My swing at updating the EDs

[doubledge]

PB already took a crack at Primal Avatar here, and I find myself agreeing with his choices. However, I doubt hijacking his thread with my own ideas is a good choice, no?

Here's my suggestion for Draconic Incarnation.

Draconic Incarnation

Cores:

Holy ****, I have not seen more lackluster cores. Let's touch them up a bit. My goal is to make Draconic not only more interesting for nuking Sorcerers, but also for Eldritch Blast Warlocks. The goal is to have something able to compete with Exalted Angel, trading versatility for raw DPS.

Core 0: Draconic Bloodline:
For each level of Draconic Incarnation you possess, +50 SP, and +1 caster level to Wizard, Warlock, Bard, Sorcerer, and Artificer spells, if you have levels in this class. You gain +10 universal spell power per epic level.

Legitimately, all of the cores do the same thing, and none of them are particularly enticing. You see a lot of twisted energy bursts, just because this tree is terrible.

Core 1: Rising Power
You gain +1 maximum caster level for Evocation spells. Whenever you damage a target with a spell, you gain a +3 untyped bonus to universal spell power. This bonus stacks up to 10 times, and decrements one at a time. Stacks last 6 seconds.

Based off of something already in the elemental savants, this is to entice Draconics away from instakill, and make it feel different than Exalted Angel.

Core 2: Brutal Spellcraft
+10% spell critical damage.

Very few things add spell critical damage, and having the nuking destiny gain a source of it seems like a perfect choice.

Core 3: Dragon's Rage
You gain +1 maximum caster level for Evocation spells. Whenever you kill an enemy with a spell, you gain 5 temporary SP, which last until expended. This effect can stack up to three times.

I don't really have an explanation for this one. Just something to help make little spells refund a bit of their costs.

Core 4: Crushing Spellcraft
+15% spell critical damage, for a total of +25% spell critical damage. +3 DC to Evocation and Conjuration spells.

Narrower in focus than Exalted Angel's blanket +3, It really only effects damage spells. And maybe warlocks with Evards.

Core 5: Dragon's Fury
Active Ability: (Cooldown 3 minutes): For 45 seconds, you gain +20% Spell Critical Chance, 50 Universal Spell Power, and 20% reduced cooldowns on Evocation and Conjuration spells. Your damaging spells ignore evasion.

I don't think I've ever seen someone use Core 5 in any meaningful way. This new one gives a large burst of DPS, but you'll need Quicken active to make the most use of it.

Tier 1:

Stats: Unchanged. For every tier.

Energy Sheath: Damage changed to 1d2+1 per character level.

Higher base damage, remove some of the randomness. Yes, negative energy. You'll see.

Draconic Presence: Move to tier 2 and redone.

Dragonhide: +1/2/3 PRR, +2/4/6 AC, +1/2/3 Fortitude saves. At rank 3, no longer automatically fail fortitude saves on a natural one.

Natural armor on a Sorcerer. Nope. Let's sweeten the deal with a little bit of PRR as well.

Draconic Perception: Unchanged.

Tier 2:
Draconic Presence: (2 AP per rank) Entirely redone. Whenever you critically strike an opponent with a spell, all enemies around that opponent receive a -1/2 penalty to reflex and will saves for 5 seconds.

More toys to help blasting. This one is still twistable for DC casters, but it costs the same as Spell School focus from Magister, with less versatility.

Barrier of Scales: (Cooldown, 1 min, Cost 10 SP) For the next 1/1.5/2 minutes, you gain 5/10/15 temporary hit points per epic level.

It's not Shining Through by any means, but this new ability might be a bit helpful for surviving early barrages.

Precise Casting: Unchanged

Go Out with a Bang: HP requirement removed. DC is now 15 + Cha/Int mod, + 1/2 Character Level + greatest of Evocation or Conjuration Bonuses. No longer requires Energy Sheathe.

Tier 3:

Daunting Roar: DC changed to 15 + Cha/Int mod, + 1/2 Character level, + greatest of Evocation or Conjuration bonuses.

Draconic Heritage: Now adds +15 SP per rank for element, and an additional 3% critical chance with that element.

Piercing Spellcraft: Now requires Draconic Heritage. Your heritage spells ignore 10/20/30% resistance, and 10/20/30 MRR.

Tier 4:

Energy Burst: DC changed to 15 + Cha/Int mod, +1/2 Character level, + greatest of Evocation or Conjuration bonuses. No longer requires Go Out With a Bang.

Secondary Spell Speciality: Grants 2% critical chance with chosen element per rank.

Draconic Knowledge Unchanged.

Draconic Spell Augmentation: All heritage spells now have a 5/10/15% chance of dealing 3/6/9d6 bane damage on hit. This damage scales with your heritage spell power.

Tier 5:

Flyby Attack: CD reduced to 45 seconds

Dragon Breath: DC now augmented by breath weapon bonuses.

Draconic Breath Augmentation: Upon failing a save against your dragon breath, the target loses any immunity to the element of your dragon breath. This is equivalent to the Sorcerer elemental curse, except without any vulnerability.

Tier 6:

Energy Vortex: Duration decreased to 30 seconds. Cooldown decreased to 1 minute. SP cost increased to 40 SP. Base damage increased to 1d8 + 8 per caster level. Is now an evocation spell with the DC of 15 + Half Character level + Int/Cha + greatest of Evocation or Conjuration.

Draconic Hunger: Whenever you kill a target, there is a 10% chance of regaining a spent use of Dragon Breath. This increases to 50 during Dragon's Fury. If a target saves against a spell matching your heritage, they take 75% damage rather than 50%.

Fearsome Invulnerability: Gains: "You gain PRR equal to the greatest of your Charisma or Intelligence scores."

[Selvera]

Well you only have draconic up so far; so here's a Selvera Reviews your suggestion

Core ability persistent bonuses: In the interest of making the tree more appealing for everyone; not just arcanes; I would say it should be +50 SP, +1 caster level of (arcane classes) and +10 Spell Power to Fire, Ice, Acid, Electric and Force spellpowers. Per core ability.

This lines up with the sorc enhancement trees/spellpowers and pops in Force there which is highly important for warlocks, Evocation Wizards and Eldrich Knights – if they should decide to try out this tree. (Although I’m not convinced it’s ideal for any of those yet).

It leaves out light/alignment spellpower which some warlock builds use; but those builds are more often then not tank builds which run in US; and aren’t likely to swap to DI with a tiny bit more spellpower added to it.

In terms of adding max caster levels for evo spells; I totally agree for players near max level but am not so enthusiastic about level 20 characters getting it. Really part of my dislike for the design of destinies is how they dump so much power at level 20 (and not just for casters; my monk was doing literally double the damage per hit at level 21, as she was doing at level 19 with the same gearset. And that’s before I even press the blitz button.) As for casters, I feel like they peak at level 20; then don’t get much better on their road to 30 in general. Is there a way to make this more backloaded for higher levels?

In terms of the stacking spellpower boost and spell crit bonuses; yes; I agree, draconic needs those. Spell crit is also nice and backloaded, since item bonuses to spell crit skyrocket in epic levels towards cap.

I am in favor of the mana boost – one of the biggest problems with evocation sorcs (and dps casters in general) in high skulls is that they’ll run out of SP on just a few trash mobs; then be reduced to quite low damage spells that they can run off echos. I do think it could happen on something more reliable (in high reaper) then on kill though.

I think you would be surprised the number of CC and instakill spells which key off of evoc/conjuration. The idea here is not to make a DC caster who can also deal top tier DPS, but rather to make a dps caster that doesn’t fail so hard when it’s DC’s don’t land. So what about something completely different? When mobs save against your spells; they take 25% of the spell’s damage; in addition to any effects the spell has on save (including damage). Usually this means mobs will take 75% damage when they save; or 25% if they have evasion.
I have used the Draconic capstone; “meaningful way” is subjective; when you’re talking about +50 spellpower to a build which has easily 10x that as passive spellpower before buffs… and a feat which gives +150 spellpower and 20% spell critical damage for 30 seconds. But it all adds together to make a nice high damage vortex +burst +breath +meteor swarm combo. 45 seconds feels a bit too long; maybe 30. But I like the other bonuses you threw in there.

Energy sheath; this is not; and will never be for damage. It doesn’t really need a change except to remove it from the prereqs for the above tiers. Ideally I’d sever the prereq between go out with a bang and energy burst. Part of why it’s such a good twist is because you don’t need to sink 9 AP to get it as a twist.

I’m not a fan of dragonhide as you proposed. You’ve just made it an even better twist for tank builds; and still not interesting to take for any build that uses this tree.
Ok; I’m not really for nor against your new draconic presence. Might be worth it.

Barrior of scales: Sure, it needs a bit of a buff. Not bad.

Go out with a bang: And DC’s in general; shouldn’t they take the better of Evo or Conjuration; or use the one that’s appropriate for the dragon color you pick? (Acid use conj; rest use evo). Alternate idea for this spell; have it automatically cast when you drop to 50% (and not interrupt whatever you’re currently casting).
Draconic Heritage: While I’m all in favor of buffing up the spellpower; I’m not sure if we want spellpower and crit at the same time? Of course it’s still no empyrean magic; but it’s not like sorcs really need more crit chance, given what’s available.

Piercing Spellcraft: DC casters might complain if you change this twist :P And besides; it’s not like piercing 15 resistance is really that useful when your spells are hitting for 2k on a bad day.

Tier 5: Dragon Breath -> now here’s one that I feel like it really should change. First off, it should count as a breath weapon attack. Yeah; that’s the main point. Currently abilities and items which improve breath weapons only effect the dragonborn breath weapons; not draconic breath weapons. Why? I can only expect it’s because draconic was implemented before such items were conceived.

Draconic breath augmentation -> I’m not sure if this is appropriate for a T5 epic destiny ability; or if it removes some of the unique value of sorcs and druids to bypass immunities. It’s probably ok to have this.

Energy vortex -> Why do you propose this change? I find that it already deals pretty good damage and if anything I wish the duration was longer and the AoE larger. And if they fixed it to tick every 2 seconds instead of every 3 that would be great too.

Draconic hunger -> Now this I like. I’m not sure if it’s yet worth spending valuable top-tier points on; but it’s certainly getting there with the ability to recharge breaths.

Fearsome Invulnerability -> Seems weird. 120 PRR is a lot of PRR. Maybe you should limit it to robes wearers to help make sure this isn’t too dominating an ability. How much does the ability heal for?

In all; I'm not sure why you're trying to add negative energy synergy to the tree; it doesn't seem to have much in common with sorcs, warlocks, evo wizards or dps casters in general (besides necrotic ray being awesomely OP now). Is your idea to have palemasters take this tree? I was under the impression that most of those just stuck to DC spells in archlich form or something. I'm not really against the suggestion; it just seems weird.

[doubledge]

Oops. Yeah, I'll rework the DCs to use the best of Conjuration or Evocation.

I added "Your damaging spells ignore evasion" to dragon's fury. Should be funny.

Might change piercing spellcraft to "Your spells bypass 10/20/30% resistance, and 10/20/30 MRR."

Draconic breath augmentation will stay. You need to land a charged ability to apply elemental damage to things like devils or demons, and it is untwistable.

Energy Vortex was changed because the way it was before, you'd turn it on once, and then it'd just sit there. It wasn't interactive, and it didn't do anything. I should probably increase the damage to 1d8 + 8 per tick, and change it to 1 tick per 2 seconds.

I have no idea what to do with fearsome invulnerability. It just doesn't fit the tree. I might just rework it entirely into something different.

Negative energy was just a test. I will probably remove it from the suggestion.