Invoker Class Q&A with Dragons Developers - Ask Us Anything!

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Greetings, Dragon Lords!

In case you missed it, a brand new Dragon Class is coming to War Dragons! Check out the latest announcement post for details on the new Class.

This AMA will be focused on the Invoker Class and some of our Dragons Designers who helped make this Class possible. Joining us today are @PGLawson and @PGKismet - feel free to tag them in your questions!


A few things to note for this Invoker Class AMA:

  • You are welcome to ask Lawson and Kismet anything you may like. Please note that questions that are not specific to the Invoker Class (power balance, gameplay style, Namaka’s functionality, etc.) may be outside of their wheelhouse, and they may not have an exact answer.

  • This is an AMA, but we will continue moderating this thread based on the Forums’ Code of Conduct. No inappropriate questions, please.

  • Non-War Dragons questions are also encouraged! Previous work experience, other questions about game development, or even “what’s your favourite colour?” are welcome.


About @PGLawson: I joined War Dragons a year and a half ago as a game designer (during the Fall 2017 Season). This amazing opportunity has been my first job out of Grad School, where I studied Technical Design (half programming, half game design). As a game designer, I’m largely responsible for all of the awesome dragons that make their way into the game. We just finished up preparing for the first wave of the Summer Season. Outside of dragon design, I’ve worked on revamping the game’s loading screen tips, a large swath of QOL improvements, and I’ve dropped by on stream a good number of times.

I’ve been working on the Invoker class since its early inception. We went through a long brainstorming phase where we considered and passed over quite a number of different iterations on what we wanted the new class to be. After we settled on what the Invoker currently is, I helped work out our first Invoker’s spell kit.


About @PGKismet: PGKismet is a Senior Content Designer at Pocket Gems. He joined War Dragons two months ago, and has been working on developing dragons, spells, riders, and runes, as well as unannounced features. Although he came on to War Dragons partway through the development of the Invoker class, he helped with the playtesting, iteration, and implementation.

Kismet has a Masters of Interactive Technology from the Guildhall at Southern Methodist, and a Bachelor of Arts in Classical Languages and Literature from UC Berkeley. Previously, he worked for six years at Cryptic Studios on Star Trek Online, and on a forthcoming MMO.


We’re here until 5pm PT, so we’ve got two hours to answer your burning questions. Ask away!

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Why a new class? Why now? Why not make the new class retroactive to previous tiers to help bring in more new players?

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Do you plan to put out an Invoker lineage in previous tiers at all or will it just be seasonal and past Empyrean?

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Was this dragon tested by the GPF? Where do you think it fits in, compared to the other classes?

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Yes, why not give the “Invoker” class five Fireballs then four ?

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I was about to ask that to :sunglasses::ok_hand:

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Asked and answered:

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Will “we” see “Invoker” dragon as legendary divines in future seasons then always being Mythic’s?

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Yes, we have plans to release legendary Invokers in future seasons.

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That’s awesome :sunglasses::ok_hand:

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We’re definitely up for the idea of adding Invoker dragons to future Lineage tiers, but retroactively adding dragons to past tiers is quite complicated, mostly due to breeding. It would be immensely time-consuming to make new breeding paths for any Invoker dragons without disturbing the existing breeding paths in the game.

The Invoker, as well as all Summer Season dragons, were tested by GPF. I’d say they fit, mechanically, somewhere in-between Hunters and Sorcerers. The overall design goal was “simpler than a hunter, more complex than a sorcerer.” We want there to be some good decision-making opportunities as well as meaningful strategy/planning, but we wanted simpler in-the-moment gameplay. Not as “twitch” or reaction-based, and less punishing when you make a mistake.

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For this invoker, we settled on 4 shots as it allowed for each individual shot to feel more powerful. Furthermore, we wished to distance the Invoker class from Hunters. We experimented with higher ammo capacities, but the higher we went, the more they just felt like fancy Hunters. We want the Invoker’s focus to be on the impact of the 4th shot, but each shot leading up to it should also feel powerful.

One idea we’re toying around with is having each Invoker release with a different ammo capacity, based on what their special 4th shot does, and how we want the dragon to play.

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If this is considered an in-between class, are there possible plans to release 2 other in-between classes for sorcerer-warrior hybrids and warrior-hunter hybrids?

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Are they plans to release runes and glyphs specific to invokes in silver/runic chests?

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“When” we used Namaka white flash spell it saids “it will dodge all incoming damage and tower Ss” dose that mean will it dodge ice Flak Ss?( I’m Assuming not just need Clarification)

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As with all Summer season dragons, Namaka will release with her own runes (made to synergize with and improve her spells). As we release more invokers in the future, we’ll likely add runes and rider bonuses that affect the Invoker class, but we decided against it for the Invoker’s release.

Deflecting Gale follows the same evasion logic as Flash, so anything that Flash dodges, Deflecting Gale will as well. In short, Deflecting Gale/Flash dodge all non-beam attacks (Ice Turret and Storm Shield attack, Fire Turret super shot), including Ice Flak.

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So will this mean tiers go from 9 dragons to 12 dragons?

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It’s a white pulsating damaging flash. Does flash get canceled by IF?

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Oh also forgot to ask this.

Will the addition of this new dragon class also segway into a rework of silver/runic chests as well as the research hall down the road? These two things have been asked for fairly often and I think this would probably be a good time to take a look at these things.

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In the current climate armor and riders are a massive part of a dragons competitive ability. What are the plans to help the new class ease into the current meta?

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