Those Damned Drakes
We have a lot of people in need of help with drakes. After every fight, we usually have ~3-4 people doing great dps with drakes, 5-7 doing good dps, ~10-12 people doing badly, and the rest healing. Let's fix that third part.Drake Abilities
- Flame Spike This is the basic DPS combo generator.
- Engulf in Flames This is the basic finisher for dps. Additional combo points increase duration, not damage.
- Revivify This is the basic healing combo generator, must target a friendly.
- Life Burst This is the basic healing finisher. Additional combo points increase healing done as well as duration. Use with as many combo points as you can.
- Flame Shield This is the defensive finisher for if you're getting surged.
- Speed Boost Optional. Use when a Static Field flies at the group, gets you out of it faster.
DPS
This is a helping hand for the people who are constantly losing their stacks. As such, you will want to use 1, 1, 1, wait, 2, 1, 1, 1, wait, 2 rotation. Yes, that is 3 combo points. I know the raid leaders keep telling people to use 2 combo points, but that can be quite disastrous if you're already losing stacks. I started with the 3 combo finishers myself when I was less experienced with energy management. I don't think we should expect people to run in the marathon during their first jogging session.Healing
Have Malygos on focus. When you see him start to cast surge, immediately assist him, then use the rotation 3, 3, 3, 3, 3, 4. Rinse and repeat. In 25-mans it doesn't matter as much who you have targetted with your healing combo generators since there are 4-5 people just spamming the aoe heals, but in 10-mans it's a lot more important that the person being surged gets the HoT.Shielding
You will get a message in the middle of the screen that says "Malygos focuses his eyes on you!" This is your cue to wait for his cast (you should have 1-2 combos set up at all times), then as soon as his cast bar fills up, hit 5 to shield yourself. If you do it too soon, the shield will wear off too early and you get surged for a crapton of damage. If you do it too late, the surge will already have hit you for a crapton of damage. Try to time it so the shield activates as soon as the first 1-2 ticks of damage hit you.Static Fields
The Static Fields do about half as much damage as Malygos' surge attack if you stay in it. Do not stay in it because it will kill you much more quickly since you're not shielding.Signs of Bad Drakes (via Recount)
- Bad DPS Molpe has (correctly) done this plenty of times. Basically, the ratio of your drake's damage from Flame Spike to Engulf in Flames should be at the very most 15% to 85%. If it's 10% to 90%, fantastic. If it's 40% to 60%, you're losing your stacks far too often and need a lot more practice and just use a rotation with more combo points.
- Bad Attention Span I've not seen this brought up, so here goes. If you look at the damage taken section of Recount for the people who are still alive up to the end of the fight, you can determine who's not paying enough attention based on how much damage they've taken from Static Field compared to the rest.
I've not figured out a way to see exactly who's failing to shield with Recount because sometimes Malygos hates someone and repeatedly surges him or her, resulting in massive damage taken from the surge.