So, I can see a few instances where having a high primal is wanted: Relkar and Elial, but those fights are few and far between. There is also not many primal-oriented dragons on my server, so I thought I'd make one.

I have a ton of dragons. Mostly so I can play with TP and find new ways to play.

Trying to build a dex dragon, a caster, and a hybrid

Trouble is, only two builds really work for dragon: Tank and DPS, both using various amounts of Health, TNC and STR, the scales carrying armor and various shades of the standard 3 stats.

My caster not only has four stats to juggle with instead of three, but now she needs to be standing still for 5 or 6 seconds to get a damage spell off.

My melee not only does insane damage but they can kite- something my spellcaster can't.

Leveling, I had to change my tactic to fighting many mobs below my level, sometimes even a tier below me. I thought I was dishing out decent damage with a character that mirrors my DPS dragon's TP stats:
1/4 bar of health
1/2 Power
full primal
Bits in str, tnc, etc.

Scales are armor, Power and focus scales.

This is all fine and dandy until one does the ability quests and can't fight creatures above or at its own level. Is this right? Surely a creature that is maxed out in power and primal should do just as well as the dragon maxed out in str and tnc? Obviously not. Seems even the game mechanics work against being a spell caster.

I was also hoping this would mean our epic spells, DW and Volcano would do more damage than when on my TNC dragons who are better off just using auto attack than using this spell.

I was quite disappointed to find it does only slightly more damage: ~600 to fire opal golems vs. ~470.

The hybrid also has the same problem. To cast spells, you must stand still and take damage for 4-6 seconds before your spell goes off, but I can't for the life of me find a combination that makes my spellcaster or hybrid perform as my DPS and tank does and be something that would be wanted in a group.

While leveling, I found my caster invaluable as those the same level often did not have the heals I did. So maybe the answer lies in there. Now that she's level 100 though, healing seems to not be feasible at all:

My caster's Primal health V heals for ~370
My DPS build heals for ~330

What? So, a dragon who has 300 more power, 247 more focus and 700 more points in primal is only offset by 40 HP?! Why waste the TP if the difference is that low?

Using prime bolt, my dps build does 112-160 per hit
My primalist does 183-238. That I suppose could be seen as feasible, but in the time it takes to kill a creature in between casting times, it seems my primalist needs to have a better defense than my tank who can one hit KO a mob instead of taking minutes. So are we doomed to just have the cookie cutter build? The only one that works or has someone else found a better strategy than I?