Kanellos

The fastest way to level dragons is with a two-dragon trainer in the Mire: about 6 hours from Level 1 to Level 25. The Scratch build is better for higher levels, since it needs fewer refreshes, while the Meditate build is better for lower levels (≤6), since it needs fewer turns to build breath for Eliminate. Scratch will also allow you to fight the bosses.

Stats and stones

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or

119 STR | 64 QCK | 30 VIT

Scratch or Meditate
Eliminate | Rally | Haste | Sap
Berserker x3
Ambush x2

You need 119 STR in order to Rally Eliminate (and also Scratch/Sap + Eliminate) all the monsters except bosses. At 64 QCK you get the Haste turn in the first round against all physical monsters except Scythe Kamaitachi and bosses.


Elements

The best element is Arcane: no weaknesses against mages, resistant to Arcane (the fast Psywurms) and Lightning (Common Podids). Earth is also good, since it doesn't have any weaknesses. The worst elements are Water and Shadow.

Arcane

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Earth

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Lightning Fire

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Plague Light

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Ice Wind Nature

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Shadow

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Water

Battle turns

• Rally
• Rally Eliminate Monster 1
• Rally Eliminate Monster 2
• [Monster 3 hits / gains breath]
• Rally Eliminate Monster 3

Defeat the physical attackers first:

Scythe Kamaitachi

Familiar

This spirit rides in the wake of other kamaitachi, delivering several shallow cuts to anyone unfortunate enough to stand in its path. (KS-Sponsored by Larthan.)

3000

Sickle Kamaitachi

Familiar

This spirit has a fiery temper, and charges headlong into battle, knocking down its foes. (KS-Sponsored by Larthan.)

2800

Venomous Toridae

Familiar

The venom of a Toridae can be dangerous to Fae, but larger dragon breeds are able to shrug off the effects.

2800

Poisonous Toridae

Familiar

After Toridae devour large prey items, they burrow into the marsh bed and take root. Water dotted with the blooms of their tails designate plentiful hunting grounds.

2800

Shellion

Familiar

Its oily mane repels water.

2800

Southmarsh Podid

Familiar

This Podid is capable of holding its breath for up to two hours, during which time it will take a nap. Tread lightly in the marsh.

2800

Mages:

Salve Kamaitachi

Familiar

The last to arrive to any scene, this kamaitachi cleans up after its inconsiderate siblings. (KS-Sponsored by Larthan.)

2800

Psywurm

Familiar

Psywurms love a good book. Usually preferring to nap on the one you're trying to read. (KS-Sponsored by Mythka.)

2800

Brilliant Psywurm

Familiar

Naturally gifted with a photographic memory and a phosphorescent mane. (KS-Sponsored by Mythka.)

2800

Wetland Unicorn

Familiar

The long legs of this unicorn allow it to walk along the bottom of shallow swamp beds, enabling it to easily graze on the aquatic plantlife.

2800

Mossy Cerdae

Familiar

Unicorns have always produced Cerdae, unicorns without healing abilities. Recently the birth rate of cerdae has skyrocketed, leaving some dragons to wonder if unicorns are dying out.

2800

Blackwing Croaker

Familiar

These creatures spend their early lives swimming in shallow riverbeds. When they mature their fins will have elongated enough to facilitate flight.

2800

Heartred Croaker

Familiar

Named for their outer display, heartred croakers are various shades of brown and green on the inside.

2850

Mistwatch Shellion

Familiar

Some may find watching mist to be dull, but this Shellion is quite entertained.

2800

Common Podid

Familiar

The common podid has uncommonly good taste. Or tastes uncommonly good. It really depends on who you ask.

2800

First battle

- Scratch

Haste, Scratch x5, then Scratch + Eliminate. The best packs are 2-packs, 3-packs of mages, or packs with 2 mages + 1 physical fighter.

- Meditate

• Meditate
• Haste
• Rally
• Defend [Monsters hit]
• Rally Eliminate

Bosses

Molten Wartoad

Familiar

To maintain its magma armor, molten wartoads will ingest and melt rocks.

8000

Wartoad

Familiar

Elder wartoads rival guardian dragons in size.

8000

You can fight the bosses if you have Scratch and about 60% health / 80% breath, since you need Rally Eliminate x4 + Rally Scratch x4 to defeat them. Use Haste to get extra turns.

Health: 4x282 damage (Scratch) /1350 = 1128/1350 = 83% 3x282 damage (Scratch) + 1x345 damage (Slash) /1350 = 1191/1350 = 88% 3x282 damage (Scratch) + 1x37 damage (Sear) /1350 = 883/1350 = 65% 3x282 damage (Scratch) /1350 = 846/1350 = 62%

Breath: 4x35 (Eliminate) - 4x6 (Scratch) - 2x5 (Rally) - 2x5 (Haste) /120 = 96/120 = 80%

Turn order example (96/120 breath):



Fighting against 4-packs

- Blackwing Croaker - Salve Kamaitachi - Heartred Croaker - Mistwatch Shellion


- Poisonous Toridae - Poisonous Toridae - Venomous Toridae - Salve Kamaitachi




Monsters:

62 QCK 56 QCK 52 QCK 50 QCK 47 QCK 46 QCK 44 QCK 43 QCK 42 QCK

Haste turn (at 119 STR the max. QCK is 72):
AGI: 20-38

Edit: I didn't realize how big of a wall of text this would be, so I added something of a TL:DR in post #2. Basically, what I found is a nice way to level in the Golem Workshop that takes advantage of an un-intuitive interaction with the Quick stats of your dragons.

A recent comment on my lair of 25s got me thinking about how I feel as though this is one area that I might have enough experience with that others may benefit from. So I thought I'd put down my method for leveling dragons to 25, quickly, efficiently, easily with a minimum of fuss.

First off, You'll need some 25s to get you started. I have 5 core levelers: 2 general, 1 mire twin build, and 2 golem workshop grinders. Check with your Flight to see if they have any organizations to loan out 25s to get you started. I know Light does, and I presume the others all do as well.

My method:

Starting with 2 level 1s and the mire twin leveler, start off pushing through the mire to get to level 9. This usually only takes a couple of minutes and the levels come fast and give a nice sense of progression, which is nice as this can be the most frustrating part of the whole leveling process with the amount of variance that can mean restarting again and again. Other times you'll push to 9 without a hiccup. Once you've ironed out the bugs inherent in learning this rather challenging coli build, it is just a matter of luck how far you can go per attempt.

Once you hit 9 toss an ambush in each dragon. With the Coli revamp you no longer lose the first turn, so an ambush in leveling dragons is no longer helpful, and will actually slow you down.If you have a goodly number of dragons you'd like to level, and you're not tired of the Mire, you can start again with one more level 1 along side of one of your newly stoned level 9s. From here on out, having a stoned dragon along for the ride will make your mire grinding so much easier, as the lowbie can absorb the first turn bug, leaving your 25 an extra turn to crush your enemies. prolong your collective lifespans. Once your new level 1 hits 9, your stoned dragon will be just at 11, and you can swap it out for a fresh one, stone your new 9 and rock and roll.

So the mire can get your entire lair to 11 without much of a fuss. What to do after that? From 11-17 you've got an array of choices: if you're in love with the mire, or only have the one 25, the mire can take you all the way. I have discovered that an coli addiction can lead to coli ADHD, and so I tend to hop zones. The lowest you can go with 25 levelers is Boreal Wood, and I found that using the 126 STR Kelp beds build is perfect in the Boreal Wood, as 126 can let you 3 scratch most anything (the occasional elk will need 4) and once you have your breath up, you can insta-elim everything except for the Yetis. (The 126 build no longer works as of the Aug '19 Boreal Wood update, you can continue to elim grind there with a 135 Str build that also works in the Crystal Pools, but the hit to Quick is noticeable, you will accumulate damage now, where you practically didn't previously.) This is a wonderful low-attention zone. My wife and I will often pop a movie up on one screen and grind away with only the smallest of attention dedicated to grinding. Warning: if you get too caught up in your movie, I promise you you will try to elim yetis. It will happen lots. And if you're anything like us, you'll have Top Gun's theme "take my breath awayayaayaa" crop up in the middle of Mordor, or wherever your current cinematic escapades take you. Grr, yetis, grrr. As a happy side note, do it enough and you'll also discover that a crit while accidentally eliminating a yeti is sufficient to clear them. Its an odd roller-coaster of emotions "no, wait I didn't want to-oooohh, that'll work."

The 126ers can also be used for their more standard approach in the Kelp Beds, but we've never been able to really fall in love with it. If you're devoting more attention to the grind (and wanting it to get over faster, Boreal Wood gives horrible xp as a trade off for its ease) then you'll likely want 129 strength dragons to farm the zones between Boreal Wood and the Mire. Or even push to 135 str and be able to insta-elim everything up through Crystal Pools, sans bosses. I personally prefer Harpys Roost; my wife likes Crystal Pools with the occasional foray into Ghostlight Ruins. Really, outside of Boreal Wood, I'd say pick one zone and learn its tricks and stick to it until you get bored of it, then go back to the Mire, or go learn a new zone. the 129s are solid workhorses and will see you through pretty much anywhere. You're shooting for level 17-19, the point where each level really starts to feel like it takes a long commitment just to get through. At this point, things are going to get interesting.

Death-free Golem Workshop grinding.

At 17 as a minimum you can graduate your 25-to-be as a newly minted mage. Yup, regardless of their starting stones, you'll want to toss the following stones on them: Meditate+Contuse (if they didn't start with them), Ambush (your second) x2, Discipline x3, Rally, and Aid.

I deviate from Culex's mage build to finesse my speed. At level 17 every single point you've built up goes to getting your Quick to 85 (Again, I stress this is for my builds, other builds may be different, and likely can be refined further). Once you hit 85 quick, you can toss any spare points at Int. My second dragon has a quick of 68, while my third has a quick of 80. What this means is that your mage will start first, your second dragon will get two turns, your third dragon will get two turns, your mage will get another, and then they switch order . That was a key discovery for making Golem Workshop endless.

So again, your turn order will look like this:

1, 2, 2, 3, 3, 1, 3, 2

So once you have your breath up you can 1 rally 3, 2 scratch mob A, 2 scratch mob B, 3 elim mob A, 3 elim mob B, 1 rally 2, 3 scratch mob C, 2 elim mob C.

The reversal of turns means that your third dragon gets to take turns scratching, which keeps their breath up, and evens out the odds of who will lose breath in the inevitable dodges. It also means that any given 3 pack will go down in your first 8 turns, and you'll get 10 breath on your lowbie, 12 breath on your second dragon, and 6 breath on your third. You'll also get a small amount of healing from the rally effect, meaning that you can passively heal your dragons up from minor hits without ever altering the basic cycle. (Rally no longer passively heals post Coli changes.) Generally by the time things do get complex (bad dodges, boss fights, back to back 4 packs, etc.) you'll likely have enough breath on each of your dragons to toss heals around, pick up an extra elim, or- in the case of boss fights- toss a contuse as a form of damage-dealing proactive heal. Once you've got the dragons and the battle rhythm down, you basically can't die, and you'll be getting the most exp per battle that the coli can give.

Now, a caveat: I haven't timed it, but I trust others who have and say that the best xp per minute is what we started with, 2 dragons going at once together in the mire. It makes sense, as you are doubling your xp by spreading it to two dragons. I've spent plenty of hours there and do enjoy its efficiency. but for me, the opportunity to shake things up by changing what zone I'm working in is a boon.

And if you get lucky enough to land a boss familiar and can find a buyer, the profit will send you scrambling back to the workshop in no time.

So ultimately, what does it cost to have a system that'll take your lair to the next level 25? Well, at minimum, you'll need one level 25 with an elim, 2 ambushes and a mire stat build. That can get you there in time. Getting a set of 25s with either the 126 or 129 build should be relatively easy if your Flight has a dragon loan system. These are all pretty standard builds. When you get to the point of wanting to tackle the Golem Workshop using my method, you're going to need 2 lvl 25s, each outfitted with a brace of Ambushes, 3 Berzerkers, as well as Scratch and Elim stones.

The stats I use for the dragon going in slot 2 are: 120 Strength, 68 Quick.
For the dragon in slot 3 I use 113 Strength and 80 Quick.

You can start your mage as early as level 17, though since Rally adds your level to the target dragon's Strength, you may find a couple hiccups in taking on some of the mobs like Steelhounds (and one other that I can't recall off the top of my head) with a rallied Dragon 3. If you wait two or three levels, this irons out and you'll not see it.