Upcoming Changes for dragons

[Deth]

I was given permission to share these upcoming changes for dragons.

Breath of Ice and Breath of Lightening are having the faction requirement removed, their reuse timers are being reduced, and a Hoard requirement is being added.

Breath of Ice is having an attack speed (melee and ranged) debuff and a flame debuff added/fixed.

Shield of Gold is having it's duration reduced and a damage shield component added.

[Hraefn]

Sounds like everything's going to start costing hoard... Gross.

[Chasing]

If the faction requirement for the breath attacks is being removed does that mean that a dragon can have both those breath attacks?

[Deth]

Yes you can have both, but they will be on linked timers.

[Dremora]

I was given permission to share these upcoming changes for dragons.

Breath of Ice and Breath of Lightening are having the faction requirement removed, their reuse timers are being reduced, and a Hoard requirement is being added.

Why why WHY??

[Deth]

Thats seems to be the direction they are going with them. Stronger abilities with a cost? Reduce the timer so you can use it more but also add the hoard requirement as the new cost instead of the longer recast timer?

[Royal]

Sounds good... since the 'hoard leak' is removed, I hardly ever met a dragon without enough hoard to just GS SS GS SS GS....

[Vahrokh]

One day we'll end up starting auto attack, go afk and return 5 minutes later to loot.

The dragon class is already so little interactive, it does not need more and more skills taken away. What use of all that gold-<everything> when 95% of the activity is killing some golems? Don't want to waste hoard on that stuff, but staring at a screen while farming trivial mobs for minutes because everything you press costs hoard is hardly fun.

[AmonGwareth]

No skills are being taken away from Dragons. But Dragons and Hoard are tied hand-in-hand. You will always have some abilities/spells that do not cost hoard, but you will have others that do.

Having more choices, more decisions to make, is a good thing and creates interactivity.

[Hrough]

It's kind of annoying though. But I don't mind the hoard cost being added if it means we get to have both of the breaths. That personally is making me a happy hatchling to hear. ^^

[Nidhoggr]

Hrough... is happy?

[LaughingOtter]

Another change you'll be seeing in delta 142 involves some tweaking to Drain Strike. The hoard cost is being reduced 50% and the amount of health returned will be 20% higher (so 40% return becomes 60%, etc.). Assuming I remember those numbers correctly, of course.

I brought up the Shield of Gold (GS) changes last night in dragon chat on Chaos, so for fairness to all, here are the details.

GS will still mitigate damage, but at half the previous cost (1.5 hoard per point). It will also return 150% of damage done to the attacker as primal damage. It will last for three hits or sixty seconds, and has a 90 second recycle.

With half the hoard cost and the damage shield effect, we think this will give dragons a good bit more 'bang for the buck', as well as making GS more generally useful. As always with changes of this type, we will be monitoring the results and will be prepared to tweak the changes if needed.

[Deth]

Ah so that is what the first statement meant. Thanks LaughingOtter. I did not want to go into full number details myself as I do not like fully pulling back the curtain. But yes that makes Shield of Gold I would think of using in a lot more fights now.

Also good to hear about the increase heal and reduced Hoard cost on Drain Strike.

[Hrough]

Hrough... is happy?

Scary, isn't it?
Eh, he just didn't want to become a Helian solely for the breath attack that more suits his character design. ^_- Now he doesn't have to.

The changes to Drain Strike sound lovely too.

[AmonGwareth]

On the more positive side, I've decided that Khutit needs some prettying up... From here on, anytime you are in Khutit you will be wearing this:

http://www.dkimages.com/discover/pre...4/80016687.JPG



Heheh... kidding.

[Chasing]

On the more positive side, I've decided that Khutit needs some prettying up... From here on, anytime you are in Khutit you will be wearing this:

http://www.dkimages.com/discover/pre...4/80016687.JPG



Heheh... kidding.

Clashes with my scale colours :P

[Creme]

On the more positive side, I've decided that Khutit needs some prettying up... From here on, anytime you are in Khutit you will be wearing this:

http://www.dkimages.com/discover/pre...4/80016687.JPG



Heheh... kidding.

I'd pay RL coin to see this

[Favoran]

Sounds like everything's going to start costing hoard... Gross.

Gross, indeed. Sure, there are many dragons out there with tons of hoard, but as a level 100 Ancient I haven't even broke the 4 million mark yet. Sure, that's not too shabby of a hoard level, but if things start costing too much hoard I'll be spending every other day collecting more hoard, and I don't have enough RL time to devote to doing that. It's bad enough I'm so behind on my hoard as it is. XD

On the bright side, I like seeing things get done and changes being made. I'd much rather see progress make things more difficult than not happen at all.

[Deth]

From some one killing Giant Ice beetles for 20 min they got 20 trophies and 15 hoardables. So maybe you want to try hunting them for a while.

[Machariel]

as for me i dont mind the hoard usage, i have my max cap already and well giant ice beetles tend to be very friendly giving out hoard and are very simple to kill, even the icy dire wolves.

take some time to kill some.. doesnt hurt. heck i even burn gs,ss and now drain strike on em.... yes i love to burn my hoard, but im getting so much in return.