Breath Wyrmic Balance (Chromatic Fury suggestions)

[Nevuk]

I've currently won on insane with a breath wyrmic, and it looks like on git they're getting nerfed, which isn't that unexpected (as of 1.6.1 beta, these changes are in effect). What is unexpected is that it is base breath/wyrmic skills that are getting nerfed (12 cd/eq -> 20 cd/eq cost). I know that a LOT of the time these balance changes get kicked around or reverted, so I'm not treating them as final, but I felt like I could give some input on the issue.

A max, lvl 50 breath wyrmic does not do more damage than a weapon wyrmic to anything except areas of mobs. They deal significantly less damage to single targets and have issues with long fights (specifically, the end fights of both campaigns). My last breath wyrmic attempt in EoR wound up bump attacking the high priest with 1 point in psiblades as it did more damage. The issue with the class is they get a massive boost at level 22 and have a significantly easier time than basically any other class from 25-45ish, which are some of the hardest portions of the game for most classes on insane. It is made up for by them having a laughably awful early game, but not so awful as to make them unplayable.
The proposed nerf won't make their strengths any worse, and it will just make some fights more irritating. Breath Wyrmic also fulfills the idea of a straightforward "antimagic/natural non-summons caster", who have a somewhat different flavor than the other mages (Solipsists exist, but are very weird and not straightforward), which is a niche that is left unfulfilled.

The problem is that the first point in Chromatic fury is just too good - it can more than double breath damage at that point, and is shortly followed by the ICCtW prodigy which boosts it even more. The power spike is just too high at that point in the game. Late game they have some of the best AOE, but it's made up for by having subpar single target damage.

My suggestion would be to make Chromatic Fury scale with talent points in one of several ways. All have pros/cons.

1.Boost base breath damage, and have chromatic fury make breaths deal damage based purely on the higher of will or str
Cons - Well, it'd involve more balance work
Pros - Slightly more even damage throughout the game, could make level 12-22 a lot less painful.

2.Have Breath damage scale with higher of Mindpower/Phys power
Cons - Removes some of the uniqueness of breath talents
Pros - Makes them in-line with the rest of spell talents (allows superpower,arcane might to have effect - right now Breath Wyrmics only have 3 real offensive prod options)

3.Have Chromatic Fury scale with talent level
Something like ( "Breath attacks now use 60/70/80/90/100% of combined Will+Str to determine damage", with an alternative to prevent it from ever lowering damage "Highest of either 100% of Str/Will or 60...100% of Str+Will combined).
Pros - Reduces the spike of power they get at level 25, but doesn't adjust their end-game balance
Cons - Would require some further tweaking of values


3 is my favorite of the options, as it reduces the spike of power they get but leaves them intact aside from that.


The issue with the current changes is that they make all wyrmics MUCH worse, rather than just nerfing the specific problematic part of Breath Wyrmics.

[Chronosplit]

Pros - Makes them in-line with the rest of spell talents (allows superpower,arcane might to have effect - right now Breath Wyrmics only have 3 real offensive prod options)

Quick note here, it would also make Psiblades the go-to weapon because of the mindpower boost even with the sustain cost. And would also nerf breaths for Ogre.

I do like idea #3 though, it's a similar point to Mindslayer's Resonant Focus.