Dragons: The "How To" manual

Howdy,

I played Horizons for a while when the Atari box hit the shelves, which I will refer to as "The Before Times", and put the game aside when all the layoffs and restructuring happened. I then came back again in 2005 for a few weeks after introducing a friend of mine to the game just as the rumors of Tulga's demise began to circulate - and the game was again put aside. I then returned again in 2006 for a few weeks right as "EI" happened, and again put the game aside. Each time I didn't get very far due to game issues or whoever-owns-Horizons-this-week issues...

Well, I'm back to try it again. :D

When I logged into HZ again in 2005 everything was a blank slate - no characters. But, as I never really made it very far it was no big deal to begin anew. Here in 2007 I decided to delete everything and start fresh again - and get a chance to see the new starter content.

Well, here I am some weeks later and 14 levels into being one with my inner Dragon, without so much as a small clue on how one should go about being the best Dragon one can be.

The first Dragon I created lived a short, painful life. He was on a path that would make him a Primal Master and a force in the Helian circles - unfortunately that path is full of nasty beasties with mouths full of sharp pointy teeth that don't have the slightest notion of standing a ways off and being blasted into bite-size chunks. So he died, a lot, and in various grusome ways before giving up and deciding to be a hatchling hermit for the rest of his days.

That brings us to little Kaeliss...

Kaeliss Opalscale is a great big Ancient Lunus Dragon in an itty-bitty hatchling body. He has such great plans for the things he wants to do and see, but unfortunately he's stuck with me and I'm clueless.

So, my question to you all is; How does one ensure that a little hatching has the best schooling and training needed to not fail miserably in the wide, and often cruel, world outside New Trismus?

Currently Kaeliss has all of his skill points in Tooth and Claw, Strength, and Hitpoints - in that order. He has a blighted chest scale and a wing scale, but nothing special, mostly because there just isn't anything special available on the consigner. He also has a level 12 claw that he did find on the consigner, but hasn't noticed that it helps much versus using his own claws.

The problem Kaeliss is running into is that anything he tries to rough up for whatever quest he's on, if it is even one level better than him, it'll usually kill him. At level 14 he has to stick with level 8-10 beasties if he wants to avoid waking up at the nearest shrine.

So, any hints, tricks, tips, chartered hunting expeditions, or other information available? If so, please post your thoughts here for posterity and possibly the use of the next wide-eyed and confused hatchling.

Thanks!

In case you are not aware, there are quests every 10 crafting levels and every 10 adventure levels. Each of these quests gives you not only experience, but also increases skills. For instance, a gem quest gives you a boost to the gemworking mastery skill.

The adventuring quests give you valuable skills like spiked scales, dragon reach, gold rage, etc. Tools you will need for later in life.

I believe at level 10 these quests are started by talking to the dragon sitting on top of the vault in Kion. He will send you to all the various trainers you need to see. Keep track of them, as you will be re-visiting them every 10 levels for new quests.

Besides being good xp and getting good skills, they also direct you to where you can hunt at your level, so they are good for that too :)

Hope that helps.

What is your craft level? It is important to keep up both adventure and crafting as both add to your raw stats.

Use TP! Many new players forget the all important TP (that's training points). Some people don't use the other kind of TP, but that has nothing to do with this discussion.

Where do you spend them? Well, that's kind of up to you. For new players, I suggest putting enough tp into Primal so that your base primal is 10 times your adventure level. That ensures you can use an unteched spell as soon as you meet the level requirement. Besides that, it's up to you. Primal, Tooth and Claw, power and strength are pretty good places to start.

Ah, but... what if you wan to change those allocations? Sucks to be you! Just kidding. You get a number of buyback points every day (few hours?) up to a maximum. You use the buyback points to take training points out of a skill/ability, which you can re-spend somewhere else.

*rubs head*

There's quite a bit else to go over, which would probably constitute a large portion of a guide, most of which is best conveyed as experience. What shard do you play on?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Shian

What is your craft level? It is important to keep up both adventure and crafting as both add to your raw stats.

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I'm trying too keep my crafting up, but I don't have a lot of time to play each day and the thought of lugging dirt and rocks around for an hour isn't highly appealing on a short time scale.

Right now my crafting is about half my adventure level. I can dedicate a week or so and take it from 7 to 14 if it is really reccommended. :)

If your crafting level is higher than your adventure level, you can wear better scales when you are out hunting.

I usually tried to keep my craft level about 10 levels above my adventure level, since it opened up another scale slot and I could wear better scales. I die enough as it is, why make it any harder on myself? :)

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Steelclaw

Use TP! Many new players forget the all important TP (that's training points). Some people don't use the other kind of TP, but that has nothing to do with this discussion.

Where do you spend them? Well, that's kind of up to you. For new players, I suggest putting enough tp into Primal so that your base primal is 10 times your adventure level. That ensures you can use an unteched spell as soon as you meet the level requirement. Besides that, it's up to you. Primal, Tooth and Claw, power and strength are pretty good places to start.

Ah, but... what if you wan to change those allocations? Sucks to be you! Just kidding. You get a number of buyback points every day (few hours?) up to a maximum. You use the buyback points to take training points out of a skill/ability, which you can re-spend somewhere else.

*rubs head*

There's quite a bit else to go over, which would probably constitute a large portion of a guide, most of which is best conveyed as experience. What shard do you play on?

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Thanks for the info on Skill Points. It'd be really handy to have some form of tool tip for each stat to give new folks an idea of what each does and what it effects.

I guessed that strength impacts melee damage as well as tooth & claw, and hitpoints is pretty self explanitory. Does dexterity impact anything but dodge percentages? I thought it might factor in on one's chance to hit but I don't have any evidence to this.

Anyways, I'll be sure to try and find out what the stats do, then post my findings here somewhere... I might even start a new player's guide to try and alleviate some of the confusion I've experienced trying to figure out Horizons.

The latest thing is: "Do the new player crafting quests!" The trainers give you the stuff to be able to create beginner items (metal bars, stone bricks, etc) which cannot be purchased anywhere at any price. So if you skip this little bit of 'Orientation Island', which I did because I had a handle on basic crafting from my previous attempts at Horizons and was short on time, you're screwed.

Fortunately the portal to get back to Orientation Island can be unlocked by speaking with the dragon craft trainer on New Trismus, and you can go back and get the basic forms from the crafting trainer there...

Oh, and I'm on Chaos.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Kerech

If your crafting level is higher than your adventure level, you can wear better scales when you are out hunting.

I usually tried to keep my craft level about 10 levels above my adventure level, since it opened up another scale slot and I could wear better scales. I die enough as it is, why make it any harder on myself? :)

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Excellent point. I guess I should put aside my plans of striking fatal blows against the Withered Aegis and spend a week digging up rocks. :)

... Now, where'd I leave my cargo disk?

Dexterity does indeed have a factor in your chances of landing a melee hit. Tooth and Claw affects your chances of hitting as well, but to a lesser extent. As far as magic goes, power is analogous to strength, focus to dexterity, and Primal to Tooth and Claw.

Claw... oh yes, your claw! I forgot about that. You need to upgrade your claw regularly. The claw stats take precedence over your "unarmed" melee stats -- thus it is possible to cripple yourself by using a claw that is too old. How often? Every 6 adventure levels or so, starting from level 1. (There are some stats are here).

What to put on it? Definitely get it teched, a weapon socket is a good bet once you start finding crystals to go in it. There are damage crystals that deal an extra hit or a DoT about 5% of the time and fit in that socket. There are also some stat crystals that give a constant boost as long as they're in the socket. Just remember to take the claw off before playing with the crystals -- otherwise you can't change them.

One more thing about crystals: right clicking a crystal and hitting "Use" is probably not what you want to do. To socket a crystal, unequip the item, right click the item, select 'configure crystals' then drag and drop the crystal into the slot.
"Using" a crystal will consume it.

If you see Ranqthas around on Chaos, ask him for some pointers. I heard he spends time training new players once and awhile.

Cargo disk: open your equipment window, hover over the arrow by the disk, it should give you a general direction and distance. If the distance is around 20 000m, it's either on a training island (if you're on the main map) or on the main map (if you're on a training island). Open your map window and select the map that will probably have your disk. If you have the markers (buttons on the left the left) enabled, the disk will show up as a white circle. You will also show up as an identical white circle, but it is assumed that you know where you are already. :p

As a returning player my self i can identify with what you have gone through. But since i mainly play'd and still mainly play dragons (1 biped out of 5 characters) i think i can help you.

think health health health. at least for the first couple levels. i maxed out my health for the first 10 levels and then put points into tooth & claw, strength and dex.

I also did all the trismus quests available...including the crafting quests. The last quest the dragons give you is to get a scale of the prime. its a really great scale.

as stated above you should also get your spells. True grit and Promote vitality are the first two besides a healing . They give you some great buffs.

I say "besides a healing" because after my first hatchling (now dead) my following hatchlings have not died more then twice in a one on one fight, and they fight stuff 2-3 levels higher then themselfs. Except named...the named mobs are tough.

Crafting maybe boring but you get some needed points to your stats from leveling it so craft up a storm while watching tv.

As was stated avove this post talk to gerix when you leave Trismus. Those quests are needed to get the dragon abilitys.

One thing that I would like to stress is that you use your training points on the skills that cost less. T&C, Primal and Breath all cost 3 training points. Strength, dexterity, power, focus all take 4 points. Starting off, you should probably use a few TPs on the more expensive stats to make up for the lack of scales, but as you gain more scale slots, start transferring the TPs out of the stats and use techs on the scales to make up for it. This will help you get the most out of your allotted TPs. Sprinkle a few TPs in health from time to time. If you are a melee dragon, as mentioned above use enough TPs in primal in order to cast unteched spells at or close to your level. I've not gone the primal route cause I love bashing things to death, so I'm unsure of what a good TP distribution would be for a caster dragon.

I currently have a L84 hatchling who is quite good at "big game hunting". At L79, I was able to take down L120 mobs with him. I've followed the training point distribution I detailed above since he was a wee little thing and I've always been able to take down things several levels above his although mobs that use magical attacks can give him a lot of problems. I might do some experimenting with the magic evasion stat, but I'm not sure it will be worth it. For a while, I had a lot of TPs in evasion, but never once in any combat feedback did I see an actual evade, only misses. Either evasion is not working or the feedback is messed up. There IS an evasion animation/sound but I have not seen it since beta. I think I'll submit a ticket on it now that I'm thinking about it.

One other thing you can do that can help out a lot in the early levels. In Tazoon, near the shrine, is the Wishgiver. Do the quests to bring her raw dim essence, you can bring a full inventory to start. As a quest reward each time, you can choose one among several. Can get a permanent +10 to health, dex, str, power and focus one at a time each time you complete it. Quite helpful when starting out.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Solitaire

One other thing you can do that can help out a lot in the early levels. In Tazoon, near the shrine, is the Wishgiver. Do the quests to bring her raw dim essence, you can bring a full inventory to start. As a quest reward each time, you can choose one among several. Can get a permanent +10 to health, dex, str, power and focus one at a time each time you complete it. Quite helpful when starting out.

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Thanks for the excellent tip here. For a mere 40 dim essence one can get a +10 to their stats. :)

Part of the quest text is broken right now if anyone tries this. When you first speak to the Wishgiver she'll mention how she was bound there etc, etc, then give you a list of tasks.

Choose the Dim Essence quest, then greet her again. Assuming you have 40+ dim essence in your inventory, and she'll mention that she was hungry and that there is the little matter of your wish.

Clicking the key-text "wish" results in an error notification in your chat window about how "nil is not online"... Pay it no mind. Close the current dialog with her and greet her again - you'll be presented with the wish selection and everything will be back on track.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Kerech

If your crafting level is higher than your adventure level, you can wear better scales when you are out hunting.

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If your adventure level is higher then your adventure level you won't be bothered so much by those pesky monsters who like to frequent resource fields.

I am a new play and wanted to go the route of being a caster dragon. From what I understand so far and please correct me if I am wrong is this. When I level I should be putting points in Primal and Power. I have been told more than once to not point up focus. I do see what Steel Claw said, but I wanted to make sure that is still correct. If someone could be so kind as to enlighten me I would greatly appreciate it.

You need just enough tp in Primal so that your Base skill is high enough to scribe/use spells. The rest can go into Power which will increase the amount of damage those spells inflict per hit.
The reason Focus is useless on a dragon is because focus helps more to increase the amount a heal spell can heal you... great for a biped healer...not so much for a dragon cause we have so few heals and therefore not worth wasting tp on. Plus, as an older post already pointed out , focus takes 4 tp per 1 point of skill, so there won't be any real significant difference to the heals you do have.

Focus is also good for your to hit with spells. It is like Dex melee attacks. I think primal is better then power as Primal increase your to hit and damage and it also effects other abilities beside just spells such as spiked scales.

Max out Primal skill which increases damage done, hit-chance, and makes newer spells available sooner. Power next as it adds to damage, and the damage that Spiked Scales will do. to be more surivable you can add Training Points to evasion. It does help, and moreso than dex does.

Remember, you can always shuffle the points around to try different things. The "buyback" refills kinda slow but over a weeks time you could probably do a decent shuffling around.

Ahh, it's good to be back.

So I'm leveling up another dragon on Chaos to get re-acquainted with the vagaries of the game again, and am working my way through the starter quests...

Right now I'm attempting to get a sand beetle carapace for my 'techniques' class - they do realize that there is no actual way for a level 7 dragon to kill a level 10 beetle right? :)

My instructor tells me 'go down to the beach by the windmill and pick up a carapace'... She conveniently left out the part where I would litter the beach with my own corpse a half dozen times...

Maybe I'll just go whack skeletons for a couple of levels and come back to this later. :D

Update: There's lower-level sand beetles North-East of New Trismus, East on the road where the spiders and skeletons are (East of the fallen log). :)

In continuation of my previous post: Yes, there are lower level beetles - no, they don't drop the quest item.

I did two levels worth of bugs at the second area before figuring I should be okay at the first area, killed the first level 10 beetle I saw and got the quest item.

So, yeah, just grind out a few levels. :D