Dragon "Mastery" schools.

[deathwinged]

I'm starting a new thread for this, because I don't want to tack it on to an old, forgotten thread, and I don't believe it has been voiced before; the existing dragon adventure school could use some expanding, both to allow Dragons to reach ratings higher than 100 and to allow players to "Skew" their character towards their playstyle to a greater degree than merely the breath and resist boosts from joining a faction. My suggestion is as follows;

Add two new Dragon schools, only available to Ancients or Adults who fulfill the requirements to become an Ancient. Give them minimal skill raises per level, and only a pair of abilities that become unavailable when one leaves the school to return to Dragon or the other mastery school. Said abilities should consist of one "Buff" similar to Dragon's gift, raising the correct stats for the class drastically, and one "Debuff" making enemies more vulnerable to their attacks.

To clarify, the mastery schools discussed here are split into primal abilities and spells, and tooth and claw abilities.

If I have properly comprehended the other threads on the topic, this shouldn't require any change to the current system, and with each school only granting access to two new abilities and minimal stat changes, it also shouldn't drastically "overpower" dragons. As mentioned, it would have the added bonus of allowing dragons to use items with a rating requirement of 100+.

[Azath]

ooooooooo~
i like how it sounds..but juuuuuuuuuuust one lil' problem
dragons gift gives boost to evasion, magic evasion, primal and t&c.
the 'replacement' for this needs to be one hell of a powerful buff, since primal and t&c would need to switch over to the new schools aswell (if they didn't then it changes the whole structure of dragon adventure school). So, this school -would- overpower dragons, because they need an all around power. Making it only available to those like me, still doesn't sort out the problem. I would be able to use powerful attacks like gold rage, at its full power, while also attacking with abilties from a new school, which need to be powerful for people to be interested and to give them a point to level in it. So thats how i would use a tooth and claw school, to be a super over-powered dragon. Then i would join the primal school, get to lv100, be a primal master. So then i can be talented in both primal and t&c. To stop the over-powered-ness of being a primal dragon who can smish all or a tooth and claw draogn who can rip anuthing apart with a few strikes the schools wouldn't cross over - but that STILL doesn't account for being over powered as one of new schools needs to cross over into the orignal dragon adventure for the whole sturcture of the dragon school not to fail. ASWELL two new abilites? JUST two? Although its the only way for the school not to become too powerful, i wouldn't join it as it would be too boring. If it had more abileties, then maybe, but that means you have to change the dragon adventure school to be overpowered, therefore defeating the point of trying not to change it too much.

[Racktor]

"Add two new Dragon schools"

Unfortunately your idea will probably be denied at that point. It's been stated many, many times that the devs do not plan to - nor do they have the resources/time at the moment to make new dragon schools.
I know you also said that this wouldn't alter the code very much, but according to Amon, adding any changes to how Dragons are designed would be altering the code a lot...

We have said no many times, yet it keeps coming up. And each time there is a large number who want it and a large number who don't. That is all I was saying. That and we cannot make the changes without heavily altering the existing school and abilities.

If I were given it all to do again I would create four schools I think for Dragons. Dragon Fledgling (Hatchling) would be the default, then once you ascended you could join Dragon Adventurer (Adult), and then after ascending again to become an Ancient you could join either Conqueror (melee) or Primalist (spellcaster). But, thats in an ideal world and not something that could feasibly be done at this point of the game.

Source: http://community.istaria.com/forum/s...ad.php?t=26693

[Thicklesip]

The trouble with even going through with a change to the current dragon adventuring class system as modest as "split the extant school into two" is that there are a lot of people who would kick and scream because they wouldn't be able to keep the old (current) system.

To paraphrase the discussion as it's cropped up before: new/different dragon adventuring schools are a very neat idea, but there's no way to do it that wouldn't remove the old system, and too many people don't want that.

[deathwinged]

The general idea was not to split or modify the existing school, but rather flavor it with more specialized abilities. Azath mentioned the fact that Dragon's gift boosts all four major dragon skills; to clarify my proposal, I was suggesting each new school have a more specialized replacement for Dragon's Gift, leaning towards tooth and claw or primal combat, and an ability form of the respective debuff, grazing or unrelenting winds. These abilities would /not/ be usable in conjunction with the more general buff, or each other, should one level both schools.

Since the dragon school /is/ built so differently, new schools should conceivably be made differently too. The big picture is that the new schools would be an add-on to the existing dragon school, as a means to get just a bit more power out of your specific fighting style, and as a way to raise your adventure rating to use new gear.

Further, it shouldn't be a walk in the park to level, since as a general rule it would bring dragons closer to the strength of hard-won uberpeds. Just a bit of clarification to put down those concerns, please bring up anything else.

[Azath]

dragons already have a one shot with GR and a one shot with PC + BoFB, i don't think we can get more powerful
but a school for primal makes me think...personally, i would love if at the start of the game; in skalkaar, you could choose either a primal school or a tooth and claw school, but that changes the current structure of the dragon adventure, espically for those who fight half primal half tooth and claw. I mean, the primalists don't exaclty get any love with the dragon adventure school. I am raising Cael as helain, and as spellcaster-ish as possible, but lets face it. The dragon spells are weak, thats the only problem i find with the adventure school, and really the only change i would want to it, it, is to somehow make the pure spellcasters more powerful, maybe give them some abilities especially for spells and such, but also not affecting those who don't bother with spells. But nothing can be done about the dragon school for now, because getting any new school will change the structure of the current into one not so favoured. Although i'm sad to say it, your idea won't work

[Calyndrell]

making a one time class decision is not really in the whole istaria flexibility feeling.

But if we wanted to keep everyone happy. Introduce two alternative schools. one more primal one with no primal. I understand that quest abilities would have to transfer across, so things like primal cast would have to be available in both.

Perhaps to balance this when in spellcaster mode perhaps there is a negative ability that goes up as you go up in level that is non masterable and negatively effects say TnC whilst increasing primal when in primal dragon and vice a versa for the pure melee dragon. This single "benefit" would help balance the the benefit of primal dragons using things like gold rage.. and would prevent melee dragons using the already existant powerful spells. this would then enable class specific nuke spells an increase in heals etc that spell caster dragons would need.

Also this would not effect the current school thus making it either uber or nerfed.

[Azath]

making a one time class decision is not really in the whole istaria flexibility feeling.

But if we wanted to keep everyone happy. Introduce two alternative schools. one more primal one with no primal. I understand that quest abilities would have to transfer across, so things like primal cast would have to be available in both.

Perhaps to balance this when in spellcaster mode perhaps there is a negative ability that goes up as you go up in level that is non masterable and negatively effects say TnC whilst increasing primal when in primal dragon and vice a versa for the pure melee dragon. This single "benefit" would help balance the the benefit of primal dragons using things like gold rage.. and would prevent melee dragons using the already existant powerful spells. this would then enable class specific nuke spells an increase in heals etc that spell caster dragons would need.

Also this would not effect the current school thus making it either uber or nerfed.

Transfering abilites across takes some complicated coding, there are much more importat things to be doing right now than changing the coding to make new dragon schools (as where alot want other dragons schools, alot also don't) like mithril golem spawn, a part of the t6 fyakki spawn, enriched wisps, the cenotaphs etc. to fix the coding for.
Myself, i would not go into the new shcools if they came, because even if i don't use spells too often, when i do they are vital, and although i love my claws, i rely on spells in big battles. As do many. So increasing one skill while decreasing another would backfire heavily on those who fight semi primal/semi t&c; espacially in big battles. So in that case the schools aren't even needed.
And nuke spells? This would make dragons even more overpowered, we already have 2 one shots. If it were like volcano, then it would be nice...but you would have to ensure dragons wouldn't be too overpowered; overlapping cooldowns, making spells less powerful etc. This would be nice, but its just not do-able, as the devs have stated quite a few times.
And wow....i can't think off the top of my head how if that did happen, it would affect the current dragon school XD