GF 3 Tier 4 Creations Overview

[Good Canisters]

I wish to discuss the 3 tier 4 creations, Rotghroths, Gazers, and Drakons. (Tier 4 upgrades excluded)

 

Of these creations, what do you think is the most powerful? Most useful? Best Essence / ability ratio?

 

From what I know, they are like this:

 

Rotghroths: High HP, Somewhat low attack, low parry, medium QA, melee stun and slow, acid damage.

 

Gazers: Medium HP, very high attack, very low parry, magical melee stun (slow?), magical attack.

 

Drakons: High HP, Essence orbs attack (damage?), low parry, normal melee, energy (magic?) attack.

 

My main question is about drakons. I just took the boat to the Isle of Spears as a Loyalist in torment, and I fight this insane drakon (the first one that attacks you as you arrive, I believe he was named something like "Drixis"). He uses essence orbs and hits 230s on all 3 of my rotghroths. I'm scared now. I always thought Drakons were weak, helpless creations when fighting in small battles. But with a creation that can do over 700 in one shot, about 1400 when hasted, could this be the creation that is stronger than my Gazers? My Gazers hit between 230-280, but that is unbelievable, considering that a Drakon's essence orbs ripped through my rotghroths and almost killed them. I haven't shaped a drakon myself, and I'm reluctant to use a Drakon canister unless my own can hit 170+ per orb. So is it just torment, or are drakons actually excellent creations, good enough to be used?

 

Shaping level is not a factor, since my shaper has very odd stats; all my shaping skills are 10+ and I have item boosts. My Gazers and Rotghroth are both low leveled (under 40). So is it worth it to convert to Drakons, or get a few at least, when they become available? Again, I play in torment.

 

EDIT: Clarity.

[Student of Trinity]

In G2, Drakons were not as good as Gazers. The ones you built would each hurt three enemies a bit, but your Gazers would kill things.

 

I never tried Drakons in G3, so it would be interesting to know if they have been beefed up. But how tough an enemy Drakon is says nothing about how good your own would be. Shape some and see!

[Jeran Korak]

as a cheater I gave my shaper max stats then 200 in create drakon and shaped a "Prefected Drakon" and it STILL only did about 140 damage with its dimound spray attack but did well over a THOUSAND damage with melee and ALWAYS had a QA attack

 

was on easy level btw

[Leftover Sauerkraut]

I remember rotogroths were horrible. The most they could hit was 70 damage a punch, maybe 130 with QA. I didn't like the drakons, but I had low fire shaping. The gazers I loved. They could hit over 200 damage a shot and 3 of them hasted could take out anything in the game.

[Good Canisters]

Quote:

Originally written by Leftover Sauerkraut:
I remember rotogroths were horrible. The most they could hit was 70 damage a punch, maybe 130 with QA. I didn't like the drakons, but I had low fire shaping. The gazers I loved. They could hit over 200 damage a shot and 3 of them hasted could take out anything in the game.

Are you sure? Try being a loyalist playing torment and shaper Gazers. Then try to kill Nazar (SE Icy End) and his army of creations. The ur-glaahks will slay them easily. Or try the Beneri Eo Gates (I think that was what it was called) and take on 15 ur glaahks, battle betas, war serviles (the ones that hit over 100 and slow/terror/charm/acid)and drayks. Gazers don't kill all, especially things with high magic resistance, so you really have to mix your forces around in GF 3 torment. I had to use a rotghroth and Alwan frequently because of the incredibly high magical resistant enemies.

A rotghroth doesn't suck that much, you'll probably be keeping at least one throughout the game. It's a good early 4th tier creation, arguably better than a drakon, which is late Isle of spears. It's effective at taking out what your drayks and gazers can't.

And drakons, I just shaped one. It hit 130 on Alwan. Disappointing, really, as Alwan has NO resistances or armor, as far as I've seen. They do have QA and a half decent melee attack, I've noticed. It's just that torment enemies are incredibly strong, as a gazer killed my full HP Alwan in one hit. Did 404 damage to the poor nonresistant thing.

EDIT: Plus, a rotghroth CAN hit more than a gazer, and has QA and slow. Acid damage is also harder to resist in the end of the game. Do you always shape your creations with full skill? I always shape tier 4 creations at their maximum starting level. Rots start at 38 (max) and they consistently hit 120+, up to 260 with QA, so I don't see what you're saying about 70s and 130s. Gazers start at 37 (max), and you need to level them to have skills that are on par with a rot. But I agree, Gazers are horribly strong and unbalance the game.

EDIT 2: Can 3 hasted (blessed too!) gazers kill the Bound One at torment? (For extra clarity, I meant in one round)

[Archaeolagent]

I don't remember what the base levels are but the actual maximum levels are higher. You can get +3 or more from Create X skill for everything except Drakons (in G3), and you can get +18 from X Shaping, if you were insane enough to pump it to 29. This is not a very useful point, but there it is

[Good Canisters]

Quote:

Originally written by Chitrach Exterminator:
I don't remember what the base levels are but the actual maximum levels are higher. You can get +3 or more from Create X skill for everything except Drakons (in G3), and you can get +18 from X Shaping, if you were insane enough to pump it to 29. This is not a very useful point, but there it is

I'm not sure, but I did get all my shaping to over 10, probably a bad idea but I did it and I don't really regret it too much. I did get my battle shaping over the roof, with 17 with items, but there seems to be a max starting limit... maybe I am wrong. However, I had level 1 create rotghroth and 17 Batttle Shaping, but the creation refused to start at a higher level than 38 (as I could get it to level 38 with less than 17 battle shaping). I must recheck however, because I sometimes have odd memory lapses

EDIT: Oh wait, maybe it's the diminishing returns? Shaping at higher levels doesn't exactly give creations one level per skill level. Right?

[Archaeolagent]

Hmm. It's possible there's a level limit that nobody here has encountered, as 17 is indeed very high to pump those skills

 

What might shed some light is that for shaping skill 1-10, you get +1 level per point of skill. For 11-20, you get +1 level on the even numbers, so you get +11 at 12-13, +12 at 14-15, and so on. 16 and 17 both provide +14 levels. For 21-30, you get +1 every three numbers, so 29-30 get you +18.

[Good Canisters]

Yes, that its. Diminishing returns. It is indeed possible to get a level 39 rotghroth, I just shaped one. But the difficulty of it is incredible, and most could not get this much without a major focus on Battle Shaping. In the end, it was 2 level from create rotghroth and 13 levels from 16 battle shaping skill. It is a waste of valuable skill points, however to really go over 10 at all.

[Upon Mars.]

Well i suppose they all have weakness and advantages roths are good in tight melees and separating forces. Gazers are for a kick and devastating surprise only attacking a gazer this sheer tooth and claw will kill it. But a drakon is only a reinforcement against magic creations which makes them hard to kill for an agent spreading her or his fury in singing spells in the battle field.

[Leftover Sauerkraut]

Quote:

Originally written by GoodCnaister:
Then try to kill Nazar (SE Icy End) and his army of creations. The ur-glaahks will slay them easily. Or try the Beneri Eo Gates (I think that was what it was called) and take on 15 ur glaahks, battle betas, war serviles (the ones that hit over 100 and slow/terror/charm/acid)and drayks.

That is true(however I was playing on normal). For magic resistant creations I had two Drayks to back up my gazers.

Quote:

Rots start at 38 (max) and they consistently hit 120+, up to 260 with QA, so I don't see what you're saying about 70s and 130s.

They can? I must have tested them on something with armour....

[Good Canisters]

Quote:

Originally written by Leftover Sauerkraut:

Quote:

Originally written by GoodCnaister:
Then try to kill Nazar (SE Icy End) and his army of creations. The ur-glaahks will slay them easily. Or try the Beneri Eo Gates (I think that was what it was called) and take on 15 ur glaahks, battle betas, war serviles (the ones that hit over 100 and slow/terror/charm/acid)and drayks.

That is true(however I was playing on normal). For magic resistant creations I had two Drayks to back up my gazers.

Quote:

Rots start at 38 (max) and they consistently hit 120+, up to 260 with QA, so I don't see what you're saying about 70s and 130s.

They can? I must have tested them on something with armour....

I tested them against armor. They do about that much against 3rd tier and upgrades, and the damage is still rather consistently at 120+/hit. Against strong drakons, they averaged 115. The only thing that bogged them down other than acid resistant creations was Akhari Blaze, which I could only get them to hit 60-70, but my gazers didn't do much better (about 110, the gap is far smaller). Plus, all the damage done was in torment, so I'm not sure what happened to your rots. I believe the only 2 things that's not supposed to have ANY armor or resistances at all are Alwan and (possibly?) Greta.

[Suspicious Vlish]

For my own experience of GF3 (since I'm not really interested in number crunching):

 

1. Drakons are underpowered for their huge essence cost. A rather weak diamond spray, and a half-way decent physical bite. Remember that resistance to physical damage is rather common from the middle of the game onwards. Overall, not worth the essence.

 

2. Rotgroths are undoubtably the most effective battle creation. As has already been mentioned, they use acid to melee, not physical. This makes their strike hard to resist (except by other Rotgroths.)

 

On the other hand, I never was fond of battle creations. Creations with missile attacks seem superior, as they don't waste action points moving up close to the enemy to strike them in melee.

 

3. Eyebeasts are quite good for their cost, although they have been nerfed since GF2. The fact that while their melee is weak, it has a nasty secondary effect, means that they aren't totally useless in close combat.

 

Gazers have also been nerfed, although I'd argue that they are still worth their weight in essence.

[Good Canisters]

I thought drakons didn't get diamond spray, wasn't it ur-drakons? Seriously, drakons are weak. No matter how you pump all of its stats and levels, it's essence orbs/ diamond spray never gets stronger. IMHO, cryodrayks should get essence orbs but receive an increase in essence cost, and drakons should get some other "decent" spell.

[Just Another Muffin Junky]

I haven't played G3 in a while but I totally agree with Waylander on this one (if memory serves). Drakons can't kill anything, are ridiculously expensive, and are very late game creations. They melee okay, but it isn't worth the cost when you could simply buy the better rotgroth. Rotgroths are tough and hit pretty high damage and (I think) are the earliest tier 4 creation you can get your grubby hands on. Gazers used to be the best in G2, and are once again good in G4, but they are still quite powerful with a powerful ranged attack, However, they hit for very little in close combat. The awnser? get rotgroths and gazers. Rotgroths as expensive and powerful meatshields (as well as a way to get rid of those pesky magic resistant creations) and gazers as the artillery. Didn't need me to figure that out.

[Jeran Korak]

My Ur-Drakon kills four battle-betas a turn on easy and does over 600 damage with it's QA attack plus the abilty to hit 4 enemys a go makes it's 800 essance cost small change, this combined with both my 500 essance Eye-beasts with max dex gives me the fire-power of 2000 damage a turn when hasted and blessed

[Lilith]

Quote:

Originally written by Nija_Halycron:
My Ur-Drakon kills four battle-betas a turn on easy

The fact that you find the game easy on Easy will impress nobody.

[Jeran Korak]

I tryed on torment and found that while my Drakons still did vast amounts of damage my weirdly done shaper was useualy killed before the second round having 25 in all shaping skills but just two in dex and end.

[Leftover Sauerkraut]

Quote:

My Ur-Drakon kills four battle-betas a turn on easy and does over 600 damage with it's QA attack plus the abilty to hit 4 enemys a go makes it's 800 essance cost small change, this combined with both my 500 essance Eye-beasts with max dex gives me the fire-power of 2000 damage a turn when hasted and blessed

Jesus! How much have you been cheating? 1800 essance.... And I believe it is impossible to make a Ur-Drakon without editing.

[Aequitas]

You are quite correct about the ur-Drakon, Mr. Sauerkraut. And I do not wish to sound pushy, but could you please not take His or His Father's name in vain?

[Lilith]

Quote:

Originally written by Lord Macintosh:
And I do not wish to sound pushy, but could you please not take His or His Father's name in vain?

That's... pretty ironic, considering your signature.

[The1Kobra]

I know in GF3, I used a drakon, more for show than for powergaming, I found him quite a bit weaker than my other creations. He was actually best at absorbing fire, and he was better than my entire crew at that. I also kinda needed him, as he was the only thing I made that did magic damage. The other thing is you get them so late as they almost don't matter anymore. Generally, I would say that they are weaker than the other two, unless you have a fire shaping of 10 and battle/magic shaping of 2, and I don't know how this could ever happen...

P.S, and when I said weaker, I mean, even more useless than my fyora. I pumped my Fyoras stats extremely high and he ended up being quite useful.

[Aequitas]

Slightly off topic, but...

 

I DO object to people taking His or His Father's name in vain, but only in an obvious reference to Christianity. And my signature is quite true, I AM the God of Mac OS X. But, the word "God" does not apply just to Christianity. And I do not use it in vain as a reference to Christianity.

 

back to topic: Drakons are useful only at the end of the game. And since the only Drakon canisters are on the Isle of Spears, yeah, they really aren't very useful.

 

And, out of curiosity and my Shaper's lust for power, has anyone learned of a cheat where you can create canisters?

[Dikiyoba]

Originally by Lord Macintosh:

 

Quote:

And, out of curiosity and my Shaper's lust for power, has anyone learned of a cheat where you can create canisters?

No, but there are editors that can raise your stats.

 

Dikiyoba.