Home  | Login  | Register  | Help  | Play 

Friday, May 15th Design Notes: Book 2 Reimagined: Master of Puppets & DragonSlayer Rework!

 
Logged in as: Guest
  Printable Version
All Forums >> [Artix Entertainment Games] >> [DragonFable] >> DragonFable General Discussion >> Friday, May 15th Design Notes: Book 2 Reimagined: Master of Puppets & DragonSlayer Rework!
Forum Login
Message << Older Topic   Newer Topic >>
5/15/2026 21:36:40   
Laeon val Observis
Member
 

quote:


Friday, May 15, 2026
Book 2 Reimagined: Master of Puppets & DragonSlayer Rework!
Hey there, heroes!

This week, the Book 2 Reimagined project continues, and the DragonSlayer class has been reworked!


Though The Professor is safe for now, questions about what you saw in his shared dream with Wargoth remain... And Xan may have the answers. But will you and your allies be able to reach him in time?

Head over to Atrea to play the Reimagined quest: Master of Puppets!

Also, DragonSlayer has been completely reworked with new skills and mechanics! Check out the details below!



Also this week, a new cosmetic helm is available for purchase!


The Ancient Ceremonial Helm of Hawks can be purchased from the DC Cosmetics shop for 300 Dragon Coins!



The reworked DragonSlayer class is here!


The new DragonSlayer come with a new widget and a bunch of cool new mechanics!

Once per turn, when you Defend against an attack, you'll gain +1 Analysis and your next skill will automatically be empowered with a Counter, giving you Bonus and Crit, and increasing or adding new effects. Analysis also increases your Crit by +10 per stack, up to 5 stacks, for +50 Crit. The Helm on the widget will light up when your Counter is active.

You can spend 3 Analysis to use some of your most powerful skills, as well!

Once per turn, when you get hit by an attack, you'll gain +1 Instinct, which gives you +3% damage Reduction per stack, up to 5 stacks, for 15% Damage Reduction.

By clicking the DragonSlayer Badge on the class widget, you can spend 3 Instinct to gain Instinctual Counter: +100 Def and -100 Avd for 1 turn, letting you dynamically set up Counters and build Analysis. This can also be toggled off again before you select a skill or attack, in case you change your mind.

DragonSlayer also tries to encourage you to build STR and INT. Some skills do Magic damage and other skills do Melee damage. Not only that, your skills will all gain +50% base damage if your trained STR and INT are >= your Level+10, and the difference between your total STR and INT are within your Level/10.

For example, at level 90, you need to train at least 100 STR and INT, and any other STR and INT you get from gear or effects must stay within 9 points of each other. So 150 STR and 158 INT would give you the extra damage, but 140 STR and 160 INT would not, since they're outside the buffer zone. Try to keep them close!

DragonSlayer also gains passive 10% base damage against Dragons, and 5% base damage against Reptilians. To help emphasize the Defensive nature of the class, it also has a passive -50 Avd and -25 Def.

Now, on to the skills!
  • Attack
    • 1 hit x 100% Melee damage
    • Recover 15 MP
    • Counter: Recover 60 MP
  • Counter Stance
    • 1 hit x 100% Melee damage
    • Self: 1 turn of +X Def, -X Avd (This follows the formula of X = 10 * [turns elapsed] ^ 2, or X = [10, 40, 90, 160, 250]
    • This skill starts battle at X = 160
    • Effectiveness increases each turn since this skill was last used (max +250)
    • This skill does not have a Counter effect
  • Draconic Strike/Flurry/Dive
    • Combo skill that transforms after each use. Using a Counter on earlier stages will let you skip a step. However, skipping to Dive does NOT count as a Counter Draconic Dive.
    • 2 hits x 80% Melee damage (160%)
    • Applies -25 Crit for 3 turns, transforms into Draconic Flurry
    • Counter: Automatically skips ahead in the combo, becomes Draconic Flurry
  • Draconic Flurry
    • Combo Part 2
    • 3 hits x 70% Melee damage (210%)
    • Applies -25 Crit for 3 turns, transforms into Draconic Flurry
    • Counter: Automatically skips ahead in the combo, becomes Draconic Dive
  • Draconic Dive
    • Combo Part 3
    • 2 hits x 120% Melee damage (240%)
    • CD: 3 turns
    • Applies -25 Crit for 5 turns
    • Counter: -Crit effect increased to -50
  • Draconic Blaze
    • 5 hits x 30% Magic damage (150%), CD: 7 turns
    • Applies 50% DoT for 5 turns. Against Dragons/Reptilians, becomes a 70% DoT
    • Counter: DoT duration increased to 7 turns
  • Talon Twisting
    • 2 hits x 70% Magic damage (140%)
    • CD: 14 turns
    • Stuns for 3 turns
    • Counter: Automatically inflict -50 Immobility for 1 turn
  • Ire of Scales
    • 1 hit x 150% Magic damage to all targets
    • CD: 1 turn
    • Counter: This attack has +200 Crit
  • Wyvern Scout
    • 2 hits x 70% Magic damage (140%), CD 9 turns
    • Gain +100 Def for 2 turns and Prepared Parry: +25 Boost for 3 turns. If you successfully Defend an attack while affected by Prepared Parry, gain an additional +15 Boost and +100 Crit
    • Counter: Effect durations increased by 1 turn each
  • Phantasm of Akriloth
    • 4 hits x 75% Magic damage (300%) with +100 Bonus and +200 Crit
    • CD 13 turns
    • Costs 3 Analysis to use
    • Applies +50 Health to your target for 4 turns
    • Counter: +Health effect duration increased to 6 turns.
  • Slayer's Stand
    • CD: 7 turns
    • Gain +230 Avd for 2 turns
    • Counter: +Avd effect increased to +270
  • Hone Blade
    • 1 hit x 140% Melee damage with +200 Crit
    • CD: 9 turns
    • Gain +5X% Crit Damage for 8 turns, once per turn, increased by 5% per Crit (max +25%)
    • Counter: Effect duration increased to 10 turns
  • Slayer's Cleave
    • 2 hits x 80% Melee damage (160%)
    • CD: 12 turns
    • Purge external effects, heal 10% max HP per hit
    • Counter: gain 3 turns of immunity from most enemy effects
  • Slayer's Keen Eye
    • 1 hit x 200% Magic damage with +150 Bonus and Crit
    • CD: 9 turns
    • Gain +50 Bonus for 6 turns
    • Counter: +Bonus effect increased to +100
  • Chilling Slash
    • 1 hit x 120% Magic damage
    • CD: 8 turns
    • Gain +100 Def, -100 Avd for 2 turns, apply -60 Crit to target for 2 turns
    • Counter: -Crit effect increases to -90 Crit
  • Dragonbane
    • 2 hits x 90% Melee damage (180%)
    • CD: 8 turns
    • Applies -30 All, +40 Health to target for 4 turns
    • Counter: +Health effect increased to +50, duration increased to 5 turns
  • Dragonslayer
    • 2 hits x 125% Melee damage (250%)
    • CD: 14 turns
    • Costs 3 Analysis to use
    • Gain +150 Def, -150 Avd for 2 turns, Applies -50 Crit to target for 2 turns
    • Counter: Gain 2 turns of Prepared Parry (See Wyvern Scout for details)
DragonSlayer has a lot of moderate defensive options that can be stacked with other effects or paired with gear or the Instinctual Counter to ensure Counters. However, taking hits is part of the class identity as well. With passive Damage Reduction, a strong heal and the introduction of effect immunity with Cleave, DragonSlayer can face its foes head on and come out of the scuffle even stronger! A lot of it might seem complicated, but give it a try in-game and let us know what you think. As always numbers and effects are subject to future change and balance.



Also this week, we have a number of bug fixes and updates!
  • Galanoth's head art in the Cooling Down duel has been updated to reflect his age.
  • HP and Size variance in normal and Doomed mode has been reduced to +/- 2%, down from 5%/10%.
  • Fixed a bug with Dragonslayer's Spear where the +Bonus effect would stack on subsequent hits.
  • Konnan in the Nightmares quest has had damage and effects reduced across the board
  • A number of Arena Challenges have had their races adjusted.
    • Yllmar, Frallmar, Chaos Hydra, Suntouched Viper are now Reptilian
    • Corvak, SMUDD, Draco, Creatioux Ancient, Decadere Ancient, Red Dragon, Your Dragon, Gorgok, Guardian Dragon, Akriloth, Golden Luck Dragon are now Dragon
  • Anti-Dragon and Anti-Reptilian effects have been reduced in the Arena and Challenges
    • DragonKnight: 110% Base, 125% full set
    • DragonBlade: 110% Dragon, 105% Reptilian. 10 Bonus Dragon, 5 Bonus Reptilian
    • Dragonslayer's Spear: 110% Dragon, 110% Reptilian, 15 Bonus
    • DragonBlaser: 110% Dragon, 105% Reptilian
    • Jova's weapons: 110% Reptilian
    • Zardslayer: 110% Reptilian
    • Their numbers have not been reduced outside of challenges.
  • Goose Dragons, Drahr'Hatir and Drahr'Dolaas no longer counter DragonSlayer. Vilmor and Frostscythe have weaker anti-Dragonbane effects.
  • Between the race updates and the (though reduced) new usability of anti-Dragon/Reptilian specials, this overall makes the affected challenges slightly easier. If any are inadvertantly affected to a great degree, scaling adjustments may be applied at a future date. (In other words, this update makes things easier, if they're too easy, we'll try to adjust things to balance out)
    Anything else I may have forgotten!


And that's all for this week!


Still running tests, but so far, the only aspect that I find that may require scrutiny is the Defense (BDP) part of the passive self-nerf. Might be the reason why it's a little unstable with rolling with the punches. Was hoping that the Book 3 (technically inspired by AQ3D) DS skin would be avail for customization.

< Message edited by Laeon val Observis -- 5/15/2026 23:17:45 >
DF AQW  Post #: 1
5/16/2026 6:17:40   
GodJank
Member

I didn't expect Dragonslayer of all classes to be the STR/INT to fill the slot. Anyways this has been a quite fun rework, but I don't have anything significant or poignant to say for the time being. But it's weird that it has a passive -25 Def.
Post #: 2
5/16/2026 8:40:06   
Cryomancer
Member

Having tested this class a bit, I think it is underpowered and could use some adjustments:

- Firstly and most importantly, the class is too volatile, especially against bosses that do one or two hits per attack. A boss critting an attack or not can mean the difference between having enough Analysis to use Akriloth or Dragonslayer or not which heavily impacts your burst, and it doesn't help that a lot of the harder Inn bosses either have high innate Crit or access to a Crit buff. While the class does have access to -Crit debuffs, only some of the BPD shields comes combined with a -Crit debuff (the ones that do have a long cooldown and even the -50/60 Crit they do inflict are not foolproof - it's not uncommon for Inn bosses to have more than 50-60 Crit) so for most of the time it takes two turns to guarantee a Counter, and as such it eventually becomes more convenient to just try rerolling for Crit RNG. This is the biggest problem by far and it's not something that I think could be easily fixed with a simple numbers adjustment due to the nature of BPD in this game and how the counter mechanic ties into it.

- The class is clearly intended to facetank at least some hits but its defenses aren't particularly impressive, and aren't enough for it to work as a facetank class. Cleave is its only heal, it doesn't heal that much for a defensive class (it heals 20% with 12 CD - if we're looking at other defensive classes we can compare this to Bulwark Dragonlord's Wind Dragon Spirit which heals 35% HP with 12 CD, or Paladin which gets a passive heal and multiple healing skills), and it has a pretty long cooldown. In addition, this class also does not have a -Bonus or -Boost debuff which compounds with one of my later points.

- Some of the empowerments feel pretty underwhelming. In particular, the empowerments for Dive (-25 extra Crit), Blaze (2 extra turns of DoT), Akriloth (2 extra turns of +Health), Hone Blade (2 extra turns of increased Crit damage), Slayer's Keen Eye (+50 extra Bonus, but that only gets the skill up to +100 when most classes have a +100 Bonus buff without any setup required), and Dragonbane (+10 Health and an extra turn for the duration) don't feel impactful.

- The class' damage also feels really low. Dragonslayer and Akriloth are your only particularly strong offensive skills (and they aren't even that strong in the grand scheme of things) and outside of your burst (which has a long cooldown), Dragonslayer's damage output is paltry.

- Your burst requires 4 turns of setup and that’s assuming that you get good Counter RNG, in addition to getting a Counter after Wyvern Scout and Dragonslayer. It's a lot of setup for little payoff - with Bane, Wyvern and Overcharge Dragonslayer is doing around 1.7k damage and Akriloth is doing 2k. Even early Inn bosses which have long since been powercrept take longer to defeat than they should. This would be fine for a class like Paladin whose identity is having outstanding defenses and sustain in exchange for weak offenses, but as mentioned earlier Dragonslayer's defenses aren't impressive enough to warrant such a low damage output.

- Dragonslayer and Akriloth’s cooldowns do not line up with Wyvern and Dragonbane which requires the player to delay their burst rotation, which makes the class feel pretty awkward to use and further weakens the class’ damage output. After your burst rotation which takes a lot of setup and potentially even some RNG, it feels like the class flops around for 10 or so turns without doing much damage at all which would be fine for a class with heavy burst damage such as Corrupted Doom Epoch but as mentioned before Dragonslayer's burst damage isn't nearly as impressive.

- Chilling Slash, Wyvern Scout and Instinctual Counter are only +100 BPD (effectively +75 after the passive is taken into account) which is not enough to consistently guarantee counters against a standard Inn boss with 30-40 base Bonus, even if a player stacks BPD, and this further increases the class’ volatility.


< Message edited by Cryomancer -- 5/16/2026 13:25:13 >
Post #: 3
5/16/2026 11:33:36   
Bluu
Member

Star-Eating Serpent and Hyperhydra B/P/D should be a reptilian.

< Message edited by Bluu -- 5/16/2026 14:31:00 >
Post #: 4
5/16/2026 16:24:51   
ProbablyCallum
Member

I really like the design of the class overall but as others have said the numbers seem a little undertuned. Mechanicswise the -bpd passive could probably just be removed altogether, i understand the implementation of it probably being to avoid another paladin situation but dslayer has very little healing to offset the damage that does come in compared to paladin's truckload of it, or maybe it could have some base amount of damage resist in addition to the 15 it stacks up. Draconic Strike/Flurry/Dive also just feels really bad to use, situations where you get punished for countering on the second step with a worse payoff of the 5 turns of -25 crit instead of -50 feel pretty crappy and it doesnt really feel like the damage spikes that satisfyingly for step 3 either. Overall i really like the concept/niche dslayer is aiming to fill though and i look forward to playing future iterations
DF  Post #: 5
5/16/2026 18:16:07   
GodJank
Member

I'll avoid repeating what Callum and Cryo said, so I'll chime in with some other points.

I think the Draconic combo should either have stronger, longer lasting -Crit buffs, have other effects alongside -Crit, or generally just do more damage. Having used the class a bit more now, it feels pretty cumbersome having to click the skill 3 times just to get -50 Crit, which isn't even particularly high all things considered. And if the heal is going to be on the weaker side, and the other numbers aren't working out, I think DS should have more damage reduction, maybe 5% per stack instead of 3%. I am generally okay with Akriloth and Dragonslayer being weaker burst skills, as long as the other skills do higher damage to compensate.
Post #: 6
5/16/2026 20:43:42   
Deni3000
Member

Haven't had a chance to give the class a proper spin yet, but I wanted to comment that I like the fact our player character is a bit more aggressive in this rework. It makes sense to hold a grudge, especially after the events of the last rework quest.
Post #: 7
5/16/2026 20:49:00   
MGVoltJesk
Member

I'm gonna give my opinion on the reworked dragonslayer.

In summary, Dragonslayer feels underwhelming for a variety of reasons

The -25 bpd from weighted armor is bad, the class demands that you constantly apply bpd to parry attacks, but the -25 BPD makes using BPD + all gearsets impractical

Draco shield does not synergize well with class's -MPM, I suppose it's intended to encourage different draco builds, but it just makes using a crucial scales harder.

The burst rotation cd's don't seem to line up, it seems the intended order is
bane -> scout -> slay -> Akri but the analysis counter makes it very impractical to do.

The cooldown's for it don't match, if you stance -> hone after Phantasm of Akriloth, it and Slay won't be available for the next bane window

The -crit skills feel fine, but certain enemies can still overwhelm you with their crit, like IE with hatir getting +400 crit on their attacks, those attacks just can't be parried by dragonslayer and it's part of their rotation, it makes using dragonslayer against those fights feel clunky.

I feel like a good way to buff the class is adding a -bonus skill and make counters obtainable from avoidance? So we can counteract those skills with high bonus that makes activating a counter unlikely, and it just makes you feel underpowered when there's not much you can do.

Spending 3 analysis for +100 bpd feels pretty bad considering the opportunity cost, I would prefer if it gave a counter empowerment, instead of having +100 bpd and potentially missing out on a counter next turn just because you were unlucky.

I feel like the damage reduction from the class isn't enough, it's obvious the class was made with the idea that you'll facetank attacks occasionally, but the damage reduction is too underpowered for that, compare that to Paladin who also gets damage reduction and BPD sources, but it also goes above with a passive heal that greatly helps it's survivability, I feel like dragonslayer lacks something to compete.

Also the class's MP costs feel too high, while the %heal from the class itself feels too weak, you run out of MP quite quickly on longer fights.

The class has really, really low damage, this wouldn't be a problem on a defensive class, but it seems that the parry mechanic is intended for this class to deal decent damage? All of the values feel undertuned to be honest.

Generally it feels like there's an identity dissonance, the class wants to be a mix of defense and offense, but excels at neither.

PSA: Counter triggers termination and Leorilla, is this intended?
DF  Post #: 8
Page:   [1]
All Forums >> [Artix Entertainment Games] >> [DragonFable] >> DragonFable General Discussion >> Friday, May 15th Design Notes: Book 2 Reimagined: Master of Puppets & DragonSlayer Rework!
Jump to:






Icon Legend
New Messages No New Messages
Hot Topic w/ New Messages Hot Topic w/o New Messages
Locked w/ New Messages Locked w/o New Messages
 Post New Thread
 Reply to Message
 Post New Poll
 Submit Vote
 Delete My Own Post
 Delete My Own Thread
 Rate Posts




Forum Content Copyright © 2018 Artix Entertainment, LLC.

"AdventureQuest", "DragonFable", "MechQuest", "EpicDuel", "BattleOn.com", "AdventureQuest Worlds", "Artix Entertainment"
and all game character names are either trademarks or registered trademarks of Artix Entertainment, LLC. All rights are reserved.
PRIVACY POLICY


Forum Software © ASPPlayground.NET Advanced Edition