Guild Wars 2

So I decided since drakes actually work now I’d play around with them a bit. Since the patch yesterday I’ve used them in WvW, Orr farming, and Fractals (fotm 10 is the highest I used them). I don’t do sPvP (yet?) so I have absolutely no comment on that and none of this should be taken as referring to sPvP though some stuff may crossover that’s for you to decide.

I was running a full cleric’s 0/0/15/25/30 build and mainly using Greatsword.

General Stuff
First and foremost, we now have a almost on-demand blast finisher. Drakes seem to prioritize Tail Swipe above all other attacks so on pet swap they will use tail swipe almost immediately with quickness. This is primarily useful if you are already in melee range obviously. This is pretty significant if you use it well and/or are running Healing Spring.

They are obviously a rather tanky pet but they have pretty good dps output as well. Their survivability is roughly on par with Canines though they lack the CC they make up for it (a bit) with Chomp. I didn’t have much problem with my drakes going “splat”.

F2 abilities are… iffy to hit with but they have definite uses once you learn how/when to use them. That said, the Ice Drake 5 second Chill is wonderful, combined with Frost Trap (and a blast finisher for AoE Ice Armor) you can get some good up-time on chill. The burning, poison, and confusion options are of questionable value in many situations for obvious reasons. River Drake’s Lightning Breath is also dubious since it really requires multiple targets to really shine. Fortunately they are all really high damage regardless so it’s good either way.

Orr Farming/General PvE
This is, imho, the place where drakes really shine. The AoE on Tail Swipe makes them significantly better than other pets for DEs and mass pulling. Hitting with F2s is pretty easy if you aren’t jumping all over the place so the mobs are staying still and/or you move them into position. Greatsword is likely the only weapon where this is really feasible since all other weapons pretty much encourage or require you to bounce all over the place (1h sword could work as well).

Drakes are my new favourite pet for General PvE.

WvW
I mostly solo-roam and cap camps and such but I’ve engaged in a decent amount of zerg fighting too.

I found drakes better for solo camp capping for the same reasons as general PvE. They have AoE attacks and it basically IS PvE. The Blast finisher for the extra heal is also really nice. However, I think Canines/birds/felines are still superior in any sort of 1v1 engagement or a situation where you are really trying to kill one thing specifically.

The F2 abilities have a rather interesting use in zerg engagements though. I found if someone goes down you should immediately send your drake over to use F2 on the downed person. Hilarity ensues.

Fractals (scale 10)
Here I found Drakes to be extremely useful. They are adequately tanky, good DPS, AoE for trash pulls, F2 works just fine on (most) bosses, and the Blast finisher is just beautiful. I was frequently using pet swap for the blast finisher to heal my group which may not be a huge heal but I’m sure it was appreciated.

I obviously had some issues with pet survivability on some bosses but that really isn’t drake specific and if anything they fared better than some alternatives. I did have my Ice Drake solo one of the veteran Grawls to save the citizens while myself and my group worked on the shaman (we got the bonus chest). So I’d say that was useful.

Conclusion
Drakes have a definite use now. Especially in AoE situations and group play (like dungeons and fractals). Mostly it all comes down to Tail Swipe being awesome and partially controllable with pet swapping.

I’m in no way saying Drakes are better than other pets but I definitely think they have their uses and moments to shine, just like all the other pets.

I’d be interested to hear other people’s experience with drakes now that they work. Also if anyone has found any particularly noteworthy uses of the blast finisher.

I’d have to agree with everything you’ve gone over. As another hilarious use for them in WvW, use a Reef Drake during a siege defense. “Guard” him to the outside and have him target the group of attackers at the door and use the F2. It’s hilarious.

I still can’t decide which drake to use in general PvE though. The river drake does SO much damage if you manage to land his F2 on a Veteran or boss who won’t die too fast. That chain lightning wrecks. The fire drake has the highest cone damage, but it’s hard to land. Ice drake looks the coolest in my opinion (though the TRUE river drake skin looks the coolest to me). Reef’s F2 isn’t too effective against the slow hitting mobs of PvE.

One question though: do you actually SEE your drake using Chomp? Because whenever I’ve used my drake, he either never uses it or the life steal is so small that it’s not noticeable.

It still really irritates me that the River Drake still has the rock drake skin instead of the legit skin.

drake auto attack hits up to 3 targets

I’ve been experimenting with drakes a bit, like you.

The blast finisher is unreliable for Flame Trap. The drake has only a 3-second window to swipe, which is apparantly too little upon immediate pet swap. The 5-second window on Frost Trap however seems to be just about enough: I am yet to notice the drake missing the finisher. Drake + Frost Trap = sending chivers down your enemy’s spine.

Drake + Healing Spring shouldn’t demand any explanation. It’s basically a free 1.3k heal.

The swipe itself also does some pretty neat damage. I’ve seen it hit anywhere between 1k and 2k, allowing for a little bit of burst.

As for the active drake abilities: most of them are completely unreliable. To be more specific, the ones who fire in a cone in front of them. They just never hit anything. However, the Marsh Drake and the River Drake are two exceptions. Whereas the other drake’s attacks have a range of 250 yards, these two have a range of 900 yards and 600 yards, respectively, making them much more reliable, while their damage is lower but still very respectable.

All in all, I find the Marsh Drake and the River drake viable for WvW now. I’ve had as much succes with them as I had with my canines.

Agadar.4931:

All in all, I find the Marsh Drake and the River drake viable for WvW now. I’ve had as much succes with them as I had with my canines.

Was using these two drakes in guild WvW last night, was having a blast ^^
Sending them up the keep walls with guard and quickness is just nasteh.

Beardmonger.4692:

One question though: do you actually SEE your drake using Chomp? Because whenever I’ve used my drake, he either never uses it or the life steal is so small that it’s not noticeable.

Chomp’s tooltip doesn’t actually list any healing at all. The description says it heals, but the tooltip lists nothing but damage. Its possible its being used, but either the description is wrong and its not supposed to heal, or the healing is missing from the skill (which is reflected correctly by the tooltip).

Hopefully its the latter and it gets fixed, because Chomp seems pretty useless if it doesn’t heal. It doesn’t do much more damage than a basic hit.

Electro.4173:

Beardmonger.4692:

One question though: do you actually SEE your drake using Chomp? Because whenever I’ve used my drake, he either never uses it or the life steal is so small that it’s not noticeable.

Chomp’s tooltip doesn’t actually list any healing at all. The description says it heals, but the tooltip lists nothing but damage. Its possible its being used, but either the description is wrong and its not supposed to heal, or the healing is missing from the skill (which is reflected correctly by the tooltip).

Hopefully its the latter and it gets fixed, because Chomp seems pretty useless if it doesn’t heal. It doesn’t do much more damage than a basic hit.

Yeah I can’t honestly say I saw it being used. I just kind of assumed it was but between Natural Healing, Signet of the Wild, and almost 100% up-time on regeneration there’s always a lot of green numbers flying around and I’m usually far more focused on other things to care what the numbers are exactly.

If it doesn’t heal though chomp is pretty useless. It doesn’t really change my opinion on Drakes though. I still feel they are in a pretty good place now that Tail Swipe works. Though if chomp is broken and/or useless that should be fixed just on principle.

I’ll see about doing some testing to see if it works or not later. I know for sure that either Chomp didn’t work or it didn’t heal before the patch, haven’t really played with it after yet.

The lack of mentioning Chomp in the patch notes has me suspecting that its working and not healing if anything, though. When the issue with Drakes was replied to by Jon in December, the post he replied to was in regards to both Chomp and Tail Swipe not working, not just TS. So I would assume that means he looked into both attacks, and only determined that Tail Swipe wasn’t being used properly.

Then again, with changes sneaking in without any mention at all in the patch notes, it could be the case that fixing Chomp just didn’t make it into the notes. Or maybe Chomp was just overlooked by the devs despite the fact that both attacks have been reported as bugged.

Chomp Works, we ended up testing it a while back.

It will only go off though if the pet is like under a certain % of life.

After running around with drakes for a bit, I’ve come to the conclusion that they’re excellent against targets which try to get up close to you, but horrible against ranged enemies who actively run around to avoid your pet.

Then again, doesn’t every single one of our pets suffer from that problem?

Drakes are still god-like in dungeons, though. Combos, combos everywhere.