Part 92: New Game: Flames of Vengeance

New Game: Flames of Vengeance




Dragon Knight Saga thoughtfully included an option for those players who had already finished Ego Draconis and just wanted to get to the new content without playing through the 30 hours of the original game. (Saved games from Ego Draconis are not compatible with the Dragon Knight Saga.)




You get to build your new character with the Hall of Echoes background.




While working on the expansion, Larian asked players to submit information on their stats at the end of Ego Draconis. From that, they came up with an average character level of 35 with 136 Attribute Points (exactly 34 levels worth, with 0 points from bonuses - not even the mandatory +1 to all from the end of the Maxos Temple), and 64 skill points (most of the bonus skill points).

However, you get gypped in terms of Health and Mana. A level 35 Ego Draconis character with 1 Vitality should have 309 Health, not 207! Given how much damage enemies can do at this point, that’s a huge difference. Also something to note, at level 35, your base damage is 55-68.

To contrast, Level 35 Yara, who played a pretty complete game of Ego Draconis first, has 162 Attribute points and 78 skill points.

Any skill points you allocate ignore the training caps for Ego Draconis, although you can’t raise anything past Rank 13. You don’t have to allocate any points at all, and can save them for later.

Preset Classes

There are four Preset classes, although you’re free to play around and mix things up (picking a warrior’s preset stats and a mage’s preset skills, for example). You can freely customize your attributes and skills during character creation. The presets are not your only choice, they are a quick guide. Each of the presets (except the mage) deliberately leaves you five free skill points to use as you please.


Warrior





Whirlwind – 13
Rush Attack – 6
Defensive Posture – 5
Life Leech – 10
Bleed – 5
Mana Leech – 2
Regenerate – 5
Thousand Strikes – 8
Reflect – 5
Spare – 5

Not a bad allocation of stats, I probably wouldn’t increase Strength much at all from there.

The default skills are a little questionable in my opinion. Defensive Posture instead of Battle Rage is a poor trade-off, I feel, and Reflect is also a poor skill because enemies have a few thousand HP and any blows that you can survive aren’t likely to do much to them. Regenerate at 5 skill points is questionable, you don’t get that big a bonus for the extra four. Whirlwind up that high is okay I guess. It can do 450 damage every two seconds - on top of the normal damage you do - but I’d have to try it out to see if that’s really enough to be more effective than spending those points into Battle Rage.

EDIT: The 10 points into Life Leech is also odd, because the skill caps at 13, and a set item for the Warrior gives +5 to Life Leech, so with it, you only need 8 points and the item to max it out. The other two points could have gone into Thousand Strikes (which also has a +5 item, but its cap is 15).


Ranger





Poison Arrow – 10
Ranger Surprise – 5
Ranger Strength – 10
Ranger Stealth – 5
Hide in Shadows – 1
Potion Efficiency – 3
Splitting Arrows – 5
Evade – 5
Explosive Arrows – 10
Way of the Ranger – 5
Spare - 5

The Ranger’s stats reflect the higher need for mana and lower need for health compared to a warrior.

But seriously, 10 points into Poison Arrow? 150 damage a second is something enemies sneeze at. 5 points into Ranger Stealth is also a waste, there are almost no places where you’ll be engaging enemies at long range in FoV. The extra 4 points into Evade also aren’t great, nor is Ranger Surprise.


Mage





Magic Missile – 10
Mana Efficiency – 5
Polymorph – 5
Confusion – 5
Magic Blast – 10
Destruction – 6
Firewall – 10
Healing – 5
Way of the Battlemage – 8

A Mage has the same HP as a ranger, but a lot more mana.

The mage preset spends all the points, instead of leaving five to spare. The biggest issue I have with the Mage’s preset skills is the 10 each into Magic Missile and Firewall. I suppose you can use both, but Magic Missile is a low-damage spell only effective when used at a distance, and Firewall is a high low-damage spell only effective when used in melee range. For some reason, the preset doesn't use Fireball, even though it's a very good skill by now. I’m not sure the extra points into Healing are a great investment. It does heal an extra 54 HP and heals twice as much per second compared to Rank 1, but I’m not sure that’s enough.


Priest





Magic Missile – 10
Summon Ghost – 12
Hide in Shadows – 4
Mana Efficiency – 2
Charm – 5
Blind – 6
Life Tap – 5
Healing – 5
Summon Demon – 10
Spare – 5

This is new, there wasn’t a Priest trainer in Ego Draconis, and there was no good template for building one. A Priest’s stats are basically the same as a Mage’s except for 5 less Spirit and 5 more Strength, making him SLIGHTLY less terrible at hitting things (by that I mean he does 1-2 extra damage. Maybe more if he has a weapon.) I don’t see the point in investing that 5 extra in strength, just use a Magic-damage based weapon instead, it’ll work better with your Intelligence score.

The Priest’s skill line is a mix of skills from the Mage and Priest lines. Magic Missile is the offensive spell, and again there’s 5 points into Healing. The 5 points into Charm, and Blind seem like an odd choice to me. Charm is a TERRIBLE use of five skill points because it only has 5 levels, and it only affects Level 37 enemies or less, so you’re not going to get a lot of use out of it here before the enemies out-level it. I also don’t like that Blind was selected, because it also has a level restriction on what enemies get affected.

EDIT: I have to correct myself on Charm, thanks to Joram from the Larian forums. You might only be able to put 5 levels into it in the FoV Character Creation, but there is a trainer in the Ministry who can raise the cap to 7.




You start out in the crystal prison, then Berlihn frees you to Aleroth. But you have only two items, your Crystal Skull, and Dragon Stone. You have the same terrible armour you started out in Farglow, and 45,000 gold. That’s enough to give you a complete set of semi-decent random equipment and a few potions, but forget getting the good unique stuff. It’ll take a lot of work to be able to afford the unique items.

The Battle Tower is outfitted with randomly-selected platform operators, and I believe they start out with both upgrades as well. You also start out with all if the Rank 8 Alchemy formulas, and most of the Rank 1 Weapon formulas, a few Rank 1 armour formulas and no jewellery formulas. Your creature also has the default limbs from the first creation in Broken Valley.