October 17, 2013

Dragon Shinobi Class Skills Breakdown

READY FOR YOUR REWARD?

You've battled Brutalcorn, fought off con rot at BattleCon, and saved the convention guests and Artix Entertainment staff from certain doom at the hands of marauding undead ravers! Now, Artix needs your help again! Find him in the Underground Lab to unlock AQWorlds' 5th Anniversary class, which is... (drumroll, please)

What's better than ninjas? Dragon ninjas.

Dragon Shinobi! During our 5th Birthday event, you'll be able to earn this class by helping Artix save BattleCon (and the Underground Lab!) from a monster invsion. After the event ends, you'll still be able to buy it from Ragnar in Battleon. The class will be in game until our 6th birthday, at which point it will go rare.

To earn Dragon Shinobi, find Artix at the underground lab. Complete quests for him to earn Dragon Shinobi tokens, and then merge the tokens into class set items at his Dragon Shinobi merge shop. Just like last year, you'll have a month to earn the tokens you need. After that time, the only way to get these items will be to buy them. You should be able to earn enough tokens pretty easily though, since the quests can be repeated as often as you want. Plus there's an extra quest for Legends, so if you have a membership it will go even faster.

Anyway, on to the class itself...

Dragon Shinobi Skills Breakdown

Ninjas are hailed for their dexterity. Dragons are praised for their strength. And when the Ninja trains in the way of the Dragon, they shall become the Dragon Shinobi, master of brutal warfare! Dragon Shinobi have mastered the most effective ways of disabling their opponents while enduring their strikes.

Dragon Shinobi was designed as the evolved version of last year's Chunin class. Unlike Chunin, which was a brute force, multi-target sort of ninja, Dragon Shinobi focuses all of its damage onto a single target. Its damage is based on stackable DoTs, so it starts out slow and then ramps up the damage as the fight continues. And for a little something extra: you'll regen mana whenever you hit an enemy, and you'll regen both mana and HP whenever you dodge an attack.

Here's what I caught our playtesters saying about Dragon Shinobi:

"It's all about strategy with this class."
"It's a pretty powerful and tactical class."
"I soloed Desoloth with it, the one from the war... [though it] required patience."

Excited yet? Well, then you must be ready for a detailed skills breakdown!

AUTO ATTACK

2 second cooldown

A basic attack, taught to all adventurers.

SHADOW KUNAI

10 mana, 3 second cooldown. Requires rank 1.

Throw a deadly shadow poison tipped shuriken at your target. Shadow Shuriken will continually damage your opponent from afar. Each throw not only increases the shadow poison's damage but also has a small chance to apply Spinning Dragon to reduce your target's next hit to 0 damage.

Single-target DoT. Since the damage effect stacks, go ahead and use this skill whenever the cooldown comes up. The chance for Spinning Dragon is even more of a reason to use this skill as often as possible.

CHI HEAL

90 mana, 2 second cooldown. Requires rank 2.

Focus all your chi into restoring your life force.

Since this uses almost all of your mana, you'll have to be strategic with this ability despite its short cooldown. However, it is a FULL heal.

SHADOW SOUL

15 mana, 52 second cooldown. Requires rank 3.

Meditate, transferring yourself into the shadow realm to restore your mana. While meditating, you cannot attack for 7 seconds, and all attacks against you will deal greatly reduced damage.

This basically stuns you for 7 seconds (during which time you take a lot less damage), but it heals a large chunk of your mana. A cunning player could use this in conjunction with Chi Heal quite effectively. Note that using this ability will clear out your Shadow Shuriken damage stacks.

MIND OVER MATTER

Passive. Requires rank 4.

Increases Endurance by 18%.

SHADOW MASTER

Passive. Requires rank 4.

Increases haste by 10%, and Damage Over Time effects are 30% stronger.

FLAMING DRAGON

30 mana, 8 second cooldown. Requires rank 5.

Hit your opponent with a flaming strike for moderate damage to burn your target over time. This attack has a chance to apply Spinning Dragon to reduce your target's next hit to 0 damage.

This one isn't stackable, but it is a stronger attack than Shadow Shuriken, so it's a good supplement for it.

SHADOW DRAGON

Passive. Requires Rank 10.

Gives a small chance per attack to gain the power of the Shadow Dragon increasing the power of all Damage Over Time effects by 400% for 20 seconds.

This sounds more OP than it actually is. But it's still a really nice bonus for those longer fights.

So, there you have it! The perfect single-target complement to Chunin's multi-target awesomeness. Strength and dexterity are definitely your friends with this class, so be sure to choose your enhancements wisely . Have fun!

Edit: Shadow Soul no longer heals all of your mana; it brings it up to 65. Breakdown edited accordingly.