Dragon Form (Altered Beast RP)

ICEFANG wrote:Oh man I love playing Dragon, I love playing it so much
(other than the 7/9 characters I have being dragons, and making about
20 different ones) I made an account JUST to give you tons of info and
advice on being a dragon!

Oh my where to begin, I guess we can
start with advantages and disadvantages, I warn you, dragon is not easy
mode, but it is fun to play and is not only rewarding to good players
who can use it well, it is rewarding to bear flippy flippy mask of the
poop.

On another note, I dislike 'testing' things, most of my
information is qualitative (not really number based) I will be telling
you these based on my experiences, however I do know most of (if not
all) of the numbers as well, I will let you know if I am pulling it out
of my butt.

Disadvantages:
You cannot wear armor.

Oh
wait, that is the disadvantage, I kept thinking of all the things you
can't get because of that...

You cannot:
-Have poise (either
its 40 or 0, it would be more logical to wear armor and wear the DWGR
instead of using dragonform, although I enjoy wearing the wolf ring
sometimes, as dragon, I usually suggest not wearing it. It does help,
but not as much as you may expect.
-Have high defense, no matter what
you do (with rings etc), your defense will be hard to pass over 200
(the blue tearstone ring would probably break it somewhat easily, but
its doubtful it would protect you while its activated).
-Have
toxin/poison/bleed resistance. You will be surprised how much it
matters. I highly suggest you always use a bloodshield or any
100/100/100 guard shield (against toxin/poison/bleed) You will
absolutely need it. Even the impressive 92/92/92 (or 90/90/90) of the
Sliver/Black Knight Shield isn't great protection. In this train of
thought, I have trouble suggesting using a tower shield other than
Artorias's. They (should they have another type of damage, as I've seen
often with bleed and katanas) just spam it at you, usually winning
quickly. (I will go over more weapons in detail later)

Technically
there is only one disadvantage, but trust me, its is huge. there is a
reason people hate DWGR (armor is extremely important). There truly is
one advantage to get excited about.

Advantages:
Dragon's
Breath- This is quite a utility, its effective against slow people
(which are extremely uncommon). It NEEDS to be used in short small
damage bursts. At level 3 in the covenant (qualitative) it deals ~92
damage a hit to the hollow zombies in burg (not the soldiers). What is
special about it, it does deal high poise and blocking-stamina usage
damage. If they block it or take it all, they will probably stagger,
however, usually to do that, you will need to use your entire stamina
bar. The longer you use it, the more stamina it takes. Hence why I
suggest short bursts. It is effective on smaller enemies, not so much on
players.
Dragon Claws- This are, honestly, quite bad. They make
excellent assassin tools. They have an AR of 400 (how do I know? Try BS
on an enemy, when you deal damage with your claws, it enhances your AR
from 20-400, you can only see this when you hit someone. This is why the
dragon bow bs glitch works, it buffs the bow's damage). It also has
higher crit. I dunno what it is, but it doesn't usually outdamage (my
favorite weapon) a +5Chaos Gargoyle's Halberd with a BS. I wouldn't be
surprised if it did with a parry though. Now why do they suck? 400
single damage is quite fair, especially considering they do not require
any stats to work, but they moveset (if you can call it that) is, well,
just worthless. Smack Smack Smack. Its extremely hard to hit another
player with them, and the damage isn't crazy great either. They do look
cool though.
Dragon's Roar (get excited! Oh wee oh wee oh wee!)- This
is the ability that makes it worth it to be a dragon (other than
looking cool, btw, no one remind me that this is like force, but with
the disadvantage of having no armor). This roar has more range than
force (based on my own thoughts, I use a cleric knight fellow, and after
using both, I feel as though roar has more range). It seems like WOTG
has more range than force, I wouldn't be surprised if roar and WOTG had
the same range. It increases your AR by 1.304348, at level 3, except the
claws, which I suspect increase 100% (it increases your fist damage
from 20-40). It also stuns them. I have used it a lot, I will give you
some important details:
Enemies with greatshields (oh my bane)
certain heavy medium shields (Sliver Knight, Black Knight, Sunlight
Shield, to name the most common) and no small shields I have ever seen,
will block the roar knockback. It will take stamina of theirs, usually 2
roars will break a medium shield guard, but if you roar into a
greatshield, do no roar again unless you like to die. Another cool note:
any shield 2 handed will stop the roar (do not read this if you ever
fight me online muhahaha), once again, taking stamina.
Poise has
never given a consistent protection against roar. I have roared players
that seem to ignore it, but usually its followed by a lag stab.
Your
roar (qualitative) will use up about 95 stamina (you can use it twice
with 40 end, and RoFaP on, and then a 3rd time using up that little
sliver left, if you don't mind being open to being hit as your stamina
returns back).

Roar is your greatest defense, breath is a good
utility, and claws suck unless you want to use them in PvE as no
requirement weapons or as an assassin.

Now that you have a look
into the abilities of dragon we can discuss some other features, we can
start with stat allocation.

There are 2 builds I suggest dragon
working for. Low HP and high HP. One of them doesn't care that you're
not wearing armor, one resists it and gives you some breathing room. My
SL 125 dragon has 99 vit, but my level 80 (with 50 vit) is stronger in
comparison to the other levels. I suggest either glass cannon or high
HP. Playing with moderate HP will not often save you from a BS or a
stunlock, the advantage is not usually worth the spend (at least against
other players).

I prefer to play 0 magic dragons, I think roar
is a sweet 'magic' that makes it tons of fun to play. I suppose the rest
of the skills should be spent how you think, but I have one suggestion
you may scoff at. I highly suggest you put some points (3-5-8) into resistance. You will be surprised how much armor
protects you from poison. This can mean the difference between someone
poisoning/toxin you and not. Remember you can't eat a moss when they are
on your tail. You have no poise or armor to protect you while you do
it. My SL 80 has 18 res, a Gargoyle's Halberd and a potential
bloodshield. I haven't been poisoned yet.

Now I will give you
advice on weapons.

Since you have no armor, you need to remember
that you can't trade hits. A moderate to fast weapon is generally better
(the halberds have nice range too). Since it is quite easy for them to
own you if you are using slow attacks all the times. Also, do not exceed
25% equip load. The biggest advantage you have is an extra ring slot.
Its not easy to break 25% (without a greatshield), but if you do, I
suggest you make changes. DWGR is not something you should need with no
armor. Since a fast weapon isn't likely to stun someone, make sure if
you roar and hit, you fall back or block right away. You must be close
for the strike to occur. That is another reason I suggest against
greatshields. They weigh so much, and when they come spam attacks at
you, being able to parry (or have poise and start trading hits) is
really important. Also I do not suggest small shields (if anyone even
uses them), or things like the dark hand or parry dagger. You need a
solid shield, one with higher stability and good protection.

The
rings I like to use, with my non magic chars are usually, Cloranty ring
(SP? the stamina regen ring, I shall call it the flower ring), and the
RoFaP (which I honestly hope they remove, it makes the game quite a good
deal easier). Since your advantages are based on stamina, roar and
breath, I want to have that bar be as big as possible and regen as fast
as possible. I also usually use a Grass Crest Shield in my R2, since I
usually need it to catch people who run away, or I switch to it quickly
to recover after an extra roar.

Oh what was I saying? I shouldn't
have started thinking of my pvp's as dragon, oh yeah.

I think of
this flow chart when I play, I suppose it hinders my ability to play
the game, oh well.
Are you or they lagging? If yes than you will
probably lose. Poise and defense are really important to fish slapping.
Are
they using a greatshield or heavy medium shield? If yes, I consider it a
hard match, if no...
Can they fast roll? If no, then usually I just
roar and beat them to death, if yes, then...
Can they retaliate
quickly? If yes, roar is dangerous and ineffective to use. Roar->roll
and counter is a dangerous game to play. If no then usually roar will
win eventually.

If they are using a slow weapon, go for BSes. I
dislike how people call it fish for BSes. I suppose I do that, I guess
if they have a greatshield and a Zwei I should just go toe to toe with
them right? You will have to use your speed to hit them when they
strike. Many players will underestimate you, and rightly so, its hard to
play and many dragons are pathetic cheaters, which brings me to the
last point.

Do not dragon machine gun.
Do not dragon machine
gun dragon roar (making you nearly invincible).
Do not use the bow BS
glitch.

Play legitimately. It may be easy to win with cheating,
just like with flippy flippy mask of the poop, but like Dark Souls
teaches us, its not about you dying, its about the way the victory
feels. Bring honor to dragons roar!

If you have other questions,
which I may have forgotten to answer anyway, please feel free to ask, I
have tons and tons of experience as a dragon. Which reminds me...

Dragon
pyros aren't often effective, the most important pyro, great combust,
usually doesn't work against anyone with poise with your no poise. Some
pyros are helpful, but I can't suggest a pyro dragon build, as my first
dragon was.