Dragons, effects and asset re-use
I know we Dragons have had a lot of love recently (and we appreciate it), but I'd like to make the following suggestion.
One of the major, glaring issues with Dragons (in my opinion, anyway) has been our pretty much non-existant combat animations. I think many Dragons would enjoy combat a lot more if we had something flashier to look at than "right-hook, right-hook, red sparkles in a cloud, blue sparkles, right-hook, red sparkles in a circle, right-hook, more red sparkles, right-hook".
Now, as much as I'd like to see a complete redesign of combat animations, I know that's not going to happen - there are more important things being worked on. So, what I propose is a re-use of existing assets, with minor alterations. We know from various community-developed add-ons (such as emote packs and the beta casting animation fix), that it's fairly simple to tie a different animation to an event, and even to modify the speed the animation plays at. From the emote pack, we also know there are several Dragon animations that aren't officially used.
So, here's what I suggest gets tied to certain attacks. First up, melee combat.
The "hiss" animation used in the emote pack would be appropriate to use for our Snarl, Staggering Howl and Menacing Presence abilities.
Not being a 3D modeling expert, I'm not sure how well this one would work, but couldn't the standard "right-hook" animation be flipped, so it becomes a left-hook? Then the left-hook could be used for ability attacks such as Drain Strike. The left and right strikes could be linked together (and made much faster, obviously) and used for Ravage, Gold Rage and Silver Strike, which are all multi-hit attacks.
Now for spellcasting. With the beta animation fix, there's nothing wrong with our casting animation, so the main problem is the spell effects. Again, re-use with modification is the suggestion.
The "dome of energy" that goes off for Spiked Scales (and several other biped and mob abilities), running faster and coloured grey, would make a pretty good "wave of wind" to use with Gust and Barrage (as this is how the spell icon shows them).
The Dark Cyclone effect, made smaller, and just with the tornado animation, rather than with the clouds of dust and darkening and shaking screen, would be good for Tempest and Blast (again, as the spell icon shows them).
Buff spells... Well, I'd like to see a Dragon version of the biped "floating figure" effect, but that's probably too much work compared to my other suggestions.
Antonath
