Oooh! Buffed Up Bad Boy Dragons?!!

[Guest]

Hey listen up Tamer folks!

I ran across this thread in Stratics UHall asking whether dragons on Test Shard had been given a boost and/or returned to their former glory.

Now, on a scale of 1-10, just how insanely cool would that be were these buffed up bad boys to make it to production shards? I'd put it at, ooh, 12, easily.

*drools*

Ya know, I'd say this ranks right on up there with, oh I dunno, the return of the silver steed...

*You see: Nico running off excitedly to check'em out!*

 

[Llewen]

Ya, Sarphus told me about it and I immediately went to check it out on Test, but never got far enough as I spent two or three hours putting together a suit. I never realized how good my "real" suit is until last night trying to put something decent together on Test...

Hopefully I'll actually get to check out the dragons this am.

 

[Guest]

*You see: Alora following hastily behind Nico with fingers crossed*

 

[imported_Sarphus]

LOL

I thought you'd just sepc a stealth tamer or a peacer tamer and go check em out.

I haven't checked em out yet either. I've been tooling around on a miner lately. Yeah, I know what you're thinking... "what? attended, unsripted mining?" lol

 

[imported_Sarphus]

ok... I took a cursory glance over lunch... Llewen filled me in on some of the details, but they aren't posted here yet, so I'll post...

It looks like the new dragons are intended to be an end-game tameable; a pet that truly seperates the men from the boys. I'm a little concerned the devs will nerf these dragons after I dump a ton of time into farming a good one.

Not every dragon is a super dragon just like not every chicken is a greater chicken. It looks like dragons have about a 20-25% chance to spawn as a super dragon. I didn't tame one, but I think they lose half their stats like normal dragons... I took down what the stats were on the ones I saw, and they were insane. I think the skills work like a reptalon in that when you tame them, it sets the cap to 90% of what the skill was at when you tamed it, but then you have to train the pet up to that cap.

from what I lored, I think the caps are in this ballpark range pre-tame
HP 1239-1680
STR 1219-1274
Int 498 - 603

Phys 65-85
Fire 65-85
cold 40-55
Poison 55-60
Energy 60-75

Wrestle 120 - 150
Tactics 120 - 140
Resist 120 - 140
Magery 120 - 140

Notice how big of a range each stat has... I'm totally guessing on all of these, cause I was only able to lore 4 or 5 of these dragons. I did get one with a wrestling value > 140, though so I deduced the break to be at 150.

Either way, just getting a dragon with great resists will be nearly impossible, but getting one with great skills AND great resists will be pretty much impossible. I can only imagine what a perfect one would be like...

Either way, these new dragons are hardcore...

 

[Guest]

Like I could just go look!

I have to figure out how to tame'em before I go getting fussy about a critter!

Oh, and beware that Multi Miner Syndrome!

 

[imported_Sarphus]

Oh, I think the addition of these dragons pretty much kills miner syndrome

 

[Guest]

if they make it to the prodo shards.......will existings tamed dragons be boosted with the new stats or will one have to decide to keep old friends or ....

And how long before the tamers suck, have no skill and are over powered posts start up again.......

 

[Lord Kotan]

The spawn just seems random.. not all the dragons are like that I heard..

I wonder how "random" they are.

 

[imported_Jimmy Pop]

They might be the "Blackrock Elemental" of Destard.

To squelch script miners, they included this Blackrock Elemental that randomly pops up. Perhaps to squelch script PvM'ers they are going to include the possibility of a "Super Dragon" spawning?

I'd love to see these as an addition to the stables, but they just seem too powerful. Resists are WAY too high. They would be *very* overpowering. Thats why I'm thinking they might not be tamable.

If thats the case, it's a cool move and should be done for every monster in the game. Imagine running into a "Super Mongbat" LOL.

[/speculation]

 

[Lord Kotan]

100 taming (use library tali)
115 lore
120 archery
90 tactics
95 anatomy
90 healing
110 magic resist

no magery needed; just use rune book charges.

I mean this guy hits melee 50-70 in 70s; the wild one's fireballs hit for 60-70... and no getting away from a fireball even a few screens away.


All guard me, dismount shot....

I see post-a-coming

 

[Guest]

whats the barding diff on these super dragons?

 

[Guest]

<blockquote><hr>

if they make it to the prodo shards.......will existings tamed dragons be boosted with the new stats or will one have to decide to keep old friends or ....

And how long before the tamers suck, have no skill and are over powered posts start up again.......

[/ QUOTE ]

Are you kidding me?

Stealth/Dismount tamers are already overpowered.

*shrugs*

 

[imported_Sarphus]

<blockquote><hr>

whats the barding diff on these super dragons?

[/ QUOTE ]

150's - 160

 

[imported_Sarphus]

<blockquote><hr>

<blockquote><hr>

if they make it to the prodo shards.......will existings tamed dragons be boosted with the new stats or will one have to decide to keep old friends or ....

And how long before the tamers suck, have no skill and are over powered posts start up again.......

[/ QUOTE ]

Are you kidding me?

Stealth/Dismount tamers are already overpowered.

*shrugs*

[/ QUOTE ]

I disagree, but maybe I just never saw a good one. I've seen many of them, but all of them were pretty easy to deal with. One way to combat that would be to make these guys restricted with the pet summon ball.

Or maybe the addition of a dragon protection talisman.

 

[Guest]

<blockquote><hr>

<blockquote><hr>

<blockquote><hr>

if they make it to the prodo shards.......will existings tamed dragons be boosted with the new stats or will one have to decide to keep old friends or ....

And how long before the tamers suck, have no skill and are over powered posts start up again.......

[/ QUOTE ]

Are you kidding me?

Stealth/Dismount tamers are already overpowered.

*shrugs*

[/ QUOTE ]

I disagree, but maybe I just never saw a good one. I've seen many of them, but all of them were pretty easy to deal with. One way to combat that would be to make these guys restricted with the pet summon ball.

Or maybe the addition of a dragon protection talisman.

[/ QUOTE ]

A buncha noobs, probably!

They might be a bit more tough on Siege, as straight 70s suits with good mods are rare.

It usually works like this, though. You're minding your own business, running through the woods, and the next thing you know is that you're dismounted with a mean arse pet chomping your arse. On top of that, you can't catch the tamer because he's in some ******** fast ninjitsu form, runs off the screen, and is re-stealthed.

 

[Llewen]

In my opinion tamers are not overpowered in pvp, except on Siege, where bonded pets should count as your Siege blessed item. I've seen plenty of tamers, both skill players with lots of resources at their disposal, and less skilled players with fewer resources at their disposal, try to be a dismount tamer in pvp, or any kind of tamer. I've seen very few that have had any amount of success. Most end up dead with dead pets, fairly quickly, and realize it isn't as easy as they thought it was going to be, give up and go back to their dexxer/mage, because they have more success that way.

The real problem with tamers in pvp is that most "real" pvp'rs just don't like them, in part because a skilled tamer will force you to change your tactics, and in part for the same reason many people dislike anything, they've decided they aren't cool and they simply don't like them (in other words for no real reason). Most pvp'rs won't be happy until tamers are completely out of pvp, and if they succeed in that quest, I'll be ending my subscriptions to UO and moving on.

As for whether these new dragons will be over powered in pvp. I'm not so sure they will be any more deadly than a beetle or dragon combination with a bake or a mare. They will be nasty, no doubt, but I don't think they will be any nastier than those combinations, and you can't be mounted and use them at all.

And there are changes coming down the pipe that will likely make all pets less effective in pvp than they already are. By the time SA is released, it will be possible for just about any veteran player to put together an all 70's suit with all the mods they could wish for. This means that players are going to become, on average, much stronger, relative to mobs in general, including pets, which will make pets less effective in pvp. Unless proficiencies are back on the table, in which case what I just said will not be true...

edit: And both Nico and I have already tamed at least one dragon each on Test, so they are definitely tamable. As has already probably been said, they are a five slot pet.

edit again: They are like hiryu's, cu sidhe and reptalons in that their stats are halved after taming, but they are still badass without a doubt, even after that.

edit once more with feeling: Don't bother trying to lead tame these if you don't have close to 70 fire resist. I was trying it with fire resist in the 30's and I was getting one shot incinerated for 130+ points of damage. The tamed versions won't do this much damage because fire damage in dragons and reptalons is based on hits.

 

[Guest]

*holds hands up confession style*

I had help taming this bad boy. I had maged it down to a sliver only for it to regen &amp; heal itself right back up to half health over &amp; over again. A shard buddy took pity on me (or grew tired of ressing me!) and threw me heals &amp; cures while I lead tamed.

Though I stuck to tamer templates I have available to me on my home shards, I did try out other tactics. Most effective was discording the booger &amp; knocking it down with another tamed uber dragon, stable pet swiftly and return to lead tame.

Watch out for the teleporting/swipe/teleport AGAIN tactic.

I love these foul-tempered gits. With legendary (and more) magery &amp; other assorted skills, they are combo kings.

My fave lethal combo went something like this:-

(1) Redlined Uber Dragon teleports onto lead taming Nico,

(2) Swipes/Claws/Melees the everloving bejeebers out of Nico and adds a lil <font color="red"> bleed </font> special for the heck of it, and

(3) Teleports AGAIN onto bleeding, redlined and rapidly retreating Nico.

Even redlined, I'm telling you, they hurt!

 

[Llewen]

A little known fact about dragons, and it appears to be the case with these as well, dragons teleport like crazy when they are heavily damaged. They teleport occasionally when they are at full health, but when they are heavily damaged, they do it all the time.

If you can handle the teleporting, then at least when they are heavily damaged their breath won't do as much damage, but my advice is not to beat them down if you are going to lead tame them. Well my best advice is actually to use honour to tame a good one when you find it.

As for killing them, I haven't gotten that far yet, but I'm guessing discording would help a great deal as they can have almost insane resists. I'm going to try a hiryu on them if and when they make it to my shard - which I desperately hope they do. These are the first pet I have seen that might actually make tamers a decent template for peerless, Doom and events like the Magincia invasion (which just about completely shut out tamers).

<blockquote><hr>

Now, on a scale of 1-10, just how insanely cool would that be were these buffed up bad boys to make it to production shards? I'd put it at, ooh, 12, easily.

[/ QUOTE ]
For the cool factor, this rates an even 10 with me. The only reason it isn't a 12 is that right now, I am one of the few that I know of that regularly uses a dragon. This will mean many others will be crashing my uber cool 733t club, and I hate being part of a crowd...

 

[Llewen]

Jeremy posted this an hour ago.
<blockquote><hr>

Turns out that there was some stuff on TC1 that was totally not supposed to be there - QA hasn't even looked at it yet. We're pulling it down and returning it to the build that's on Origin right now (same as live but with database tweakage.)

[/ QUOTE ]
However, I'm still happy. I think we may see this soon, although I don't expect it to be quite as powerful once QA is done with it. Something about it smacked of, "Too good to be true." However, I think once they've tweaked and balanced it, we will see it. Hopefully though it won't be nerfed to pointlessness like the reptalon was.

 

[imported_Sarphus]

I'm just happy a 5 slot unmountable pet is coming...

I just hope they don't make it a piece of crap... 5 slot unmountable should be uber because of what you sacrifice to use it.

Also, ninja forms should require control slots... using all 5 of your control slots elsewhere should hinder your mobility...

 

[Guest]

Yes, I saw Jeremy's post, too. If anyone else is looking for it, it's in the UHall link in the first post of this thread.

Elated (at having realised a long held UO dream of taming a dragon worthy of being called an "ancient wyrm") and saddened, too (at the loss of these fellas despite knowing they really could not &amp; should not exist in their current form anywhere except Test Centre).

Instead, I'll share some screenies I just snapped before the TC1 wipe mentioned by Jeremy.

Two Uber Dragons in the wild - stats/resists/skills

Two more Wild Uber Dragons

Not a great specimen by comparison to the above critters, but Git was certainly challenging enough to earn his name!

Bowing in honour and in farewell to a most worthy adversary turned companion.

 

[JoyousGard]

WOW... those stats are awesome. The untamed will change my "attended, unscripted" farming in Destard a bit.

Is their currently anything that tames with HP that high?

 

[Llewen]

<blockquote><hr>

Instead, I'll share some screenies I just snapped before the TC1 wipe mentioned by Jeremy.

[/ QUOTE ]
Last I checked I still had my pathetic uber dragon on Test.

My favourite part of the day today.

<blockquote><hr>

You see: a dragon
Tame which animal?
Shael: You are bleeding profusely
You are bleeding!
Shael: *You start to tame the creature.*
You see: a dragon
Shael: Will you travel with me, noble creature?
Shael: *You feel a bit nauseous*
Shael: Will you travel with me, noble creature?
a dragon: Your subjugation of the creature has caused it to become weakened from its natural state.
a dragon: It seems to accept you as master.

[/ QUOTE ]
I think I died at least a dozen times. I had to go spend a couple of hours improving my armour before I had any chance of succeeding...

edit: I counted, I died nine times...

 

[Guest]

Still there, for now at least.

Of course, I couldn't resist adding to my stable, ya know, since they were there and all... I mean, let's face it, how many times am I ever likely to be able to repeat this wild ride?!

Presenting Gramps roaming freely in his natural habitat:-

And Gramps again, once the cranky old geezer decided maybe it would be fun to hang out with that silly elf:-

I was mostly curious about what kind of stat/skill reduction they took so snapped him before &amp; after.

*still drooling*

And, oh yeah, I felt obligated to pet dye mine black, too!

 

[Guest]

Go kill sum stuff wif it see how he does
Take him to the swoooooooooop~!

 

[imported_Sarphus]

I love how tremendously random the stats are on those things. There's something good (and bad) about every one

 

[imported_Methos_Meridius]

Ok, what did I miss that you guys were able to dye your pets different colors???

How is this possible? Is this something that you can do now on the production shards?

Thanks in advance.

Methos

 

[Llewen]

No, it is just on Test. If you say, "give air", you get a little black bush in your bank box called a pet air freshener. You double click it and target your pet, and your pet turns black. I have no idea if it does anything else...

I didn't know what it did. I was hoping it would refresh the pet's stats, so I could get an idea of stat ranges without having to go back and be barbecued... However, all it seemed to do was turn my pet black, which was fine by me.

 

[Guest]

<blockquote><hr>

Go kill sum stuff wif it see how he does
Take him to the swoooooooooop~!

[/ QUOTE ]I did! The New, Improved, Pumped Up Swoop on 'Roids will take down a super dragon without decent vetting, especially when its physical resist dropping special kicks into play. Bandies only vetting was fine and I deliberately set vetting to 110 which is as low as I have on any of my tamers.

As expected Changlings didn't dent Super Dragon, and though I killed a few, there's never a paragon changling when ya need one.

A wild Cu Sidhe chosen for it's mid-range stats/resists had me vetting &amp; mage healing like mad.

*cough* Well, you know, gotta test drive the new critters and all...*cough*

In the freshly tamed state, these fellas really aren't going to be one-shot killing anything. Not joking here, the dex is 50-70 range and they whiff a whole lot of air before they actually hit anything.

Because I had no rune on Test Centre, I walked from the Isamu-Jima gate to the Fandancer Dojo.

On this little jaunt, we took down without trouble all the spawn along the main road including:- elite ninjas, Kaze Kemonos, lesser hiryu, tsuki wolves, all the first tier critters of the champ spawn area, dire wolves, evil mages, fandancers, and ronin. No rune beetles were immediately handy (though I want to test some of those before wipe) and rather than seek one out, I really wanted to hit the succubi so you can add all the usual Fandancer Dojo spawn to Level 2 succubi room where the flowers stealable spawns.

The lesser hiryu was bandage vettable, several fandancers at once had me vetting &amp; mage healing, single ronins were no trouble at all.

Honestly, the most potentially worrying section of the jaunt was the Super Dragon being surrounded by hordes of lizardmen and purely because it lacked sufficient dex (61 at this point) to swiftly dispatch them. Unvetted, it would have died to 20-30 lizardmen slowly punching it to death.

The succubi were tough on the Super Dragon and a good many of them individually would have killed the untrained Super Dragon with ease. A whole lot of mage healing was going on there. Because I was working honor in case of future tames, in the end I discorded the succubi and that was actually a much fairer fight for the poor Super Dragon.

Dex gains very slowly, wrestling skill did gain at GM+ though magery remained at it's over GM cap.

As long as they are on TC1, I'll continue testing their strengths/weaknesses purely for my own interest (okay, and fun!)

Having worked with one for a good portion of the morning, I'm not seeing them as overpowered especially at the fresh/newly tamed state.

Work commitments mean I'm not able to spend much more time in game today, but will be back again this evening and hopefully they'll still be in Nico's stables on Test Centre 1 for further testing.

I'd really like to know how they stand up against another player. I've not actually found anyone willing to test either of my Super Dragons on a player versus dragon level yet. Hey! C'mon! I promise not to loot yer stuffs or trashtalk either!

Having road tested it on pvm only, for whatever it's worth, I firmly believe Super Dragon (especially in fresh/newly tamed state) will be pwnt by even the least talented pvpers equipped with a dragon slayer spellbook or weapon.

With Sarphus' suggestion of making ninja forms use a follower slot and a delay on pet summoning balls, I cannot see a tamer on foot with this thing trailing around behind as any real danger.

 

[Llewen]

I've said for a long time, the single most important factor in determining a pet's power is training. An untrained pet with perfect stats will get eaten by a trained pet, of the same species, with horrible stats, any day of the week. I think the real strength of these new dragons, if they remain unchanged, will lie in how high their skills can go.

Before taming there are four skills on these babies that are legendary or better, and wrestling can go up to 150. If they work the way other pets do, and the way reptalons do, this means they will be able to be trained back to 110+ on all of these skills, and wrestling will train back to 120+.

When you combine that with the number of hits, and the amazing resists, those dragons will be dynamite when fully trained. Will they be over-powered for a five slot pet? I don't think so, but they will be powerful, and a lot of fun.

Thankfully it appears as though their magery skill starts at it's cap, which will be a relief because in order to blue train their magery, you'd have to have someone help you, or have a second account.

 

[imported_Sarphus]

I think you're both right

Untrained pets are a somewhat valid test, but not nearly as valid as a trained pet. Before I spoke about how powerful this pet was, I ran the numbers of how hard a max skill/stat dragon would hit and how often. Most of the strengths of this pet are in survivability. A fully trained dragon with perfect stats (which is so rare that we'll never see one) would be nearly invulnerable, but ultimately would hit almost identical to a hiryu with spellcasting and firebreath in pvp. As long as the spellcasting and firebreath don't cause the pet to insta-kill people, it won't be overpowered in pvp.

The reason rune beetle/bake will beat it is that rune beetles have poison, bleed attack and corrupt armor while bakes have rage. Both beetle and bake can hit faster than this dragon too. You hit a swing speed threshold for wrestling with 0% SSI at around 145 and 185 (or something like that... this is from memory). Either way, you can get bakes that can be buffed up to the first SS threshold and you can get runies that can be buffed to the second one, which takes beetles to the swing cap. This makes a TREMENDOUS difference in overall dmg output and if corrupt armor goes off, a pvp target has a max of 35 in a resist. The 3 other abilities I listed on these pets all can interrupt spells and one of them also hinders magery healing.

I stand by my original statement that this pet won't be unbalanced in pvp in its current form, or at least it won't be as powerful as beetle/bake. All this being said, I have seen 2 people pvp with high dps beetle/bakes. Myself and llewen... In other words, most ppl who pvp with a beetle and bake don't have a very good pvp beetle/bake. They won't have a good dragon either...

 

[Guest]

rtlpfc

It would be a really nice touch that when you stable one of these beauties it eats any Cu's that are stabled with it.

 

[sean_lo]

As much as I would love having a super high resist tank pet, i don't believe this is good for the game in the long run.

Old dragon:
65 70 40 35 45
255 resists

White wyrm:
70 25 90 50 50
285 resists

Hiryu:
70 90 25 50 50
285 resists

Cu-sidhe:
65 45 85 50 85
335 resists

Craptalon:
65 45 45 65 85
310 resists

New uber dragon:
85 85 55 60 70
355 resists


Doesn't that seem wacked compared to everything else?
Sure, dragons need a buff. But not to that extent. (And i'm only referring purely to resists here)

What's next? we buff up the white wyrm too? Then we need to start buffing up weapons?

A slight mudflation is healthy. Too much of it isn't. Buff the dragon up to maybe 285-300 resists. Not 355.

 

[Guest]

I've been hunting been working with two Super Dragon specimens, one from both ends of the spectrum (one with 900+/- hp &amp; reasonable resists/skills while the other has 721hp with good resists/skills).

Firstly, they are sloooow. Go walk (yes, on foot) with your normal dragon and you'll begin to appreciate just how slow.

By my own choice, I do not have a ninja tamer (nor will I), therefore on TC1 I have not skilled-up in Ninjitsu either. In any case, and regardless of how fast the tamer (in whatever form) is walking, the dragon (Super or otherwise) is not going to walk or fly any faster than he is able to walk/fly.

A pet summoning ball is going to be the only swift method of getting this brute anywhere. Pet balls do not work everywhere, that's by design. Yes, there is a workaround and in my mind that really needs to be limited.

For pvm pet balls are just fine the way they are, for pvp, however, it needs some looking at &amp; careful consideration in order that it isn't unbalancing. On the other hand, Al Thorin makes a valid point about pet balls counteracting poor pet AI.

Super Dragon has a bleed special attack as well as hp related fire breath. In the WILD state, whilst taming them, even redlined they were doing 40+ damage to me in a 70s resist suit. Once TAMED, I've not seen anything like that kind of firebreath damage. For comparison, think in terms of firebreath damage of a wild reptalon versus firebreath damage of your tamed reptalon.

At this point, for however long the Super Dragons are available to us on TC1, I am actively working with them in as many different scenarios as I possibly can.

I finally have a volunteer from the pvp community who is willing to test his mettle against the Super Dragon. I'm currently working to get the critter trained up so that it's a more accurate reflection of what would most likely be seen in the field since I don't know any decent pvp tamers who use untrained pets.

I'm aware I'm working against the clock since Jeremy stated the intent is to wipe the TC1 shard &amp; replace it with the Origin publish (sans Super Dragons). Like most, I have a limited amount of time I can devote to UO, however, I'm doing the very best I can in the interests of research.

Having worked with Super Dragon, I am thinking it has some efficient inbuilt checks &amp; balances (5-slots so no mount, slow, and slow to train, too).

In addition and insofar as balances, Jeremy pointed out in her last FoF:-

"Here's a completely random factoid that turned up while Leurocian was researching this, too - monsters that use breath attacks (dragons, hydra) suffer a huge defense chance debuff while using that attack. It only lasts about half a second - just long enough to shoot an arrow into their open mouth, I guess - but it's a neat thing to be aware of."

Thus far, I'm not seeing them as unbalancing. More testing will only be a good thing for all playstyles.

 

[Al Thorin]

I've been thinking, and I suspect this comes in line with what you and winder have started to deduce.

Tamers raw power comes from two things.
Tanking in the form of a target other than the tamer, the pet.
Burst damage. This is usually a result of -multiple- pets.
Duel melee damage, and depending on the combo, duel magery.
Magic attacks can be doubled, and melee hit chance is basically double.

I see a 5 sloter doing three things;
Reducing the 'confusion', you only have one pet.
You're on foot! Unless ninja form is adjusted, I forsee ninja tamers being the sole users.
Burst DPS should be significantly lower.

 

[imported_Sarphus]

I agree...

This pet will still be something that's worth having because it fills a niche, but it will be something like how the hiryu and cu fill a niche. They are really good at tanking in some situations, but you sacrifice a lot of dmg output to take advantage of this tanking ability, but I think the tanking ability of this dragon is balanced by a "rarity" factor.

I call the difference between the MIN/MAX values that a stat can be as the "swing". So a bake can have 40-60 physical resist. That's a swing of 20. The higher the swing in a stat, the more rare it is to get that stat at a high level. The more stats on a critter with a high swing, the more rare a perfect critter is.

This dragon seems to be capable of tanking anything if it's at its capped resists. The key thing to notice here is that there's a 20-30 point swing on each resist, so your chances of getitng one of these dragons with perfect resists is REAL low. Consider how bakes have a 20 point swing in each resist and you have &lt; 1 in a million chance to get a perfect resist bake. Now think of a pet that's even less common to get max resists on and imagine that pet ALSO has a huge swing in 4 different skills, HP and STR. Simply put, the perfect dragon is so rare that each tamer will have to choose attributes they want their dragon to specialize in and try to get a dragon with those attributes.

I think this creature design is very interesting, because each player has to choose what attributes they want on their dragon.

Also, these dragons aren't commonly-spawning, so players won't be able to farm them as efficiently as they can farm any of the other pets that have a lot of swing in their stats. I can generally go through 300+ rune beetles or bakes in a minute. Going through them that quickly, I will get approximately 1 good one every 4 hours. This creature is not only tougher to the point that you can't kill them that quickly, but also a perfect speciment is more than twice as rare.

I just wanted to explain my thought process. I think this dragon is almost perfectly balanced in its current design. The only change I would make is to drop its hp by 100-200 (to reduce fire breath dmg)

 

[imported_Mark Trail]

Recently we had mining and lumberjacking changes that made the high level ingots and boards much harder to get. Developers stated that was part of a larger plan to make crafting with high level resources more effective than it is now.

Suppose that plan includes barbed hides. These super dragons might be part of a plan to make it much harder to farm barbed hides.

 

[imported_Sarphus]

as long as they drop more barbed hides than normal dragons, that's fine with me.

I think they should drop those gems that miners mine up too... one gem per dragon. I think the good gems work as loot because normal dragons drop normal gems.

 

[Guest]

I am having a hell of a time trying to tame one. Granted, I am trying it alone, and the people I am seeing in destard are too busy working on doing it themselves to work together. I've tried at least a half dozen times talking to and offering to work with people on TC1 and only once has someone even responded.

The template I am using is a bardtamer (actually, the name of the character also). I get Disco to land pretty regularly, but only seem to land peace 1 out of every 4 tries. But, even after disco, I find myself dying before I can even begin taming.

Never thought about honor taming. Once you start taming, do they not attack you?

 

[Guest]

Shout if you're still on and let me know your TC1 char name and I'll gladly lend a hand.

 

[Guest]

I'll probably be back on test tuesday afternoon. I have an ASP.NET project to work on tonight.

 

[Guest]

RTLFC...

Can confirm they spawn in Ilshy but I haven't got a paragon to pop yet. Ran out of bandies so me 'n' dragster had to retreat. We went into the dungeon with mares and kirin to the spot with 2 drakes/2 drags.

I'm trying to lore them as they pop to gather up stats, but so far the maximums I've spawned are:

Hits: 1711
Stam: 125
Mana 596
Str: 1263

Resists: 85/90/55/59/73

Skills:

Wrest: 138.9
Tact: 131.8
MRes: 126.8
Anat: 0
Mage: 136.1
Eval: 58.4
Med: 0

Loot wise, most I've seen is 1981gp, 16 gems, 6-8 magic bits, 30 hide &amp; 19 ribs.

I'm off to try for a para again, so if anyone's bored tonight you're welcome to join the party lol.

Wenchy

 

[Guest]

dammmmn 85 phys 90 fire...lol

 

[Guest]

did you tame the 136.1 magery one? if so, what did its magery drop to?

 

[Guest]

<blockquote><hr>

I can generally go through 300+ rune beetles or bakes in a minute.

[/ QUOTE ]

how the hell do you kill 300 rune beetles a minute? rofl I was with you until you said that lol now i think you took a toke or two ;D (or meant an hour). that's 5 rune beetles a second. you can't even animal lore more than one rune beetle per second :/

 

[Guest]

I wasn't doing any taming last night, had my greater in there to see if paragon greater draggys spawned

I'll try looking around Destard while folks are taming to see what the drop in stats etc are.

So far, no paras have spawned in greater draggy form. I did notice something interesting though. It's either a fluke, or 1of the dragons there was always a normal and the other a greater. Each time I killed the greater I got another greater and same with the normal. I don't know whether that's the case in Destard, but it was certainly happening in Ilshy.

I'll try and compile the stats I've noted so far, then assuming no further changes are made, it'll at least be a bit of info for the stratics critter stats.

Wenchy

 

[Guest]

Ahh ok

. Well that Ilsh confirmation opens up a whole world...if we can do this in Fel, Tram and Ilsh, many more options for us to try and get one...hm. Now if only we could get the dang Publish!!!!

 

[imported_Sarphus]

I meant 300 an hour lol