Nerf summoner drake + grand arrival combo?

[BFrost]

Drake + drakelings from grand arrival make the already powerful class almost trivial to play. Drake's bellowing roar attack is devastating and with little drakelings that get in the way the chance of mobs getting to you is almost zero. You can easily clear the Room of Death as soon as you reach it.
I would propose removing the drakelings from grand arrival effect. Give it some other effect - preferrably a weak-ish one (as drake is the most powerful summon).
Bellowing roar is something that feels OP on the drake as well. Breath attacks are OK, but huge nuke + confusion is too much IMO.
What do you think?

[Mewtarthio]

It was more reasonable before Bellowing Roar was buffed to deal damage, yeah.

[Amphouse]

I have to agree. I think bellowing roar is fine itself, but the hatchlings have got to go. Replace with some weak effect, maybe fire storm around the drake for a duration?

[SageAcrin]

Honestly, when I played(before the Bellowing Roar change), the Hatchlings felt like a downside.

Sure, you get a bunch of summons free, but they have poor damage and do little more than meatshield, and count against your summon cap. Later in the game, they seemed fairly poor-there were certainly far better Arrivals(War Dog).

I'm not against rebalancing Fire Drake, I'm just not sure this actually does that.

Also, clearing the Room of Death is far easier for Summoner than any other class, no matter what. OP Wyrms have a habit of nailing your summon and everything inbetween your summon and them with 1k damage. If you made OP Wyrms more friendly fire conscious, that would trigger different abuses.

However, in SVN, there's code that passes the summoner's location to an enemy, on summon death. I think that if you try this next version, it won't be as easy.

[Crim, The Red Thunder]

Most powerful summon? You sir haven't played much of the other summons. Pump minotaur and watch it take out enemies like they were made of wet tissue paper. Stone golem is an uber-tanky blocker (especially in close quarters). The ONLY incentive drakes really have now is a radial clear (ONCE) and a swarm of meat shields. Without the meat shields, drakes cease to be even remotely attractive to me. If they lose that, it's just back to hydra for room clearing. This radial clear with bellowing roar is compared to a hydra which can toss out 3 breaths, 2 of which can clear all small creatures (and most big creatures, with both of them) and then it actually stays alive long enough to put out a SECOND breath of each kind. Drake doesn't get a second roar, and you can keep more summons pouring out (for health, eye of the tiger, or just more damage) when you aren't being cluttered with drakes. They certainly are USEFUL meat shields, but they aren't the 'strongest' or 'best' or even something you want in every situation.

....Yeah. Removing drakes is a step in the WRONG direction. Perhaps just nerf bellowing roar if you think it's 'too strong'? Also, drakes already have a fire effect. It's called Detonate. (And you don't want to do the SAME thing again, or you ruin the purpose of detonate.)

[BoomFrog]

Roar should have about half of its current damage. Or it should be made a cone that damages all. The foe only radial damage is a lot of why it makes such a great bomb.

Cooldown on summon Drake could be bumped up to 12 maybe as well.

[Crim, The Red Thunder]

Second on buffing drake cooldown to a higher level. Perhaps have it increase cooldown (similar to freeze) with the number of drakes summoned? Of course, that would mean somehow tying the drake cooldown to grand arrival, so that you don't impede people who don't build into grand arrival, and not build directly into grand arrival, so that you don't impede every other summon in the game. Might be complex to do, but that seems the most reasonable balance to give us our meatshields, and not overpower them.

[Mewtarthio]

I think lowering the drake's talent level for Bellowing Roar would be a good start. I've never felt the hatchlings were overpowered, seeing as they count against your Cunning limit and really aren't as impressive as other melee summons.

[Sirrocco]

I just want to say here - let's not go nerfing Wyrmics because summoners are too strong.

Also, making multihued dragons (or dragons in general) more friendly-fire-conscious might be a good thing. Elemental dragons do okay for the most part because their spawn are immune to their breath weapons, but mutihued dragons are really *terrible* parents.

[SageAcrin]

To be honest, the best way to nerf Summon Fire Drake is to make it Summon Drake.

The spell's kinda boring-as people have pointed out, it largely functions like Hydra, etc.

Allowing it to RNG one of the four drakes randomly would spice it up and would also fix the reliably too good effects. (Sand Drakes sorta function differently, so they wouldn't really be a great addition to the RNG there.)

It's more work than most answers, but it's also more interesting.

[Crim, The Red Thunder]

To be honest, the best way to nerf Summon Fire Drake is to make it Summon Drake.

The spell's kinda boring-as people have pointed out, it largely functions like Hydra, etc.

Allowing it to RNG one of the four drakes randomly would spice it up and would also fix the reliably too good effects. (Sand Drakes sorta function differently, so they wouldn't really be a great addition to the RNG there.)

It's more work than most answers, but it's also more interesting.

+1. Could summon a random elemental drake, including fire, venom, ice, storm, sand, and even multihued. (With appropriate talents, and maybe some sort of likelihood scaling like minions uses) Tack on appropriate hatchlings with grand arrival.

Maybe even have a small chance for a WYRM instead of a drake with grand arrival. (Could be a solution to the meatshield issue. Have your drake bring there pappy in to fight instead of there toddlers. It's only 2 targets instead of 4, but it's a more useful target.)

[Amphouse]

Ah, I like that idea, why didn't I think of that? I think summoning a random dragon is more fun too. Certainly better than, say, nerfing the roar, because I don't want to accidentally nerf Wyrmics either. The multi-hued options should probably be a bit rarer though.

While summoning wyrms with grand arrival sounds like great fun, it sounds like a bit of a pain to balance as well. All the time might be a bit OP, but a random chance diverges from the other grand arrival effects and means that, most of the time, grand arrival will appear to have no effect. Hmm...

[Crim, The Red Thunder]

Actually, I was thinking something alongSIDE the hatchlings. based off stats, or talent level, or grand arrival talent level, or something yet-to-be-determined, you could get hatchlings with XX% chance, and Wyrms in Y% chance. A smaller percentage. Would offer a difference and lead to some 'unreliability' in an 'overpowered' ability. Maybe you get a host of meat shields, or mabe you get a strong fighter. Never know which. Scale the odds like the necro minions does.

Granted, was just a spitballed idea since they were talking about taking bellowing roar away. I still prefer hatchlings myself, because I LIKE having that meatshield to protect my squishy summoner. 4 shields vs 2 is sort of a severe cut.

But yeah, random drakes adds a bit of chance to the whole thing, and offers more variety to the talent, and the class as a whole. Only issue is do the ailments provided by the assorted drakes breaths overpower the summoner?

[Amphouse]

Ooooh I see what you're saying. That could work. Also I don't think the random statuses would be overpowered since you don't get to pick what you want, like summoners usually do. You wouldn't be able to depend on a sand breath to save you, only hope.

[Sirrocco]

Other thing to do - just make Grand Arrival bring it in as a wyrm, rather than as a drake. Having a skill that says "with your drake, you're getting a free wyrm" just seems a little... odd.