Frenzied makes you and your party do more damage while explosive makes the firestorm do more damage. Obviously, the more damage you and your party do with frenzied the more benefit you are receiving from it while explosive has a fairly straightforward amount of damage.

Personally, I went with frenzied because of its potential to scale with skill and gear. However, if you care more about visual things like blue fire or wings then maybe explosive is for you.

Btw, don't click post multiple times when your browser is lagging.

How long does the buff last on Frenzied Firestorm?
Right now I'm only using explosive against jelly and zombie herds.

I think like 7 seconds. You have to get an enemy in the Firestorm to activate it, but it's random.

EDIT: Sniped.

Dude, you need to get that computer checked out.

And thanks, Draycos. Weird...I was kinda expecting the "Dragon Princess" to answer in this Thread. What was her name again? Oh yeah, Mawamoomoo.

Frenzied lasts longer than 5 seconds. It constantly refreshes till the fire stops ticking as long as its hitting something. If I had to guess id say it can last up to 9-10 seconds.

schorching is a good option. despite what everything is saying, with a sword in hand and near a crowd you can get practically everything to half health, without naming what you actually kill. it is more risky cause you have to stay in the crowd for all the time, but that's what swordies do.
backfire makes you dodge, fast and clean. you can burn past a crowd while charging and get off a hard situation.
they're both good, just choose what you like more.

Backfire is good with running but it damage output is around, if not the same, as the original barrier. It gives a excelent boost to speed but that boost is quite short and you are now just farther away with the same barrier as before. Not my first choice but is a very fun tool to play around with but can also be hazerdous (small rooms, ie arenas, will make using this a pain). I feel the damage and defence you get from the barrier are wasted when you pick backfire.

The Scorching Barrier on the other hand just focuses on that damage output and boy does it focus. If you circle around enemies you can get a massive amount of hits out of this and in turn become a walking blitz. A common tactic I use with a friend is I drop a ton of EV bombs and he pops scorching and another barrier (more damage and statuses), we level hordes of enemies in a matter of seconds. You may have to stay in a crowd longer but thats why the defence boost is great and what swordsmen excel at.

Backfire is not bad but you will be trading a chance to do massive amounts of damage for a quick boost. I do admit though it is a great skill for speed running (the best) and it gets gunners out of trouble quickly.

Scorching's damage is largely outshined by actual weapons, though... so why not pick the thing that gives you what nothing else can? That's my logic.

Hey, I'm a dragon, but not a dragon princess.

Details.

I wish you good luck in your choices, as I think the ultimates choices for Drakon are the most balanced out of all the three sprites. Not a single ultimate ability can be said to be largely better than the other without crucial counterpoints. It's gonna' be all down to how you use said abilities.

@Draycos

The 24% damage bonus from equipping max damage on your weapon is largely outshined by the weapon's inherent damage. In fact, that damage is over four times bigger.

However, I still think equipping damage bonus for your weapon is a good idea.

Right, well, you're still using a weapon that's restricted to normal damage or piercing damage. Kinda lame.

@Zeddy My point is, and was, that it doesn't help certain weapons too much. It might shave off a hit or two, but that doesn't really accomplish a whole lot. You could argue that it helps you flinch things, which would be true. I mean, it's not like I forgot to mention that or anything.

Just sayin' that the ASI part of it is what makes it so viable, and then it might mess people up if they don't expect it.

Why not use some other close-quarters, low-knockback, high-mobility weapon?

Yes. Bombs.

Conveniently, Backfire Barrier helps me set up a perfect vortex.

Wh-

Oh. Ohhhh. I see. I should clarify, too.

I mean to say that high-mobility weapons work well with it and that not all of them do enough to warrant working with them as opposed to using another weapon entirely that has higher damage on its own.

I love my Concussive Firebolt. It's very useful in immobolizing turrets, especially since I'm a Bomber.