Celtic Heroes

Dragons cast a health debuff, an attack debuff and its breath. I may have missed one. Then a bunch of paw swiping and such... Like a cat batting around a mouse.

The health debuff is usually cast such that it is up during the breath attack. I have not had time to look at the numbers in a fight yet, but the debuff is significant. The breath attack does large directional AoE initial damage and then installs a DoT, also significant damage. The combination of the debuff and the breath attack is what wipes tanks.

A strong Abundance from a Druid not only causes the Dragon debuff to always be resisted, but also always removes it if it has landed at some point when there was a gap in Abundance. Tea first noticed something about this resistance dynamic an early Ythair fight. He told me. I investigated.

I have a lot of points in Abundance, so I don't know what the minimum needed is. Maybe 1 point will do it... Many Druids have few or no points in Abundance since it makes such a small difference to the tank in terms percent health buff. (that and strong bark make a big difference for rogues AoE survivability though)

The only point abut the attack debuff is the tank making sure he has aggro and so it is only getting cast on him.

Hope this is helpful.

I posted about this a few weeks ago:

http://www.onethumbmobile.com/celticher ... 327#p84786

• If your skill points in Abundance are less than the number of stars of the mob you are fighting, then the mob's Sickly Pallor will negate your Abundance. If you try to cast Abundance while under the effect of Sickly Pallor from one of these mobs, you will resist Abundance.
• If your skill points in Abundance are equal to the number of stars of the mob you are fighting, one will replace the other
• If your skill points in Abundance are greater than the number of stars of the mob you are fighting, your Abundance will replace the mob's Sickly Pallor, or you will resist the the mob's Sickly Pallor attack. So if you have an Abundance of 4 points or higher, this is a good way to preempt Sickly Pallor vs 1-3 star wraiths. If you have 7 points in Abundance, you should be able to prevent your tank from ever succumbing to Sickly Pallor cast by the 6-star Chained King/Emperor.

I suspect that for the 6 star dragons you need at least 7 points in abundance in order to resist the dragon's hp reduction. As for how many hp you get reduced by when under the effects of the dragon spell, I haven't tested it. On wraiths the hp reduction is about 100 points for each star so the dragon probably reduces your tank's hp by at least 600 points.

Note also that Abundance stacks with Abundance Aura.

This is very useful. I have noticed this on Wraiths and I leveled there for almost 10 levels. I will go check it out.

I have few points in Aura and an nice ring. The problem with Aura for the dragons is that is an extremely close range spell and the Druid has to wander out into the dragon breath range. This both puts the Druid at risk and disrupts the heal rotation, which for me is often more or less constant. If have time I cast Aura on the support classes at AoE bosses.

Caliban, you can probably get some useful info about Pallor/Abundance/Abundant Aura out of my original post on the thread I linked to.

I agree that it's dangerous to cast aura in the middle of a boss fight. The cast time is also way too long for the benefit when no one has points dedicated to it. Better to rotate through touch, embrace and breath, and fill in with bark and wards as they expire. I did find the extra 75hp helped with survivability when I was solo levelling on wraiths. Note: level 123-124 Dark Wraiths were bugged (yes I reported this) in that they didn't cast skills. I checked for a couple of patches and they were still like this, but haven't checked recently. YMMV.

For boss fights if I'm able to organize it, I try to get a group huddle together before the fight starts. Everyone stands within AoE range of the druids, and the druids cast multiple group buffs on themselves. The entire party then benefits. For example, aura, ward of fire and ward of giants for lavalord. I also usually test breath on the group, to make sure I haven't forgotten to put on my grand ring before the fight. Aura is a "nice to have" rather than a requirement. and the "if I'm able to organize it" is a big if in all caps, bright red and supersized blinking text.

But yeah, strategy on our server is pretty limited. It usually comes down to "Do we need anyone else? Is everyone here? Does everyone have idols?" and then dps attacks before the double boxing druid can say "wait, I need to buff...". For awhile after the update, it wasn't uncommon to see shouts of "everyone come to [boss x] and help out of group. All Lugh is killing!" More like all lugh is suffocating [boss x] with the litter of idols, pots and bodies. And then half the people who show up to "help" decide it's a great opportunity to train hand to hand ability so that the field is too busy for out of group druids to figure out who has aggro let alone target. But I digress. Lugh is fun, and what we lack in strategy we more than make up for by boosting OTM's cashflow. A "good" run at Ythair only costs the group about 50 idols.

Hi- the Wraiths are not consistent. They will set for awhile, out of melee range more or lees doing nothing. Hitting or any form of taunt changes that I think. I want them in melee since Sweep is my main attack.

Oh I have question for you that should go Druids probably. Is Breath an conical, forward AoE?

The bugged wraiths are specifically the 3 star Dark Wraiths level 123-124. The bug is that they do not cast sickly pallor or life drain. Wraiths with 1, 2, or 4 stars of all levels cast these spells. 3 star dark wraiths of other levels (120-122) cast these spells. The net effect is that the level 123-124 3 stars are easier than 122 2 star.

As for the shape of the AoE for druid buffs I haven't really looked at it since reading someone else's research a while back. I'm pretty sure the AoE is circular around the target. Aaaaaand a bit of searching tells me that the Perl was the original researcher, who posted about this back in June. Every druid should read it. Too long to quote, so here's the link:
http://www.onethumbmobile.com/celticher ... =4&t=11444

I suspect that for the 6 star dragons you need at least 7 points in abundance in order to resist the dragon's hp reduction.

I just confirmed this on Ythair Sunscale. I put 6 points in Abundance on my alt (level 85 druid), for a total skill level of 7. Put it into the casting rotation on our tank throughout the battle. Although the server seemed to reset and disconnect us halfway through the fight, when we all reconnected the tank confirmed that he resisted all of the dragon's attempts to cast tearing claws on him.