Best Path to Upgrading Dragon Talents (Universal Dragon)
In this guide we are going to answer the question I have been getting so many times: How should I upgrade my Dragon Talents? Which nodes should I take first? Do I upgrade to level 3?
The answer is: Not like you think. Prioritize Major nodes first. Get both Claw and Armor first, then move to your prefered unique Dragon Skill (read more about major nodes). Let me explain!
Talents 1:1 Moving around the talent tree
You have a large tree, and not all of the buffs and stats are relevant for you. For instance, my earth-wind hybrid main does not benefit from magic damage at all, so why would I want to spend crystals on that? Well I need to move around the talent tree and to do that I need to level up the minor nodes on the tree.
Once you level up a minor node you can access the node behind it. As you can see below, the arrows show how I unlock new minor nodes once I level up the first nodes.
Universal progression path
The unique nodes are more difficult. Because these depend on the setup, element and build that you are using. For instance, running Earth-Wind Hybrid you want attack speed as quickly as possible. As such you want the attack speed uniques from Aftershock as your main unique-priority. I cannot give a comprehensive list here of the uniques you want to have for your dragon, since that is wholly dependent on the build you are using. For instance, a control water would want energy regen control for unique effect, whereas a dual mage Merlin-Himiko water would want the magic damage boost from Coalescence.
However, what is UNIVERSAL is the fact that you always want to prioritize key major nodes, even above uniques! They are simply too good and cheap to pass on. However, you shouldn’t max them, their value are most efficient at rank 3 to begin with. Then you want to move on to the uniques that fit your build.
That’s the first step in a long journey to complete your dragon’s talent tree. In the following I have outlined a universal journey that any player should follow. I have used the earth dragon as an example, but it dosen’t matter what dragon you use:
THE progression path
I have changed the marking slightly in the next image, go pair better with the path progression guide. Beware that the concept is the same as the above, merely more CLEAR markings on what to get when.
(1) Red get two-two and unlock majors Claw and Armor
So for the journey you want we want to begin with taking our key majors. In order to unlock the pathway to the two best majors in the game we need to have our dragon at 2-2-10. As such, you first move on the path is to follow the red lines. Unlock dragon uniques on both sides getting 2-2.
(2) Blue. Upgrade majors to level 3
Claw provides you increased damage dealt by an increment of 1% and Armor provides reduced damage taken also by increments of 1%.
You have now completed your pathway to unlock Claw and Armor (major nodes). You want to upgrade these to level 3 out of 5. They are quite cheap at these levels and the 3% flat damage and reduces damage taken boost is MASSIVE. For comparison, some uniques costs both dragon essences and a lot more crystals and give you less % and even in a temporal buff. These two major nodes are KEY to the entire dragon progression and by far where most players make mistakes. You are most likely hungry to get the uniques to high level and flash off to your dragon, but you shouldn’t. You should invest a bit more time and patience and get Claw and Armor up first.
(3) Green: Max out your best unique
It is finally time for you to get those flashy uniques once you have completed rank 3 Claw and Armor. Now you need to figure out which dragon talent unique is best for your build and setup. You want to complete this unique node to rank 5 (as of current patch limitations at the time of recording).
(3.1) At this stage you want to also upgrade all Physical damage / Magical damage as well as the physical damage taken / magical damage taken minor nodes to 3/3.
Should I do both physical and magical damage and damage taken you may now be wondering? NO. You want to do ONE of them. Figure out which benefit your setup the most as well as which one provides the most value based on your most common enemies.
Example 1: Let’s say I am doing an Earth/Wind Hybrid build. I want my Earth dragon maxed on physical damage dealt, since that is ALL of my damage! Furthermore, I am most often having problems fighting against big holy players. As such, I want to max out on reduced physical damage taken too.
Example 2: I am running Empress Wu + Cyrus and I have a really hard time winning particularly against Water Merlin-Himiko. I need to get as much magic damage boost to my Wu as possible and I want to protect myself against the big Merlin-Himiko magic damage burst, hence maxing magical damage protection.
Example 3: I am using a mix of magical and physical damage, maybe I run Baldwin-Atalanta or Seon-Wu. I often fight against a mixture of both magical and physical setups and they are all providing me equal trouble! Well, then you want to go ahead and not skip on anything. Get all of both physical damage, magical damage, physical protection and magical protection minors to rank 3. They are after all not incredibly expensive to max out.
The point here is that you want to skip some upgrades if you can, progressing faster through the tree if you have the option of doing so, i.e. being in a situation where you are always comfortably winning against e.g. physical setups or magic setups.
(5) Yellow: Unlock the last two major nodes (accuracy and resiliance) lvl 1/5 & Finish your uniques to 5-5
First up you want to complete the pathway throughout the tree and unlock your dragon’s other unique ability to rank 5/5.
You are now quite far along your progression. You have the main majors to rank 3, unique skills to rank 5. You also have your key dmg modifier minors up to rank 3 and now you are ready to begin taking second tier majors: Robust and Gaze.
Robust provides you resilience rate by an increment of 1% and Gaze provides accuracy also by increments of 1%.
You need to think a bit on these majors too. While they should never be rushed to, you can entirely skip Gaze (accuracy) and just do Robust if you are relying on e.g. a duel-mage build for your setup. However, if you are doing a physical damage build like e.g. our wind/earth hybrid here, then accuracy is above resilience in your priority scheme.
You want to unlock only rank 1 of these majors, since their percentage value is less cost-effective at this stage.
(5) Resiliance & Accuracy
At this last stage you want to upgrade all the minors for accuracy (if you run physical damage) and resiliance minors to lvl 3 as well as any of the damage defense minors if you skipped these in step 3.1.
Once you get these minors upgraded to rank 3 you want to focus on their corresponding major node and get that to rank 3/5.
Example 1: You are using earth/wind hybrid and as such you want to focus on accuracy. Accuracy is incredibly important for you and as such you prioritize this well above resilience. You want to upgrade minor accuracy nodes throughout the entire tree to rank 3/3 –> Then you upgrade your accuracy major Gaze to rank 3/5. Once this is done, you can do the same with resilience. At this stage, all that is left if maxing majors out to 5/5 again with Gaze (accuracy) before Robust (resilience).
Example 2: You are running Merlin-Himiko (dual mage). As such, you have absolutely no interest in getting accuracy what so ever. Your Attila may benefit slightly from hitting a hit or two more every now and then, but it is very low value for you since your damage is all magical and thus cannot be dodged. What you want to do is forget you ever heard about accuracy and max out on all of the resilience minors. Then you want to MAX resilience major to 5/5.
Example 3: You use a mixed damage type build, maybe you run our darling Seon-Wu build – well what you want to do then is you upgrade accuracy minors to rank 3/3, then you upgrade resilience minors to rank 3/3. Once that is complete you go ahead and upgrade your accuracy major (Gaze) to rank 3/5. Then you upgrade resiliance major (Robust) to 3/5. Lastly, you complete Gaze and then complete Robust.
(6) Congratulations!
You are done with your dragon talent tree! What you have left now are either irrelevant or nothing at all! What you want to do now is go kick some a** and begin progression on your secondary dragon. Luckily, it dosen’t matter what element you run second, you simply begin again from step 1!
Published: 22-02-2023