dragons How much is too much

[Summbuddy]

i would like to add that i am speaking of potential it takes many many hunts to learn and everyone has their own builds. and also you can compare this ability to this class and that ability to that class but in the end bypeds are still limited to their current class and what is allowed for it... ever wonder why you see so many lvl 100 druids runnin around *smirks*. alot of you have never really played bypeds i can tell but i have played dragons and i understand them and their game mechanics fairly well tho alittle rusty. personally i rather liked the byped beacuse i knew sitting at a lvl 100 class would bore me to tears. i would love to see dragons grow and diverse but i think as it stands i don't forsee dragon classes in the future tho it would be awesome. i know it would get me to play my dragon more.

[Summbuddy]

ps. i always saw dragon quests a blessing as opposed to the huge lack of quests on the ped side. there are verry little class ones and almost all are low level. it's a great reason to grab a friend and go kill stuff and have fun with it.

[Takora Drakan]

You need a reason to grab a friend and have fun with hunting?

[Favoran]

Sometimes, perhaps the friend needs a reason to stop their hunting and hunt what you're hunting?

[Melanth]

Sumbuddy i think you should spend a bit more time playing your dragon

What you say is true, but it by no means applies to everyone. If fact you will find that it probably takes more time and overall more effort to get a dragon to the capability you describe than to level to 100 four biped classes. To reach this sort of level a dragon needs to have a top notch scale set (triple teched vengeance included- unfortunatly no longer availiable) epic weapons, xtals and pretty much everything in the game that we can hope to make use of, up to and including the pathetic bonuses the Wishgiver gives. Even then we would still be asking for biped buffs and there would still be gaping holes in some of the areas of playing a dragon. A biped can take Warrior, Cleric, Mage and Scout (the four most basic classes) to 100 and have more combined buffs, heals, spells, protection, and versatility than a dragon will ever be able to achieve with the game currently as it is.

You are right when you say though that dragons can do crazy melee damage. I have seen gold rages on some of the older chaos players hit well over 1k damage each strike (i dont know if they were using biped buffs/potions at the time or what scales) which is almost as much as a fully levelled critical strike can manage in a single go, let alone three shots. That is worked into the lore of the game; dragons are meant to be self propelled blenders who are the physically strongest critters in the game :B

Coming back to the elite blight example that LOVWYRM mentioned, myself another ancient and a multiclassed gnome were at the elite blighted blights near the bridge in ED just the other day and by some misfortune managed to pull the entire field. Five seconds later the gnome was the only one alive, and we watched in disbelief as he managed to kill a good three quaters of the blights before he went down himself. This is because a biped has access to much better stackable buffs have the option to intercept attacks by blocking and parrying and have vastly superior natural evasion. Its not because bipeds are innately tougher (the opposite is actually true, as dragons have a decent armour rating even without anything equipped) just because of the way that the game works.

Dragons seem to act like an 'assassin' class i have seen in other games. They are good at dealing with single isolated opponents, but as soon as you get adds or start to pull aggro you have to make a quick getaway or face a pasting. I have no idea what the devs intended dragons to be when they were making the game, but seemingly they were meant to be a tank class, which we totally fail at. Our buffs are useful but limited, and we have only one actual defensive ability which as has been pointed out in other threads is hardly ever used because it costs and insane amount of hoard. Most of the time dragons rely on killing the other guy before he can hurt you too much, which isnt ideal for dealing with multiple opponents.

I would also like to add my continuing point that if a dragon had the option to spend years multiclassing like peds do to gain acess to the same level of abilities that peds do, a lot of dragons would have no argument in that. Dragons have a single calss that NEEDS to be 'ovepowered' to maintain balance and make the game playable with only one adventuring class.

It isnt a case of Capability VS Effort as much as a case of Options Availiable. No player is lazy, thats just the way the game works.

[Favoran]

Dragons seem to act like an 'assassin' class i have seen in other games. They are good at dealing with single isolated opponents, but as soon as you get adds or start to pull aggro you have to make a quick getaway or face a pasting.

And it's very easy to go through all of our abilities and be left with just the normal claw attack, which doesn't help battles at all. Those are always the moments that worry me when I fight mobs. If they aren't down by that time, then it's time to start throwing hoard out or you don't have anything else to do but wait.

[Shian]

That's why I use speed gear... a head and chest scale that give -20% recycle, a claw that gives -10%, a gummy maggot every once in a while and that potion that gives -10%. If there was such thing as a recycle crystal, I'd be set.

While I never run out of attacks, if anything hits me, I pretty much die...

[Summbuddy]

a note .. it doesn't really matter what evasion is against the epics they hit me with over 2k eva.

As for the gear part ... 4 classes you spoke of all use different armor so there is 4 sets then cargos and jewlry and weapons and tools oh and spells X.X... it is a neverending comp list. I have seen bowth dragon and ped progressions multiple times. in the time it takes a dragon to reach that power a ped without being power leveled would be around 200 levels. and that is if they knew what they were doing. Last i knew there were still 2 players playing with the ability to make vengence and eminence scales. may have changed in last 6 months tho i do not know. I don't know their names so please do not ask.

that gnome was likly in a set of gear designed with blights in mind and tekked appropriatly and xtals (my best friend energy ward)blight protection also verry helpfull. it isn't that hard to be defensive if you tailor to your enemy. being able to make your own scales and all the new sockets you should be able to specialize your defences well. I have seen dragons take groups Elite blights solo. not the whole swarm mind you but nice sized groups comparable to most multi hundred peds can do solo.

[pevil2000]

Summbuddy you may have missed the patch (didn't you just recently return?) but you can no longer make triple teched vengeance/eminence scales and any in existence are attuned upon equip (so 90% of them are off the market now)

I've been 'playing' 2.5 years (1.5 in hibernation though) and am just starting my ARoP atm. Of course I realise that I will be more powerful after ancienthood/100 than I am currently as a 90 adult. However I also realise even with my T5 fully teched scales, I will not compare with most bipeds. Yes, I agree with have it easier to gear up, as we only have our scales to gear up for (and most of us probably stick with one set, though there are of course the option of resistance scales, but bipeds also might want to do that with armour/jewellry too) and we 'only' have 10 slots + claw whereas 'peds have more to fill.

And yes, I am sure that a 100 dragon is more powerful than a 100 'ped (I must say right now my ped is only lvl 8ish so I cannot claim to have first hand experience at all!) but we are not so much more powerful that they need another 300 levels of schools to equal us. Most peds I see around are rating 150ish and often outclass those 100 ancients that I have played alongside for years. Up until our recent Primal Health spell being introduced, we were pretty much in a case of die or fly; if things started to go wrong that was it.

Of course there are those who are very skilled in playing their dragons (Zanukk comes to mind with his recent soloing certain epic mobs) but most of us are probably just your average player, and have to take things a bit more gently

I do agree we should be a little harder to level up; when I first joined I did get the impression it was like that. We seemed to be so squishy as hatchies so that it was more effort (I certainly found my biped easier at lower levels than my hatchie; she could very occasionally take on 2 mobs of slightly lower level whereas my draggie would struggle with the same!) but at the end of the day, a dragon compared to a tiny, squishy, two-legged thing should be more powerful, *if* they have the exact same abilities etc; after all we are huge compared to them! But a dragon is a dragon, whereas a ped can choose to be whatever they want.

[Melanth]

a note .. it doesn't really matter what evasion is against the epics they hit me with over 2k eva.

As for the gear part ... 4 classes you spoke of all use different armor so there is 4 sets then cargos and jewlry and weapons and tools oh and spells X.X... it is a neverending comp list. I have seen bowth dragon and ped progressions multiple times. in the time it takes a dragon to reach that power a ped without being power leveled would be around 200 levels. and that is if they knew what they were doing. Last i knew there were still 2 players playing with the ability to make vengence and eminence scales. may have changed in last 6 months tho i do not know. I don't know their names so please do not ask.

that gnome was likly in a set of gear designed with blights in mind and tekked appropriatly and xtals (my best friend energy ward)blight protection also verry helpfull. it isn't that hard to be defensive if you tailor to your enemy. being able to make your own scales and all the new sockets you should be able to specialize your defences well. I have seen dragons take groups Elite blights solo. not the whole swarm mind you but nice sized groups comparable to most multi hundred peds can do solo.

The solution you suggest is the same as the problem you mentioned. Peds need several different armour sets for different classes (leather for druid, plate for War and cleric, ringmail for scout if i remember corrctly) and i can see that its will be a massive pain in the proverbial to go teching them all . but tech resistances leave you completely open to attacks that arent what you are teched up to resist. Returning to the blight example, if you tech for energy resist you might be more survivable against blights, but if you run into anything else (more than likely to happen) you are defenceless. Some dragons also prefer offensive techs to compensate for (percieved or not- its your personal opinion) weaknesses. The only other solution is to carry around dozens of scale sets, or to run and hide even more- neither of which is ideal. Standing in the face of a hoard of blights would be a stupid idea for even a multiclassed uber-ped but it would be nice to be able to deal with more than one enemy at a time. Multiple teching resits removes valuable slots that dragons need in scale sets for additional strength/t+c/primal/str to help improve combat effectiveness. I completely agree with having to fart on with crafting armour- i do believe that peds have a much harder time crafting than Dragons. But then again, peds can make a lot more stuff than dragons. I think outfitter and blacksmith should be made into a combined class, but alchemist, confectioner and other sundries should remain seperate.

I wasnt mentioning evasion against Epics, i mean evasion in general. A dragon expects to take around 94% (probably more) of incoming hits from mobs at the same tier. evasion is considered a wasted skill amongst dragons as it effectively has no bearing on gameplay. I have no TPs on evasion at all and get along as well as somone with 100 points on it, which i find to be absurd.

Tailoring to fit your enemy as you mentioned is effective if you can rely upon that enemy to be the only one present, but doing so you are putting all your eggs in one nest. Dragons also dont have buffs to deal with that (we have a choice of ignore mysticism [multiple protection buff- provides a generalist but comparatively very weak bonus], arcane refusal [multiple protection, also no significant single defence] and countercheck primal [useful only against Reklar and on Draak]) unexpected encounter with a specialised armour set equipped. In places like ED where mobs move a lot you can have no defined protection that you can expect to rely on. I also consider the issue of innate abilities; dragons have only shield of gold. A lot of ped schools have several innate defensive abilities (innate being an ability garnered within that school) like melee ward, spirit walk, evasive style, defensive style the list goes on...

Two players might have the ablity to make vengeance/eminence scales, but is it really worth it anymore? probably not. After the nerf a single PV or EM has a 5% chance to proc which is pretty useless and takes up a slot for a more reliable tech. To be honest i see no point in continuing with the PV anymore- newly made scales with this tech are more ornament than use and the ability will likely die altogether very soon. Trip-teched scales were worth the effort for comps and coin as they had a noticable effect and could be relied upon to proc frequently. New players without trip-teched scales have no access one of a dragons few truely effective defensive abilities.

[Vahrokh]

I was curious one day, before this post even and I did a search in game on Order (yes I know people are sometimes invisible) and was amazed that of the 40 odd people online 25-30 were dragons.

It's because those not playing a dragon left to other games, as there are many alternatives for those wanting to play a biped.

Someone wanting to play a dragon, got one, single game in the entire world: Istaria.

[Romirez]

I also find this slightly insulting as you're painting all dragons with one brush based on the frustartion of having to level multiple classes.

I've been playing Shian for 9 months. I recently got her the rez ability and level 100. But that's okay, all that playtime and according to this sentence, I didn't earn a thing.

I will say one thing though, dragons are a wonderful starter class just based on some of the points you put forward. (Being able to make all raw materials for instance) For a class that is the game's 'selling point', it's a nice class to start on, experience Istaria then grab a biped or two and work on the rest of the game and some of the more advanced aspects of the game. It is my belief that we need a somewhat easy class to reccommend for those starting out and need to know/can decide within 3 months if the game is a keeper or not.

i have been playing Romirez for two and a half years. i just recently got Ancient, and all the abilites that come with it. i got EXTREMELY lucky to trade a Reklar tail scale piece for a trip-teched PV scale, and it has made a big difference with my combat ability. the removal of the triple teched PV scale was a outright nerf, and further removal of our ability to tank. i can barely take Surtheim's Cinder attack, with my shield of gold on. On a Fafnir hunt, he used his scorch attack, ALL of the dragons around him were dead in an instant. the bipeds? they lived. :|

[Kiamarra]

To me, a dragon is the hardest to get power with. As hatchlings we can't do much. The RoP is a MASSIVE quest, and as is the ARoP. All bipeds have to do for power is level up(which is also earning it, but i'm just trying to prove a point). You can't even compare our ONE healing spell to a bipeds numorous ones, heck, only a full teched primal health is actually good. They have more health, more strength, and heck, more magic power than we ever will. And jeeze, we can't multiclass and have acsess to tons of abilities like they can. Dragons NEED the upgrades.

[Nambroth]

It's because those not playing a dragon left to other games, as there are many alternatives for those wanting to play a biped.

Someone wanting to play a dragon, got one, single game in the entire world: Istaria.

Exactly, I think.

Even if I thought the dragon class sucked (and I don't think this) I'd still play as a dragon.
Even if the devs dedicated the next two years to nothing but biped improvement, I'd still be playing dragons.

I play Istaria to play a dragon, I won't lie or make excuses. Yes, now that I have played for a while I now have friends and other reasons to keep playing, but I would not be here nor would I have stayed as long as I have if I could not play a dragon. I know that it is not this case for all those that play a dragon, but I have noticed a trend that many (NOT all, but many) people aren't necessarily playing a dragon because they are better in any way- they play a dragon to PLAY A DRAGON.

[LOVWYRM]

PLAYING a dragon

*looks at all her festival masks-
a clown , a wolf a...hhmmm no dragon mask here^^*

[Nambroth]

PLAYING a dragon

*looks at all her festival masks-
a clown , a wolf a...hhmmm no dragon mask here^^*

Well... perhaps my words are open to interpretation in that case... ^^

[Favoran]

Even if I thought the dragon class sucked (and I don't think this) I'd still play as a dragon.
Even if the devs dedicated the next two years to nothing but biped improvement, I'd still be playing dragons.

I play Istaria to play a dragon, I won't lie or make excuses.

Yes, yes, yes. That's what brought me to this game, that's what I'm paying for. Whether there's true equality in dragons vs bipeds doesn't matter too much... I'm satisfied with how well things are working right now.

Now, granted, I wouldn't mind being stronger. No way. You won't hear any complaints from me... unless the game becomes too easy. Which it won't, I'm sure. But even then, there's always RP, which is why I'm on order... I don't combat much, so I don't have much of an opinion of whether dragons are under- or overpowered as things stand right now. I'm just happy enough to play one.

[Takora Drakan]

*nods* I am just happy that I can play a real Dragon in a MMORPG and roleplay with others! I don't care much if Dragons are stronger or weaker vs. Bipeds, as long I can play my Dragon. Through Dragons are still for me superior Creatures.

[Castagere]

I'm new to the game and made a biped and dragon. They both are fun to play and are both lvl 14. My biped dies alot less than my Dragon. And combat is really challenging to do. So every kill i do believe is earned by my Dragon. And i run around with a biped cleric alot with my Dragon now. We enjoy playing together and are the same lvl. I saw him take down a lvl 17 mob alone. My Dragon could never do that. And to the op, Playing a Dragon is not easy. At those early lvl's its tough. So when you become adult,you do feel you've earned it.

[Amerelium]

This is the way it should be...