Dragon Master -- Bug or Feature !?!??! - Page 2

Ironhawk · #11 December 6th, 2006, 08:16 PM

While I am in favor of dropping the cost of the spell to 1N, I think that making it 1+ effects is a bad idea. If it is 1+ effects, you run the very real risk of someone taking an A2N9 pretender or something and spamming out 8 wyverns a turn for an effective cost of like 1 gem each. Far too powerful.

IMO, dropping it just 1N is enough, given that there are a handful of mages with 1N and some other interesting path that could summon a drake. Dropping each drake spell cost by 2 gems might not hurt either? A balance has to be found b/w making Dragon Master not suck and not allowing for extremely efficient Drake Factories to be set up.

curtadams · #12 December 6th, 2006, 08:57 PM

The easiest approach to the drakes being too expensive is to, well, make them less expensive. That's pretty straightforward with the spell modding tools, isn't it?

Meglobob · #13 December 6th, 2006, 10:20 PM

Dragon Master/drakes does need tweaking, if I am playing seriously in MP, I would never consider casting them, neither from reading this thread would anyone else.

I say go for the easy options:-

Drakes - lower to 4 gem cost.
Dragon Master - Just lower it to Enchantment 5, not too hard to research too, keep it at N3. Its very, very easy to get a N3 mage.

C'mon...lets bring drakes back into Dom 3 and not leave them as a useless feature, bit of fluff no one bothers with.

Endoperez · #14 December 6th, 2006, 10:24 PM

Meglobob - how easy is it to get a N3 mage that can also summon Drakes (an element at lvl two)? Much harder. Finding a mage with some skills in an element and a nature pick is much easier.

Meglobob · #15 December 6th, 2006, 10:29 PM

Quote:

Endoperez said:
Meglobob - how easy is it to get a N3 mage that can also summon Drakes (element at lvl two)

Oh yea! Was thinking it was a global enchantment, its even more rubbish than I thought...in that case why not change dragon master to a global enchantment. It would be a good spell then...

Meglobob · #16 December 6th, 2006, 10:47 PM

Anyone out there who likes drakes and would like to have a army of them, try this:-

Play La Agartha, have order 3, productivity 3. Then recruit cave knights, 100 gold, 35 resources. Those are cave drakes with riders. Once the rider dies, you then get left with a cave drake, cool.

I am on turn 20 in a MP, I have 5 squads of 1xBlind fighter leader, each with 40 blindfighters and 10 cave knights each. So thats 50 cave knights that if killed once then become 50 cave drakes, needing to be killed again, thats fun...

Uh-Nu-Buh · #17 December 6th, 2006, 11:07 PM

Changing DM to a global won't make it any better--it just makes it exclusive.

Unless you mean that once global it would be in effect for all of your Nation's mages, then it would be a bit better. However, you'd have to make it much much more expensive, and it could be dispelled.... I think the cons outweigh the pros here.

I still like my 4 ideas, plus curtadams' idea of just cutting dragon summoning costs to 6 or 4.... curtadams' idea is the easiest to implement, for sure. The devs could do it for the next patch, or it could easily be done in a mod (From what I have read. I have not modded spells yet.)

Endoperez's iteration sounds good. Perhaps even too good! Every time I like a mod idea, it turns out to be too powerful. I have learned to trust my instincts, and choose the opposite of them for Dom mods ;-)

Anybody want to try a short game with one or more of these mods thrown in to see which one works best, or worst, or whatever?

Also, maybe we should compare gem costs of dragon summoning with other approximately powerful critters.

Currently:
12 cave drakes=12casts*8gems=96gems E2 Conj2
36 cave drakes=12casts*8gems=96gems E2 Conj2 + DM N3 Ench8
96 clockwork horrors=8casts*12gems=96gems E2 Const5
200 longdead horsemen=10casts*10gems=100gems D3 Ench5

12 cave drakes would get swamped and utterly destroyed by 96 clockwork horrors or 200 longdead horsemen.

36 cave drakes would get swamped and utterly destroyed as well, I think. If we lower cave drakes to a gem cost of 6 or even 4 and employ the Endoperez Iteration of DM it would be (again an N3 mage):
36 cave drakes=12casts*4gems=48 gems total

This is much much better for the cave drakes. 36 cave drakes might very well take on 48 clockwork horrors. I am tempted to think they would win the majority of the time. Morale might be a problem for them.

100 longdead horsemen might swamp 36 cave drakes, or they might not.

Can someone do a quickie experiment to see how 36 cave drakes do against 100 and 200 longdead horsemen, and 96 and 48 clockwork horrors?

Cor · #18 December 7th, 2006, 06:27 PM

Maybe I am just a poor player but I often use Fire drakes with abysia to act as artillery. They tend to work very well for me. Still a little expensive though.
I would never use a cave drake however because they dont have a breath weapon.

rsolow · #19 December 8th, 2006, 12:25 AM

I was planning on using Ice Drakes with my Frost Giants.

HoneyBadger · #20 December 8th, 2006, 01:27 AM

I think this spell would work well as a Pretender ability, as in say a rainbow mage Dragon Master-kindof like the druid and vine ogres or the mother of monsters special ability. If you got 3 instead of 1 per casting, it would solve the problem, providing you had the right Pretender. If it could then be multiplied by casting the spell, so much the better for later in the game. Maybe even a Dragon Queen Pretender?

Also, why aren't there more powerful dragons than drakes that this spell is affecting? I mean dragons are supposed to be awesome and terrible, and the best you get are a couple of extra drakes? It just doesn't evoke the name "Dragon Mastery"