Dragons: Suck or Awesome?

#41

Well, it"s also simply because Dragon are underevalued. They have a lot of powerful and special abilities, including a stun. They have a lot of range, and I am under the impression that theirs venom is more powerful than the ranger one, meaning you can poison them at start and continue the high strength poison with your rangers. Also, they tend to not have weaknesses apart from really rapid monster. (and not equipping Evni :p)

The main reason why they are often forgotten is that they are bloody expensive, and it has a psychological effect against using them.

On the last level, I had done a non-perfect run in the last difficulty with 4 dragons in the center. It worked beautifully, even if a damn cultist slipped throught :frowning:

#42

— Begin quote from "Anthony"

they are indeed pretty crucial

— End quote

Not really crucial. They might make the life easier, but I completed the game without any excessive grinding just fine without any heavy usage of ice mages. In my first run, I finished at level 26 or so, I had just the story-given ice mage and she was always the last character to be placed and upgraded.

#43

Haha, good points all around. Great to hear that people are able to take such different approaches successfully. :smiley:

#44

I think they’re in between, because they cost a lot, but they are pretty useful.

#45

Anthony, Dragon take advantage of the buffs and debuffs of other classes. They do not add any multiplicative benefit to a killzone they are add too. They infact remove a debuff that is helping everyone else to add a tiny dot, lowering everyone else’s total damage. It’s like if Knights beat all of the blood out targets they hit and those target couldn’t have the bleed debuff.

Ice Mages(and every other class with another type of buff/debuff) on the other hand grant advantages to the group they are added to with the slows and freezes.

Dragons are a selfish unit both cost and DPS wise. They bring nothing unique to the table aside from a dot that hurts the group and a stun that has a long cooldown that renders it useless.

#46

— Begin quote from "Laureola"

Dragons are a selfish unit both cost and DPS wise. They bring nothing unique to the table aside from a dot that hurts the group and a stun that has a long cooldown that renders it useless.

— End quote

You’re just wrong and fail to apprehend the fine line between not liking and unit and it being useless.

First, the notion of killzone is useless. Some unit, like the aforementionned frost mage and healer, benefit unit around them. There is no other need to concentrate unit - in fact, it can be detrimental with some monster (like divider)

Second, don’t forget the only unique thing that ice mage add is the slow. Dragon add the nom (who is more fun than powerful in my opinion since it basically never work on what you want it to work) and AoE dot (the fireball, which have no cap unlike archer w/ poison in addition to be way more powerful). Also, it’s the only unit with both ranged and close range weaponry, and the only with a non-point-blank aoe.

Third, the slow are not all that powerful. They help to 1 - help your turret be more busy (since more target are here), and 2 - help your turret to finish off thing. Guess what : it’s useful, but rarely mandatory. In fact, the only level where it is mandatory are the extreme version of the sheep and the level with the hand - in both case, it have more to do with boss having silly immunity than ice mage being all that powerful. Knight and dragon usually are more than enough.

Lastly, you seem to forget what dragon are all about : versatility. They work beautifully against everything.

In short, try, instead of lashing your frustration against a pretty powerful and cool tower, try to actually use it, and not like if it were a bigger barbarian. You’ll suddenly see that the dragon is a very powerful unit that kick ass and take name. Because of its price it’s hard to use, and not the most powerful unit in the world. You simply use a minimalist ratio badly thought when you started other TD and try to cram here because it’s convenient. Dragon does not fit in your vision, and your vision work as long as finishiung every map go, but don’t try to pretend it’s the only way to go.

#47

The slow are not all that powerful. is when I stop taking you seriously.

Yes, doubling(plus how long things are frozen) how long the enemy is near your melee units and inside the first past of your Ranger’s range is weak.

The Dragon as a tower is a selfish unit. Every other unit buffs others or debuffs the enemy in some way that adds to everyone’s damage.

Granted, now it’s not a problem now with the poison update. will try some maps with them instead of Zerkers.

#48

On longer maps, try having Dragons at the start to get a lot out of Fire Mouth/Epic Halitosis, Ice Mages in the middle, then the rest of your Dragons as “goalkeepers”. I’ve found that to be useful, and it helps to spread out the killzone so you don’t have the case where a single Worm makes it through the first 25% of the maze and has a clear shot at Azra. That just sucks.

#49

Slowing isn’t a big deal with a few exceptions (when doing extremely tough creeps). In other words, keeping somebody longer in your killzone is useful ONLY if your DPS in that killzone isn’t high enough to kill him. In many if not most cases, I’d go for straight DPS increase.

Ice mage boost1: 60 cost, with Ice ball 6 DPS about 111 (66.8/0.6).
Dragon boost 1: 100 cost, with Bite 7 DPS 255 (+216 per hit from poison, not sure about how that stacks and whether it will be fully utilized).
Ice mage boost2: 140 cost, with Ice shard 3, DPS 170+122 = 292
Dragon boost 2: 250 cost, with Claw 3 DPS about 538

Calculated DPS per PSI is therefore something like 1.85 and 2.08 for ice mage, and 2.55 and 2.12 for dragons with Halitosis excluded, 4.71 and 3.01 with Halitosis included (level 2).

Adding the toughness of dragons, the possibility of getting attack boost from skill points and the fact that they require no equipment (numbers of that ice mage come with a +35 staff on top of her attack 54), I’d definitely go for dragons as damage dealers - and use ice mages only when I really NEED to slow the creeps down (extra tough ones, plus possibly spawned worms).

#50

@coyot
What you fail to realize is that the dps ALONE is completely irrelevant when you compare two units with one another. Of course the Dragon does more DPS, thats what the Dragon is supposed to do! BUT the Mass slow of the Ice Mage makes every enemie stay much longer near him and thus EVERY UNIT that is within range can dish out more total damage to the creep, because it stays in range much longer. Thus the Ice Mage increases the TOTAL damage for ALL units, while the Dragon only has a high dps, but destroys the total damage boost of the Ice Mage.

In conclusion:
In my opionion Dragons are simply not worth it regarding teamplay, they are either good as goalkeeper (but suck at that as well because the NOM only affects creatures that would get killed by attacking normally as well -.- But they are still the best goalkeepers), or up in the front after or before they interfere with the Ice Mage (that is a much better team player).

I also place Dragons last, because they are far to expensiv for what little they offer (but lowering the PSI cost further would be the wrong approach, the fact that they cancel the slow effect is what makes them comparibly bad), only using as, you guessed it, goalkeppers.

#51

— Begin quote from "Yinan"

@coyot
What you fail to realize is that the dps ALONE is completely irrelevant when you compare two units with one another. Of course the Dragon does more DPS, thats what the Dragon is supposed to do! BUT the Mass slow of the Ice Mage makes every enemie stay much longer near him and thus EVERY UNIT that is within range can dish out more total damage to the creep, because it stays in range much longer. Thus the Ice Mage increases the TOTAL damage for ALL units, while the Dragon only has a high dps, but destroys the total damage boost of the Ice Mage.

— End quote

That’s mightily comical.

Very few attacks are not target-capped, so your affirmation is so wrong it border to absurd humor. Even for the ice mage and healer, the aoe damage are not all that cracked up, so your affirmation is just plain wrong. Also, it conveniently forget that knight and dragons also have powerful crowd control effect.

As I already say, stop thinking in your own small field of perception. The only two mobs where the frost slow is really important is the sheep and the hand. All other have frost mage be useful, but not exactly that powerful. Against splitter I believe they are pretty awful.You can finish every map except the last sheep one and the hand’s one with neither ice mage nor problem of any kind. You can do the same without dragon. Touting either as uber powerful unit is just stupid and at best show that you don’t think too much before trying news tactics. Heck, I would find far harder to not use ranger or berserker !

#52

A few points:

NOM works in-between attacks. A dragon can have mobs running past it and have both Claw and Bite on cooldown and still be eating things that are low on health. They’re especially effective as goaltenders if you have all 9 points in NOM and you have something that’s going to be hitting mobs as they run past the Dragons (I use Rangers, myself).

No matter how you slice it, Dragons are never going to enhance other units’ DPS time like Ice Mages can, but the point made about that being irrelevant because a mob shouldn’t survive your Killzone even without slows has some merit. Really, it comes down to personal preferences and playstyles.

Personally, I like seeing ice rain down on everything’s head, and seeing monsters (especially Splitters and Cultists) frozen in place for 4 seconds at a time. Others don’t care about an Ice Mage’s “aesthetic” and will happily plop down Dragons in the front lines with lots of points in Epic Halitosis and let them wreak havoc, never worrying about slows or tightly compacted Killzones.

Still, I tend to think that using Dragons out in front, Boosted to 3 or more and lighting things on fire (thus cancelling out the benefit of putting Ice Mages in the standard spot: parked right behind a Berserker/Knight/Dragon) makes them less than ideal units and with the way I play, limits them to Goaltending duties only. As for whether or not that needs to be changed, who’s to say? Maybe if we made Dragons play nice® with Ice Mages they’d end up being too good.

#53

Seems like we’ve gone from near-unanimous sentiment to sharply divided controversy. Mission accomplished! :slight_smile:

#54

()
— Begin quote from "Marak"

No matter how you slice it, Dragons are never going to enhance other units’ DPS time like Ice Mages can.

— End quote

No matter how you split it, ice mage will not increase the dps of other unit, except if they are healer. Units have a limited number of target on most of theirs attacks, and consequently slowing down unit don’t let your other tower do more damage. They just give your aforementioned unit more time to kill stuff. That’s because a simple point : unit usually have a lot more possible target than they can hit. That one of the reason the people who use ice mage to help ranger are ridiculous : if ranger don’t alway have targets without ice mage, they are doing it wrong.

In short, ice mage don’t give you additional dps (except for the fact they do damage by themselves). They will just help you to finish monster if you don’t have enough DPS, since you will have more time. Remember that DPS is damage per second. The dragon is the opposite approach, doing a lot of damage instead of giving you a lot of time. Sometime it work better, sometime it don’t work that great (sheep level anyone ?)

Also, dragon may be good goalkeeper. But they are even more awesome near the mob spawn point, because of all the fire and poison that do very high damage and require a little time to work.

#55

Now i see, you completely missed the point of my post -.- seriously, i wouldn’t say that the post of someone else is “mightly comical” if you haven’t understood it at all -.- thats just stupid -.-

TOTAL damage is something else then DPS, there is a GIANT difference between these two things. Of course Ice Mages don’t increase the DPS, only healers with ZEAL and FRENZY does that. BUT the slow of Ice Mages make other people hit the enemies more often in the long run. They need more time for that, but the Ice Mages Slow makes it possible that your units can attack the same enemy for a longer time, thus the TOTAL damage on that enemie for all units increase.

And i never said that the Ice Mage is uberpowererd or something like that. And that shows that you don’t think too much before posting an answer -.-

See, i can insult you too, nothing special -.-

It simply is a FACT that Ice Mages are team units and dragons are solo units. To be precise, the dragon is the only solo unit.
Dragons make a lot of damge, have several DoT attacks, BUT destroy the Slow of the Ice Mages. They don’t do ANYTING that other units could benefit from.
Zerks make Bleed -> everyone makes more damage on that creep
Rangers make Bleed -> see Zerks
Ice Mages make Slow -> everyone can hit the creep for a longer time, thus total damage goes up
Knights break Armor -> everyone does more damage (because their damage doesn’t get reduced by the armor anymore)
Priest do Zeal -> everyone attacks more often thus making more DPS
Dragons remove slow… now that sucks -.-

I repeat again: Dragons are the only Solo Mobs that dont do anything that others could benefit from, they only do a lot of damage, but thats it in the long run…

#56

— Begin quote from "Yinan"

Dragons are the only Solo Mobs that dont do anything that others could benefit from, they only do a lot of damage, but thats it in the long run…

— End quote

It does fit the character of Niru well… and further explains Wrenna’s disdain for her.

#57

— Begin quote from "Yinan"

@coyot
What you fail to realize is that the dps ALONE is completely irrelevant when you compare two units with one another.

— End quote

Not at all, and if you carefully read what I wrote, you should notice that. But I’ll repeat it anyway: in a vast majority of cases, it’s the total DPS (and to some extent the ability to spread it over targets) that matters.

— Begin quote from ____

BUT the Mass slow of the Ice Mage makes every enemie stay much longer near him and thus EVERY UNIT that is within range can dish out more total damage to the creep, because it stays in range much longer.

— End quote

Thanks for the lecture. Do I really look like I need it? :slight_smile:

— Begin quote from ____

Thus the Ice Mage increases the TOTAL damage for ALL units, while the Dragon only has a high dps, but destroys the total damage boost of the Ice Mage.

— End quote

No. Ice mage doesn’t increase damage of other units at all. It only allows the total DPS of other units to be applied longer to the same target. And in most cases, especially if you do not create a very small killzone, this will be needed very infrequently, against either very tough creeps (=cultists, abominations, megasheep) or against right groups of fast enemies (spawned worms). Yes, in these cases I’d plonk an icemage there, if and when frenzy / pushback isn’t a better solution.
Other than these occasions, ice mages are only needed when your killzone is unfortunately small and suffers from a slow and a fast wave reaching it at the same moment. This can in most places be avoided.

I dare say that if you place your dragons well (and skill them well), you will usually not need the ice mages :wink: . And vice versa, of course. The game can be easily finished without EVER placing a single dragon, and without EVER placing an ice mage. (Maybe not so easily without a bit of grinding/replaying, of course, but that’s a different story, taking self-imposed challenges…)

#58

— Begin quote from "Yinan"

I repeat again: Dragons are the only Solo Mobs that dont do anything that others could benefit from, they only do a lot of damage, but thats it in the long run…

— End quote

Hmm, I guess that you never really upgraded a dragon to level 4, right? :slight_smile:

#59

Actually, most of that was directed at Ohlman and not at you coyot ^^

But i think you get something wrong here.

— Begin quote from Yinan

No. Ice mage doesn’t increase damage of other units at all. It only allows the total DPS of other units to be applied longer to the same target.

— End quote

And that means that the TOTAL damage for the units is increased. Total Damage = all the damage that the Unit is doing to one enemie. If the dps is applied for a longer period that means that the total damage is increased… i really don’t know how u all get that wrong -.-

The thing with comparing two units with each other is that you have to factor in EVERY ability. Only looking at DPS is worthless, you have to look at the others as well. If you only look at the DPS, then the Priest would be by far the worst unit in the Game (and i don’t think i have to explain y that isn’t the case).

Edit: and i did upgread dragons to lvl 5, but they are always the last ones i upgrade for they are always adjacent to Azra (if possible). Since they destroy the slow and I usually build my killzones in a way to get maximum use out of the Ice Mages slow effect, Dragons are just in the way.

Of course there are other Strategies, but thats the one i chose for my and i’m doing pretty well with it. And the Dragon being a Solo Unit isn’t a bad evaluation for it. It’s simply a statement. They can be awesome, but they can also suck depinging on your playstile. And with my playstile, they suck (or better: are in the way) ^^

#60

— Begin quote from "Yinan"

— Begin quote from "coyot"

No. Ice mage doesn’t increase damage of other units at all. It only allows the total DPS of other units to be applied longer to the same target.

— End quote

And that means that the TOTAL damage for the units is increased. Total Damage = all the damage that the Unit is doing to one enemie. If the dps is applied for a longer period that means that the total damage is increased… i really don’t know how u all get that wrong -.-

— End quote

No. Total damage is NOT the same thing as “total damage that the unit is doing to one enemy”. That’s exactly what YOU get wrong :slight_smile: . That is, your statement is true for cases when there is one tough enemy passing through your zone, not waves of weaker enemies.

If you have a fixed amount of PSI to spend, your goal is to spend it in a way that will provide enough DPS so that you will kill ALL creeps that pass. And it really depends very much on the mix of enemy waves and on placement of your units whether you will be better off with a higher total DPS or a lower total DPS and relying on slowing down your enemies.

I’ll try to illustrate this on numbers. Let’s say that there are 10 waves of creeps, each with 10 creeps with 1000HP each. That gives you a total of 100.000 HP to destroy, over a fixed period of time, say 200 seconds.
That means that your party needs to be able to deal 500 DPS (assuming “flat” waves, equal speed and spacing of creeps). And if your DPS is lower than 500, you will leak creeps no matter whether you have ice mages or not, simply because the “input” of HP in creeps is higher than your damage output.

Of course, if one of the waves has a single creep with 10000 HP, it might be a completely different story, because it’s likely that not all of your characters would be able to hit him all the time. And in that case, of course, slowing him down helps. But then, a dragon up front will also score more damage with poison - and dragon at the back might NOM away the last 10-15% of the enemy :slight_smile: .

— Begin quote from ____

Edit: and i did upgread dragons to lvl 5

— End quote

Then you should know that your statement about dragons never helping others is not true :slight_smile:

Just to make it clear - I’m not claiming that dragons are “better” than ice mages. They are different, they are better in some scenarions and worse in some scenarios. They produce quite a good bang for the buck (with extra advantages of no gear and no need for healing, usually), so you should be able to build quite successful strategies with them, using ice mages only exceptionally (as described earlier, there are a few cases where the slow is really really good to have… but then, in most of them, a Roar would do as well)