different variables being picked up.
3. The exact weightings of Focus and Primal are not known (if I was to guess I would think its constants such as 0.75 for Primal and 0.25 for Focus).

Swap all the points in focus into power and you should see a rather significant increase i think, Focus increases your Magic Evasion and Magic Chance to Hit if i recall correctly, Power and Primal both increase its damage.

But Still, With Improved/Prime Bolt being a dragons only real single target nuke for casters, i think they do need at least 1 more spell in this area

Also, i think a Faction Gift for Lunus and Helian would be nice as well, i have 4 Gift Slots and 3 of them are rarely used when I'm fighting, Cept on the rare occasion i actually encounter a biped before hunting, then i have to remove buffs i don't want quickly before they cast the ones i do want, and even then i have to remove one so i can put my own dragons gift in.

[Dragonboy]

Also, i think a Faction Gift for Lunus and Helian would be nice as well, i have 4 Gift Slots and 3 of them are rarely used when I'm fighting, Cept on the rare occasion i actually encounter a biped before hunting, then i have to remove buffs i don't want quickly before they cast the ones i do want, and even then i have to remove one so i can put my own dragons gift in.

Actually the only “gifts” dragons have currently would be Dragon’s Gift (+90 Primal, TnC, (Magic) Evasion) and Gift of Velocity. To be honest I would like to see others, but I can kill every mob that I meet in battle not counting epics. The only thing I would love to see is a Gift of Alacrity… This would also help dragons with crafting.

[Thenalth]

Actually the only “gifts” dragons have currently would be Dragon’s Gift (+90 Primal, TnC, (Magic) Evasion) and Gift of Velocity. To be honest I would like to see others, but I can kill every mob that I meet in battle not counting epics. The only thing I would love to see is a Gift of Alacrity… This would also help dragons with crafting.

Thats what i'm talking about, i count Velocity as a Traveling around gift, as such unless a Biped gives you some gift buffs, Dragons effectively only have 1 real combat Gift buff themselves, two including Gift of Velocity.

Granted dragons are strong, it's just a bit of a whack in the face when a biped comes along and spends nearly 2 minutes buffing you, with about a third of it gifts.

[Veruliyam]

I am compelled to succinctly say:

Dragons are dragons. Lunus and Helian are political viewpoints as to how dragons should deal with the biped races. There are scholarly Lunus. Khemarius comes to mind, and he almost rudely points the fact out. There are buzzsaw Helians. One almost has to be in order to survive.

A dragon's main weapons are: Tooth, Claw, Fire. Primal magics are a welcome happenstance of taking physical form and using Primal magics to accomplish it.

That being said, I would love for my Hybrid to go pure primal magics and be able to womp critters as well as a pure Lunus.

We now return you to your regularly scheduled debate.

[Nayuaka]

I am compelled to succinctly say:

Dragons are dragons. Lunus and Helian are political viewpoints as to how dragons should deal with the biped races. There are scholarly Lunus. Khemarius comes to mind, and he almost rudely points the fact out. There are buzzsaw Helians. One almost has to be in order to survive.

A dragon's main weapons are: Tooth, Claw, Fire. Primal magics are a welcome happenstance of taking physical form and using Primal magics to accomplish it.

That being said, I would love for my Hybrid to go pure primal magics and be able to womp critters as well as a pure Lunus.

We now return you to your regularly scheduled debate.

Hear, hear!

[Firebrand]

ok, just to avoid any more talk about casters being wimps

There is nothing that can equal Gold Rage in this game. Period. But casters are not that weak... if you are specialized enough.

You can sure improve your damages. Here, just with Dragon's buffs.

=> http://dragonnoir.planetemu.net/foru...al_damages.png


That said, don't get me wrong: I would be more than pleased if Dragons could be as powerful with their spells as they are with their claws.

I am compelled to succinctly say:

[...]

I'd prefer myself that faction choice impacts much more game mechanics. If it is only politic or philosophy and just a RP factor, there is no need of 2 different Rites of Passage.

[Andaras]

You are thinking of "Primal Burst" and it never got out of
Testing.

As for the statement that Spell-slinging Dragons are weak, that
is pure drivel. Primal spells include: Blast (AOE), Gust (AOE),
Barrage (AOE), Primal Bolt, Primal Health, 3 Breezes (HOT),
3 Winds (Tempest, Unrelenting, and Grazing). Throw in the
Multi-cast they recently gained, along with Drulkar's Wrath (EPIC),
and Primal based Dragons are a force to be reckoned with.

Try Teching your spells with Primal Damage and Gale(?) for slashing
damage, and combine your attacks with your Wind spells (lowers
resists to Primal and Slash) and see how much you improve in
battle.

Sometimes I wonder if these types of questions are because the
player either doesn't know the extent of their abilities or they
are not properly outfitted. I say this because I sufferred the same
conditions with my Dragon. He used to have his Tail handed
to him for 70+ levels due to never having a set of Combat scales.
Combat in crafting scales? YIPE!

Andaras

[Nayuaka]

You are thinking of "Primal Burst" and it never got out of
Testing.

As for the statement that Spell-slinging Dragons are weak, that
is pure drivel. Primal spells include: Blast (AOE), Gust (AOE),
Barrage (AOE), Primal Bolt, Primal Health, 3 Breezes (HOT),
3 Winds (Tempest, Unrelenting, and Grazing). Throw in the
Multi-cast they recently gained, along with Drulkar's Wrath (EPIC),
and Primal based Dragons are a force to be reckoned with.

Try Teching your spells with Primal Damage and Gale(?) for slashing
damage, and combine your attacks with your Wind spells (lowers
resists to Primal and Slash) and see how much you improve in
battle.

Sometimes I wonder if these types of questions are because the
player either doesn't know the extent of their abilities or they
are not properly outfitted. I say this because I sufferred the same
conditions with my Dragon. He used to have his Tail handed
to him for 70+ levels due to never having a set of Combat scales.
Combat in crafting scales? YIPE!

Andaras

Alright, I cannot let this lay. I am a primal specced dragon with all my TP in power and primal, and all my spells teched to the nines. I cannot compete with pure melee dragons at all. I HAVE to use my melee abilities to kill. Up to teir 5 I could get by with mostly spells, aye, and I have no match when it comes to killing groups with a good healer. However, for pure damage a melee dragon kicks my tail each time. I can kill using spells, but it is a lot slower.

Teir 6 was another matter entirely. It is not viable for a pure spellcasting dragon. Seriously, go down into the Doom and try killing something with pure prime bolt. They will eat you up, spit you out, and be laughing over your ragged corpse. I had to make a set of scales with strength base and teched with various melee abilities/techs/crystals, and then use my melee abilities to survive.

Dragons are a hybrid of magic and melee. Without one we are incomplete. Melee will get a dragon through the game though. Spellcaster tend to get their tales handed to them. I speak from experience. If I am allowed to sit back and hurl spells I do well, but without gold rage and a stand in set of melee scales I would be screwed one on one.

I accept that this is the way it is, and as much as I want a dragon that is viable in all teirs with pure spellcasting I do not think that we should get more means to attain this as the class/race is now. To keep adding abilities and spells to one class would be unbalancing to all the other classes in the game. I would love it more if dragons had multiple classes as bipeds di. Then we could get the power we wanted, and have to work for it as the bipeds must. However, with the limited dev power that we have that is also not a viable option.

One more thing before I sign off. Drulkar's Wrath is a little sad spell wise. It has a long timer and does not do, in my opinion, nearly enough damage. But that is simply my opinion as a full primal specced Helian.

[Veruliyam]

Alright, I cannot let this lay. I am a primal specced dragon with all my TP in power and primal, and all my spells teched to the nines. I cannot compete with pure melee dragons at all. I HAVE to use my melee abilities to kill. Up to teir 5 I could get by with mostly spells, aye, and I have no match when it comes to killing groups with a good healer. However, for pure damage a melee dragon kicks my tail each time. I can kill using spells, but it is a lot slower.

Teir 6 was another matter entirely. It is not viable for a pure spellcasting dragon. Seriously, go down into the Doom and try killing something with pure prime bolt. They will eat you up, spit you out, and be laughing over your ragged corpse. I had to make a set of scales with strength base and teched with various melee abilities/techs/crystals, and then use my melee abilities to survive.

Dragons are a hybrid of magic and melee. Without one we are incomplete. Melee will get a dragon through the game though. Spellcaster tend to get their tales handed to them. I speak from experience. If I am allowed to sit back and hurl spells I do well, but without gold rage and a stand in set of melee scales I would be screwed one on one.

I accept that this is the way it is, and as much as I want a dragon that is viable in all teirs with pure spellcasting I do not think that we should get more means to attain this as the class/race is now. To keep adding abilities and spells to one class would be unbalancing to all the other classes in the game. I would love it more if dragons had multiple classes as bipeds di. Then we could get the power we wanted, and have to work for it as the bipeds must. However, with the limited dev power that we have that is also not a viable option.

One more thing before I sign off. Drulkar's Wrath is a little sad spell wise. It has a long timer and does not do, in my opinion, nearly enough damage. But that is simply my opinion as a full primal specced Helian.

Hear, hear! Seconded! Dittoes!

[Solan]

Alright, I cannot let this lay. I am a primal specced dragon with all my TP in power and primal, and all my spells teched to the nines. I cannot compete with pure melee dragons at all. I HAVE to use my melee abilities to kill. Up to teir 5 I could get by with mostly spells, aye, and I have no match when it comes to killing groups with a good healer. However, for pure damage a melee dragon kicks my tail each time. I can kill using spells, but it is a lot slower.

Teir 6 was another matter entirely. It is not viable for a pure spellcasting dragon. Seriously, go down into the Doom and try killing something with pure prime bolt. They will eat you up, spit you out, and be laughing over your ragged corpse. I had to make a set of scales with strength base and teched with various melee abilities/techs/crystals, and then use my melee abilities to survive.

Dragons are a hybrid of magic and melee. Without one we are incomplete. Melee will get a dragon through the game though. Spellcaster tend to get their tales handed to them. I speak from experience. If I am allowed to sit back and hurl spells I do well, but without gold rage and a stand in set of melee scales I would be screwed one on one.

I accept that this is the way it is, and as much as I want a dragon that is viable in all teirs with pure spellcasting I do not think that we should get more means to attain this as the class/race is now. To keep adding abilities and spells to one class would be unbalancing to all the other classes in the game. I would love it more if dragons had multiple classes as bipeds di. Then we could get the power we wanted, and have to work for it as the bipeds must. However, with the limited dev power that we have that is also not a viable option.

One more thing before I sign off. Drulkar's Wrath is a little sad spell wise. It has a long timer and does not do, in my opinion, nearly enough damage. But that is simply my opinion as a full primal specced Helian.

Are we talking of the same Doom here? My caster hatchie has over 600 ghost kills, along with more than 650 dead mylocs according to his quest logs, all done solo with only earning two or three DP total down there. I can even handle 2 or 3 mylocs at once as long as I’m careful with my usage of refreshing breeze, instant heal, and spiked scales.

I don’t know what scales you use, but when it comes to combat, no other stat beats armour when you’re solo (unless you’re fighting against ethereal damage, obviously), especially with dragon casters as kiting isn’t an option. In groups, you can use some pure damage scales, but I see no reason why someone can’t bring another set of armour and swap when things get ugly or lonely. Swapping takes the best part of two seconds when you’ve assigned a hotkey for the task.

The only thing I would really like is a dragon equivalent of gift of alacrity for spells, or at least a slightly faster prime bolt, but it’s not like I’m in dire need of it or anything. I’ve more than managed thus far with what is available I think.

[LOVWYRM]

ok- so just to keep the balance, I second what Solan says:

Esp. in doom I fight with mental improved prime bolt more than outside.
With very good result!
I use my areas and epics more than outside.
If I die at all, then cause I did not take care of the carrion crawlers^^while going afk
And for those who do not know: I`ve always said that dragons are hybride- so that is what I play.
( I wonder how much damage a True Helian can do with that)

[Vahrokh]

I'd prefer myself that faction choice impacts much more game mechanics. If it is only politic or philosophy and just a RP factor, there is no need of 2 different Rites of Passage.

Dragons are dragons. Period.

Some believe less in dragon <=> biped cooperation and are called Lunus. They stigmatize this by a Rite more based on such belief.
Others believe more in dragon <=> biped cooperation and are called Helians. They also stigmatize this by a Rite more based on such belief.


All dragons are one or more stories tall, all dragons are just able to smash stuff because their paws are mechanically *that* big.

Being big and sturdy is not something you can "unlearn", even the weakest of dragons could kill other beings by simply stepping over them.

[Guaran]

Ohh this is interesting, I never spotted this 1st time around.



Some things to point out about these comparisons.

Damage dealt (spell or melee)

1. Your not going to get accurate figures comparing this way. It's not taking into account the weapon base dps, delay, target's reduction against damage, gaussian distribution, delay adjusted bonuses. The data you get is going to be skewed until you take them into account.

Spell damage

1. Think its already been mentioned, Focus plays little or no part in spell damage (5% bonus to primal, so 100 Focus adds 5 to current primal which will not really show when damage is calc'd)

Heals (not Heal over Time)

1. Meepsa probably heals more because a. the scaling factors during delay adjustment are generating a higher output and/or b. delay adjusted bonuses are not being taken into account.
2. Assumption - If normal heals were broken for primal heals, then most likely they would be broken for life and nature spells. Same calculation just different variables being picked up.
3. The exact weightings of Focus and Primal are not known (if I was to guess I would think its constants such as 0.75 for Primal and 0.25 for Focus).

And even in this poor prime bolt comparison the damage difference is 35%. Move those focus points over and it would be even higher difference. The image is comparing a poorly spec'd out Helian with a relatively well spec'd out Lunus. Going to be no contest.

...Also, i think a Faction Gift for Lunus and Helian would be nice as well.

Not necessary, Dragon's Gift provides bonuses for both melee and spell combat. An alacrity gift would be quite nice tho. and adding (ground) Speed into the velocity Gift (make it overwrite the regular speed only gift so there would be no speed stacking) would be nice.

Alright, I cannot let this lay. I am a primal specced dragon with all my TP in power and primal, and all my spells teched to the nines. I cannot compete with pure melee dragons at all..

For one, any spellcaster dragons using Power based scales are severly gimping their survivability. you need ARMOR scales all the way. Same goes for melee dragons. Power and Strength are nice but unless the mob is dead in just a few seconds (to think nothing of pulling multiple mobs) you are just asking to get squished.

Spellcasters really shine in killing multiple mobs at once using AOE's. Something you cannot reliably pull-off if you dont have enough Armor.

Spellcaster = multiple mobs killed faster
Melee = single targets killed faster

They have different strengths and weaknesses. However if they decided to add Gold Burst, with a 100% shared recycle with Gold Rage, I think it would be fine. You could use one or the other depending on your combat style or the situation. Isn't really overpowering because the recycle is shared.

[Raeshlavik]

Just out of curiosity, why are there so many stat options for Dragons in the first place?

From everything I read it really boils down to a power/primal or strength/t&c build with a few points in health if you feel like it... Well, okay, I have seen a few intrepid souls working evasion and dexterity in there now that Dragons can dodge, but I've not heard if that's actually worth doing yet. But it seems like if you put points in anything outside of these, you're doing yourself a disservice.

This is really just a curiosity question.

On the topic of Caster versus Melee - even though I did 55 levels as a Helian power/primal build with appropriate scales and well tech'd spells, at 55 I went all str/t&c with melee tech'd armor scales and everything got so much easier - fighting was easier, crafting was easier... My life in general was easier.

So much so that I have a new hatchy out there that is all fangs and claws, and who thinks of Malganival Lunus much like we would think of Superman... I don't see him really taking the Helian path for much more than getting to Chiconis to do some mining outside town.