All the "New" Dragons. They need fixed.

[Duncani_Daho]

No save knockdown? Brilliant, I love it. And I'm not being sarcastic. Anything that makes EPIC DRAGONS formidable is a good development in my book. Hey, I know it's odd but I will like seeing the bloated toons of Eberron being put in their place now and then. Sometimes you got to root for the mobs. No challenge, no fun, right?

[Shade]

You said before that WASD was all the AC you need. Now WASD can be your saving throws as well.

I'd be fine with that except:

-It has no tell.
-It's impossible to dodge in melee range as the dragons attack range is over 10 longer then player characters.

Also the dragons are pretty dumb and just sit perfectly still if you circle strafe them on casters (the red challenge one actually cant move at all, its like velah cept it spins), so they never attempt to close the gap or use this ability to slow casters, just on melee. If you ranged them, all they use is there breath - which has a save, and damage wise is pretty weak even on a failed save. It's bad ai at its finest.

And AC != saving throws.

If the tor dragons and velah can be fun and challenging without no-save abilities, so can the new dragons.

And WASD continues to be all the AC you ever need.

Even if you have 90000 AC, and 100% dodge. Youd STILL get knocked back by the dragon melees.

He could roll a natural 1 and completely miss. Youll STILL be knocked back. Its poor design. AC is as irrelevant as every other stat in the game when it comes to it.

And saving throws generally are provided for things that are designed to be undodgable, while things that are dodgeable often have there saved purposely removed, evne if theyd normally have them in pnp..
EG: Undodgeable traps like say in say VoN3 - Allow saves, resistance, protection, etc.
Dodgeable traps in Reaver: No save.

Reflex saves are meant to represnt your characters abilitiy to react and dodge damage quickly. If that option is instead in the players control, the save is not needed - because we "roll" the save with our own gaming skill. If it's against an ability where we have no such control, a save is provided.

[PopeJual]

I'd be fine with that except:

-It has no tell.
-It's impossible to dodge in melee range as the dragons attack range is over 10 longer then player characters.

Also the dragons are pretty dumb and just sit perfectly still if you circle strafe them on casters (the red challenge one actually cant move at all, its like velah cept it spins), so they never attempt to close the gap or use this ability to slow casters, just on melee. If you ranged them, all they use is there breath - which has a save, and damage wise is pretty weak even on a failed save. It's bad ai at its finest.

And AC != saving throws.

If the tor dragons and velah can be fun and challenging without no-save abilities, so can the new dragons.

And WASD continues to be all the AC you ever need.

Even if you have 90000 AC, and 100% dodge. Youd STILL get knocked back by the dragon melees.

He could roll a natural 1 and completely miss. Youll STILL be knocked back. Its poor design. AC is as irrelevant as every other stat in the game when it comes to it.

What does it do when you circle strafe it with a melee weapon?

[MaximumCharisma]

I fought moma dragon in Mired in kobalds last night after prolly at least a year since doing it. Although I was knocked down each time she did her tail sweep, it wasn't the end of the world.

If the dragons are like that fight, I would be happy.

I think that saves for the overrun should be there and based off of Relex.

AC should be the determining factor for hits that would knock down such as tail sweeps.

And the wing beating should be a STR/DEX check and a very large radius.

The above of course, if they don't have tells that you could dodge by physically moving out of the way. In which case no save as described by Shade.

/semi signed as I have not done the fights

[MeliCat]

While playing Diablo 3 I was thinking to myself 'oh I am so glad that DDO doesn't have knockback as that is so annoying' (forgetting about air eles). But... No here we go.

I guess we'll come up with techniques to deal with it but it's very annoying for characters that have to be up close and personal to apply smackage. At least in Diablo (which is way too easy and boring) you have amazing stuns (way overpowered - can you stun Dragons? )

[Shade]

What does it do when you circle strafe it with a melee weapon?

Hit you with shock and awe and wing buffets constantly. Shock and awe has a 360 degree AOE, wing buffets about 180, but its fast enough that even if your sprint boost circling him, you still get hit. They are undodgeable and unavoidable unless you play a ranged character.

[Kawai]

...They are undodgeable and unavoidable unless you play a ranged character.

...lemme handle this!

[Arkat]

to be

or

fixing



BTW.../signed

[Lormyr]

No save mechanics have no place in DDO. They always were a hallmark of lazy and bad design.

Couldn't agree more.

We don't appreciate the "no save, no attack roll" abilities.

[Shade]

Tested the Green one in the forest further:

If you let him live for more then 20 seconds - which I never did the first few times I fought them since there annoying and easy. (To all the posters saying they should be challenging, this isnt making them so)

But yea if you do, he performs yet another "range me to death please" attack:

Flys up the air for like 60+ seconds and just spits weak poison - dodgeable but it moves very fast so its tough to dodge. Can't melee him at all like this, but ranged and spells continue to work fine.

I mean yea a dragon should fly. But he stayed up there for an exceesively long period of time. If I was on my melee (luckily i was on my sorc) I would of just went behind a tree and waited it out... pointless.

If he like flew up and did one massive damage, slow, but dodgeable attack, then immediately land doing a big AOE stomp - that would be awesome. See him fly? Run and dodge! - thats challenging and fun gameplay.

But fly up and spit weak, very fast, hard to dodge poison balls that couldnt kill a squirel? pointless.

PS: Bug report: Dragon would not talk to me, I had to rob his gold to get him to go into monster mode.

[Munkenmo]

/Sign unless you love no save abilities that unfairly punish the least powerful classes, and you dont like puppies.

i like pupies, but probably not the kind you meant.

/signed.

[Chai]

Reflex saves are meant to represnt your characters abilitiy to react and dodge damage quickly. If that option is instead in the players control, the save is not needed - because we "roll" the save with our own gaming skill. If it's against an ability where we have no such control, a save is provided.

If this were true, 90% of the stuff in the game wouldnt have a save. Most of it is avoidable through game play, which is part of what makes this game easy to play in the first place. The plethora of mobs at mid level that cast flamestrike are a perfect example, I can hear that spell on its way a full 2 seconds before the damage hits. Any gamer worth their salt could be out of the way in time, but instead of losing that melee DPS, they either build for evasion so they dont have to move, or they buff resist and protect to minimize the damage, then just stand there and take it.

I like the concept of what you described - which I call the FPS mentality, where the player does the work and doesnt rely on stats alone to get them through the encounter, but there are a huge number of abilities that get used against players in this game that both can be avoided through game play AND have a save attached. Tanking CAD comes to mind, as does Vellah's breath weapon. When CAD goes into red abashai mode and does his inferno like ability, its completely avoidable. I watched a 14f/4p/2r tank just stand in and save against every single one. A tank with no evasion or a ghetto reflex save would have had to get out of the blast radius, or likely die.

[Chai]

No save knockdown? Brilliant, I love it. And I'm not being sarcastic. Anything that makes EPIC DRAGONS formidable is a good development in my book. Hey, I know it's odd but I will like seeing the bloated toons of Eberron being put in their place now and then. Sometimes you got to root for the mobs. No challenge, no fun, right?

Except for the fact that its only "challenging" for melee groups. Casters can completely game the AI by circle strafing and DOTing, with minimal issue.

I want to see more teamwork mentality where everyone has to split off so the dragon can only target one person at a time, and have eachothers back when one person gets knocked down. Sinvala in "mired" is a better designed encounter in this fashion than the newer dragons.

[MrkGrismer]

Tested the Green one in the forest further:

If you let him live for more then 20 seconds - which I never did the first few times I fought them since there annoying and easy. (To all the posters saying they should be challenging, this isnt making them so)

But yea if you do, he performs yet another "range me to death please" attack:

Flys up the air for like 60+ seconds and just spits weak poison - dodgeable but it moves very fast so its tough to dodge. Can't melee him at all like this, but ranged and spells continue to work fine.

I mean yea a dragon should fly. But he stayed up there for an exceesively long period of time. If I was on my melee (luckily i was on my sorc) I would of just went behind a tree and waited it out... pointless.

If he like flew up and did one massive damage, slow, but dodgeable attack, then immediately land doing a big AOE stomp - that would be awesome. See him fly? Run and dodge! - thats challenging and fun gameplay.

But fly up and spit weak, very fast, hard to dodge poison balls that couldnt kill a squirel? pointless.

IMO you should have to range him when he is flying, either that or fly up after him (wish we could). However he should be able to use his breath weapon, and do flyby attacks. It's a shame we can't jump on a flying carpet/rug of welcome and pursue flying critters, but that is probably asking too much. It would also be 'neat' (in my book) if the dragons swooped down and grabbed your character and you could still melee it while grappled, and/or break out of the grapple.

[deahamlet]

One of the developers is on a crusade to make shurikens viable. I think you should just pull a shuriken out and range him! roflmao. **** you barbs being too proud to pull out a ranged weapon for 10 seconds.

[lugoman]

This along with air eles makes me wonder if Turbine developers and I just have a completely different idea of what is fun.

[Xezrak]

/not signed

although melee is your main form of damage it doesn't mean you should always be able to melee, every now and then pull out a bow No need for easy mode right

[giggiddy]

/signed. Should have a chance to save.

[Flavilandile]

<stupid suggestion of the day>

You know Barbarians are profecients with various bows.
They can range too and be outside the knockdown/slow effect area.

</stupid suggestion of the day>

[TreknaQudane]

Shock and Awe, if it were needed to exist, should exist as a Fear effect with a Will save


With the caveat that Fear Immunity should probably get the same treatment as Disease Immunity and Proof Against Poison... we get so many, pointless, bonuses to saves vs fear it isn't funny.