Primal Cast & Breath of Flame Burst

[Creme]

I was out hunting trophies on my dragon and a largish spawn of Marble Boulder Golems spawned around me; there were probably a good 7 or 8 of them, so I went and rounded them up and hit primal cast, figuring I'd BOFB them and then let the primal cast trigger on my next spell, Drulkar's wrath.

To my surprise, I didn't need my triple Drulkar's Wrath to finish them off, as the Breath of Flame Burst used up my primal cast and wiped out every last Boulder Golem. That was an average of 1100 damage X 3 per golem; I don't think a single one was alive to take damage from the 3rd BOFB. That BY FAR exceeds any damage a high powered mage can do, using it's highest damage spell (in conjunction with burn armor, fusion burn, etc.), also multicast.

It was my understanding that only spells could be multicast, Burning archer can't be multicast, phoenix rising used to be multicastable, but that got changed. I really don't understand why BOFB is primal castable. Even the description of primal cast says ranged only spells only.

[Akrion]

I was out hunting trophies on my dragon and a largish spawn of Marble Boulder Golems spawned around me; there were probably a good 7 or 8 of them, so I went and rounded them up and hit primal cast, figuring I'd BOFB them and then let the primal cast trigger on my next spell, Drulkar's wrath.

To my surprise, I didn't need my triple Drulkar's Wrath to finish them off, as the Breath of Flame Burst used up my primal cast and wiped out every last Boulder Golem. That was an average of 1100 damage X 3 per golem; I don't think a single one was alive to take damage from the 3rd BOFB. That BY FAR exceeds any damage a high powered mage can do, using it's highest damage spell (in conjunction with burn armor, fusion burn, etc.), also multicast.

It was my understanding that only spells could be multicast, Burning archer can't be multicast, phoenix rising used to be multicastable, but that got changed. I really don't understand why BOFB is primal castable. Even the description of primal cast says ranged only spells only.

Not to mention that Melee dragons can also get that kind of damage with Breath of Flame Burst, which of course you put with Gold Rage and it starts getting really silly. x3 (Primal Cast Breath of Flame Burst (1100x3) + Gold Rage (1200x3) on a single target anybody?)

[Guaran]

lol. as much as breath of flame burst misses, it will probably average out.

[Creme]

lol. as much as breath of flame burst misses, it will probably average out.

LOL, that's why all the marble boulder golems died w/out my having to finish them off with Drulkar's Wrath. I don't even have primal pumped up as my dragon is melee based.

[LOVWYRM]

Creme, you must not always believe what your dragon is telling you
Thats only wishful thinking.
That marble golems must have been indisposed that day^^
*stomps on the dragon`s paw*

[Charoite]

Marble golems are serious business, hmmm, yeah! Even more so the deers in new trismus, those are evil!! ..I mean, there is no other use for drulkar wrath for a melee dragon since it never lands on anything remotely challenging. Same with breath weapons. You'd be lucky if more than one of your triple flame burst hits will land on anything inside dralnok doom or inhabbitants of eastern deadlands.

If Primal Cast was not intended to work with Flame Burst then i just dont see a point in the ability, you may just as well remove it as a useless junk then.. Flame Burst has 3 min cooldown, it makes _perfect_ sense that it would do more damage than a mage's regular spell(except it does not, see the paragraph above). As we all know dragons can be either melee or caster, and even though all the abilities are accessible they only work well for your specialisation..

As a melee dragon i have no aoe abilities at all. All the spells like gust, tempest, blast will _never_ hit anything other than critters, and even if they do, it would be some pathetic damage. Our breath weapons are missing like 80% of the time, drulkar's wrath or breath of lightning is never going to land on those mylocs.. Not a big deal if a melee dragon that has a powerful gold rage, like you say 1.2k, will try and use 3 min+5min cooldown, he will be lucky if more than one of the triple hits will land.

As a caster dragon, i dont have gold rage like you say, it is gonna be weak and miss all the time. And caster dragon damage overall is a whole level lower than melee, if anything they could use a buff. But i would not call a 5 minutes cooldown in conjunction to 3 minutes cooldown burst a needed buff to sustained damage. Other spells that a caster dragon can do are weak as well, what are you going to primalcast then? What would that be worthy of 5 min recharge? Prime bolt doing barely 300 points of damage? Don't make me laugh

It was my understanding that only spells could be multicast

Not a valid argument.. Most of the biped abilities are muticastable too.. "Spell" in my understanding in this case is a magical attack. And not only that you have in spellbook, crafted by yourself If you want to talk about bugs related to primal cast and breath, then i would say regular fire breath not working with PC is a bug. Lightning breath and Acid breath makes sense, first is a triple dispell, second is a damage over time debuff.

that's why all the marble boulder golems died w/out my having to finish them off with Drulkar's Wrath. I don't even have primal pumped up as my dragon is melee based.

An exaggeration. I was doing that myself a few times (gamering some mobs around and PC+FB) and i can bet gold that you are not 1shotting eight T5 mobs with that. You need all 3 hits to land in order to kill one, and flame burst misses way too much even on lower level mobs

[Dragonboy]

If Primal Cast was not intended to work with Flame Burst then i just dont see a point in the ability, you may just as well remove it as a useless junk then..

An exaggeration. I was doing that myself a few times (gamering some mobs around and PC+FB) and i can bet gold that you are not 1shotting eight T5 mobs with that. You need all 3 hits to land in order to kill one, and flame burst misses way too much even on lower level mobs

Your second sentence however I don’t agree with.
With my current Training Point setup I think that I hit about 90% of all attacks against T1 to T5 mobs could say T6, but I haven’t tried the Eastern Deadlands for a long time, and you cannot compare the average T6 to lvl 110-130 mobs like those that wonder Dralnok’s Doom, they are supposed to be more difficult considering it is endgame stuff.
Only the Mylocs and the colossal scorpions cause me to miss many times on all attacks not only breath attacks.

No matter what I throw at these little myloc creeps it misses or gets dodged even when I Tail Whip them and try to Gold Rage them while they are stunned atleast 1 or 2 strikes get dodged or misses while they are supposed to be sitting ducks and not being able to DODGE me.

I however heard from someone ingame that with his multiclassed ped he does not seem to have the above problem, which I do find annoying but unable to match…

So please don’t compare regular mobs with Mylocs in matters of missing attacks…

As for your 1st remark that I quoted I actually agree. Not only because I love a multi-mob high damage attack, but also because the caster dragons among us have at least 1 attack that is looking at damage comparable to melee dragons and that is not linked to TnC but to its own skill which is the same for both melee and caster dragons.

While I am not sure how much damage Gust, Blast, Barrage or Tempest does against mobs when cast by a caster, but I guess many would be disappointed to have this removed, not to mention that the ability for me would be useless as “hybrid�.

[Raptress]

...because the caster dragons among us have at least 1 attack that is looking at damage comparable to melee dragons and that is not linked to TnC but to its own skill which is the same for both melee and caster dragons.

I wouldn't say that a multicast Flame Burst puts anything comparable to melee dragons.. because melee dragons get it just like casters do. I really find it hard to say that multicast Flame Burst misses all the time for melee too, because it doesn't miss all the time on my dragon who has not a single point in Primal. So, that melee dragon essentially has a potential area Gold Rage every five minutes. Even if it misses a few times, if he has enough mobs around him, it'll still do a lot of cumulative damage.

Besides which, on the caster side, multicast Flame Burst is still useless to me personally right now, as my current caster won't ever be ancient. Which means no Drulkar's Wrath, either, but that's a whole rant right there. >.> Yes, I realize that's my own choice, but imo I shouldn't have to be at endgame for caster to be viable since melee is perfectly viable all the time.

Not that any of that is relevant.

Primal Cast + BoFB is a bit overpowering on an already overpowered class, as I see it, so it makes me wonder as well if it was intended or not that BoFB be usable by this ability. If it is intended, then it seems like there's another bug in that normal flame breath isn't usable as someone else pointed out. Or maybe it's something about the functionality of multicast itself that makes it work this way, which isn't fixable at all probably. *shrug*

[LungTien Temeraire]

With Primal Cast and Breath of Flame Burst, I've done this, at the island of Talinis:

[03/04/10 19:31:50] You hit Sand Crab with Breath of Flame Burst I for 982 flame damage.
[03/04/10 19:31:50] You hit Sand Crab with Breath of Flame Burst I for 891 flame damage.
[03/04/10 19:31:50] Sand Crab has been killed.
[03/04/10 19:31:51] Gained Dragon experience: 17934 ( 8967 from multiple enemy bonus )
[03/04/10 19:31:51] Gained Dragon experience: 17934 ( 8967 from multiple enemy bonus )
[03/04/10 19:31:51] You hit Sand Crab with Breath of Flame Burst I for 752 flame damage.
[03/04/10 19:31:51] You hit Sand Crab with Breath of Flame Burst I for 856 flame damage.
[03/04/10 19:31:51] You hit Sand Crab with Breath of Flame Burst I for 1038 flame damage.
[03/04/10 19:31:51] Sand Crab has been killed.
[03/04/10 19:31:51] Sand Crab dodged your Breath of Flame Burst I.
[03/04/10 19:31:51] You hit Sand Crab with Breath of Flame Burst I for 751 flame damage.
[03/04/10 19:31:51] You hit Sand Crab with Breath of Flame Burst I for 1146 flame damage.
[03/04/10 19:31:51] Sand Crab has been killed.
[03/04/10 19:31:52] Gained Dragon experience: 17934 ( 8967 from multiple enemy bonus )
[03/04/10 19:31:52] Gained Dragon experience: 17934 ( 8967 from multiple enemy bonus )
[03/04/10 19:31:52] Sand Crab dodged your Breath of Flame Burst I.
[03/04/10 19:31:52] You hit Sand Crab with Breath of Flame Burst I for 902 flame damage.
[03/04/10 19:31:52] You hit Sand Crab with Breath of Flame Burst I for 910 flame damage.
[03/04/10 19:31:52] Sand Crab has been killed.
[03/04/10 19:31:53] Sand Crab dodged your Breath of Flame Burst I.
[03/04/10 19:31:53] You hit Sand Crab with Breath of Flame Burst I for 883 flame damage.
[03/04/10 19:31:53] You hit Sand Crab with Breath of Flame Burst I for 935 flame damage.
[03/04/10 19:31:53] Sand Crab has been killed.

= 10046 hp damages : P
The sandcrabs were lvl 94, not really strong, but resistant and evasive.

[Akrion]

Besides which, on the caster side, multicast Flame Burst is still useless to me personally right now, as my current caster won't ever be ancient. Which means no Drulkar's Wrath, either, but that's a whole rant right there. >.> Yes, I realize that's my own choice, but imo I shouldn't have to be at endgame for caster to be viable since melee is perfectly viable all the time.

My level 100 pure melee hatchling is over-all more powerful than a pure caster Ancient just because 3500 to 4000 damage every 15 seconds far outmatches even multicast Drulkar's Wrath just because of its recycle rate.

The fact that Melee as a Hatchling can match and in some cases even suprass pure caster as an Ancient is silly. Especially when caster dragons must go into Adult for Primal Cast and must go into Ancient for Drulkar's Wrath. I've got Gold Rage VII as my hatchling, and need nothing more.

The fact that a Melee Dragon gets Multicast Breath of Flame Burst or Multicast Drulkar's Wrath on top of Gold Rage, Ravage and Silver Strike leaves even less reason for anybody to actually want a pure caster dragon.(Why bother when you can do most of what a caster can in terms of damaging hits? Dragon AoEs and heals are a joke in comparison to both melee dragons and single-classed biped healers.) The only thing that a pure caster dragon can do well is throwing out AoE's, but they either don't do anywhere near enough damage or have anywhere near enough heals to keep themselves alive to fight multiple mobs with said AoE's like a biped can.


Edit: Also, Thank you for posting that Lung. :3

[Mikaze]

Excuse my ignorance but what is this Primal Cast I'm hearing about? Is it a dragon version of multicast and if so, is it available to anyone or only Helians?

[LungTien Temeraire]

Hello, the Primal Cast is a Dragon ability, available for every dragon. This ability is the quest reward from the dragon at the top of the icy magery tower, near Mahagra, and surrounded by icy dire wolves. It allows you to 3X range attacks, like prime bolts, Drulkar's wrath or breath of flame burst. Don't use it with a non-offensive ability like unrelenting winds...

[Mikaze]

Ah, so it is as I suspected. Now, if only I could log in...

[Theramin]

If you want spoilers, I have added the quest to istaria.wikia.com

[Trust]

Multicast BoFB??? Really? No... really? MUAH-HAHAHAHAHAH!!! That pretty much makes me invincible.

[Mikaze]

Well, having now gone and got the ability and played with it a bit, being able to multicast BoFB does seem a -little- OP. Between me and another Ancient we gathered the entire Giant Ice Beetle spawn east of Mahagra and then one (or three, kinda)-hitted the lot of them, including the named.