I will try make this as short as possible. I wish to help improve Succession Drakania by sharing some ideas. Foreword; I will not be discussing Awakening, only succession.

Succ Drakania has 2 big problems. PVP and PVE. Yeah... Basically, she has no identity... Sure, she can take a beating and sustain, but I was regenerating faster on my Succ Kuno, TBH. She can still dish out some decent damage in group PVP, but if we consider that as her only strength across the board, other classes would be better. I believe she simply needs a few tweaks to make her more balanced, fit into her role a little better, and even be more fun.

PVP issues*:

*Whilst a grab would be nice, I DON'T BELIEVE ITS THE SOLUTION. Not depending on a grab is kind of fun, especially because she has the movement to support evading grabs.

However...

- Her animations are too slow... Piece of cake for any grab class worth their salt.

 - Ion generation is bad... Already, she is so slow and cannot grab and is vulnerable to grabs, big damage is kind of her only strength. But if you cannot get the ions, it just sucks. Brimbolt blaze offers one free attack every few seconds, but it's not nearly enough if you want to trade properly. 100% skill is too slow and is basically asking for a grab, so that's a no go for generating ions on any grab class or if HP is less than 50%.

- This ties into the slow issue, but can be seen from another perspective: She gets locked into animations. If she has no grabs, is slow, and is vulnerable to grabs, she needs some mechanic for being competitive.

- Not much CC. Using Flourish to get a CC can be bad if it fails because it has a long animation and we can get punished for it. It's a big damage skill, and sometimes I run out of FG (forward guard), so I save it for trading rather than trying to get a CC from it. So that leaves eviscerate and (azure onslaught) FWD + E. Eviscerate is a knockdown and FWD+E is a stiff. Not much to play with. There are ways to play around with them, but honestly, it's all we have. Not much compared to many classes.

Possible Solutions: 

- Ion generation and CC could literally be solved in one go. By adding a protection to abyssal fang or skewer, we could generate more ions than before whilst safely trying to get a CC. Abyssal fang has a stiffen and skewer has a knockback. These could be great tools for being a little more competitive without breaking the bank. Yes, they have a low CD, but they aren't hard CCs. 

- Add ion generation to scales. Its not OP. It has a high cooldown, grab classes can shut us down, and others can reposition or recover cooldowns or HP. Or, add Ion generation to the buff. If you are worried that it will break the class, just reduce the amount that it generates, say 6 ions, for example. It could be tested and tweaked.

- If we had the ability to cancel long animations earlier or during skills, it could be a great way to be more competitive by baiting grabs or trades. If it looks like I'm doing a long animation, I can cancel it midway. Even if I do no damage, I could bait a grab or attack, reposition or get an angle unexpectedly, and counter/punish. I had alot of fun in Dark Souls PVP with big 2H weapons by baiting and using good positioning, which were key to winning against much faster opponents. This is why I chose Drak in the first place. Her charge animation can be used as a bait or to confuse enemies, but feinting an attack to bait is impossible if we get locked in long animations. She would be much more fun if baiting and feinting was her "thing". This would help to deal with grab classes and force them to use their grabs wisely.

- Make her animations faster...? Would you please? But seriously, this could fix the animation problem (duh) and lackluster damage problem. Hell, even the ion generation problem! If, for example, you don't fix the ion generation but make her animations faster, it would make up for the lost damage from low ion levels by having more DPS, so it also helps there. Then, it would also be less of a problem to deal with super fast classes or grabs. Not that this is necessary to improve her, but it's a noteworthy idea (one of the better ones, actually).

In general, I'm not too big on simply buffing her damage. I think clever changes would not only make her more competitive, but also make her more fun and develop a unique playstyle. I can't think of any other ideas right now, but I'll add more if I come up with any, later!

Oh, almost forgot... 

PVE Solutions:

LITERALLY anything that would boost her DPS a little. Nothing you do, short of doubling her animation speed, will improve her clearing spead for low end crowded or spread-out areas. I literally have a ranger tagged for low end PVE because drak is too slow. However, she should, then, shine in dealing big damage to tough mobs, right? That should be her strength, otherwise she has no use. But her numbers are not great there either. Because damage between PVE and PVP don't have to be linked, here, you could literally improve the damage numbers or do anything else that would improve her clearing speed. SO, I would suggest first figuring out the solutions to her PVP, and from there, seeing what needs to be done so she can have at least some strengths in PVE gameplay based on those changes.

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I hope this was helpful/enjoyable!

Feel free to discuss below.

2 years later the issues remain.
Protection on abyssal fang would be BARE minimum to make her playable.
Succ drak is way too slow and has no way to safely generate ions over time. Guardian without ions deal more damage pvp and pve so I don't get the point of this class in it's current state.

PVE damage buff ok agree but NOT by buffing animation speed because that a huge PVP buff instead just buff PVE damage numbers only, and easier Ion regen on PVE  hits alone.

PVP damage she needs no buffs at all, has damage and sustain and that makes her a good pvp class overal, bit lower on 1vs1 but still above average on any form of larger scale.

when i look up the arena there is drakania #1, drakania #2 and a drakania on #3

i think the drakania class must be heavily buffed. 40% overall dmg increase and 300% more armor ATLEAST. should get some kind of invincible shield also but only for 55 seconds. yea. i think with these changes drakania will be viable again. lets hope for ze best my dears.