Helian Build Question

[Lunaardragon]

I always been a fan of spellcasters. I enjoy Lunus, but it never hurts to try something else.

I remembered asking a question about the stats for a Helian dragon. Primal is the main key and so if power, they said. Focus brings spell accuracy, but the debate focused on evasion and stamina.

Evasion and Stamina. Which one is better? I do like to mass pull/kill nobs though I'll settle on doing that later when I'm stronger and when I'm likely ready. If there isn't a stamina stat, pardon my misreading. I haven't been on in awhile due to real life.

Also, how would the stats be split for Power and Focus? I may experiment if the stat reset lets me.

Thank you!

[Thicklesip]

A quick note: what you seem to be referring to is a Primalist or spell-caster build; the political faction of your character doesn't have anything to do with it. (I admit, I was trying to figure out what the heck this thread could be about until I'd read your entire question.)

As a dragon whose favorite way of killing things is pulling all of them and AoEing them to death:

• I've always been careful to keep my hoard as close to the maximum for my level as possible (explanation here if you don't think you know everything about how hoard works, and maybe even if you do!)
• I favor Power scales with some combination of Focus, Primal, Armor and sockets techniques.
  
  • Sockets deserve honorable mention because I've found it wonderfully easy to keep a large number of armor and jewelry crystals of different types on hand to swap around depending on what I'm fighting. Golems? Put in the anti-Crush crystals. Aegis? Put some anti-Blight crystals in. Etc!
  • That also glosses over dragon tech kits, so on second thought: Piercing Winds on both wing scales, and one of the tech kits on your claw! (I forget which right this moment, darn. Someone else chime in?)
• For training points, I'd advise a 4-way roughly even split between Power, Focus, Primal, and Tooth and Claw.
  
  • Power: makes you POWERFUL! Your spells hit for more, etc. Good stuff. If I only had to pick one stat, this is the one I'd get the most of. (Admittedly, I do a lot of crafting and get more benefit from pure stats for my TP, but I still think it's the strongest non-Primal stat for a caster.)
  • Focus: boosts healing (maybe) and accuracy (I think?). I probably have more of this than other people put up with, but strong heals have always been necessary for my "let me pull everything and then frantically heal myself while it dies to Spiked Scales" approach. Also, I hate missing with the passion of a thousand burning suns.
  • Primal: has a narrower range of effects than Power or Focus, but does more per point. If nothing else, you can't go wrong with more Primal.
  • Tooth and Claw: at the end of the day I bow to expedience and necessity. I didn't miss it when I was leveling, but once I hit 100 and started taking on things that I can't heal to death, I accepted that sometimes I'm just going to be Gold Raging everything. When that happens, I can't afford to have Gold Rage hits missing, it would (and can) get me killed. For bonus points, it helps all those other buttons on my bars hit once I've used up all four of my AoE and I can't think of anything to do but sit there and twiddle my thumbs.

Having said all that, my all-important disclaimer: I am a CRAFTER. I am mildly terrible at combat. I make absolutely no promises that this is the right way of doing things; only that I've found some success from it.

Good luck and have fun!

[Northwind]

If you ask about training points for a caster build, then go for max Primal and max Focus.

Primal helps with damage and chance to hit with magical attacks
Focus helps with chance to hit and chance to evade magical attacks
I'm not a fan of Power since it helps only with damage and if you miss - you wasted all those points invested in Power.

Also, if we extend the talk to scales and spells then:

I would advice for Armor Scales with Primal/Health/Focus techs and crystals.
The reasoning being rather simple: as a caster you will kill them mobs rather slow and you really need to outlast them.

The most bang you can get is from teching the spells:
- accuracy/primal damage/damage techs for your damage spells and for your main repeater which should be the Improved Primal Bolt
- accuracy for debuffs
- not at last - get yourself a puller spell: a normal bolt teched with Primal Range (attention - primal range will kill the repeater component of your bolt)

[Chioxin]

- not at last - get yourself a puller spell: a normal bolt teched with Primal Range (attention - primal range will kill the repeater component of your bolt)

Oh, now /thats/ something I didn't know that I'll need to go look into. I've been dying for a pulling spell that isn't on a 3 minute cooldown. [Reach]

[Guaran]

I would say armor scales teched with primal - power - focus. wings, make 2 sets. a combat set and a speed set. speed set put primal, run speed, velocity. combat set primal power focus.. forelegs primal + 2 sockets (1 health 1 power each. swap power for focus if missing alot, or crush resist for golems). chest - primal vengeance, eminence, vital defiance. (2 point blank spells can trigger primal vengeance, so do not discount it). Tail, use the bards tail. back - primal, power, open tech slot for bone lacing tech.

But I got sidetracked, you asked about training points. max out primal, 50% max out evasion, and split the remaining between focus and power. if once you got all your spells done you seem to be missing alot, move points from power to focus.

primal - adds chance to hit (accuracy) + spell power
power - adds spell power
focus - adds chance to hit (accuracy) + chance to evade spells

Primal is by far the most useful. Power is good but don't get oversold on it. Other stats can be more useful to spend training points on than power is. armor and evasion are key to being a successful spellcaster as a dragon. Keep in mind that dragons are a melee schools with some support magic. Focusing solely on the magic can make for a fairly successful AOE dps build but the overall combat utility of playing a caster dragon is somewhat weak. AOE dps is where you can shine. To be able to survive lots of simultaneous hits you need armor and evasion. In fact, if you find that you have no trouble hitting with spells, move tp's from focus into more evasion. I'd stick primarily with evasion vs magic evasion. Health is good as well, be sure you use 2 of the +150 health crystals, one in each foreleg. The primary thing I would say about training points is to add them into stats you cannot get anywhere else (evasion). Primal is primary chice because it adds both power and accuracy, but after that evasion is top choice for training points. Everything else can be added with scale techs and crystals in sockets.

Hope that helps.

Also, getting a Valkor's Blood Talon is helpful when farming large groups of mobs aoe since it has a lifetap.

For aoe dps, your main spells will be Unrelenting Winds (lowers targets primal reisstance, only needed once every 5 minutes per target so for most fights just once), blast, tempest, barrage, gust. Inbetween these all recycling, you need to use melee attacks which can trigger eminence, vital defiance (on undead only), primal vengeance, and the lifetap on the blood talon. Barrage and Gust can also trigger primal vengeance which lowers incoming melee damage.

Tech the Unrelenting winds with primal flash and range. Also tech a prime bolt with accuracy, range, primal flash to use for pulls. blast and tempest tech with accuracy, primal damage, and your choice of crush, slash, or piece damage techs. Barrage and Gust are somewhat limited in choices, primal damage and primal flash I believe are about it.

Having a grazing winds teched the same as your unrelenting winds can't hurt either. Use both grazing and unrelenting at the beginning of each fight.

[Veruliyam]

Best claw tech is Deadly.

[Firebrand]

My opinion if you want to build a Spellcaster without using claws: http://community.istaria.com/forum/s...2&postcount=11

[Lunaardragon]

Oh wow! I'm glad I'm familiar a bit with this game or I would be scratching my head, thinking: What?
Yes, I do mean the training points, but the extra information concerning the scales really helps a lot too. I'm not a fan of crafting, but it never kills me to do it. I usually internet surf as I target materials and mine away. More scenic routes with slow motion running!

EDIT: Yes, I'm into the Spellcaster/Primalist. I'm sorry for not being more specific.

Just one quick question though I still offer gratitude. When should I start to pick up what to put training points into? I haven't started my dragon yet just in case I make a boo-boo Also, it's hard to start noticing when I'm busy killing at a low level. I can easily pick up on the crafting part, but I don't mind if you wish to add into this too.

[Guaran]

You can always move points around, up to 300 points a week I believe. So it's ok to try different things. For a starting dragon just max out tooth&claw and strength. once you get close to the end , last 80 levels put points in t&c and evasion.

[Sindala]

I have to add my 2pence worth on this aswell.

I find Evasion completly pointless for a Dragon since you should be hunting mobs atleaste 5 lvls above your current lvl.

This means that the mobs your gonna be hunting will allways be able to hit you no matter what you got in Evasion.

What i've been finding recently is even for a Lunus, drop all your TP's into Primal and Dex. Then cast Primal Attack on yourself thus converting your damage to Primal (yes you get higher damage than a Pure T&C Drag)

An Added bonus is Goldrage is a Primal attack so its damage is increased.
You can thus pretty much 1 hit kill most mobs and do some real good area damage with spells.
Drop in a DCoM to the mix and you can solo SOG without a problem.

I'm replicating this now with a new Helian i'm building and though i REALLY hate to say it, She can out damage my Lunus so far (So Wrong, Devs this needs sorting pronto!!!!!!)

[Northwind]

Sort of offtopic so bear with me.
Erm... I do have all my points in evasion and magic evasion, nothing in T&C or Primal (both are around 1200 skill)
Even SoG misses me quite often and I can still oneshot with gold rage most of the mobs, including travertine and emerald golems - basically everything with less than 3000-3100 hitpoints.

Are you sure about the theory with Gold Rage and Primal?
I mean, Primal Attack ads 5 damage to your attacks besides converting damage to primal so it is normal to hit harder.
Also Primal as skill affects the spells not the claw attacks, no matter what damage type those attacks are (primal or not).
Am I mistaken?

[Guaran]

I think you have it right.

Sindala makes a good point to use Primal Attack on yourself also. I forgot to mention that. So after debuffing the mob with unrelenting winds against primal, both your spells and claw attacks become stronger (as long as the target doesn't have a high primal resist. most do not).

As far as primal skill affecting melee damage done with primal attack on, I haven't tested that, but it sounds like a bug. Primal attack is only supposed to convert the damage type done. The skill affecting the claw attacks should be tooth&claw since the weapon (claw) uses that. after the damage to be done is calculated on the t&c stat, then the damage is converted to primal before applying to the target. The damage does go up since unrelenting winds lowers primal resistance, and therefore claw attacks will hit harder after the debuff+primal attack, and that is normal and to be expected. Perhaps that is all Sindala is observing.

btw I looked at my tp's, I have 600 t&c, 240 primal, 360 evasion. Primal needs to be buffed some so that the debuff spell unrelenting winds will land on the target. If it misses you miss out on a nice damage bonus from the lowered primal resist+primal damage conversion from primal attack.