Togs of War - Time for some Dragon Slaying!

Artix Entertainment have declared this month the 'Month of Dragons' in all their games, and they certainly seem to mean it. The next quest in the Dragesvard chain has been released, and so I'm off to find out how Aisha is controlling the dragons, and whether I can convince them to switch sides. Galanoth, of course, is highly doubtful anything good will come of this, however, my success so far seems to have impressed him enough that he'll play along…until he needs to rescue me, of course. The quest starts off with waves of Dravir, which is nothing new. However, once that is over there's some very interesting developments, revealing the Dragon/Elf alliance is not quite what it initially appeared to be. I must admit, it’s a twist I didn't see coming. And then it ends with a fight against two large ice dragons. At once. Without DragonRider armour. And honestly, Galanoth is pretty weak for the worlds most powerful DragonSlayer, so don't count on him to bail you out.

Meanwhile, a group of five dragons (of fire, water, lightning, wind and darkness types) are setting up a restaurant in Falconreach. That doesn't seem like a bad idea, until one realises that he menu will consist of the residents of Falconreach. So, that's five more dragons to take down, without DragonRider armour.

Fortunately, the DragonSlayer class has been released on the DA server for testing. And I have a Dragon Amulet. And it’s a really good class. Or, rather, it’s a 'meh' class that becomes really good if you're fighting dragons or dragonkin. It has two DoT abilities. Now DoT abilities are not particularly good in DF, unless you're fighting something with more health than you. Like dragons. Then they are really good. It has an ability that give opponents -10 to their boost (which is linked to accuracy in hitting you). That’s a bit meh. But if you use it on a dragon, it gives them -50 to their boost, which is indispensable when you're trying to avoid nasty dragonfire. It's one of the few armours that has a triple attack - but you an only use it against dragons. Its higest level skill is an ability that allows you to heal and attack at the same time. The only other armour that can do this is necromancer. Its not as powerful as the necro's version of this, but it doesn't require any setup, and has a 4-turn cooldown. Which is awesome. Oh, you can only use it against dragons. I don't quite understand why this class includes the Guardian clas'ss ability to summon the guardian dragon though. Why would the GD help a non-guardian, a DragonSlayer to boot?

It takes down dragons like nobody's business, but if you want to use it against a boss dragon, you'll have to be prepared to fight with a 'meh' class whilst you're getting to the boss. I think the class will get nerfed for the actual release - AE tend to underestimate how powerful the abilities they come up with actually are, which is why they get the paid-up players to test new classes before they are released. But regardless, this is the first class geared towards killing a specific type of enemy (hopefully they'll release classes like VampireSlayer in the future) and its been made really well.

Oh, I nearly forgot item drops. Nothing good I'm afraid. The restaurateur dragons drop element resiting necklaces, but you can only wear one necklace at a time, and the Defender's Necklace will always be first choice.

Verdict: Major Victory!

Togs of War - Halloween Special - Mogloween!

When it comes to holiday events, DragonFable has done them a lot better than its predecessor (or successor if you manage to work out the internal timelines of the games) Adventure Quest. In AQ holiday events just happen. In DF, they mean something. Mogloween is a perfect example.

In Adventure Quest Mogloween consists of collecting candy from houses to unlock masks and other goodies. You need to wear the masks, otherwise whenever you meet a moglin (cute Pikachu-like creatures who function as healers in the game) it yells that you're not wearing a mask, turns into a giant moglinster and attacks you. Why does this happen? For not reason ther than that the game's anniversary coincides with Halloween in the real world.

Mogloween in DragonFable, on the other hand, starts with a moster we all love to kill - the yaga. The yaga is your typical hag-like witch - green skin, pinted nose, warts, large black hat. But last year, three young witches decided to go out and redeem the name of their class, which had been tarnished by the yaga. It helps that they are cute. They are the Cauldron Sisters - Bubble, Toil and Trouble, and together with their cat, also called Bubble, and their cauldron, named Myx, they decided to start a candy company and hand out candy to everyone. Because they are so nice. Unforunatly, it then emerged the Myx was in fact an evil doom cauldron, and together with some manipulation by the ebil necro-moglin Zorbak and the misuse of mog-nip, the candy was poisoned so that any moglin who ate it would turn into a ramapging moster on seeing a good person. Enter the hero, me (or you if you're playing the game). I saved DragonFable by donning a mask to make myself look evil, and set out to collect all the poisoned candy, every last piece of it. Along the way I unlocked some cool masks, became a level 14 Pumpkin Lord, and got some awesome nature-based pumpkin daggers. Yay.

But that is not the end. See, this year, the Cauldron Sister are back to ask for my help. Their latest candy shipment (now posion free) was stolen by the new ruler of the Necropolis, poisoned, and distributed to everyone. Including moglins. Yes, this year they have managed to integrate Mogloween even deeper into the DF mythology by making this years event a sequel not only to last years event, but also to the Necropolis section of the Orbs storyline, which is the game's main storyline. So its probably entirly my fault this has happened, considering that I defeated the old ruler of the Necropolis, paving the way for the new one. (Read: You can't play this years event until you have completed last years event and also completed the Necropolis quest chain.)

So now its off to find out who the new ruler is, collect up all the poisoned candy again, unlock new cooler masks, become a level 14 Evolved Pumpkin Lord, and get some awesome fire-based pumpkin daggers. Yay. But is it worth it?

Its not really worth unlocking all the masks - the bonus hey give to candy collection is offset by their huge cost. However, its entierly possible that you won't be able to play next years event until you unlock all of this years masks, so I did it anyway. (Plus, it was easy cause I cheated, but more on this later.)

The Evolved Pumpkin Armour looks pretty cool, and its stats are a little better than normal Pumpkin Armour. It has no effect on the skills of the Pumpkin Lord class, however. You need to unlock each skill again in this new armour, but their effects are exactly the same. Not that it matters - Pumpkin Lord always was a very good class, and is the only event-based class that I count as a real class. Especially now that you can use it outside of Mogloween if you have a Armour Closet. There's only two problems with this class - you need to pay real money for an Armour Closets, and its two healing skillsare basically disabled outside of Mogloween, as they require candy to use. Its not really worth unlocking unless you have a closet and think you'll be using this class - and again, you may want to just for next year. There is also the remote possibility they'll release an area with weakness against nature damage, in which case skills like vine whip, scythe, root and spikes will come in very handy.

The Reaper weapons? Well there's no doubt they're good. Their highest level is 45, which I haven't reached yet, so I can't quite tell whether they're better than the Amulet Weapons. Theinitial damage of the Reapers is certainly higher, but the Amulets do have a powerboost ability. Hmm.

Now, about the cheating thing. It was an accident - I discovered that if you lose the titan battle, and choose not to give it a second try when you are offered, your Dragon Rider armour does not uneqiup. This means you can go around collecting candy in Dragon Rider mode, oneshotting powerful monsters like werewolves and mummies with dragonfire. Your armour does get reset when you leave Mogloween though, and no, I haven't tried teleporting out to see if the armour stays. Using a bug to unlock Halloween masks is one thing, but using it to level up is not something I want to do.

Verdict: Major Victory!

Togs of War - Pic-a-nics and Ro-oh-ses

This week its back to Dragesvard, this time to convince the Ursine Bears to unite with the humans and killguins to fight the evil ice elf queen and her followers. Though the Ursine were initially inspired by The Golden Compass, their civilisation itself is lifted straight out of Warcraft - they are just like the Furbolgs. Furbolg, incidentally, comes from Fir Bolg, a race of non-furry giants in Irish Mythology, but this is beside the point. The Ursines have one trait I'm pretty sure the Furbolgs do not - they are inexplicably obsessed with pic-a-nic baskets. Say it with me. Pic-a-nic. Its siren call is irresistible to them. Fortunately, ice goblins enjoy putting aside their axes ever so often to have pic-a-nics, so all I had to do is take out a few, nick their basket and present it to the Ursines to win their loyalty. Quite a fun quest, actually. I really hope that ice elves don't show up with pic-a-nic baskets and entice them to betray me. The quest drops ice dragon scales and a set of stone claw weapons. They look coolly barbaric, but they're not as good as the July 4th set, so I'm not bothering to try get them.

In other news, Thursday of Amityvale has a new quest for us - get her some sanguine roses. Unfortunately they only grow in the haunted maze-like crypt under the town, so its time to stock up on potions, and break out your pen and paper to get mapping. This is the kind of quest I enjoy - its hard but not too hard, requires thinking and good mapping skills (or in my case, decent enough mapping skills that I can understand my own map - no one else is likely too) and has a reward that's worth it. It even tempts you to give up - you need four roses to get the best weapon, but each time you find a rose it asks you if you'd like to give up in exchange for a sighlty less powerful weapon. But I'm proud to say I stuck it out, even through multiple internet disconnects, and got my new, shiny Sunsabre Dagger. Its an awesome wind weapon - in both looks and damage, so I can finally pension off my Mako Shiv, which was really good but looked horrible.

Verdict: Major Victory! Keep up the good work guys!

This is my cryptic crypt map:

Togs of War - The sum is greater than its elements

We only get Dragesvard every second week, apparently. Le sigh.

However, we do get another Nythera quest with a really good storyline, this time explaining why the four elemental tribes are so wary of humans and tend to attack anyone who enters their domain (yes, it is Nythera's fault). I will have a lot more respect for elementals from now on, and probably feel a little bad if I have to kill any who get in my way. Interestingly, Warlic mentions a fifth tribe who live in the south. These might be the vizalain from the Crystal Shard quest, but I tend to think it has something to do with the path to the southwest of the portal that has said 'Coming soon!' for something like two years now. There's no reward except some good backstory that is both humorous and sensibly solid at the same time.

Xan is back in Falconreach too, but seems despondent, and promises to give up being an insane pyromancer if you defeat his latest creation. Its easily the most powerful non-titan creature in the game. I think you need to be level 50 or close to defeat it, which I am not. The three weapons dropped from the quest don't have the same element, and the dagger is stone, with more dpt than the Independence day weapons, but with no special. Arg. I was also going to complain about Xan being neutered - but I had a sneaking suspicion, so I visited the forums to see what would happen if I had won the battle. And yes, if you win, you drive Xan back into an insane fiery rage. Xan is back, baby, and hotter than ever!

Again, I can't comment on the revamp of the next part of Lymcrest. When the whole of Lymcrest is finished, I'll visit a friends house or something and do a special review of it.

Verdict: Major Victory! Yes, I am actually giving a non-Dragesvard release a Major Victory - not because the two quests have good battles or rewards, but because of what they add to DF's overall storyline.

Togs of War - It is good to be the King

This week's hyped-up release is the quest log. Unlike the armour closet, this release is available to everyone. Its actually only half completed, but its still really good. When completed, it will give you the ability to go to any quest line in the game, from wherever you happen to be at the moment. This is useful for people with slower internet connections, like myself. I set my hometown to Dragesvard as that is the main quest line at the moment, however, if they release a quest in a place like Lymcrest, Warlic's Zone or Sunbreeze grove, as they have been doing, I have to first load up Falconreach if I want to go there. Now, I can go directly to those zones from Dragesvard, and don't have to go to Falconreach unless I want to.

The best release this week was the Killguin Arena, the next quest in the Dragesvard line. As mentioned before, we need to ally with some of the natives to stand any sort of chance against the elves and dragons, and our first task is to convince the killguins to join us. We've fought the armoured penguins before, so that part is nothing new. But they more than make up for it with the reveal of who the leader of the killguins is - King Linus. Or Emperor Linus. Whichever you prefer. Its is one of those hilarious DragonFable style plot twists that makes perfect sense and leave you kicking yourself for not seeing it coming. Unless you saw it coming. Then good for you. Chance of nine new weapon drops or an ice scale here - six of the weapons are nothing to write home about, but the three fillet weapons look awesome and are more powerful than the Gary ice weapons. I never mind more powerful weapons, but its kind of annoying to put in another hard to get random drop that replaces a hard to get random drop that was only released a couple of weeks ago. I'm not gonna try get the fillet dagger yet, I think I'll wait until the Dragesvard line ends in case they release an even better ice weapon near the end. Its not like we'll be fighting fire monsters up here anyway.

There's a cute little quest in the baby dragon line too. You have to pick up some plants (hmm, is it just me or have we been collecting a LOT of plants recently?) by sending your dragon after them. The catch is, you have to dodge around monsters (the same ones you always have dodge when getting plants) and unless you have really high charisma and luck, your baby dragon doesn't go exactly where you tell him to, so sometimes you have to rush in and bail him out of a fight. Some intersting cloaks here, but nothing worth keeping unless you like collecting cloaks.

Verdict: Major Victory! Excellent releases, and you meet a king too.

Togs of War - Only penguins can save us now

Still sick. Short post.

The Good:
* You can now invite Galanoth to join your party as a guest. He has three ok skills.
* You get to play as Nythera, make mischief, and meet her father (a wizard) and mother (a dragon).

The Bad:
* Galanoth's new quest is exactly the same as his old one, except now you have to fight the elves two and three at a time without the aid of your baby dragon. It looks like they copied the visible pet code from the 'walking your dragon' and couldn't be bothered to adapt it to work for a guest, so they made Galanoth into a temporary pet. Oh, and only reward is ice scale.

The Revelations:
* The ice elves are ruled by an evil queen who is using the ice orb to control the ice dragons. And we must team up with our old enemies the ursine bears and killquins to stop her.
* Dragons can take human form. At least now we don't have to wonder about how half-dragons were invented, but if your friend starts acting strange…maybe he's been replaced by a dragon.
* Nythera created sneevils!

Verdict: Minor Victory The good is meh and the bad is sheer laziness. Only penguins can save us - but only sneevils can save this release.

Togs of War - Gary is a stupid name for an ice elf

First up is the end of the monkee war that was reached at the beginning of the week. The war was generally disappointing, the novelty of fighting as a pirate or ninja monkee quickly wore off and I found myself frustrated wishing for the high level skills of my necromancer, guardian or dragonlord armour. Fortunately you don't have to fight the boss, Mae Pi, as a monkee. The boss fight drops banana-themed weapons which look quite nice and do nature damage. The high-level versions are better than the pumpkin weapons from Halloween. Unfortunately there are seven of each, and they're random drops rather than purchasable from a war shop, and the boss fight has a long after-battle sequence, so its not easy to get the one you want. I tried a few times, and then gave up - its only nature damage after all. I'm just going to pretend the war never happened.

Onto this weeks release - we finally get to visit the ruined city of the long dead ice-elves. Galanoth comes along, setting up a magical talking cardboard cut-out of himself before he leaves so as to trick the dragons into thinking he is still guarding Dragesvard. The shimat you gave Galanoth does some magic, and the ice elf city turns out not to be as ruined as we thought, and the ice elves not as dead as we thought. You are ambushed by a large number of them, all armed with the deadly shimat weapons. Which really hurt. One of the ice elves, Gary, appears to admit that the elves attacked the village you found the shimat in two weeks ago. The shimat in question belongs to him. Galanoth comes up with a sneaky plan, telling you to fight your way out of the city, leaving him to get captured. In this way he can learn the truth behind the ice elve's attack on the village, and whether they are working with the ice dragons. The ice elves do look a bit like the half-dragon teacher of dracomancy in Adventure Quest. Hmmm. The plan is for you to return later and rescue Galanoth. Yeah, I see this plan working out perfectly with no hitches. Incidentally, this means that until further notice, the Galanoth in Dragesvard isn't actually Galanoth - its the magical talking cardboard cutout we saw earlier.

There are some weapon drops from this quest - Gary's sword, staff and dagger. Their designs are pretty cool-looking, and are obviously inspired by the shimat. They're slightly better than the icy weapons in BorkBork's shop, and though they don't look as cool, they are free, whilst BorkBork's are ridiculously expensive.

Verdict: Minor Victory The storyline is going somewhere after some stagnation, and I like where its going. Plus we saw elves and got some good ice weapons. But...Gary? C'mon, you can do better than that.

Togs of War - Stocking the Shelves

Being kind and considerate people, Artix Entertainment agreed to switch their DragonFable release day to Wednesday this week, seeing as how I’m away for the weekend. Actually, it has something to do with them being at Dragon Con, but I'm happy as I get to play it before I go. This weeks sees Galanoth’s ice elf/dragonslayer questline being put on hold, and instead we have the return of Nythera the…er…loyal apprentice of Warlic the Blue Mage. This might actually have something to do with the dragonslayer storyline, though, as Nythera is part dragon.

Nythera needs help restocking Warlic’s shelves, as she has…er…borrowed quite a few of his reagents. So it’s off to the not-haunted-in-any-way woods to look for glowy things. Some are more glowy than others, so keep a careful eye out. There you have to pick up three to seven plants whilst fighting fairies (sylphdrakes, ribalds and those annoying self-healing minx fairies) and undead (wisps and spirits) on the left side. The fairies are on the right side of the forest and resistant to light damage, and the undead are on the left and are resistant to darkness. Fortunately I know have both doom and destiny blades, so I can switch between them as necessary. The glowing blue mushrooms are full heals, and don’t count as plants. Its scaled, but seems to give more experience than most scaled quests.

In the forest is a dragon statue holding a Dragonlord shield. The statue opens a shop containing a new set of fire weapons called the Weapons of the Amulet, available in level 10, 20, 30 and 40 versions. There’s no level 50 version. At first glance only the level 40 type is significantly more powerful than the rares from Valentine’s Day, and not even that is more powerful than the fire weapons released last week. They do, however, have a special attack called Dragon Magic! which gives you a 7% powerboost for 5 turns, and this elevates them above the competition. Plus they look awesome and match my colour scheme. Interestingly, they have a incredibly high rarity value of twelve, unlike the supposedly rare doom and destiny weapons, which have a rarity value of one.

And finally, the quest can drop one of six rings or a necklace. Most of these aren’t anything to write home about. The necklace is interesting - it gives -50 to luck and charisma so you won’t be wearing it, but it sells for a whopping 350 gold. And now, the one thing that redeems this release – the level 27 Electric Orbit ring. Not only does it give +5 to dexterity and endurance, but also +4 to critical hit! Plus it has some standard bonuses to defenses and protection against energy. The only drawback is -2 defense against water, but that’s hardly anything drastic.

Verdict: Minor Victory. The ring is awesome – but we’ve seen Nythera before, we’ve seen the forest monsters before, and the weapons weren’t as good as they were hyped up to be. We want to see ice elves, people!

Togs of War - This Cold is Unbearable!

Togs of War is my weekly review of the latest update to DragonFable. DragonFable is the only online RPG I allow myself to play these days, as you don't actually interact with people in it, so no one actually expects you to do stuff. Plus its creators are completely insane and are apparently attempting to rip off…everything. By the way, the image on the left is what my pet tog looks like. Its kinda a reptile version of a dog, and for some reason is my favourite creature in the game.

This week's release rips off the only good thing about The Golden Compass - armoured polar bears! In the latest part of Galinoth's quest chain, you're off to the small village of Frode which has been destroyed by ice dragons, and subsequently taken over by bears and goblins. This is one of those quests where you actually have to defeat every monster (well almost, there's a three-in-one snowball after the stairs you can duck past). The generic snowballs and frost goblins who are merely annoying, but the bears (Ursice Savages) can take out a chunk of your health if you're not careful, as it seems they have a chance to stun you on every attack.I wasn't being careful and got stunned four times in a row on lowish health…not fun. So using your own stun/distract is advisable. The quest ends with you finding a strange circular weapon called a Shimat.

This causes Galanoth to think that maybe the Ice Elf race isn't as dead as everyone think it is. Sadly you don't get to keep it, only reward the quest gives is an Ice Dragon Scale, which will presumably be used to unlock Dragonslayer skills in the future. So it’s a good storyline quest, but I doubt you'll be doing it more than once. Looks like next week we're off to some Ice Elf ruins…would be cool to meet an elf for the first time in the game. No pun intended.

Other releases include the raising of the level cap to 50 (I'm not sure if this allows you to train alchemy higher) and 24 lvl 40+ weapons in Cysero's Superstore (which cost DragonCoins, meaning you need to pay real money of you want them).
Weapons:
45
*The Oscillation staff and Frequency sword look awesome, but they're light, so Destiny weapons are better. There's no equivalent dagger.
44
*The Dead Wave, Dead Fathom and Dead Water are now the most powerful water weapons in the game, with a nice accuracy boost, and look awesome to boot.
*The Fusion, Fusion and Fuse are now the most powerful fire weapons in the game, and also look pretty hot.
*The Schism, Divide and Cleave are much stronger than Bork's icy weapons, and have +5 crit. The Schism and Cleave look good, but the Divide doesn’t look nearly as cool as the Icy Dagger.
43
*Ironwill, Endure and Adamant look good, and are the strongest metal weapons..but they're metal. Even with +4 crit and boost, I don't think they were worth Cysero trading three of his right socks for.
42
*Pith, Xylem and Phloem have a simple elegance that's attractive…but do you really need the best wood weapon in the game? Seriously, what's weak against wood?
41
*I think the Nightli weapons are the strongest wind weapon…but I don't like their sickly green colour.
*Areten, Strath and Graben have +7 crit and do a bit more stone damage than the July 4th weapons…but they just don't stand up to the awesomeness of the rare holiday weapons.


Verdict: Major Victory! Ice Elves! Stunning polar pears! Ridiculously large and powerful weapons! More levels! What more could you want?