I think dragons and WW are both underrated

[imported_Sarphus]

Every now and then I see people complaining that dragons and WW are too weak. I was just running some numbers and found them to actually both be quite strong. The best part about them, though is that the variance between their min and max in each resist is only 10, which is a LOT smaller than the variance of any of the newer power-pets, so you can get a good one pretty quickly.

I'm going to go out and tame one of each at some point just to give myself some more options.

 

[imported_Mark Trail]

I agree. Try a WW against the bone daemon in Doom, it does great with its high cold resist.

 

[imported_Hinotori]

I like my WWs and dragon. I don't have either a rune beetle or a cu sidhe on my tamer that uses a dragon. And the other tamer who uses the WW doesn't have a cu either. I've been thinking about getting rid of his beetle since the wyrm is more than enough and I'm trying to reduce the amount of pets I have so I can get another pack.

 

[JoyousGard]

I like my dragon a lot. It remains to be seen though, when I bond some of my other, newer pets how it will compare in:

a. speed of kill
b. survivability with minimal aid by me (my wrists hurt!!)

Those are key factors because I need loot primarily. I think that loot is my primary goal right now.

If the dragon is significantly slower/weaker than some big dog or new UO figglebug beetle, then I will complain. I like dragons. I like the idea of dragons. Dragons to me are a pinnacle in folklore.

Why does UO have all these beetles? Are they easier to code?

 

[Llewen]

I've said this many times, but the dragon is second in pvp only to the rune beetle, as far as a single pet goes, and in some situations it is much better. If you are pvp'ing in an area with spawn for example, a dragon is tougher and is less likely to take a dirt nap, or in situations where there is a chance it will get ganked, the dragon is much more likely to survive than a rune beetle.

Also a significant number of pvp'rs carry beetle slayer talismans with them, and the dragon is your best option when one of your opponents has a beetle slayer. Very few pvp'rs carry dragon or reptile slayers, and even when they do, a dragon can handle being attacked by a slayer weapon better than a beetle.

 

[DrDolittle]

I love my dragons but the dragon truly received the short end of the stick when the elemental damage system was implemented with the AoS rollout. For some incomprehensible reason they decided that dragons should do 100% physical damage. Generally, the dragon’s 100% physical damage is opposed by the highest resist of your foe; not always but in most cases. This limit’s the dragon’s ability to hand out damage in a battle. Dragons should do 50% physical and 50% fire damage.

The dragon was likewise shortchanged in its own resists which are a maximum total of 255 compared to the white wyrm with 285. Sure, the white wyrm has a bit (2.4 points) higher minimum taming requirement but that should not equate to a 12% drop in total resists. Especially when you consider that the rune beetle (with taming requirements that are identical to the dragon) has a whopping 320 maximum as it’s total resists. The dragon, and white wyrm alike, should have better resists.

The final straw is that the dragon base damage that is 9% lower than the white wyrm. That is a double whammy when taken with the fact that the dragon’s 100% physical damage is often going up against the highest resist of it’s foe. The dragon should have a bit higher base damage.

With AoS, EA intentionally turned UO into an “arms race” as a marketing ploy to force one to purchase an upgrade to access the new and more powerful content. “Old” content, including the capabilities of our loyal pets, were left behind; sacrificed to EA’s misguided attempt to squeeze a few more dollars out of it’s customers.