The Tavern

What are your favorite Draconian colors, which are your least favorite and why? I've been playing Draconians a lot lately and I'm curious if I'm missing some strategies, so I'd love to hear how this board views/utilizes the various colors.

Top Tier:

Green, Mottled

High Tier:

Black, Grey

Mid Tier:

Red, White, Purple

Bottom Tier:

Yellow, Pale

Green is great, because having an innate Mephitic Cloud is awesome. Plus, who doesn't like rPois so you don't have to waste a ring slot in Snake and Spider? Not to mention, the venomous stinger adding poison to Melee. Mottled is tied for first because I...HATE sticky flame. So having the ability to resist it is the most amazing thing ever. Plus, being able to use Sticky Flame early on trivializes some normally challenging enemies early on.

Black is great because rElec is a really nice resist to have, while their breath attack is abnormally powerful. Permanent flight? I'll take it. Grey because I have a fondness for Earth magic. The +5 to AC helps with their inability to use body armor, plus you can combine that with Stoneskin and Statue Form since you're a beast at Earth Magic now. Not needing to breath is cool too.

Red and White are just interchangable really. I don't have much experience with either, but they both seem effective without one being better than the other, necessarily. Purple helps when I want to get some support spells online. My DrAK's like being able to learn Haste early.

Yellow... ugh. I often consider resetting when I get this, but I don't on principle. Resisting acid damage without protecting your gear is just insulting. Their breath isn't bad, but it can often ruin gear you might otherwise want to scavenge. Plus, no skill boosts? Blegh. Steam is just... steam.

roughly: pale > red/mottled/grey/purple > white/black/green > yellow

pale's breath weapon is way better than any of the others, it's like having unlimited scrolls of fog

red and mottled have the other two breath weapons that actually do something useful (damage), and grey/purple have somewhat better non-breath-weapon properties (AC and MR/apts) than other colours, white/black/green all have lousy breath/resistances and nothing else useful, and if you get yellow you might as well have gotten no colour at all

You think Green is a lousy breath? Mephitic Cloud is way too useful in the early game (the only time you'll really use breath anyway) for me to agree with you there.

Is Steam breath in a straight line? Fog seems not very useful if it only shoots in a straight line...

diviton wrote:...the early game (the only time you'll really use breath anyway)...

*Jaw drops* This is exactly why pale+mottled are on top, because their breaths are useful all game long. Use them!!

diviton wrote:You think Green is a lousy breath?

yes, i think getting a level 3 spell at level 7 is not very good, especially if it also has a cooldown on it

diviton wrote:Is Steam breath in a straight line? Fog seems not very useful if it only shoots in a straight line...

no, it makes a fairly large cloud at the end

Red/Pale/Grey/Mottled/Purple are the colors I always want. Black/White/Yellow/Green are definitely the worse color options in comparison. I actually think Yellow is better than Green, but this is a biased opinion because I dig the acidic bite.

Ahhhh, it makes a cloud at the end. This I did not know. I'm glad I made this topic.

I still like free Mephetic Cloud breath. You can make it sound bad by saying "It's a level 3 spell at level 7" but it's also one of the best level 3 spells in the game that requires no skill investment, no lucky book and can be used by a purely melee based character.

I'm currently running with a Red Draconian and I like the fact that it makes a puff of flame at the end. With proper terrain usage, this has ended up helping me a lot. This character has been pretty lucky, as a side note. The first monster I encountered was a Small Abonimation in Abyss, which I managed to kill by kiting with my spear. I gained 4 and a half levels for the one kill.

FR: please remove yellow draconians, both player and monster version. Both are awful to have in the game.

1. Red
2. Pale/Purple
3. Grey/Mottled
4. Black/White
5. Green/Yellow

My favorites dracs are yellow ones, because I hate tabbing into yet another fugly thing pack only to read about all of my enchanted aux slots losing their hard-earned AC this much.

Sar wrote:My favorites dracs are yellow ones, because I hate tabbing into yet another fugly thing pack only to read about all of my enchanted aux slots losing their hard-earned AC this much.

But hey it doesn't matter because you can zap polymorph on the brown ones. One at a time. Everytime you meet a pack of them. Which is pretty often. Not to mention that red and white are also dangerous to your inventory.

Yeah, ugly things suck ass -still.

For those who don't know: you should fire red draconian breath using '.' instead of 'enter'. It turns it into a conjure flame that can be cast on enemies.

Rainbow draconians are simply fabulous.
Also, they don't exist (yet).

TehDruid wrote:Rainbow draconians are simply fabulous.
Also, they don't exist (yet).

http://crawl.develz.org/info/index.php?q=tiamat

Sar wrote:My favorites dracs are yellow ones, because I hate tabbing into yet another fugly thing pack only to read about all of my enchanted aux slots losing their hard-earned AC this much.

Yellow dracs don't get rCorr, unless that got changed recently. They just resist the acid damage itself.

Code:: 15cafad | elliptic | 2012-04-20 15:55:46 -0400 Make rAcid and rCorr equivalent. They already nearly always appeared together (only yellow scales were an exception) and there wasn't much use for rAcid++(+). With the recent change to not display rAcid in the % screen, there wasn't even a way for players to know that amulet of corrosion + cloak of preservation stacked. Now rCorr is equivalent to rAcid+ and rAcid++(+) doesn't exist (for players). Yellow scales now give rCorr at the third level of the mutation. (If a justification for scales protecting equipment from acid is needed, let's say that they drip protective acid onto your equipment.)

sp yellow scales are not useless anymore? awesome.

Red draconians are awesome because of . targetting with their flame cloud as someone already mentioned. Also I am a personal fan of green dracs. Purple dracs have great casting apts and a useful breath attack and I am always happy to get one if I am caster or hybrid.

I'd say those three are my favorites in no special order. Honorable mention to black drac because I love his breath attack even if it is unreliable and dangerous.

Yellow have rCorr now? Sweet Jesus, this topic has proven beneficial.

And yay another green fan.

Do draconians breath weapon make as much noise as corresponding spell? Is there an in-game way to check noise?
Inspired by this thread i rolled a DrWz, got black and pulled the house down when using my lightning breath.

Black breath is loud as fuck I think, others are fine, green doesn't make meph noise.

Pale is just too good compared to the rest so it's the flat out superior one I'd say, that aside I find mottled dracs' breath to be the best since it's not as stupidly powerful as red but still really good (and the splash thing is weird and fun sometimes).

Went TSO early and ended up with green. Sad face. Normally I like green but TSO kinda squelches green pretty bad.

Plenty of places in a shorter game where meph breath and a reach weapon makes the game a lot easier. Lair, orc, spider, even zot. Bad for extended though.

Pale's breath works really well in hallways. I like to use conjure flame, then breathe steam to make them walk out of the steam and into the fire.
Unless it has been changed since I tested it in wizmode a while back, one thing most people don't realize is that you CAN use mephitic cloud or mephitic cloud breath while worshiping TSO. He only cares about doing direct damage to a confused foe or causing an enemy to be poisoned. Note however that mephitic breath does cause damage, but before the confusion effect. Therefore using it on a non-confused enemy is fine, but you can't aim it directly at someone who is currently confused without getting penance.

diviton wrote:Ahhhh, it makes a cloud at the end. This I did not know. I'm glad I made this topic.

I still like free Mephetic Cloud breath. You can make it sound bad by saying "It's a level 3 spell at level 7" but it's also one of the best level 3 spells in the game that requires no skill investment, no lucky book and can be used by a purely melee based character.

I'm currently running with a Red Draconian and I like the fact that it makes a puff of flame at the end. With proper terrain usage, this has ended up helping me a lot. This character has been pretty lucky, as a side note. The first monster I encountered was a Small Abonimation in Abyss, which I managed to kill by kiting with my spear. I gained 4 and a half levels for the one kill.

You can get the breath weapon by like D4 or D5 (right around centaurs which it is excellent against) and it remains useful for orc, elf, lair, spider, and mid D levels. I also think it's better than the spell because it covers more tiles and can fill corridors. And rPois is one of the most useful resistances. Their aptitude boost is in a crappy school though.

I had been led to believe yellow were the best because acid works on everything.

Continuing from the other thread, I also think yellow should get a little bonus. There will always be a weakest draconian color, and the buffs have to stop at some point. I think making yellow a little bit better is all that's needed to achieve a reasonable balance, even though some colors are still clearly better than others. My suggestion is to make yellow breath reduce AC by 3 or 5, if that's not too hard to code.

Wahaha wrote:Continuing from the other thread, I also think yellow should get a little bonus. There will always be a weakest draconian color, and the buffs have to stop at some point. I think making yellow a little bit better is all that's needed to achieve a reasonable balance, even though some colors are still clearly better than others. My suggestion is to make yellow breath reduce AC by 3 or 5, if that's not too hard to code.

+ 0.5 skill on all aptitudes.

Wahaha wrote:Continuing from the other thread, I also think yellow should get a little bonus. There will always be a weakest draconian color, and the buffs have to stop at some point. I think making yellow a little bit better is all that's needed to achieve a reasonable balance, even though some colors are still clearly better than others. My suggestion is to make yellow breath reduce AC by 3 or 5, if that's not too hard to code.

A different way to improve their breath that could work would be to drop the corrosion effect, instead have the acid breath slow the enemy it hits; the length of the slow based on power of breath (goes up with char lvl) and target's HD (higher HD, short slow). I don't think that would be OP, but it would make the breath a lot more useful, and distinct from the other draconians. Makes sense to me that being splashed with acid would cause you to slow down for a little while. Enemy draconians' breath could either drop corrosion and get a similar effect, or else a discrepancy between player and monster versions could be allowed. (Corrosion—whether you like the effect or not—does something potentially meaningful to players, but not really to enemies. So I think this would be a place where a discrepancy would be justified.)

Alternative is to give player's acid breath chance to blind rather than slow, although that wouldn't be as powerful generally.

As the king of draconians and world's greatest DrJr, my ranking is definitive.

red - awesome breath, rF
black - awesome breath
purple - great apts, MR
white - rC means no stupid slowing effect (remove please)
(other colors)
mottled - sticky flame is boring

After splatting quite a few Draconians, I'm starting to hope for a White Draconian... My main issue is the lack of AC and some Ozocubu's Armor could help a bunch...

Although, I guess color wouldn't matter much considering it's just a level 3 spell.

1 - Red, Green or Black
2 - Purple
3 - Mottled, Pale or Grey
Hate - Yellow

I love the Breath attacks or resists from Red, Green and Black. Perm flight is also nice for Black.
I usually play a caster when using Dracs... so Purple makes some good additions to your skills. And irresistible buff-removing damage is a plus.... although it doesn't do much damage.
Sticky Flame is awesome. Especially when it splashes to adjacent enemies! And, as mentioned above, being hit with it is a bitch. So having a resistance to it is nice.
Stream breath from a Pale can clear out a line of popcorn in a flash, while doing slight/moderate damage to others while they move through it. Fog is good, too.
Non-breathing high AC for Grey. Moving through deep water... sweet.

Yellow just sucks the wet willy. In fact, if I roll Yellow, I'll quit the game unless I already have some awesome gear.

All draconian colours are great

but there are some that are above others, and I base this on overall usefulness

Top - pale, grey, purple, Red

pale: breaking LOS is always useful throughout the game esp. in extended when you get into situations with tormentors and hellfire
grey: +5 AC may not seem like much bit it adds up in dragon form with the GDR and extra AC is always useful throughout the game
purple: MR, counters a lot of annoying things that could potentially happen to you again helps throughout the game
Red: why cause its bolt of fire + conjure flame and rF+ is very useful because orbs of fire exist

Mid - Green, Mottled

Green: early rpois makes lair much easier
Mottled: Also makes early game quite easy with sticky flame

Bottom - Yellow, Black, White

Yellow: Can be good, but rAcid isnt very useful because barring slimes there arent really that many acid attack enemies. Breath is not that great, acidic bite is meh
Black: Breath is retarded not at all consitent not a fan of it, elec enemies are not that common, and eels can be avoided
White: I don't like White personally because it gives me rF- in dragon form its breath is decent though, but it is really the closest to a brown draconian in terms of usefulness

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