Dragon Spellcaster Guide

Dragon Spellcaster's Guide

Dragons have 16 spells in their repertoire. 5 are self buffs, 3 are heals, 2 are debuffs and the most important 6 are damage dealers. Because dragons use only 16 spells and a spellbook can hold up to 200 scribed spells, dragons have the ability to keep many different versions of the same spell scribed and available for use.

Prime Bolt and Improved Prime Bolt are the main repeat caster spells and teched correctly, can deal enormous damage. Prime Bolt can be teched for accuracy (I always use this one), primal damage, primal range (if you want another means to pull, however it negates the repeater) and then customized for each damage type such as romp, gale, pierce, scorn and critical damage. Prime Bolt is best used in 1 on 1 fights.

The other 4 damage spells, Blast, Barrage, Gust and Tempest are for large number mob fighting. They are area effect spells that deal damage to all enemies within the radius of the spell. Pulling a large group of monsters, setting off AOEs one after another and watching everything fall in a neat circle around you is great fun! All four of these spells can be teched, but have a more limited range of techs available.

Scribing spells is dependent on your current adventure level and your base Primal skill. Because dragons get 8 points to Primal each level, adding training points to Primal is necessary if you want to be able to use the next version of a spell at the level it becomes available. Adding techs to spells adds to the base Primal requirements so adding additional training points may be necessary to scribe a teched spell. CAUTION ! The only thing that adds to base Primal is training points. Teching scales or claws or socketing crystals will only add to your CURRENT skill.

Choosing your faction and deciding early on whether to be a spellcaster or melee fighter can save much aggravation later. Helians are better spellcasters because their faction is power based, vs. Lunus which is strength based. That is not to say that a Lunus dragon cannot be a spellcaster and vice versa, linking your faction to your chosen fighting style just gives you a bit more of an edge.

So, you have all your spells teched to the teeth and ready to use. Now comes the fun part. This is really where you can customize your dragon to suit your play style. Spellcasting ability is directly tied to stats, specifically focus and power. Focus is mental quickness and chance to hit (the higher your focus skill the less your spells will miss). Power is mental force and effectiveness and increases magic damage (the higher your power skill the more your spells will hit for maximum damage).

Focus and power can be boosted in many ways. Training points (I have found) make the most difference. You can also add techs to scales, socket stat crystals in scales and claws, use dragon ability buffs, get biped buffs and use potions. How much you choose to add with training points is the tricky part and takes some playing around until you find the balance that works for you. Teching scales with stats can be expensive so choose wisely. I socket everything I possibly can with as many sockets as they will take. Swapping out crystals gives me greater versatility for the way I fight specific enemies.

If you don't have a problem getting biped buffs, ALWAYS ask for Gift of Alacrity. It speeds up your casting time shaving seconds off of each spell you cast, meaning the enemy goes down much faster. Gifts and enhances/raises of focus and power will obviously boost your spellcasting ability as well.

Spells can be used alone or in conjunction with abilities. I like galewind, breath of fire, and drain strike as they are good damage dealers to use up front. Tailwhip is a stun, giving me time to hit without getting hit back. Spiked scales is a damage over time ability and can be cast on the run.

The way I fight normally pulling a group is: head toward a group and start collecting em up, throw a breeze on the run, throw spiked scales on the run, collect the group, pull to a safe spot, throw refreshing breeze. By this time the whole group has usually caught up with me. Next I throw a mezz suited to the enemy hit style, then bombard them with AOEs. Watch em fall !

I tech all my breeze spells with cleanse but more importantly my true grit and promote vitality with cleanse because they both have only a 5 sec recycle time. This is a big help with removing bleeds, blights and such. Unfortunately nothing a dragon has removes stuns, you just have to wait em out and hope your health holds out.

Now here comes the part most dragons hate. Crafting. Yes, crafting levels do help you fight!! Every crafting level gives you 5 points per stat. Every 10 points you increase your focus increases your chance to hit with spells/abilities. Every 10 points you increase your power increases your primal spell damage dealt by 1.

Keeping your hoard level at or over the max for each level gives you an additional 4 points to armorclass per level. Having good teched armor scales, hoard at cap or over, teched spells, a damage crystal "of magic" in your claw and knowledge of the enemy you are fighting will all give you a great advantage in fighting.

Here's how I spread out my training points at lvl 100 : a whopping 540 into Primal (base is 1070 required to scribe triple teched tier V spells), 174 in focus, 144 in power and 200 in health. I have 144 more points I can play with depending on what I am doing (right now I have them in strength for crafting but can move them at will if I am going to fight a lot). My scales are armor base teched with health on all, focus and power on the rest except wings. Chest and both forelegs are triple socketed as is my claw. I have armor, health, focus and power crystals and a set of all the resistances to swap out as needed.

I believe I have fought every monster there is in Istaria and the only ones I can't take out solo are the named event mobs and ARoP bosses. Holth has been built as a pure spellcaster right from the start. Being a master spellcrafter has taught me how techs work and which ones are the best to use for each spell so that I can fight smarter.

I hope this guide will help with building your new or existing dragon. It is my take on spellcasting and I'm sure there are many other opinions on this topic as well.

Happy hunting,
Holth

Excellent post, this will help me a lot once I finish my Lunus and start my spellcasting Helian :)

You should add a paragraph discussing the debuffs, Grazing Winds (for melee attacking) and Unrelenting Winds (for using spells). These can be teched with range and Primal Flash, and then are decent pullers. The effect is a small AOE, and can pull multiple mobs if it lands on them. Also tech a bolt with range, primal damage, and primal flash for surgical pulling. (Note: surgical pulling can be difficult with new aggro)

For a caster, using Unrelenting Winds to pull lowers the target mobs' resistance to primal damage. This means all your spells do more damage. Barrage and Gust are point blank AOE's, and therefore the damage they deal is categorized as melee. For these, Grazing Winds will increase the damage done. Casting both of the range teched winds spells is an excellent pulling tactic.

Barrage and Gust, thanks to their point blank melee damage nature, can land Primal Vengeance on targets.

Also, any experienced Dragon, casters included, will not forget to use Tailwhip (Stun), and Bite (Bleed damage over time) on targets. These allow you to kill a mob a bit faster, and give you more time dealing damage than taking it. Snarl lowers the target mobs attack skill, and can reduce incoming damage or cause the mob to miss.

Using all of your abilities wisely, you will become a formidable hunter in time.

One other thing to add- Spiked scales is much more effective for caster dragons than it is for melee dragons, because of its power based nature.


I do however have to disagree with your statement about the factions. They are not strength and power based. The only diference is a trivial 20 points to primal or Tooth and claw.

Thanks for all your input Guaran and Lumineux ! I was trying to stick to the spells in this post :)

As for the power/strength based statement, it comes into play when you complete the first part of the Ancient Rite of Passage. Helians get +100 power and Lunus +100 strength.

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Originally Posted by Holth

Dragon Spellcaster's Guide
Prime Bolt and Improved Prime Bolt ... can be teched for ... damage type such as romp, gale, pierce, scorn and critical damage.

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not scorn. scorn is a spiritist spell tech.

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The other 4 damage spells, Blast, Barrage, Gust and Tempest ... can be teched, but have a more limited range of techs available.

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same as bolt except gust and barrage (the point blank AoE spells) cannot take range (for obvious reasons) nor accuracy.

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Scribing spells is dependent on your current adventure level and your base Primal skill. ... The only thing that adds to base Primal is training points.

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and the primal mastery quests, which add 10 per level of the ability.

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Spiked scales is a damage over time ability and can be cast on the run.

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careful here. damage over time and damage shield are not the same... bite is damage over time. spikes is not. if the monster is not hitting you (not just if you're not near it but if it misses you) it doesn't take any damage from spikes, whereas if you hit with bite the first time, it will keep dealing damage to the target even if you run away.

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The way I fight normally pulling a group is: ... Next I throw a mezz suited to the enemy hit style, ...

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mezz?

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Now here comes the part most dragons hate. Crafting. Yes, crafting levels do help you fight!! Every crafting level gives you 5 points per stat. Every 10 points you increase your focus increases your chance to hit with spells/abilities. Every 10 points you increase your power increases your primal spell damage dealt by 1.

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this only helps if your adv levels are signigicantly lower than your craft levels. you don't gain stats for craft levels in addition to what you gain from your craft levels.. only whichever is higher.


other than that, there's a lot of good information in here, though i disagree about the value of health TPts and tech on scales and a few other small points.

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Originally Posted by dorrin

mezz?

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*tock tock* remember Dragon Fear? It is a Mezz. ;)

uh... i KNOW THAT ... but how does that help anything if it breaks as soon as damage is dealt and you're in an AoE situation?

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Originally Posted by dorrin

careful here. damage over time and damage shield are not the same... bite is damage over time. spikes is not. if the monster is not hitting you (not just if you're not near it but if it misses you) it doesn't take any damage from spikes, whereas if you hit with bite the first time, it will keep dealing damage to the target even if you run away.

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I believe there is only one expample of "melee" combat to Holth's post "tail whip". Her point is using spiked scales against a group you are trying to agro will take damage after they catch up and start hitting you. Bite is good one on one.. but she is speaking of using AoE spells on groups.

I believe Holth is just giving her side of spell casting as a Dragon and what works for her.. Maybe what would be helpful.. is for you to make a thread about how a Melee Dragon would fight.

my point was simply that spiked scales is not a DOT.
i'm a caster for the most part anyway.

I think this post is a little misleading.

I played a dragon 'spellcaster' for almost 40 levels. You can kill stuff, but melee is a lot faster. Even wearing my caster scales (+power), I found myself doing much more damage with melee.

The spells are fine, but such a very high proportion of our damage comes from gold rage and silver strike whose damage and effectiveness are derived from melee statistics.

Try to be a spellcaster and you gimp your best attacks.

One extra thing I'd add to the original post - statistics. I asked around in game for more details on these. This is what I was told.

The two big ones for spells are power and primal.

Power = improved spell damage
Primal = you need a certain level of primal to scribe spells (and more primal skill is needed to scribe teched spells); also improves spell accuracy.

Focus is less important.

Focus = improved spell accuracy (but not as much as primal).

(for anyone interested in melee, strength = more damage and tooth-and-claw = more accuracy)

The general wisdom seems to be that dragons should invest the majority of their skill points in tooth-and-claw and primal. And my experience, having tried to play a dragon spellcaster after reading these posts, is that it isn't very effective. It did get better when I could use double-teched spells, but even then...

I'd like to think that in the future the developers give serious thought to making a dragon spellcaster feasible. I'd like to play one - especially since that's what Helians are supposed to (primarily) be. A simple solution might be to provide alternatives to gold rage and silver strike which are based on power/primal. If the alternatives share the same timer as gold rage and silver strike then it wouldn't be adding to dragon's power, just giving them more choice in how they play.

There was a spell Version of the Gold Rage being tested before the sales. A couple months before the sales in fact that then later disappeared with no word on what had happened too it or when it would come back. If you look through the Blight board you should find some threads on it.

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Originally Posted by Deth

There was a spell Version of the Gold Rage being tested before the sales. A couple months before the sales in fact that then later disappeared with no word on what had happened too it or when it would come back. If you look through the Blight board you should find some threads on it.

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I recently offered a few suggestions to bring a move like this in for casters again, and those have been forwarded to the dev team. Whether or not they'll concern themselves with giving us poor casters a balancing heavy hitter is up to them. However like you fellow casters, I'm tired of settling with epic spells that; simply put, are a joke. Most of them do less damage even when primal casted, than a GR hit from a full statted melee dragon. Hopefully soon us Helians, and even aspiring Lunus casters will matter... damage/heals.

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Originally Posted by fermi443

I recently offered a few suggestions to bring a move like this in for casters again, and those have been forwarded to the dev team. Whether or not they'll concern themselves with giving us poor casters a balancing heavy hitter is up to them. However like you fellow casters, I'm tired of settling with epic spells that; simply put, are a joke. Most of them do less damage even when primal casted, than a GR hit from a full statted melee dragon. Hopefully soon us Helians, and even aspiring Lunus casters will matter... damage/heals.

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I'm back, and I've got some tips for dragons looking for casting strategy/technique.

(BUFF WITH ALACRITY! BUFF WITH PRIMAL ATTACK! BUFF WITH PRIMAL ROAR!)

The new Primal Alacrity, coupled with end game gear that I've acquired, has finally balanced my casting to something manageable. I can now keep myself alive at least, and Primal Cast helps. The ability to drop mass AoE damage makes up for a good amount of lack luster single target damage.

Casting Mass AoE Damage:
Use an AoE debuff, and then cast your favorite epic spell or breath burst with Primal Damage buff on for mass AoE damage. I've managed a 4k hit on every target amidst a pull of about 10+ mobs.

(Melee stat dragons still almost pull off just as much damage unfortunately when casting the same. Theres probably only a difference of about 600 damage on target for an epic hit.)

Primal Cast:
Primal Cast is your bread and butter for mass AoE damage. Buff with it whenever you log in, and it'll sit and wait to be applied to your next spell attack. Meanwhile, the move will simultaneously cool down and if you wait long enough, Primal Cast can be used again as soon as you use your first charge. This effectively gives you a chance to triple cast both your breath burst, and your favorite epic. This gives you a good chance to deal about 5 - 7k damage to your targets, in just a few seconds.

(Primal Cast will apply itself to debuffs cast on enemies! Be careful, use a damage attack if you have a charge waiting, and then debuff your enemy. It is not worth it to lose that triple cast on a debuff.)

Use your debuffs! They're AoE, and they open your enemy up to heavy Primal damage!

Your heals are very slightly more potent in comparison to a melee dragon. Use them wisely, unfortunately they do not yet balance for the deficit of ability Casters have compared to a dragon with a melee configuration of stats and gear. Damage, and survivability alike, melee still FAR outclass casters in potential and capability. This is as far as I've discovered at least. I will post a gear guide soon as well. For now, build a set of all power, maximizing on the use of crystals to boost caster stats.

How do you USE the spell? I'm only a lvl 5. I've scribed the spell, put it in my hotkeys bar, I click on a target, but it says you need to scribe it first...

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Originally Posted by .Moonstone.

How do you USE the spell? I'm only a lvl 5. I've scribed the spell, put it in my hotkeys bar, I click on a target, but it says you need to scribe it first...

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Are you sure you scribed spell or formula?
To use spells you need to acquire formula first and craft spell using formula. then scribe the product. or you can buy spell from somebody else too.

You right click the spell, choose Scribe. Then you open your Knowledge book and you'll see it listed under spells. That's what you want to drag to your hotbar key. Drag from the knowledge book, not your inventory.

it did not work cause skills maybe change with carecters