Draconic Quiz for feedback

[TheDr0wRanger]

Ok I play a Fire Savant that runs Draconic exclusively, the sheer dps and efficiency bonus just is too wonderful for me.

I feel like some of the abilities of the destiny just aren't worth taking, or are inconsistent with the demonstrated focus of the tree.

Im fairly sure the ED's won't get looked at again for a while(we might get an Arcane revamp when Artis get a destiny), but I want to express a coherent opinion anyway.

So, I'm asking what, if any abilities do you think are underrated in the destiny?

Next, What abilities are just useless and unappealing to you?

What would you change if you had the reins?

[Wh070aa]

In draconic there are 3 abilities worth having
1)Energy Burst
2)Flyby Attack (the mobility, and knockdown is pretty good. Cool down is too long, for it to be anything but emergency escape taught.)
3)Dragon Breath (Its way underrated, in my opinion. The damage is really good. only 5 charges per shrine, but it melts bosses, or enemy swarms pretty good.)
There are some ok abilities
Energy Vortex -the range and damage on it sucks, but the duration barely makes it ok. Better, if you are melee range character.
Draconic Spell Augmentation is ok, but doesn't really change anything
Varius spell power/dc enchantments.
Energy Sheath -Yay, plat savings on scrolls, I guess?
-------

That's about it really. There are no spells that benefit from caster level enough to see any difference(or any benefit whatsoever, the caster level caps are real), and the rest gives you like 5 to 15% chance to do up to 100 to 300 extra damage on your 2k to 10k nukes, or are on cooldown for 5+ minutes with 20 second actives, that do absolutely nothing, and have stupid prerequisites.

I just twist in Energy Burst as tier4 twist, and do other destinies, and only difference is tad less elemental damage, and no dragons breath nuke. I did go for acid servant, since ewryone, and their grand uncle Timmy is resistant to fire.

[SirValentine]

Energy Sheath -Yay, plat savings on scrolls, I guess?

Where do I buy the scrolls that give me 50% absorb on Electric (or Acid)?

[TheDr0wRanger]

I would tend to agree with Wh070aa.

Energy Burst does all of the damage, while Dragon Breath does probably more per shot(I've gotten most of my highest crits from it), its got 5 per rest and no way to regain them, so I tend to sit on them for emergencies.

Energy Sheath is fine for it's level, its at least not as bad like some of it's competitors.

Flyby Attack is great for an emergency GTFO button, and it remains an effective CC well into later content.

Beyond that it's mostly minor boosts in effectiveness, nothing dramatic and most of it completely impotent if you are a pure.

More caster levels on capped spells, a fear spell that works....alright, a stoneskin clone that eats so little damage I can't imagine bothering to click it if it was a freebie.
Spell Pen would be cool but it requires a feat, and since almost everything useful in the destiny is hidden behind a chain of junk you have to get, it's never really an option.
Go Out With A Bang is a non-starter. It requires me to be at half health, takes forever to cast and has a long cooldown to boot. If I'm at half health, Im not casting a slow-damage spell, Im healing. I can do more than enough AOE damage to kill most things, If I've got too much aggro I can diplo while NOT being half dead.

The Aura is just pointless, I can do more damage from range than that, and I can do faster damage up close.
Draconic Invulnerability doesn't make sense to me either, it auto-intims, which is just bad news on a sorc as far as Im concerned. Worse, it lasts 30 seconds. It's a pain to charge, that is, when it will charge, and it glitches sometimes when you try to activate it(or it did last I tried).
I look at it this way, anything that I get in that intim, I will either nuke it immediately(rendering the whole thing moot) or I'm unsure I can take it down in 30 seconds(or that I want to spend the necessary SP to do so) and Im in trouble when it ends. It offers nothing I need at the risk of getting me killed. And its hard to use at that. Besides that I don't trust the stated stats to make me even significantly tougher, much less "invulnerable".

Draconic Breath Augmentation is nonsense. A 15% chance of some not-terribly amazing procs on an ability that reliably throws up 5k+ damage but at 5/rest, I don't really understand the point. The standard use of Breath is going to be A. Wiping out groups of enemies quickly, most of the time you'll wipe them or at least get them where an SLA finishes the group. Or they evade and you get nothing. B. Boss DPS because it pairs with Burst to put out a hefty chunk in the first couple seconds. These guys are immune to most of the effects.
Draconic Spell Augmentation adds a chance for weird damage types to your spells, I can't see taking it for 45 damage/a tiny save penalty.


I question the whole idea here, frankly, take a character whose best role and safest party position is Artillery and make him plow into groups so he can explode at them. As someone who started with a sorc, I was very confused when I got to my EDs. Everything I'd learned about playing a sorc taught me to stay well back and pelt guys before they got to me. Nowadays my position is to run into groups and blow up, because its more efficient and does more damage than any spell I have, by a huge margin. In addition Magister gets the spell discount, as if Draconic wasn't pointed squarely at a mana-dumping dps caster. For my preference, I'd have liked to see more spells in the element aligned with my Draconic Heritage or had the spells get their caster levels uncapped. If they really wanted to play the Draconic card straight, they should add things to the Innates as well as some real toughness and melee to the tree. Claws on unarmed attacks, immunity to fear(you can't scare a dragon), some hit points, things like that. Dump Invulnerability and replace it with a Draconic Form. Look like a Disciple from FoT, shorten the timer on Breath, Roar and Wings, regen Breath while its running, more claw damage and a bigtime PRR/MRR boost. Blow the entire line with E-Burst out the window, it makes no sense for casters with brains and it's exploitable more than anything else. Fix the caster levels or just dump half of them for Spellpower that we know will do us good. Add more spells and things to DO in the tree, not more silly tack-ons to existing abilities.

[AtomicMew]

...

Agreed that a lot of draconic is garbage. The reason traditional sorcs use draconic is because the only alternative (magister) seems to be even worse. That said, the MCL/CL bonuses seems to be the saving grace. With savant tree + Draconic spell knowledge, that's +7 MCL. Hitting CL of 27 is quite difficult outside of draconic, and you'd need at least two tier 4 twists for energy burst and draconic spell knowledge.

[Eth]

The reason traditional sorcs use draconic is because the only alternative (magister) seems to be even worse.

Magister alternative? Exalted Angel is the alternative. But that's more a matter if you prefer nuking or DC casting.

Draconic gives:
- 30 SPP (+ another 50 every 5 minutes)
- 3 MCL + CL
- Dragon breath
- 2 Evo DCs
- 3 spell pen over EA (due to 6 caster levels, while in EA you can just pick up the +3, even without spellpen feat.)
- much better twist options (since in EA twisting EBurst is a given)

EA gives:
- 4-5 more charisma over draconic (draconic usually has 2-3; EA can easily pick 5 + 2 from core)
- 3 additional DCs to everything
- 2 OK Light SLAs
- friggin wings (nice if you don't want to go Air Savant)
- Divine Wrath
- Mass Cure Moderate SLA (hits for about 600, makes scroll healing obsolete)
- Sound Burst SLA (practically a cheaper mass hold; targets fortitude save though; can make stuff helpless that mass hold can't like Minotaurs and Giants in Gianthold or all kinds of spiders)


I'm running a Fire/Acid Necro specced Sorc in EA.
Necro DC is 71 at cap (or up to 73 with Diadem Buff active).
All other DCs are either 65 or 66.

[moo_cow]

Magister alternative? Exalted Angel is the alternative. But that's more a matter if you prefer nuking or DC casting.

Draconic gives:
- 30 SPP (+ another 50 every 5 minutes)
- 3 MCL + CL
- Dragon breath
- 2 Evo DCs
- 3 spell pen over EA (due to 6 caster levels, while in EA you can just pick up the +3, even without spellpen feat.)
- much better twist options (since in EA twisting EBurst is a given)

EA gives:
- 4-5 more charisma over draconic (draconic usually has 2-3; EA can easily pick 5 + 2 from core)
- 3 additional DCs to everything
- 2 OK Light SLAs
- friggin wings (nice if you don't want to go Air Savant)
- Divine Wrath
- Mass Cure Moderate SLA (hits for about 600, makes scroll healing obsolete)
- Sound Burst SLA (practically a cheaper mass hold; targets fortitude save though; can make stuff helpless that mass hold can't like Minotaurs and Giants in Gianthold or all kinds of spiders)


I'm running a Fire/Acid Necro specced Sorc in EA.
Necro DC is 71 at cap (or up to 73 with Diadem Buff active).
All other DCs are either 65 or 66.

Exalted is definitely the best alternative, although only for necro IMO. Every other dc is easy to get up pretty high so the additional boosts are not usually needed. Draconic is still much better damage though.

[Eth]

Every other dc is easy to get up pretty high so the additional boosts are not usually needed.

Shouldn't that be worded: "Every other DC doesn't need to be as high."

No question about draconic being the better DPS destiny (although you could raise the question what the point of a DPS caster is with the current state of melees).

[Blackheartox]

Magister alternative? Exalted Angel is the alternative. But that's more a matter if you prefer nuking or DC casting.

Draconic gives:
- 30 SPP (+ another 50 every 5 minutes)
- 3 MCL + CL
- Dragon breath
- 2 Evo DCs
- 3 spell pen over EA (due to 6 caster levels, while in EA you can just pick up the +3, even without spellpen feat.)
- much better twist options (since in EA twisting EBurst is a given)

EA gives:
- 4-5 more charisma over draconic (draconic usually has 2-3; EA can easily pick 5 + 2 from core)
- 3 additional DCs to everything
- 2 OK Light SLAs
- friggin wings (nice if you don't want to go Air Savant)
- Divine Wrath
- Mass Cure Moderate SLA (hits for about 600, makes scroll healing obsolete)
- Sound Burst SLA (practically a cheaper mass hold; targets fortitude save though; can make stuff helpless that mass hold can't like Minotaurs and Giants in Gianthold or all kinds of spiders)


I'm running a Fire/Acid Necro specced Sorc in EA.
Necro DC is 71 at cap (or up to 73 with Diadem Buff active).
All other DCs are either 65 or 66.

Can add vortex as pro.
Get hit for meridian procs, swap to blue set, pot up, human spp boost, swap to libram, draco boost and then vortex.
As sorc it is really great damage

[Eth]

Can add vortex as pro.
Get hit for meridian procs, swap to blue set, pot up, human spp boost, swap to libram, draco boost and then vortex.
As sorc it is really great damage

Draconic is my destiny for raids so far (except MoD where DCs actually really matter).
Even though I currently have it, never been a big fan of vortex, since you have to be to close to stuff (on Wiz it was even better, proc arcane supremacy, cast vortex -> x3 crits for days).