Dragon Master !

[Ragnarok-X]

So, here are my thoughts. Basicly every Drake / Wyvern summon spell is useless without having Dragon Master. 3-4 Gems for a single (partly strong) unit is too much. Once you get Dragon Master though, you get to TRIPLE the power of the summon spells, which is very good for Drakes and Wyvern.

Wouldnt it be more "balanced" if a stock spell would give 2 summons, and Draogon Master makes it +1 ?

Basicly, being able to tripple the effiency of one spell with a low research N3 enchantment fells kind of imbalanced to me. Its not the fact that 3 summons for 3-4 gems is too powerful, but the fact that WITHOUT dragon master the summons are useless.

[Sombre]

I think it would be balanced and interesting if dragon master was removed entirely and the drake spells were just balanced normally.

There's a similar problem with reanimation - it's a terrible spell at anywhere near vanilla costs, but unfortunately it's way too good for giant nations who get giant longdead if you make it super cheap.

And same thing with corpse man and vine ogres too.

[Belac]

In vanilla, Dragon Master is level 8, which is way too high. OTOH, it kind of makes sense--in early game, 1 high-HP fire-spitting creature is fairly powerful, so when Conj-3 has just been researched having large numbers of fire drakes would be problematic. But by the time Ench-8 is researched, 1 fire drake is fairly useless, so this gives you a way to make the spell useful again by letting you mass them.

I'd favor moving Dragon Master to Ench-5 or 6, or creating a set of Summon Drake/Wyvern Horde spells which are Conj-6 and require Nature 1 as well as the original elemental path.

[NTJedi]

Originally Posted by Ragnarok-X

So, here are my thoughts. Basicly every Drake / Wyvern summon spell is useless without having Dragon Master.

99% of the time this is correct. It's extra painful finding AI opponents which has summoned 15 cave drakes! It's like you must mod the game just so the AI opponents are not wasting gems.

Originally Posted by Sombre

I think it would be balanced and interesting if dragon master was removed entirely and the drake spells were just balanced normally.

I agree and this would also help the AI opponents which need some developer love.

[Ragnarok-X]

Im talking CBM, not stock settings.

[Belac]

Then my suggested fixes still hold, as does my reasoning for them.

[13lackGu4rd]

Originally Posted by Ragnarok-X

Im talking CBM, not stock settings.

yes you're talking about CBM, but keep in mind that Dragon Master was designed under vanilla settings, which is ench8... under ench8 Belac explain to you what the idea of the spell was, including the idea for the original(drakes+wyrm) spells. under CBM it comes in too early, true. but there's a reason why QM put it there. I assume it was to balance it against other popular options, mainly undeads, but I'm not 100% sure...

[Ragnarok-X]

Originally Posted by Belac

Then my suggested fixes still hold, as does my reasoning for them.

Its far to easy to to get a mage with an added n1, even without national units. At the very least, a mass conjuration should require N2 or N3, just like Dragon Master currently did. Otherwise every single site-dependant mage could summons elemental drakes x3.

[Ragnarok-X]

I think removing the spell would be a very bad choice. Why would you remove a spell that is so clever and flavourful. Better fix it instead of removing it !

[Sombre]

Because if it's a spell you have to cast in order for drakes to ever be worth it, then there's no reason not to have a spell with the same requirements that just summons the drakes.

I agree with the concept of a single drake early being good while three drakes later is also equally good and fair. But it just doesn't work out that way. I don't think that balance is possible to strike. You either make dragon master too good, or single drake summons too bad.