Okay, let's get down to business and discuss a hot-button topic. First, a disclaimer. With this post we want to open up a dialogue to discuss how to go about changing Dragons. We haven't determined a course of action nor have we made any decisions yet. Nothing said here is set in stone or even a fully coherent, implementable (or perhaps even wise) idea.

We welcome your thoughts, feedback, suggestions, and criticisms on these ideas.

Assumptions: Dragons have some serious drawbacks that limit their gameplay potential:

  1. Dragons cannot easily be balanced because of the way they are currently implemented
  2. School composition cannot be changed because so many abilities are quested, rather than acquired from a school
  3. Only one adventure school limits Dragons to level 100 (rating 100)
  4. Little growth potential beyond the Rites
  5. Little, if any, potential for specialization
  6. Not a lot of replayability



Revamping would do what for Dragons:

  1. Give Dragons more growth potential (beyond rating 100)
  2. Extend the gameplay life of a Dragon (You can reach 100 Juvenile, but to get new schools you have to ascend and so on)
  3. Create more variety of gameplay opportunities among Dragon players (Crowd Control, Melee, DPS, Healer, etc.


How would this be done?
Quested Abilities
Quests offering abilities would not be available for Dragons undertaking this path. Some exceptions might be made to allow further customization by players of their Dragon. Primal Mastery, Tooth & Claw Mastery, Accurate Breath, etc. Recommend doing this with passive abilities only, if at all. None of these should be required to ascend to Adult or Ancient.

Juveniles
The Dragon juvenile school would be a Jack-of-All encompassing a little healing, spellcasting, crowd control, and melee combat. None would be ultra powerful, but would give players a baseline of play similar to leveling one of the bipedal base schools (Warrior, Mage, Cleric, and Scout). To ascend to Adult, players would need to reach level 100 Juvenile.

Adults
Once they ascended, Adult Dragons could choose from one of two new schools that would let them focus on being either a Spellcaster or a Melee fighter: Soldier or Adept. These would contain more powerful abilities but would be more focused on the Dragon’s chosen path. Unlike a biped, Dragons would not be able to join both schools. To ascend to Ancient, players would need to reach level 100 in an Adult school.

Ancients
After their second ascension, Ancient Dragons would be given a choice to choose from based upon their Adult school choice.

  • Soldiers:

    • Conquerer (Tank)
    • Dominator (Crowd Control)

  • Adepts:

    • Primalist (DPS)
    • Protector (Healer).



How would this be done to avoid impacting current Dragon players?
To avoid impacting existing Dragon players, this new school system would only be available to NEW Dragon characters. When this system was implemented the old schools would no longer be available to newly created characters. Updates to trainers and Rites would likely need to be made to accommodate the changes and to support a dual system.