Waffle, the poison is good for stopping healing, yes, but it's only about a ~5% increase in damage taken. That's what I meant by 'negligible'.

I thought enemies took more damage the stronger the poison was?

Yes, I already knew that part.

Now that I've hit 100 with my Drakon, here's some updates to my feedback.

In GENERAL, I think that all percent-based damage reductions should instead become mini-shields. This would add more depth to gameplay and also open up some silly stuff for skilled players. Maybe do some neat stuff like buffing Flame Barrier but cancelling it prematurely if the shield breaks?

Starting off with Drakon, I feel as if the Meteoric Firebolt upgrade makes it a decent skill to use, but it still feels very weak to use. The most damage I've been able to get out of it is using an Electron Vortex... and ironically, i'd deal about the same amount of damage if I kept spamming my Vortex instead of stopping to cast it, or twice as much if I used a single hammer-dash. I still think it needs a boost in power.

Concerning Concussive Firebolt, it should not have a chance to inflict Stun, but a guarantee. You're giving up AoE for Stun. I think that's enough of a reason for consistency. Heck, go ahead and give it guaranteed Fire. It's only gonna hit two of the five enemies you could be hitting, anyways.

Scorching Barrier is a nice improvement, but like with Meteoric Firebolt, I still think it needs a little more. Maybe up the defense on it. Backfire Barrier has a lot more utility.

Backfire Barrier is probably the most fun skill to use in the game. A short windup... and you're lightning. The two-second burst of speed it gives you allows you to dash behind a wall of Mecha Knights or Bombies to cut down the Menders or Deadnaughts. That speed is hard to use, but once you master it, just like with a Rocket Hammer... oh man I love this one so much. It has a ton of synergy with the existing use of Flame Barrier, which is getting in something's face and being rewarded for it. My only gripe is that it takes a second or two to start up after you cast it, which pretty much eliminates a lot of tricky stuff you could do, like dropping a vortex in the center of the last wave of Mecha Knights in an arena's third fight and then bolting away. Give Scorching Barrier the defense boost buff, but give this one instant cast time.

I haven't seen much use of Frenzied Firestorm to be 100% sure about what I'm talking about here, but I think it's Damage/ASI Max. If so, then it makes Firestorm an alright skill to use (if it didn't have such a hefty cooldown, anyways!). It wouldn't hurt to remove the element of chance from this, as well, by giving a guaranteed proc on the buff if you manage to hit 4 enemies with it or something.

Explosive Firestorm. Man, I was so hopeful this would make Firestorm viable, but it really didn't. It's way better of an idea to just hold off on using this so you have Backfire Barrier at the ready instead. It deals about 1000 damage to targets in the center of the explosions (using the correct harness, about 700 from explosions, 300 from fire), which is assuming they're kept perfectly still for the entire duration of the skill. Enemies on the outskirts of the skill take about 400 damage (2 explosions + fire). This all sounds great on paper until you get to the part where you absolutely NEED a Vortex bomb for this skill to be remotely effective, that it locks out all of your skills for around 40 seconds, and deals around the same amount of damage you would if you had thrown out a charge attack, took half a second to swing and dash with a hammer... et cetera. Its only strong point is that it staggers some enemies. Needs a buff.

Now let's talk Seraphynx. I think I see two archetypes with the ults here- help your team by boosting the damage you deal, or reducing what you take.

Disintegration Ray is fine, in my opinion, but I think Dazzling Light Ray should be reworked so it reduces the damage enemies deal instead.

Iron Heart Attack should buff people straight out without requiring them to pick up orbs, and the "mini-shield" idea I presented earlier would work extremely well with this.

Violent Heart Attack is pretty similar to Haunted Haze, so to promote diversity and keep to the offense/defense support theme, why not give a damage boost to whoever's near an enemy when it dies?

Seraphic and Valkyrian Auras are perfectly fine in my opinion; just gotta work out the kinks in the design of Aura itself (namely, how confusing it is to tell how long your shield lasts and how much it can absorb).

Maskeraith time.

Vengeful Quills are fine besides the part where the initial target only takes a fourth of the quills' normal damage... fix that and it's great. Virulent Quills should have their 'chance' replaced with 'guarantee'.

Deadly Shadow Cloak is alright. Vengeful Cloak should always stun instead of having a chance.

Haunted Haze should spawn explosives even if it isn't the cause of death. Chaotic Haze should have a guarantee to deal a status (while keeping the "random" status mechanic).

Reward players for playing with skill and timing, and eliminate chance from abilities. Encourage creative play, not lucky play.

Also, I like the idea of a half-cooldown system. Lock the skill you used for full-time, and everything else for half the cooldown of the skill you used.

One of my friends, Quotefanboy, had the excellent idea of making Explosive Firestorm what Firestorm always is, replacing its spot with a built-in vortex effect.

I'm back. Again. No, I'm STILL not done adding stuff to this; I keep hearing and finding new stuff all the time. I think this post is gonna be big enough to warrant an update to the OP though. I've found out some of the stuff I've said is wrong and some of the stuff I've suggested need some modifications.

In general, all percent-based damage reductions now apply an "overshield" to your health bar instead, displayed as cyan bars. This opens up more options for skilled play and also makes skills that boost defense more useful. In addition, cooldowns should not be universal, instead giving the used skill a full cooldown but other skills half of their normal cooldowns (if a skill has more than half of its cooldown, and another skill is used, nothing happens to that particular skill, of course). The cooldown changes are to give Sprites more of a presence in gameplay without making them totally spammable, since the skill-specific changes I've listed are gonna make them more powerful to begin with. Harnesses should also boost your Sprite a little more than they do now; 160k crowns for 15% cooldown reduction is kinda excessive. Maybe ramp it up to 10% at Advanced and 25% at Elite. I'd also like to see some way to give our Sprites certain appearances without having to work our skills around them or being an eyesore for it. Hulk arms on my Drakon just don't fit when I didn't take Concussive Firebolt for the nose spikes and Scorching Barrier for the beard.

So let's talk Drakon. His abilities don't deal enough to surpass my own weapons and I actually deal less damage by stopping for a second to cast an ability instead of continuing my spam of put-weapon-here. His main uses so far are using Backfire Barrier for bursts of speed and Frenzied Firestorm to buff my team's attack speed (the damage boost is negligible; stuff still dies in the same amount of hits with or without it). I only ever use Firebolt when I have multiple enemies vortexed and I want to set them on fire. I think he should be the most offense-aimed sprite, but he should be able to buff your attacks too instead of just substituting them.

After some discussion with people in-game and according to my own opinions, this is what I'd like to see for Drakon:

Firebolt: Increase in damage. Guaranteed chance of Fire.
Concussive Firebolt: Guaranteed Stun, stagger, and massive knockback.
Meteoric Implosion: Same as it is now, but also adds some damage and pulls enemies to its center.

Flame Barrier: Works with the "overshield" mechanic mentioned above. Changed to an area-of-effect move instead of being limited to orbs. Backfire Barrier's initial speed boost is now part of the base skill. If the overshield breaks, the skill ends prematurely.
Molten Armor: The fire effect is now guaranteed, and the health of the shield is increased.
Backfire Barrier: Extends the duration of the speed boost while also giving an ASI boost.

Firestorm: The old Explosive Firestorm's effect is now part of the base skill, with a bit of a reduction in power.
Explosive Firestorm: Increases damage of each explosion, increasing their range so they hit everything in the area of effect, and stuns enemies.
Searing Firestorm: Lowers enemies' defense.

The goal of these changes is to provide two clear themes for Drakon. The first is heavy flat damage and defense with crippling Stun and a way to force an enemy out of the group, appealing to players who want a simpler playstyle or one suited for getting in things' faces. The second appeals to players who want to amplify their own damage and approach fights more tactically, with tools to crowd up enemies, lower their defenses, and repositioning yourself more quickly.

Next up, the Seraphynx. There aren't too many problems with Sera fundamentally, but there is some stuff that needs to be tweaked.

Ray of Light: Removed hit limit on most enemies (excluding bosses and larger enemies); reward players skilled enough to keep them in range.
Dazzling Light Ray: Instead of dealing more damage to Fiends and Undead, now reduces the attack power of enemies.
Disintegration Ray: No change.

Heart Attack: Highlight hearts that drop as a result of this ability... just so we know how much it actually helps, and so Seraphynx users stop looking useless when they're not.
Iron Heart Attack: Now works with the "overshield" mechanic, applying it instantly to your team (individually) when a marked enemy dies.
Violent Heart Attack: When a marked enemy dies, your team gets a bonus to attack power and speed for a short time.

Angelic Aura: Duration and shield amount increased. The skill now gives teammates individual overshields. Friendly fire removed.
Seraphic Aura: Effects persist after the overshield breaks.
Valkyrian Aura: Effects persist after the overshield breaks.

Dazzling Light Ray got changed so it fits better with the "boost attack or boost defense" theme Seraphynx has, and because there's no reason to get it when defense reductions work across the board instead of against two enemy types. Iron Heart Attack got changed because it's silly to have to pick up your defense boosts, and because flat damage reduction is more useful than percent reduction. Violent Heart Attack is changed because it's pretty much the same thing as Haunting Haze and so it fits with Attack/Defense. Angelic Aura's removal of friendly fire is obvious, and individual overshields are there so someone can't get greedy and "steal" all the protection and kamikaze with it. It's got a longer duration and damage cap now because it's pretty wimpy as is, and it'll especially be if it's individualized.

Maskeraith, again, not too many comments. He's probably one of the best starting out.

Caustic Quills: No change.
Vengeful Quills: No change, now that they've been fixed.
Virulent Quills: Now have 100% chance to explode.

Shadow Cloak: Overshield with a large amount of defense reduction. Cloak doesn't break when you take damage, but everything else still breaks it.
Deadly Shadow Cloak: No change.
Vengeful Shadow Cloak: Inflict moderate Poison on enemies that you walk by. The explosion now has a guaranteed Stun, a little bit more range, and can break blocks.

Hexing Haze: Radius reduced, damage and duration increased, map-wide purple haze effect removed.
Haunted Haze: Spawns a ghost whether the Haze was the cause of death or not. Ghost damage fixed; no longer does 7 damage.
Chaotic Haze: Radius increased. The status is still random, but you're guaranteed to deal one.

Virulent Quills can now compare with Vengeful Quills; they're more effective against larger groups. Cloaks now have massive overshield and don't break on damage because they're extremely frustrating to use in group play, especially in T3 where almost everything has more AoE. Vengeful Cloak now allows you to debilitate more enemies instead of completely obliterating specific enemies with Deadly Cloak. Hexing Haze seemed too easy to use to its full potential, so its radius is reduced but it deals more damage and lasts longer in return. Haunted Haze gets bugfixed and made viable in group play. Chaotic Haze has less damage than Haunted Haze, but marks enemies more easily and makes them play the Status Roulette, making it easier to use but potentially harder to work around.

It's 1 AM and I'm drunk on Diet Coke. I'm surprised I didn't make more than one stupid mistake in that text-wall.

I'm changing it just to lower defense, that's more reasonable, I think.

This is the part where I remind myself not to post at 1 AM while drunk on Diet Coke, but the only time I really want to write anything is at 1 AM after I've ingested far too many bottles of chemicals.

I've recently seen damage test results from some friends of mine, and I'm kinda sad now.

Drakon is actually the least powerful when it comes to offense, which is kinda his entire selling point. Here's some reasoning for a lot of the changes I've suggested.

Let's compare first abilities. Drakon's Firebolt deals around 220 damage with a bonus 200 from Fire, only staggering small enemies and turrets while in smaller parties It can hit multiple enemies if you pick Meteoric Firebolt. Seraphynx's Ray of Light deals about 100 damage per hit, up to five hits, with AoE. It staggers more consistently, and can increase the damage enemies take by a little over 10%, giving some good power to multi-hit weapons. Ray of Light can also be used defensively as a wall, and isn't blocked completely by Mecha Knight shields or mini-jellies. Next, Maskeraith can poison enemies, again slightly increasing the damage they take, and dealing upwards of 600 if you break the quills. Vengeful Quills spread that damage and poison around, too. Even if you have Meteoric Firebolt and nail multiple enemies in one go, Drakon is statistically the worst here, only winning in the range department. That's pretty bad.

Moving on to secondary abilities, Drakon's Flame Barrier is extremely risky to use on the enemies that are reasonably difficult, with a 20% damage resistance that ends up being negligible (but might be a lot better with overshield mechanics). However, he gains utility that nothing else does in the form of massive MSI bursts with the Backfire Barrier ultimate. Seraphynx boosts the amount of hearts enemies drop, allowing you to play more carelessly or trade your health for great damage opportunities, then gain it back. Iron Heart Attack boosts the team's defense by 20% if everyone knows about the orbs. Maskeraith's Shadow Cloak allows for the same repositioning potential that Backfire Barrier gives, and also gives you a massive (~55% raw damage, more with ASI) damage boost with Deadly Cloak. Deadly Cloak also gives you some MSI while you're cloaked, slower than Backfire though. Drakon might seem okay here, except for the part where the only thing he's got above the other sprites is a two-second buff that's an addition to an ability and not the ability itself. Worst here too.

And finally, the third abilities. Drakon's Firestorm is virtually useless save for being an Ash of Agni until you get Explosive Firestorm, where it deals some damage, but not enough for how much setup you have to do for it to be truly effective (vortexes, clearing enemies that can block it, positioning yourself so the third and largest circle will be on top of the enemies). All that ends up being ~700 damage on average, which I can easily surpass with my own weaponry. It's totally useless besides for its ultimate add-ons concerning fire-resistant enemies, too. Next, Seraphynx's Angelic Aura. Ignoring the friendly fire bug, it allows you to completely IGNORE a few hits, which is amazing both defensively and offensively. Seraphynx then gets a choice between bonus shield regen, which nothing else can give, or extra CTR, which means you can take your bomb or sword of choice and spam it in the center of a crowd. Maskeraith gets Hexing Haze, which can deal 1k amongst a group of enemies, not even taking into account his ultimates. It's got a generous amount of range, letting you stay out of melee range. Drakon is the clear loser here. Again.

Drakon needs the most preparation and careful use for every single one of his abilities and is STILL the weakest.

I thought those numbers were a little off, but it doesn't make too much of a difference.

700 + 300 is the statistic for enemies that are kept completely immobile in the center of the attack for the entire duration. I used 700 as an average because in larger mobs, which are the only times it's sensible to use it, not every enemy is going to be dead center. Enemies can't stack directly on top of eachother, funny as that might be if it was true.

Frenzied Firestorm boosts your damage and your team's by about the same percent as a Disintegration Ray's debuff, but still does pitiful damage and still has a 44 second cooldown; it's main appeal is its small buff, which isn't awesome enough to warrant having so little damage (and I swear I've gotten people to take damage because of the golden flashes and the sudden increase in speed). Frenzied Firestorm also lasts for about 8~10 seconds (IF YOU KEEP SOMETHING IN IT), not 15; the buff itself lasts 5 seconds and so does the firestorm itself. I don't think 44 seconds of cooldown time is worth it at all, especially when weighed against the other sprites' third abilities. And just a side note here: while it is the same percent as D. Ray, it deals less damage and is less reliable while also having more than double the cooldown.

It doesn't, not at all. Because it's a 50% boost to you directly as opposed to its own damage, it works exponentially the better equipped you are for the weapon you plan to nuke something with. By the time your Sprite is 95 assuming you started out without anything, you should have gotten weapon-specific gear and trinkets. A friend of mine managed a Blitz Needle charge attack with appropriate gear (and had hilarious results; it did somewhere over 5k). I'm certain you can do the same with a Nitronome... but then here's a twist; you can set down a bomb with a large lifetime before activating the ability and you'll still get the increased damage. Shard bombs, Dark Retribution, etc. Oh yeah, and that damage boost doesn't work with the typical Low/Medium/Maximum mechanics. Lots and lots of pain.

The "preparation" is because you need to create the perfect environment for each of the skills or you're pretty much hitting things with a fire-themed flyswapper. Flame Barrier is exempt because like I said before (and so has Cyderiax) it's borderline useless against anything that can give you a reasonable challenge; there's just no working with it. There's no "prep time" in launching the actual fireball or Explosives of Agni, but there's a lot if you want to use them to meaningful effectiveness. Going back to my damage numbers, those are with a vortex/against training bags. I guarantee you you're not going to be able to keep them where you want them without a lot of work, and from what I've done, most of the time and against most enemies there's no way to just "kite enemies into the fire" and get the same numbers.

I am gonna give you that crap again because of the whole "you absolutely need a vortex for this to do anything" message I keep repeating like a broken record. It takes about 5 seconds to fully charge and start the first part of a Vortex (with Ultra CTR), a half-second to cast the ability, and in the case of Firestorm, another 5 seconds for full damage. In that same amount of time I could have used 2 Brandish charges (VH CTR), each of them dealing 550 point-blank and at least 2 instances of a bonus 200 from the explosions. That adds up to 950 with a single charge. Conveniently, they also go through Mecha Knight shields, don't take 5 seconds to complete, and deal some other status unless you're using an Acheron for some reason.

But I guess if you're tired of that brand of crap you can have a different kind. Brandish charges don't inhibit your movespeed, take half a second to launch, and realistically don't need any preparation for "optimal use". Charge. Aim. Get in face for half a second and send stuff flying. Repeat. You don't even have to keep anything in their area of effect. You just have to kite. Vortexes aren't a requirement for them, just insurance. EDIT: You also don't need to have as good of a judgement with distance with a Brandish as you do with a Firestorm, since you want enemies in the biggest circle.

Edit 2: Yeah. I was stupid and forgot to mention anything past the half-second cast before now. Yes, stupid mistake.