EDK

[BaRKyy]

This spell is pretty bad, the dragon could use a buff to its AC, not AB.

[Arigard]

Melee wise and as an actual summon EDK is a little underwhelming right now, but it does still have one ability that makes it very strong and that is its fear.

Getting feared by an EDK, even if it then dies right after is a -10 to everything across the board and usually has a save of 32-34, which I've seen a lot of people fail on, it also lasts for ages. It also has true seeing, which is very useful against stealth based characters, who on the whole also have the toughest time getting rid of it due to its immunities.

I think you have to really look at this relative to what abilities are available to other classes & keep in mind that EDK is only one tool in a large variety of options for spell-casters that also usually include powerful dispelling, timestop, many other summons and debilitating area effect control spells as well as undispell-able AC through EMA. There are plenty of options for mages/shamans/druids etc that make them immensely strong classes outside of EDK. On the flip side there are plenty of builds that would love to have EDK as an option even as it is that get access to no summons and struggle to do the damage against it to take it out quickly. Sure if you're a barbarian, or a weaponmaster you can dispatch it very quickly, but if you're a rogue, or a dex heavy class, you're going to struggle to take it out quick enough before you get bombarded by spells by the owner.

If you make it too strong, then it simply returns to being a one click victory that can be used to kill everything in sight with little effort and invalidate many classes out there and how it was before was a real problem.

Saying the above, it is a little underwhelming in actual combat, so perhaps buff it slightly (maybe it's HP especially), but downgrade the fear to a lesser fear and perhaps give it see invisibility instead of true seeing like PC dragons now have, especially now that HIPS has been heavily nerfed. I would also balance the Dracolich so it isn't as powerful as some of the other Dragons, because having crit immunity on top of sneak immunity is a massive power increase and it really does skew the whole feat towards people who aren't Palemasters, who already get massive bonuses from the base class on Arelith.

[-XXX-]

The undead properties are actually a disadvantage in PvP

[Arigard]

The undead properties are actually a disadvantage in PvP

The undead properties -can- be a disadvantage. That's a bit like saying being a Vampire is a disadvantage. Against positive magic? Sure, it's a disadvantage, against pretty much everything else, it's huge.

It depends on what you are facing. You can also choose to use whichever stream you deem necessary at any given time. That makes it pretty flexible.

[-XXX-]

It's a glaring weakness, players are smart, weakness will almost always be exploited. Vampire PCs can conceal their undead properties by playing secretively... a giant skeletal dragon is not so subtle.

Also, alternating between the dracolich and other streams can be iffy as it's tied to necromancy focus feats rather than conjuration feats, so unless you have both feat sets, the other streams might not be always an viable option worth considering.


But whether the dracolich is too good when compared to the other streams is kinda off topic. I suggested that all of the streams are mediocre both in PvE and PvP.

[ReverentBlade]

I ditched my dragon after the change because of how much it sucked in PvE. Now I wish I had it back for end-game PvP. The True Seeing and free Breach is Quite Large in terms of PvP value in the upper brackets.

[Chosen Son]

Having been playing around with this more now I am utterly shocked at how gutted the spell is. A buffed ancient elemental outperforms it in pve ten times over, and its utility in pvp is limited delaying an opponent for a couple, three rounds. Its main utility to my pc is the greater spell breach I hope it still has, in situations where I cant spend the action to breach negative energy protection/shadow shield off the pending target of my characters empowered harm. This spell needs to be looked at to make it worth while. The gated summons are either as as good/situationally better then the EDK, and dont cost an epic feat.

The situations where the spell has some legit value in my mind are:
1. The dracolich
2. Wizards that are tight on lvl 9 spells, and treat edk as a epic spell that gives them a lvl 9 equivalent spell along side, or to replace gate
3. Sorcerors that cant spare a lvl 9 known spell for a summon
4. For clerics that want access to breach, for situations where a wand or scroll is not prudent.

[Xarge VI]

If the fear aura was active instantly and you could opt to have it not spend a round breaching it would be in a pretty good spot I think as a glass cannon summon.

[Apothys]

My experience with EDK is its not a fun or useful feat and ive really tried to utilise it.

The fact its only available for a short period of time means i cant do anything with it. If i summoned early and buff it (because they need it) and it starts getting stuck in corridors or ive miscalculated where the mobs are going to be. It unsummons mid fight and ive wasted all my buffs on it.

If i summon it as a panic button, which seems its only use, there no time to buff it and its usually dead soon after. Because if my buffed mummy swarm (EMD) is being overpowered it wont survive long at all.

I would love to see them become more powerful than they are currently, Longer duration, whatever. Right now... my dragon knight is useless when compared with other high level summons and I dont even put it on my hot bar anymore.

[Skarain]

What if you could summon an EDK without it dismissing your elemental/gate summon? Then it would function as something you drop for tough fights, but there are already things to serve as distractions so it is not targetted instantly.

[Hunter548]

What if you could summon an EDK without it dismissing your elemental/gate summon? Then it would function as something you drop for tough fights, but there are already things to serve as distractions so it is not targetted instantly.

That'd still probably not make it great. Elementals aren't something you want to use in PvP above level 20 or so, and EDK + gate summon would probably unironically hinder each other for size/hitbox reasons.

[Apothys]

What if you could summon an EDK without it dismissing your elemental/gate summon? Then it would function as something you drop for tough fights, but there are already things to serve as distractions so it is not targetted instantly.

That would be amazing, learnt the hard way it dismisses my struggling undead when summoned.

[Chosen Son]

The spell is horrible as an oh shit buttom in pve as if what ever you were fighting could kill a buffed ancient elememtal or undead, it can kill the dragon faster still.

And in pvp the gated summons are so close in performance, especially without gsf conj feats that outside of a few niche uses, the edk is largely just a bonus 9 spellsot.

[Jencent]

+1 to topic. ATM EDK is useless feat, only in one case you can have it in your build, and this case is - you got it for free. But anyway... I never use it.

Useless in PVP/PVE. EMD far better than EDK.

[Hazard]

Agreed.

This is a feat I take on all my casters, still, because I love the 'concept' of being able to summon dragons, especially a dracolich. It's cool from an RP perspective, but mechanically this spell is garbage.

It is weaker than the normal summons (even with 30CL and ESF), is short duration (and so isn't worth wasting time buffing it) and too large to reliably be used anywhere other than where it was summoned. Better hope the enemy doesn't move from that spot.

If this spell isn't going to be buffed significantly, I'd argue it needs to last for hours p/level.
Turns if it is buffed only slightly.

I've also never struggled targeting anyone who has a dragon. If you some how do, it's melee so you simply lure it away or ignore it.
.. If it isn't already dead. It probably is though, it's already been killed because it is the big suck.

[AstralUniverse]

I dont get you guys. It's a one feat investment that is accessible to all full casters and PM even gets it for free (even if mundane, right?). If it was any stronger than this, it should cost at least 2 feats or a different 'price' and stricter requirements.

[Hazard]

I dont get you guys. It's a one feat investment that is accessible to all full casters and PM even gets it for free (even if mundane, right?). If it was any stronger than this, it should cost at least 2 feats or a different 'price' and stricter requirements.

We're secretly lizardfolk in disguise as mammalian humanoids, working as agents for our dragon overlords to create a NEW WORLD ORDER by manipulating public opinion.

Step 1: Shift public opinion in order to buff EDK until dragons have infiltrated all areas of Arelithian society
Step 2: Install dragon influenced assets as government officials
Step 3: Collect da shinies
Step 4: New World Order

[LichBait]

I don't get how anyone thinks it's worth a one feat investment to be a bit glib.

IMO it's not a big enough upgrade to a free class feature (less free for Sorcerer/Favored Soul) that the level 9 spell tier grants in the Gate Spell. If it was more durable (or longer of duration), yes but as it stands now certainly not.

[Naghast]

i did some testing on PGCC with EDK (prismatic) and gate summons (celestial, demon, yugoloth, slaad) and...
gate summons deal similar damage to EDK, just split between several elements. EDK deals purely phisical.
some even deal more average damage due to having higher crit range (yogoloth and demon)
their AC is pretty damn similar (yugoloth has 43, slaad has 46, deva had i believe 45, don't remember balor)
EDK has the fear aura, yeah, but frankly... it wastes a round activating it.
that's a huge drawback over gate summons that just instantly charge in.
spell breach is nice, also, but... other summons also have other spells. i think yugoloth had Imp invis and finger of death?
balor has backlash damage which is super good, and wiki states that it ALSO has spell breach. and destruction.
never seen it cast that though.
slaadi has higher AC than EDK actually. it has 46. and an on-hit stun, and hammer of gods that it uses.
wiki states that white slaad also has imp invis and chaos spittle. never seen it use these things tho.
and a deva has an AURA that buffs allies, supposedly an on-hit stun (never seen it work tho) and... word of faith.
which is arguably one of the strongest spells in the game.
gate summons, from what i've seen, also have one interesting thing (on pgcc, not sure if it's there on live)
and that is... epic damage reduction 2 (so, 6/-)

basically, to sum it up, and add other things i've noticed, you pick EDK for:
fear aura
+5 AB (gate summons have 39, EDK has 44)
bigger spell resistance (EDK's 32 vs gate's 22)
+60 hp (gate has roughly 475 i think, while EDK has 530)
imp. knockdown (over gate's regular KD, except for a deva)
dealing all it's damage as physical damage.

over the gate summons.
but it actually has lower DR.

and even if this /seems/ like a worthwhile investment of an *epic* feat, you still gotta keep in mind that it spends entire 3 rounds doing absolutely nothing for some reason.
1 round - nothing at all.
2 round - activating one of his abilities (either fear aura or spell breach)
3 round - activating his other ability
i don't remember in what order is it using it's abilities.

but you still lose fun on-hits of slaad and deva. and their spells.

the only use of EDK i have seen so far is shadow dragon summon, bc it has decent stealth stats (48 in each i believe) and hide in plain sight. but even then, it was purely for amusement, as it's other stats are... actually worse than other EDK's.
as in:
30 less hp (496 vs 530+)
one less AC (44 instead of 45)
one less AB (43 vs 44)

note: i did all the tests with epic spell focus in conjuration.

TL,DR: EDK is, i believe, only marginally stronger than gate summon. with exception of shadow dragon's amusement factor. and flat foot.
other note: i know that flat footing is strong, that's why i added it to the exceptions.

[Nitro]

The only change I think needs to be done (in general) is that short duration summons should have all spellcasts and ability uses stripped from them. When you whip out an EDK, 9/10 times it's because you need it to do something now, not when you have time to let it buff up and do nothing.

[-XXX-]

I dont get you guys. It's a one feat investment that is accessible to all full casters and PM even gets it for free (even if mundane, right?). If it was any stronger than this, it should cost at least 2 feats or a different 'price' and stricter requirements.

I'd say that the general consensus is that it isn't even worth that one epic feat investment in its current form. Most pure caster builds are feat starved and wizards just use monolithic elementals anyway (because wild mages are just better wizards).
People take EDK because it's a cool feat, but it's bad. It was too powerful before and needed a nerf, but it was nerfed too much.

[AstralUniverse]

they lowered stats by 2 or 3 levels worth of value. In other words, EDK now is more or less the old EDK without any spell focuses, roughly, and also 5 SR nerf. That's not a huge nerf. It only goes to show you how fragile the balance of these things is.

[-XXX-]

they lowered stats by 2 or 3 levels worth of value. In other words, EDK now is more or less the old EDK without any spell focuses, roughly, and also 5 SR nerf. That's not a huge nerf. It only goes to show you how fragile the balance of these things is.

That's incorrect. They have been gradually shaving the EDK, but this was the straw that truly broke the camel's back:

Epic Dragon Knight: All Dragons:
-170 hp (this puts them at 300 before CL buffs)
DR -> Down to 10/+4 (From 15/+6)
Physical DI: -> Down to 15% (From 35%)

As you can see, they deliberately made the EDK much squishier (as it was arguably too tough before). They made it too squishy however - they saw something that was overperforming and instead of tweaking it they chose the nuclear option of nerfing it BELOW half efficiency. No wonder it's lackluster now.

[AstralUniverse]

they lowered stats by 2 or 3 levels worth of value. In other words, EDK now is more or less the old EDK without any spell focuses, roughly, and also 5 SR nerf. That's not a huge nerf. It only goes to show you how fragile the balance of these things is.

That's incorrect. They have been gradually shaving the EDK, but this was the straw that truly broke the camel's back:

Epic Dragon Knight: All Dragons:
-170 hp (this puts them at 300 before CL buffs)
DR -> Down to 10/+4 (From 15/+6)
Physical DI: -> Down to 15% (From 35%)

As you can see, they deliberately made the EDK much squishier (as it was arguably too tough before). They made it too squishy however - they saw something that was overperforming and instead of tweaking it they chose the nuclear option of nerfing it BELOW half efficiency. No wonder it's lackluster now.

I stand happily corrected then. I forgot that round of nerfs entirely and the nerf to the DR and DI completely slipped my mind.

300 hp before buffs is not high for the current shotgun meta, but on on the other hand, wasting 2 rounds of your opponent to get rid of the dragon is a pretty big deal in the shotgun meta.

the difference between 15% and 35% DI, +4 and +6 DR, is a really big deal actually and I'd argue that this right there is the big nerf that makes everyone feel it's useless now in PvE because it's offense capability was not really nerfed hard (past the initial nerf to its base stats) so I'm still not sold that EDK needs to be buffed back but increasing the physical DI back to 20-25 might be called for in this case.

Over all, I think we can see what happened here if we take a look at the course of nerfs.

>First, it was OP because it could literally 1v1 endgame cookie cutter melee builds such as ftr/wm or 'brycer' etc.
>Second, the first set of nerfs was not enough to really change the landscape around this ability so it was brutally nerfed further.
>Now, its still something you cannot ignore and need to spend those 2-3 rounds killing, otherwise it's still a mini-weapon master chomping you during the fight.

Maybe it needs a buff in form of something that affects only pve. Like increased duration, as mentioned above. Another 'buff' could be changing the DR to 15/+3, which is a buff for pve and a nerf for pvp. I just really dont think it needs any buffs for pvp because its pretty good already. Maybe my EDK is alright because I went pure 30 sorc and my epic CL is higher? not sure it would make a big difference there.