Rock Drakes are too weak

[TheCreep]

So, my tribe and I have finally gotten access to Rock Drakes. We spent days doing the whole process; treading down to their birthing grounds, stealing eggs, hatching, and raising. So far, the drakes are way too weak to be useful, minus their abilities as a taxi.

1. They have no health.
2. While their stamina regeneration is good, they have almost no stamina (gain ~30 per level)
   • Everything they do requires stamina (climbing, gliding, fighting, camo)
3. They do almost no damage (scaling is terrible)
   • Even with 100% Imprinting
4. Their attack speed is so insanely slow
5. Their stats can't be improved via breeding
6. Hatching & Raising them takes days (depending on multipliers)
7. The passenger takes damage from attacks and can die, while the rider remains fine like any other mount
8. They are almost weaker than wild rock drakes

Why is the fight between my 100% imprinted rock drake and a single wild rock drake so close? The rock drake is 'supposedly' the only equal to the reapers, but that is not even remotely true. As it stands, our Megalosaurus does at least 3x damage per hit and attack at least 2x faster, with easily 2-4x more health. Minus the rock drake's maneuverability and their eggs being used to tame the Basilisk, they're completely useless. Am I missing something here?

I'm not sure how many other tribes have progressed to this point, but is anyone else experiencing lack luster combat performance from their rock drakes?

[PuffyPony]

I don't really consider the Rock Drake a direct combat mount. That's why I think most people are disappointed in its stats, because they want to run gung-ho into combat like they would with a Rex or Basilisk or Wyvern. Compare it more to the Yuty. Its role is more supportive than offensive, with excellent mobility and camo allowing you to traverse the battlefield quickly and covertly. That said, point by point

1- 900 Base Health. For a 190 hatch, on average you should expect around 6,000 HP. That's pretty spanking good, especially if we run with the aforementioned idea that this creature isn't a direct combat mount. Sure, not on Rex level, but keep in mind that Rexes have some of the higher base Health stats in the game. They certainly tame with more Health than a Wyvern, and they get the benefit of a saddle (with higher qualities) and a TEK saddle. Squishiness isn't something I personally consider a problem with the Rock Drake
2- 22.5 gain per wild level, for an average of about 1150 for a 190. At 5% gain per tamed level, that's an increase of 60. They are treated as flyers, so the low Stamina gain shouldn't be all that surprising. It's probably the first stat I'd recommend investing in
3- Scaling is exact same as most creatures? (+5% base damage per wild level, +1.7% damage multiplier per tamed level). They do have the -25% damage modifier, which I don't think is really necessary given their low attack speed, but they scale just as any other tame
4- This is true, and part of the reason I think it's not really intended as a combat mount. We got the Basilisk and the Reaper which fill that role
5- True, and I'd like to see breeding for some of the currently unbreedable creatures, if even only on Unofficial or if even only for color/stat mutations.
6- Raising the babies is the same duration as a Wyvern, Rex, Megalo, Diplo, Compy, Bronto, Megalodon, Megatherium, Dunkleosteus, and Paracer. Much shorter than Giga, Quetz, Theri, Tuso, Yuty, Basilo, Mosa, and Plesi. It's nothing horrendously out of the ordinary. Main issue I have is how impossibly cold you need it (or how obnoxiously high your Hyperthermal Insulation has to be) for the egg to incubate
7- This is a problem for all multi-seater creatures I'd like to see fixed
8- I... don't know that I agree with this. It's certainly not been my experience
9- Megalosaurus does 25% more damage per hit at equal damage percent. Don't know how much more quickly it attacks, and assuming infinite levels, on average it'd cap at about 25% more HP than the Rock Drake. Also worth noting that the Megalo was balanced with the whole sleep mechanic in mind, and without it, it's pretty incredibly powerful

That said, overall I'm pretty happy with it. If points 5 and 7 could be fixed, I think it'd be a really excellent tame. Points 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 8, and 9 are things that I personally see as non-issues

[mackyish3r3]

I agree with 1, 3, 4, 5, 7 and 8.

[TheCreep]

The Rock Drake is supposed to be the Wyvern of Aberration. The Wyvern isn't a support mount. It's combat capabilities are top tier. It's not even a great support dino. It's fast, can turn invisible, and climb things, but that won't mean anything if you have to assist your tribe in combat. A single unridden, bred megalo could probably kill a ridden rock drake. I guess the stats are fine if you base everything off of a 190, but even on my singleplayer game where i have god mode and fly around, I have never found a 190 egg. Let alone on the dedicated server my friends and I play on. Rock Drakes and Reapers are supposed to be the strongest dinos in aberration, but they're just so dang weak. Hopefully they get some fair buffs.

[LouSpowells]

18 minutes ago, TheCreep said:

Am I missing something here?

Yes. In addition to rock drakes not biting as hard and fast as a megalosaurus, they also don't swim as fast as frogs, glow as bright as shinehorns, jump as high as karkis, bite as hard as spinos, carry as much metal as ravagers, roll as fast as roll rats, spit venom as well as basilisks, stomp as good as paracers, shock as good as electric eels, or gallop as good as equus. 

Then again, if you need something that bites as hard and fast as a megalosaurus, there's something that does that. If you need something to swim as fast as a frog, there's something that does that. If you need something that glows as bright as shinehorns, there's something that does that. Jump as high as a karki? There's something that does that. Bites as hard as spinos? There's something that does that. Carries as much metal as ravagers? There's something that does that. Rolls as fast as roll rats? There's something that does that. Spit venom? There's something that does that.

...but what if you're looking for something that can float like a glider, climb up walls and onto ceilings, carry a second rider, kill just about every wild animal without too much issue, notify you of reapers, and turn invisible? Any suggestions for one single animal that can do all of those things?

[MayonnaisePlease]

Agree fully but hey can we fix the ravager bleed effect so that my bred ravager doesnt lose over half health to a wild lvl 80.. 

[mackyish3r3]

7 minutes ago, MayonnaisePlease said:

Agree fully but hey can we fix the ravager bleed effect so that my bred ravager doesnt lose over half health to a wild lvl 80.. 

yeah bleed effect is so unrealistic

[Ranger1]

27 minutes ago, TheCreep said:

The Rock Drake is supposed to be the Wyvern of Aberration.

I'm not sure what gave you this impression to be honest.  Any creature that can be invisible is not likely to also be the top tier combat mount... especially when it has the best overall maneuverability characteristics on the map.  It can kill most things on it's own, and those things it can't kill it can easily evade.  That gives it a great deal of value as a tame.

[DarthaNyan]

9 minutes ago, LouSpowells said:

Any suggestions for one single animal that can do all of those things?

griffin before nerf?
/s

56 minutes ago, TheCreep said:

Their attack speed is so insanely slow

They have a griffins swipe attack and dive bomb attack (that can also be performed Thylo style).

From my tests they are either intentionally locked to fixed numbers of damage or bugged because they dont scale with melee: swipe does 150 damage, dive bomb/ambush attack hits all enemies in AoE 1-3 times for 240.

That makes them covert-ops type of a dino: stealth and ambush attacks (if devs acknowledge fixed damage as bug). Giving them an excellent ability for close combat as well would have been over the top.

[Wazzamaniac]

With a good rock drake you can chain kill 2-3 reaper queens. Thats underpowered?

[LouSpowells]

6 hours ago, DarthaNyan said:

griffin before nerf?
/s

 

If you want to let me know how to get a griffin to walk up walls I'll be stoked. lol

[SouthernSamurai]

mounted combat is so underestimated and it avoids turrets to load up with some high dmg fire arms and explosives and fire down from the ceiling or sneak behind turrets los and blow bases to hell from weak points in deterred just gotta be creative 

[Drackus]

Yes. In addition to rock drakes not biting as hard and fast as a megalosaurus, they also don't swim as fast as frogs, glow as bright as shinehorns, jump as high as karkis, bite as hard as spinos, carry as much metal as ravagers, roll as fast as roll rats, spit venom as well as basilisks, stomp as good as paracers, shock as good as electric eels, or gallop as good as equus. 
Then again, if you need something that bites as hard and fast as a megalosaurus, there's something that does that. If you need something to swim as fast as a frog, there's something that does that. If you need something that glows as bright as shinehorns, there's something that does that. Jump as high as a karki? There's something that does that. Bites as hard as spinos? There's something that does that. Carries as much metal as ravagers? There's something that does that. Rolls as fast as roll rats? There's something that does that. Spit venom? There's something that does that.
...but what if you're looking for something that can float like a glider, climb up walls and onto ceilings, carry a second rider, kill just about every wild animal without too much issue, notify you of reapers, and turn invisible? Any suggestions for one single animal that can do all of those things?

I adore you for your sarcasm.

[Dreadnaught]

17 hours ago, TheCreep said:

The Rock Drake is supposed to be the Wyvern of Aberration. The Wyvern isn't a support mount. It's combat capabilities are top tier. It's not even a great support dino. It's fast, can turn invisible, and climb things, but that won't mean anything if you have to assist your tribe in combat. A single unridden, bred megalo could probably kill a ridden rock drake. I guess the stats are fine if you base everything off of a 190, but even on my singleplayer game where i have god mode and fly around, I have never found a 190 egg. Let alone on the dedicated server my friends and I play on. Rock Drakes and Reapers are supposed to be the strongest dinos in aberration, but they're just so dang weak. Hopefully they get some fair buffs.

I too would like to know where you got the idea they were supposed to be just as powerful as wyverns?  Can you direct me to patch notes or a community crunch or even something on twitter where they said anything like that?  Seems like you are assuming based on preconceived ideas of what the drakes SHOULD be in your opinion.  Aberation is neat because the map and the new dinos are not cookie cutter re-skins of existing assets, adjust your tactics.

[NovaMagic]

On 12/28/2017 at 10:23 PM, Wazzamaniac said:

With a good rock drake you can chain kill 2-3 reaper queens. Thats underpowered?

They're weak though if you have a lantern pet...

 

 

I thought rock drakes were meant as a transportation mount, not a combat mount.

For combat we have megalosaurus before they get nerfed

[Wazzamaniac]

1 hour ago, NovaMagic said:

They're weak though if you have a lantern pet...

 

 

I thought rock drakes were meant as a transportation mount, not a combat mount.

For combat we have megalosaurus before they get nerfed

Yea, but the OP is stating theyre too weak.

Nothing can oppose a rock drake, really, with the exception of a multitude of powerful enemies at once. Solution? Bring more drakes. 

[NovaMagic]

4 minutes ago, Wazzamaniac said:

Yea, but the OP is stating theyre too weak.

Nothing can oppose a rock drake, really, with the exception of a multitude of powerful enemies at once. Solution? Bring more drakes. 

Yeah, the moment other rock drake or any other dino starts to pile on you, you're raptored.

[Sorover]

I simply don't get how you lot even get close to the conclusion that Rock Drakes are weak in Aberration.

Now bear in mind that i am playing on a dedicated server with a difficulty offset of 6, meaning that wild dinos will go up to level 180 instead of 150, achieving higher stats.

I've bred a bunch of different levels of Rock Drakes at this point, and my two highest levels were both a 216 egg.
With a 100 % imprinting, these babies will tear through the red zone like it was nothing.

First of all, they can easily get to 15k+ Hp with very few points invested, leaving a massive pool of points to go into melee.
I've never found the need to level stamina on them, i can glide, sprint and jump from the fertile lake, almost through the bioluminescent zone to our base in the red without a single stamina break, and that's with a base 1500~ stamina.
The best one of them hits for about 450~, and will hit for 600+ when mate boosted. This, paired with their huge aoe, will take care of literally any wild dinos on the map.
Now of course, they do have a low attack speed, but considering how hard they hit, and how tanky they are, it's only fair.
 

I'm aware that a megalosaurus can easily reach the same amount of stats due to their crazy 24/7 nightbuff. However i don't find them nearly as tanky, mobile, or useful in the red zone as a drake.

By far the fastest mount on the map, considering that basilisks can't jump and glide to gain speed. Immune to radioactive damage, and unlike the reaper king, does not take negative effects from chargelight, making them the perfect reaper queen farmer.

Also comparing the mega to the Rock drake, the mega will aggro alot of things down in the red zone, while the Rock drake will only ever aggro Reapers and Spinos, making the drakes alot more useful in the red zone.


Now again bear in mind that i'm on a different difficulty offset than official servers, however just as my dinos have more stats, so does wild dinos, and my experience so far with the Rock Drakes is that they are a big package deal of mobility, survivability, utility and a very good offensive dino aswell.

Wanna talk creatures that need a buff? Try the reaper king. Massively underpowered compared to the whole process of acquiring that thing.

Come at me

[NovaMagic]

You have more points to spend on health/damage since your base stamina is already so high, that 30 extra levels you get on your drake makes a huge difference

[Danouk]

I have a drake server same as official and I go to the surface and take on reaper kings no problem. They are not weak.

[Saupe]

The creep is just moaning cos his rock drake got smashed.

Im playing on a server where max wild lvl is 300, my 190 rock drake eats lvl 250+ reaper queens without any issue, can go anywhere on the map, farm the surface, glide about like a boss, and is pink. If prince is not weak when it is effectively a lvl 95 on official, what did you level in your drake???

[BaldBudgie]

Wait.. can you breed Rock Drakes??

[Sorover]

1 hour ago, BaldBudgie said:

Wait.. can you breed Rock Drakes??

Just like wyverns, Rock drakes are unbreedable.

[BaldBudgie]

1 hour ago, Sorover said:

Just like wyverns, Rock drakes are unbreedable.

You just said u bred alot of rock drakes..

[Buck386]

Being invisible isn't even that good because they are easier to see when they are invisible honestly