Dragon Spells

[Sindala]

Yup, this old chestnut again....

Still trying to think of ways to make the Helian Dragon 'worthwhile', since we lost the extra points in Strength by accepting the Power points in the Helian Rites of Assension.

Yes I know we can add points to Str in the training points section but we will allways be at a disadvantage to the Lunus Dragons.
Why is this a problem? Well at the moment their is no point atall in being an helian Dragon, Spell limits were lowered a while back so now even a Lunus with no extra points in primal can cast fully tech'd spells. See my point?
Give us a reason to be Helian or atleaste give us a quest to turn into Lunus.
I have actually seen groups forming now for bosses stating they DONT want Helian Dragons as their a waste of a Dragon spot in the group......so sad to hear.

I know it's been said in the past that you wont 'beef up the Power' and make Dragon spellcasting on a par with brute force (you know like Bi-peds have it already)
So how about turning the Helian Dragon into something like the Shamen? Give them Dragon buffs and the ability to de-buff monsters? Atleaste then we would be usefull in a group again.

Or just put Goldcast back in game working off Primal, or give the Helian Dragon boosts in crafting if you want to turn it fully into the mule class, but at the moment anyone who has spent time making an Ancient Helian Dragon has just wasted a few months gameplay.

[Arzel Rashemi]

I have actually seen groups forming now for bosses stating they DONT want Helian Dragons as their a waste of a Dragon spot in the group......so sad to hear.

I don't know which server you play on, but I play on order and I have never ever heard that once there.

I also play a helian and I have for many years. I think the divide between helian and lunus is now pretty well blurred, to a point that it doesn't really matter which path you take. The str difference to primal difference really isn't so large that I see much of an imbalance. I know quite a few players who have made some really excellent and successful hybrids out of helian rop dragons.

For myself however, my helian is not a hybrid and those who hunt with me would not say I am by any means useless in the group. The only difference I really ever notice at all is that those who have taken thier dragons lunus/str/T&C, do on average 200-300 more damage per hit with their GR over mine. But in turn my AoE's, spiked scales, spells, and heals do alot more than theirs. That spell damage may no where deal as much as their GR, but bearing that in mind my helian's stronger AoE damage is spread out over alot more enemies at once vs. a focused strike at one singular target. Its good for crowd control when in a group.

A purely spell casting helian is a challenge from the typical forward tanking lunus/str/T&C dragon to play them and to do it well. It takes a different set of tactics and how you apply the skills if you want it to work for you. I accept that the typical dragon build of lunus+str+t&c is a pure melee machine of death, where as I am an AoE machine that does better in crowd control and support in a group. Its not useless, its not imbalanced, its just different.

[Azath]

I mainly play dragons..and i love being helian; not only because of all that tasty lore, and more fun on the rites, but because of the spellcaster methods. My spellcaster currenly does around 3.3k with GR total damage on a normal mob, maybe 1k less than my melee dragon can do, but is that bad damge with GR? not atall...she hits up to 600+ damage when her spells proc..and being a caster means they do so often, much more than my lunus does on a basic attack. So she may not be able to as much damage as my melee fighters (on things like GR and DS)..so what? I hate how easy istaria is at the moment, so having a spellcaster atleast brings back that challenge and makes a battle in doom thrilling again.
Its horrible to hear no one wants spellcasters in battle, spellcasters are much better than many think...but just because we prefer to fight with spells does NOT mean we are weak, not atall.
Personally, i don't think being a spellcaster needs any tuning, we just need more players who are willing to try it out and see for themselves; the wrath of the spell caster. However this wouldn't be a bad idea...if only the melee dragons couldn't do it either. Perhaps making it so you can only cast the spells if you have the passive ability Path of the Helian, however this wouldn't be fair on those who want to raise uber hatchlings, nor would it be fair to those spell casters which choose lunus for rp reasons. So that rules out that option, so how else can you make it so only the spellcasters can scribe it? This is my only concern with it.

[LOVWYRM]

Arzel, Azath- I totally agree.

But pls let me add something:
I haven`t fought with you yet, Arzel
but Azath I know you are a very strong dragon, well equipped, well trained and very experienced.
Love to have you with us!
But believe me- there are Helian drags outside- here on Order- who- *coughs* are not willing to wear armor scales,
train or even use their melee abilities,
who think, standing far behind and casting a bolt now and then
is a valuable contribution to the group`s strenghth.
They are vets- or newer players.
All you can do is rezz them until they give up and leave due to too much dp.
I would not invite them to a hunt.

But that makes me not agree with Sind.
Give drags a bit more power- and we are overpowered for the mobs we have atm.
We discussed that in several threads Sind- you may want to read the community`s opinions there.
(sry- can`t find the links atm)

[Malicore]

I agree with Lov on this.. i have fought beside both Helian and Lunus. i have not seen where a Helian has even been so far outclassed by a Lunus, that they would not be allowed into the group. what i wouldn't want in the group, is a big bold Helian, hiding way in back, trying to tickle Valkors belly with a few bolts while we all charge in and attack. we all work together as a team, and try to defeat our enemies the best way possible.

Now, i play mainly as a Ranger, and am outclassed by every type of dragon out there, yet i can still hold my own very well. i do not have the power they have, yet there's not much in the game, that i've found impossible to do. though it may take me a bit longer to do the same thing as a dragon, i manage to get the task done. so i fail to see the problems with being Helian, as long as you are willing to jump into the battle and fight by our sides. Helians do not need anything special to help them along. they are as capable as any lunus i've seen. it's all about strategy / points / armor.

[Sindala]

I take on board what peeps are saying and yes it does make sense while you read it.
I guess i'm just a little underwhelmed with making my first Helian Dragon and thinking to myself.....I could do this so much quicker on my Lunus.
Out of the 2 the Lunus will always win out and i'd just like to see some actual differences but I suppose i'll just have to live with the fact the Helian/Lunus are just split by faction lore only and we'll never have a viable 'spell caster' class as a Dragon.

Too busy building my snow covered houses at the moment though to play any Dragon, love them. Yes vote to more snow covered stuff

[Racktor]

It's not the huge difference between Helian and Lunus that we need to point out here, it's mostly the division between Spellcaster and DPS'er.

Helian and Lunus are pretty balanced when you have a lvl 100 adult vs a lvl 100 adult in the same scales with the same build; they have little difference in stats because of their factions, and I'd gladly take both in any group. I say adult, though, because the ancients and their crystals make a pretty big difference when they fire off. Of course, ancients still are pretty balanced either way, faction-to-faction.

One of my friends has a Lunus spellcaster and a Helian DPSer and they are pretty equal to my Helian spellcaster and Lunus DPSer. However, comparing the spellcasters and DPSers together iis where you see a huge difference.

My Helian Teikera is mostly built for spellcasting - she has armor scales teched with mostly power, primal, and health; there is a little strength thrown in, too. She has about the same amount of health as Racktor (3.6k). Her armor soars over Racky's though (he has strength scales). The huge difference comes in when I compare their Gold Rages. Racktor hits for about 3.5k average on any regular mob (golems, treants..) and the high 2ks on the more armored/named mobs (Thistleface, fyakkis..). His average swing on default attack is about 250-300. Teikera hits for about 2,000 on her GR on regular mobs, and about 1,600 on armored/named ones. Her average swing is 200-250. That's a rather large difference in the heat of battle if you think of it!

You already see the supposed unbalance in DPS versus Spellcaster when you're comparing melee. Of course the DPS will win! But then, you look at their spells. Teikera hits for around 300-400 on a Prime Bolt, tech'ed the exact same as Racktor's is. The 400s are rare to get, and mostly I see 350. Racktor gets about 250-300 on hit. Racktor's Drulkar's Wrath (this is the strongest spell I have that I can think of right now) hits for upwards of 500-700 damage. Teikera's does 600-800. In the overall scope of things, that's a huge unbalancing difference. A spellcaster should be able to compete with a melee character equally, if a little lesser when comparing spells to melee. This is completely out of whack when you look at the stats of things.

I'm not saying that Helians or spellcasters should only rely on spells, though; Teikera's GR is often hit whenever it refreshes and I use her melee a lot. It's useful. But you know something is wrong when you build a spellcaster but yet have to rely almost completely on melee to come out of a fight with equally-leveled mobs unscathed, or with at least half health.

What I propose is, as mentioned earlier, giving a spell that feeds completely off of your power/primal stat for its damage. (Focus too if focus modifies damage, never checked that) The spell will act much like gold rage, but maybe be a 1 or 2 hit - something between Silver Strike and Gold Rage, maybe? It has a casting time equal to or a little less than Drulkar's Wrath, so you can't just pop it off any time. For a spellcaster, it can hit upwards of 1,000-1.5k damage combined between the strokes. For a melee character, with their stats, it'd probably drop off much less to something around 400-700. (Estimate)

The extra damage from that spell would compensate for the loss of damage in melee and give spellcasters an edge in combat without overpowering dragons. (as I'm sure that will be brought up) If a spellcaster hits on GR for 2k max, then the spell will bring their overall damage output to 3.5k - just like a DPSer does in a Gold Rage. A way to help keep this away from a DPSer's grasp so DPS doesn't suddenly get overpowered again would be to make the primal required very high for the level it needs to be scribed. Racktor has about 1214 primal or so... I can't remember directly. My spellcaster has around 1,400. Certainly a number can be found reasonably between those two numbers where a DPSer would have trouble scribing it unless they're mixed, and a spellcaster could get it easily? Racktor's a bit of a mix anyway, though, so 1.2k primal's a bit high for a full DPS anyways.

Another thing to be considered would be just adding more spells in for our disposal, instead of just one large spell... which is considerably less complicated, I guess.

Sorry for the wall of text.

[Alisto]

Racky - the problem there is that would give already high-damaging dragons even MORE damage (Which, while I have nothing against, would be in my opinion a little too much - considering we already have gold rage) Perhaps gold rage could simply be...modified by whichever path you took? Passive ability path of the helian would add (x) range to Gold rage, while path of the lunus would lack that range but do more damage. Yes, the suggestion needs much more expanding on :P

[Azath]

Perhaps gold rage could simply be...modified by whichever path you took? Passive ability path of the helian would add (x) range to Gold rage, while path of the lunus would lack that range but do more damage.

one big flaw alice - This means factions restricts combat style if you want this to apply to your character...there are lots of Helian tanks and Lunus casters, how would this be fair to them?

[Alisto]

one big flaw alice - This means factions restricts combat style if you want this to apply to your character...there are lots of Helian tanks and Lunus casters, how would this be fair to them?

Yes, the suggestion needs much more expanding on :P

For some reason, it won't let me enter just quotes I want noticed, so....here are words! Yay! \o/

[Steelclaw]

Note: I'm speaking as someone who plays a spell-casting dragon, and not someone representing the design team (not that I ever speak on their behalf, anyway). These are my observations from playing.

First, as hinted, the Helian and Lunus alignments don't dictate combat style. Try not to confuse the two -- keep them decoupled.

Mechanics-wise, dragons don't have any sort of checks and balances in place that would prevent a melee fighter from easily acquiring the benefits given to a caster. Thus, the problem of offering more to casters isn't so much a matter of "Why don't you just do X?", but one of introducing multi-classing mechanics without the overhead of building out a whole separate school. Not an easy answer, but when coming up with suggestions, try to think of mutual exclusion constraints.

Then, there's a big political issue that almost everyone is afraid to touch: Gold Rage. It's the go-to attack for dragons; and given the low risk of harm, high hit rate, and high DPS, that's no surprise. As seen, you can tweak your dragon's stats to become a one- or two-hit killing machine. That, I think, is a bit of a fluke with a lot of legacy, so it's a little unreasonable to expect to see the same convenience extended to caster builds. I'm not saying that Gold Rage needs an overhaul or "nerf", and I really hope everybody (especially the designers) does not construe my words as suggesting or supporting such a change.

Instead, I suggest looking at the current progression of DRAG with Gold Rage as a median of sorts. If you want to progress down that path, or already have, and like your character, great! Keep it. Click that hotkey until your hoard runs out! However, if you want to specialize in casting or have a more interesting melee experience, there are diverging paths that take you to being an awesome specialist -- but the first step on any of those paths will have to be giving up Gold Rage.

[Guaran]

First, as hinted, the Helian and Lunus alignments don't dictate combat style. Try not to confuse the two -- keep them decoupled.

Agree completely.

I think one thing that should be done, is the AROP crystals should both be modified, to combine the benefits that both have into one. Therefore either "political" choice (Helian, Lunus) has no major combat difference that they have as of now. And it isn't really overpowering either, if someone is spec'd out to be a melee fighter, procs of The Primal Rage effect isn't going to be doing anything in the fight anyway. Same is also true for the caster only player. It might promote a bit of hybrid playstyle, but that's what the Dragon school really is to begin with. I would even go so far as to making the fangs of fury and primal rage buffs as passive abilities, both given upon completion of either (Lunus, Helian) AROP. Strip away the last of the Political faction = combat style garbage. (please!) If they go the passive ability route, the existing crystals could have their effects removed, and maybe just give the item some new lore text making it a keepsake and nothing more.

Mechanics-wise, dragons don't have any sort of checks and balances in place that would prevent a melee fighter from easily acquiring the benefits given to a caster. Thus, the problem of offering more to casters isn't so much a matter of "Why don't you just do X?", but one of introducing multi-classing mechanics without the overhead of building out a whole separate school. Not an easy answer, but when coming up with suggestions, try to think of mutual exclusion constraints.

Then, there's a big political issue that almost everyone is afraid to touch: Gold Rage. It's the go-to attack for dragons; and given the low risk of harm, high hit rate, and high DPS, that's no surprise. As seen, you can tweak your dragon's stats to become a one- or two-hit killing machine. That, I think, is a bit of a fluke with a lot of legacy, so it's a little unreasonable to expect to see the same convenience extended to caster builds. I'm not saying that Gold Rage needs an overhaul or "nerf", and I really hope everybody (especially the designers) does not construe my words as suggesting or supporting such a change.

The mutual exclusion argument is already used in biped hybrids such as reaver, which gets 7 skill in 2hs, 7 skill in spirit, excelling at neither, but then can raise them both up with multiclassing, come back to the reaver school, and be powerful at both.

The only way a Dragon Adventurer even becomes a viable combat school, is to max out t&c by putting 600 training points into it, half of all tp's! Dragons are poor healers (1 rez per hour, 1 targeted heal spell), almost non-existent depel ability (lighting breath has only 500 dispel strength, it doesn't really work on mobs past level 75), very limited crowd control (1 mob once every what 5 minutes? with dragon fear, only obtained during AROP). You can go caster or melee, but to be remotely effective at either you have to max out the skill. The combat abilities I mentioned above can all be obtained by bipeds thru some simple multiclassing, then they have them in any school for any playstyle.

I would argue that just about any biped school, where the same thing was done (max out a single skill with 600 tp's), that it would create a very powerful, if focused character that could rival a dragon.

Gold Rage gets a bit too much hate I think. It shines because of the way dragons are forced to spend training points.

So, I am not suggesting or advocating nerfing it either. I don't believe that is necessary.

Instead, I suggest looking at the current progression of DRAG with Gold Rage as a median of sorts. If you want to progress down that path, or already have, and like your character, great! Keep it. Click that hotkey until your hoard runs out! However, if you want to specialize in casting or have a more interesting melee experience, there are diverging paths that take you to being an awesome specialist -- but the first step on any of those paths will have to be giving up Gold Rage.

Or, a simpler choice is to make the new ability which fit into a caster playstyle, share timer/cooldown with Gold Rage. Therefore as you are fighting, Gold Rage is disabled while you use: Gold Burst (for example). Shared timer solves a lot of balance issues. It also doesn't force an irreversible combat choice (which I would be totally against). Bipeds along with multiclassing can pick and choose combat and playstyles, and change back and forth at will by visiting the trainer.

"But Dragons will still be powerful if they have Gold Rage!" You may say. They may very well, still be the best melee class. But I don't see a problem with that. Dragons are 10 times the size of their biped counterparts, almost always have less health (should be triple imho), and really only excel at melee. They are also a large part of the games' appeal. If they are the best melee fighter, so be it. Biped's are still far more versatile, far better casters, and would come close to Dragons at melee if they maxed out TP's in a single skill. I know in the past bipeds could even exceed dragons at melee when a BHM was couple with a few other things.. far exceed. So stop the Gold Rage hate already (general point to everyone, not you steelclaw).




Challenge: Why don't someone who has a few classes, max out tp's in say 2 hand slash, unarmed, or bow. Then go out hunting and compare the experience to a dragons. Biped is going to have all the mastered supplemental abilities than dragons don't have, will likely be better overall than the dragon.

[AmonGwareth]

Or, a simpler choice is to make the new ability which fit into a caster playstyle, share timer/cooldown with Gold Rage. Therefore as you are fighting, Gold Rage is disabled while you use: Gold Burst (for example). Shared timer solves a lot of balance issues. It also doesn't force an irreversible combat choice (which I would be totally against).

This would be a viable approach in my opinion (and indeed had been considered previously) if Gold Rage had a longer recycle. But with a 15 second recycle, it seems rather pointless.

[Arzel Rashemi]

This would be a viable approach in my opinion (and indeed had been considered previously) if Gold Rage had a longer recycle. But with a 15 second recycle, it seems rather pointless.

You could make the timers linked in such a way that it extends the cool down of the unused ability. We already have shared timers like this on our epic spells and abilities that aren't equal in cool down time with each other (e.g. Flameburst and our other fire breaths). Instead of making that cool down time for the linked ability a shorter one I don't see why it couldn't be an extended cooldown instead.

Otherwise I wouldn't want my spellcaster dragon touched or messed with. It isn't imbalanced, and touching it would do just that. About the only thing I might want, is a little bit of love via a couple more epic items geared towards pure spellcasting dragon types rather than melee types. Demon claw and blood talon are completely pointless for me as a pure spellcaster as i don't use T&C/dex/str but primal/focus/power. And maybe seeing more of a spell pool to draw from. Perhaps gift spells that can do gift of armor and/or gift of health equivalents.

[Guaran]

This would be a viable approach in my opinion (and indeed had been considered previously) if Gold Rage had a longer recycle. But with a 15 second recycle, it seems rather pointless.

You could make the timers linked in such a way that it extends the cool down of the unused ability.

I think would be a good way to go about it. If there is something new for a caster playstyle, and the player uses it, say a 30 second recycle ability, it could reset the Gold Rage timer back by 30 seconds also.

Otherwise I wouldn't want my spellcaster dragon touched or messed with. It isn't imbalanced, and touching it would do just that. About the only thing I might want, is a little bit of love via a couple more epic items geared towards pure spellcasting dragon types rather than melee types. Demon claw and blood talon are completely pointless for me as a pure spellcaster as i don't use T&C/dex/str but primal/focus/power. And maybe seeing more of a spell pool to draw from. Perhaps gift spells that can do gift of armor and/or gift of health equivalents.

Some additional abilities with shared timers to existing abilities, wouldn't really mess with your caster/playstyle. Using any ability is optional. The point of my original suggestion with new stuff sharing timers with old stuff is what gives the player the flexibility to use them or choose not to. And it keeps it balanced without being overpowering.

I would agree that some spellcaster oriented gear might be nice, but it would be pointless unless the capabilities of a caster dragon are first improved or added to in some way.

[Calyndrell]

Expanding a little on Arzels idea of this new ability (I'll call it "Gold burst" for purpose of this post). if Gold burst comes tiered much the same way as gold rage and they both should start with a shared timer (forgive me if i have this wrong but Gold rage I timer is... 40sec to my memory). However for every tier after the first of gold burst that you aquire it applies a penalty to gold rages time whilst increasing gold bursts timer proportinately with gold rages... so if you had both gold rage VII and gold burst VII your timer for gold rage would be 40 seconds but your timer for gold burst would be 15 sec.
(i hope this makes sense)

as an idea for empowering Gold burst have it calculate damage exactly the same as for Gold rage sustituting TnC for primal and str for Power or perhaps adds +1000 power to the next spell (much the same as multicast but not work intandem with multicast if that is possible)

[Calyndrell]

Oh I forgot to mention to re enable gold rages 15sec timer perhaps you can visit the gold rage trainer to "reverse the delay" meaning its gold burst that now has a 40 sec timer and gold rage has the 15 sec.

[Arzel Rashemi]

I would agree that some spellcaster oriented gear might be nice, but it would be pointless unless the capabilities of a caster dragon are first improved or added to in some way.

Since there has never been any spellcaster oriented gear around or available (except the tailscale) it wouldn't be accurate to say whether or not the spellcasting dragon would need improvement or not in some way first. Most melee dragons I know of have use of that epic gear which in a way makes them improved over spellcasters. Without that epic gear available, its not a noticable difference or imbalance, and I play just fine and even match my melee oriented dragon peers out there, just in a different way.

Oh I forgot to mention to re enable gold rages 15sec timer perhaps you can visit the gold rage trainer to "reverse the delay" meaning its gold burst that now has a 40 sec timer and gold rage has the 15 sec.

Not quite the idea I was getting at, but not far off.

It would work something along the lines of this. Say you use Gold Burst as you call it, then your Gold rage timer might be in 1 min in cool down while your gold burst ability is at a 15 second cooldown. But if you use gold rage then its your Gold rage that is at the 15 second cooldown and your gold burst is at the 1 min cooldown instead.

The cooldown timers obviously however being put at whatever seems most balanced. In this way, it would allow for the versatility and choice of using a spellcasted or melee version without a massive imbalance and overpowering of dragons at large, and without really hurting hybrid dragon builds.

[LOVWYRM]

*raises claw*

What about us- the hybride ones?
It is easier to tune a "pure" dragon.
If you choose "Pure" you have to accept that you drag is kinda nerd^^.

A hybride is the result of much try and error over the years.
No tp is given without a longer thought, no scale made less than twice or more until the result fits.
Potions buffs a.s.o. It took me years to make Lov as powerful as she is now.
So pls- do not change anything about GR or the timers. GR the way it is now- IS the tactics
though I use all a drag can use in each fight- my spells are triple teched and do much damage- and the breaths come next to GR in my tactics.
Its simply fun to play a dragon who can do it all.
Sure- my Luna (lunus) hits harder- but when it comes to magic- I play Lov.
I do not expect my drags to be equal.
This is not WoW- or any other game that offers nothing but clones.
I agree that Helian need more Love- be it power, more spells, special abilities or what soever.
I support that.
But keep hands off the Lunus and their abilities .
Don`t punish one to give something to the other.

And consider the Hybrides- we might be the majority^^

[LOVWYRM]

sry- too late to edit:
I was not clear here: I agree to a shared timer Gold Rage/"Gold Burst".