Doesn't Spiked Scales work of Primal?Originally Posted by Dragoniade
Uh, which of the above posts is correct?Is 60 points that bad? Well, its noticeable. It makes lunus inferior to helians. By a huge amount? no. But suppose ARoP gives an enhanced path of the lunus/path of the helian with +200 to primal or tooth and claw. If that gets added to base, then that really would be a HUGE advantage for helian dragons.
Ok my opinion.
Yesterday I watched a 97th level dragon tear through 60th level mobs in large numbers. Hellian. By large numbers 20-30 55-60 level mobs at a time.
He actually did it (perception may vary) faster then the normal farming biped as he timed his runs to his abilities. What I am saying is, he did big mob pulls, then little, then medium then big. Was impressive. I have to admit he has focused well, and plans out his dragon considerably. Really impressive to see.
I have started a dragon, going lunus to balance his Hellian, and we were discussing mass farming (a major topic of late on the forums) and could he farm. We picked some numbers and we tried it (I was in my biped to heal/rez incase things went bad).
We decided to do gem golems as the test case.
He is 97th, maxed TPs in primal, rest in power, decent scales (mostly primal/power) finished all his dragon quests (both craft and adv).
T5 - He can handle 3 100th level golems (Ok, we could only get 2 100 and 1 99 in the best case). He could handle 5+ 90s.
Though wolves were a different matter, he was down to 2 90s, and Shiar (named wolf on ice isle) and his two buddies required heals from my biped.
Here he would seldom need to pull out the stops (against golems) to win. Against wolves, it became very close (their first multi-hit from 3 wolves was the key, avoid that and he was safe).
T4 - 80+ He couldn't get enough 80s to really make a difference for gem golems. His down time was minimal, though now and again he needed a breather (I didn't heal unless needed to keep alive, so we were trying to see how fast he could go through the mobs with no help).
T3 - He basically could take on anything he wanted, in about any numbers he wanted. Wolves and Golems.
As a note, when we went to 60th level Ogres, the stuns turned the game around in favor of the ogres. No surprise ther.
Vs WA it depended on the mobs. Wizards at higher levels seemed more dangerous, though shamans seemed to be a conistent danger.
His opinions seem to be:
The big heal in the 90s is the key.
Spiked Scales tied to primal (seems from developer's posts) rock, get all quests.
Finishing his Dragon Gift quests added quite a bit to his battle readyness.
The new freeze breath (again, he hadn't done many of the side quests) was a massive inprovement for helping with groups (slowing/freezing them in place).
Managing what you have vs the situation you are going into. With all his heals and abilities ready, he charged anything. Then depending on what was left, he picked on or two mobs or smaller groups when in the 80s.
The good:
He can beat as many 60th levels as need be.
80s Were relatively easy.
100s were taken in groups of 2-3, though now and again trouble would show up (lucky hits).
Neither good nor bad, or both good and bad.
Heals over time are good/bad. trigger at start, and hope they work, or hold on to them and trigger in the middle of the battle.
Teched spells (we were collecting Emerald frags for him) helped, but took some time to get.
The bad:
Once hit with a debuff he had to wait it out. Hopefully this will change soon.
Lack of armor meant he was hit often. Hopefully this will change with hoard armor changes, and built in armor changes to scales.
What he would do different:
Get his hoard up for better armor (even more when changes go live).
Lower his TPs in primal to only the max he needs for spells. Move rest to STR.
What he found that was strange/not expected:
Claws hit about twice as fast, for about 1/2 the damage of his primal spells. Didn't analyze the damage done.
This was based on observation, his opinion, and my opinion (time vs a multi-classed biped doing the same as we have watched them).
Now that being said, there is one biped that we know that can do better when in the right class. The other classes he has makes him a bit slower. This came about as the three of us were in the same area when the biped was hunting large mobs. The dragon pulled as big a mob if not bigger (flight seems to have helped pulling bigger mobs) and took them down. The biped's class and abilities dictated how fast he could go back in. The Dragon seemed to find the number of abilities he had to use each time.
But the biped usually came out unscathed (Paryoxsm/heals) while the dragon came out wounded, but still within heal time, and quickly recovered. The bipeds class dictated the different abilities he could use, the dragon had to manage a bit more. In the prime class for the biped, the options of spells would mean they had a better variation/time for hunting.
Just thought I would share my observations from the last two nights.
Like I said, I am doing Lunus to balance his Hellian, and we hope to do some later comparisons of the two classes optimized for T&C vs Primal.
On Dragons
My opinion based on my observations of dragons (from my guild, so possibly not a good sampling).
The dragons that focus on doing primal or T&C do alot more damage seem to compete better with the powered up Bipeds. The general dragons, seem to find they can compete at equivalent level, possibly below level depending on their amount of generalization/lack of specializing. By focusing scales to go with "focus" of dragon there is a significant increase in ability.
This is true of bipeds also. But bipeds can gain the multi-classing to require less TPs used.
I think it will be interesting to follow a Lunus through the levels to see what the major difference is between the lunus and my Blood Mage. Already I have more armor then I every had, though the life steeling abilities of the Blood Mage made combat slightly less "close".
177 Days old Dragon, 20th level. So I haven't played it alot.
Now a question to the people still reading this quest. At what level do you think a Lunus can do their RoP alone? I would like to try it with no help to see if it can be done. (Actually I would like to make 100 before becoming an adult, but the urge to fly now has lowered my expectations to doing the RoP for Lunus alone).