Drachen Armet

[Tek(Selphiie)]

I am only taking a wild guess here and thinking that you only macro this piece in for:

1) Casting a spell while soloing so your Wyvern will cure you better
2) When I weapon skill so the Wyvern will take advantage of the mobs elemental weakness.

I've seen alot of merit level DRGs macroing in their



or



for weaponskills.

So I am wondering whether or not to worry about the Offensive wyvern breaths and focus on the Dragoon's actual damage from the weaponskill.

So yeah, macro in armet to do more damage with wyvern breath? Or macro in something else to do more damage with polearm?

[Skoal]

Re: Drachen Armet

Armet is used for better Healing Breaths. Don't gimp your ws just to add some damage to wyvern's breath.

[LadyKiKi]

Re: Drachen Armet

Wyvern Helm/Hecatomb Cap all the way. Your wyvern's breath is irrelevant, think of it as just icing.

Unless you're fighting physical damage resistant monsters...

[Firewind]

Re: Drachen Armet

I know several 75DRGs and they tend to do what has been stated above, use the Drachen Armet for soloing and healing breath macros (and general looking cool in town use) while macroing in something like the Wyvern Helm for weapon skills.

I don't know if any of them have a Hecatomb Cap though since I've never asked so I have no idea if any of them use that.

[Karinya]

Re: Drachen Armet

5 str seems kinda gimpy to risk half your breath damage for. Especially if you also have a wyrm armet to swap in while the breath is charging...

In case anyone here doesn't know that trick already: Drachen armet affects whether or not your wyvern uses healing breath when you cast a spell, or which elemental breath it uses when you WS; wyrm armet affects the power of whichever breath it does use. Since drachen armet is counted at the time you cast/WS, and wyrm armet is counted at the time the breath goes off, and breath has a charge-up animation, if you swap at just the right time you can benefit from the effects of both.

Seems to me that if you're doing that, why would you want to give up 200+ breath damage on a resist to get 5 STR (maybe 20 more damage if you're lucky) to the physical part of the WS? (Even if you use wyvern/heca for the physical part of the WS, you can still swap in wyrm armet right after; but then the elemental breath will be chosen randomly which will result in a lot more resists against many targets, unless you're fighting something that resist the 6 basic elements about equally.)

[Skoal]

Re: Drachen Armet

Even though Drachen Armet has a chance of your wyvern using the right elemental breath, doesn't mean it will use the right one. The macroed in Str+11 and Dex+5 will always be there on ws.

If someone was really worried about breaths, they would max out Deep Breathing and Strafe. That would mean no Empathy or Angon.

We have many chances for our wyvern to have higher elemental breaths. The only downside is that we have to give up something for the drg itself.

[Armando]

Re: Drachen Armet

What Karinya said.

I don't know how accurate or powerful wyvern breaths are at 75 with/without enhancements but 5 STR is pretty minimal. I could understand swapping in the Hecatomb Cap, but the Wyvern Helm? Naw.

[Malacite]

Re: Drachen Armet

So an example would be.... ?

/equip Head "Wyvern Armet"
/ws "Penta Thrust" <t>
/wait 1
/equip Head "Wyrm Armet"
/wait 2
/equip Head "Walahra Turban"

[Kafeen]

Re: Drachen Armet

Even though Drachen Armet has a chance of your wyvern using the right elemental breath, doesn't mean it will use the right one.

That's exactly what it means. It always uses an element the mob is weak to (unless the mob is only weak to light or dark).

Wyvern breath attacks when using the right element can easily get up to 100-200 damage. I wouldn't discount them so easily. Sure, you have a chance of using the right element without it but then it is only a chance.

I'd put hecatomb cap about it, no doubt, but I doubt 5 STR will boost your damage as much as your wyverns breaths working properly.

[eticket109]

Re: Drachen Armet

I've never used the Drachen Armet for better offensive breaths and my wyvern does just fine. Wyvern Helm is also Attack +3 along with STR +5. Its not much but should at least make up for the extra 50 you may get from the enhanced breaths. Once you get the Wyrm Armet though, you can ws in that.

The Hecatomb Cap is far and away the best option of the three but it isn't exactly easy to come by.

[Vyuru]

Re: Drachen Armet

It really depends on the rest of your gear.

If the only piece of gear that you are swapping out in your WS macro is the WTurban for one of the Wyvern/Hecatomb helms, I'd say don't bother for the Wyvern helm at least, you'll most likely never notice the difference +5str gives to your WS. The Hecatomb cap might give a noticeable difference, kinda hard to say though.

You hit a certain point where if you don't swap out large portions of gear, you just don't see any difference. So it's kinda hard to say without more information on the other gear.

As for the AF, I wouldn't bother. My wyvern seems to use breaths that the enemy is either neutral or weak to rather often. I think I would use the Relic/Saurian helm trick to boost their breath attack however.

[Kafeen]

Re: Drachen Armet

What really disappoints me though is seeing Dragoons wearing Drachen Armet full time. It has its uses but its not that good.

[Karinya]

Re: Drachen Armet

I wear it nearly full time in Campaign, because it isn't worth writing a swap macro for *every* spell.

Aside from that, though, yeah. Turban or o-hat most of the time, and then the AF/AF2 shuffle for WS. (This is out of pieces I actually have, though - if you have ares, or ace's, or homam, or askar, or even pahluwan, you may want to consider them instead.)

I also swap a lot of the rest of my gear in atk vs. acc/haste sets - the former mainly for ws, but also if I'm fighting something really low eva like a campaign wall. AJ vs. Pahluwan body, tarrasque mitts vs. af2, barone pants vs. galliard, etc.

[Armando]

Re: Drachen Armet

Its not much but should at least make up for the extra 50 you may get from the enhanced breaths.

Believe me, 5 STR won't make a 50 damage difference. Even with stupidly high attack, you'd just be getting about 4 damage per Penta Thrust swing (so about 20-24 depending on DAs.)

Considering that resists are almost always an issue in this game, I would put my trust in the Armet if the only other option is Wyvern Helm. Like I said, Heca Cap is a lot more understandable (+4 or +5 DMG, around +8 to +9 Attack, +3 to +4 Acc) but 5 STR is just weak.

[Vyuru]

Re: Drachen Armet

Yeah, if you are doing alot of Healing Breaths is pretty much the one time I'd wear the AF full time as well.