Wyrmic idea

[anonymous000]

I think it's a fine idea to reduce the power of breaths as spammable raw damage on wyrmics and instead have them provide some utility for what is mostly a str-wil augmented melee class. How about the general idea of making breaths into sustains? That is, wyrmics are not literally dragons so we might expect that they don't literally have the power to breathe raw elements of Nature in the way that dragons do. Maybe have a sustain that counts down and then will allow you to breathe out the relevant breath when deactivated. This then allows you to give specific bonuses to specific sustains while also imposing rules that only one or two breaths may be 'preparing' at any given time. Some breaths may have weaker side effects than others but may make up for it in the quality of the sustain. For instance, one of the perks of lightning breath may be that it is an instant sustain and has slightly lower cooldown.

Do you mean making the breaths a aura-like skill with built-in cooldown? I am not a fan of this idea. The extra-cooldown mechanism seems unfair. And what if when I could finally activate the breath, the situation changes and I don't want to use it anymore? Although you will be able to keep the benefit of the sustain, it loses the original point of casting it in the first place if all you wanted to do is just to blast your enemies with breaths.

[parcel]

Simply calling 'unfair' to a general description is weak argument. Yes, there would be two cooldowns involved, but you'd be able to start a new breath of another type right after breathing the old one. Secondly, you'd be able to prepare some of your breaths in advance prior to combat starting, and gain the benefit of the prepared breath as a sustain, which may be substantial. There's balance there for whatever 'unfairness' to the class as a whole that you have in mind.

The purpose of the suggestion was to reduce the incentives for merely spamming breaths and not doing melee, in any case. There may still be a path for a relatively breath-heavy build but maybe with sustained effects you can start building better in-tree synergy, which could be nice. Whatever complaint you may have around starting a breath and then not wanting to breathe anymore is inconsistent with a playstyle that likes to breathe pretty much at any opportunity, and the need to plan a tad can be balanced by extra power or utility. Wyrmics are very tanky right now with fungus and all, so it's not like they don't have the patience to wait three turns after choosing a breath. I'd add that one way in which breaths would not work like auras would be that the decision to prepare a breath should always be instant. You get to put a limited number of torpedoes in the tube but breathing is a natural activity and the decision to 'inhale' or prepare your internal organs appropriately should require little more than a thought.

Beside auras, another model for delayed breathing is shivgoroth form. That is, an active talent which puts an irremovable status on you and is replaced for the duration by a breathing talent on cooldown. When the breathing talent is used, the status is resolved and the relevant 'inhalation' talent goes on cooldown.

[anonymous000]

Simply calling 'unfair' to a general description is weak argument. Yes, there would be two cooldowns involved, but you'd be able to start a new breath of another type right after breathing the old one. Secondly, you'd be able to prepare some of your breaths in advance prior to combat starting, and gain the benefit of the prepared breath as a sustain, which may be substantial. There's balance there for whatever 'unfairness' to the class as a whole that you have in mind.

The purpose of the suggestion was to reduce the incentives for merely spamming breaths and not doing melee, in any case. There may still be a path for a relatively breath-heavy build but maybe with sustained effects you can start building better in-tree synergy, which could be nice. Whatever complaint you may have around starting a breath and then not wanting to breathe anymore is inconsistent with a playstyle that likes to breathe pretty much at any opportunity, and the need to plan a tad can be balanced by extra power or utility. Wyrmics are very tanky right now with fungus and all, so it's not like they don't have the patience to wait three turns after choosing a breath. I'd add that one way in which breaths would not work like auras would be that the decision to prepare a breath should always be instant. You get to put a limited number of torpedoes in the tube but breathing is a natural activity and the decision to 'inhale' or prepare your internal organs appropriately should require little more than a thought.

Beside auras, another model for delayed breathing is shivgoroth form. That is, an active talent which puts an irremovable status on you and is replaced for the duration by a breathing talent on cooldown. When the breathing talent is used, the status is resolved and the relevant 'inhalation' talent goes on cooldown.

Now I get your point and I find your idea a good one. I believe we can merge the tweaked breaths and the sustains to solve three problems at the same time: Samey breaths, spamming breaths and a lack of interesting sustain for melee. As for execution, I prefer leaving Sand Breath as it is the most versatile breath, by doing so we prevent the frustration in case the area attack you prepared turns out to be quite useless, you could still use Sand Breath immediately. Maybe we can extend the cooldown of Sand Breath to make it like an ad-hoc skill, say 20. Or we just boost Bellowing Roar

[HousePet]

Personally, I like the breath weapons as good crowd nukes.
Its the weaker actives that seem lacklustre to me.

[anonymous000]

More ideas about Wyrmics

Existing melee talent tweaks:
Swallow->Bite: Gain HP and stamina, and reduce equilibrium when hit. Extra 50% bonus of the aforementioned effects when killing enemy with it. Most of the time Swallow is only a finishing move, this is to make the talent more useful in normal circumstances.

Ice Claw: Attack enemies in frontal arcs, other aspects remain unchanged. This is to give shield users a multi-target melee option (especially for killing enemies inflicted with the Counterstrike debuff), but is also good for two-handed weapons too. Duplicates with the new Fearless Cleave in v1.2 though. Or we can just have the skill work like Turn Back the Clock to hit 3 targets per turn, dealing 60-80% weapon damage each

Dissolve: Change the negative status to cripple. Doesn't seem to me we need another skill for blinding enemies

New tree: Wings (unlocked)
Wing Mastery(Passive): You grow a pair of wings and you move quicker than before. Increase movement speed by x% and grant y% chance to dodge incoming attacks. You also never trigger traps

Wing Buffet: Fixed radius of 4, damage and knockback distance increase with talent level. Extra damage bonus if the enemies are knocked back to a wall. Also dazes enemies for 1-2 turns to make knockback actually a lifesaver instead of just benefiting the casters.

Propel: Dash for a range of 4-6, deal x% weapon damage and knockback any enemies on the path (the knockback does not knock enemies far. For example, the first enemy knocked will only be knocked back to the adjacent tile of your destination), does not need to connect with enemies like Rush does. A shorter range and more flexible version of Rush so we don't need to invest a category point just to get Rush.

Aerial Momentum(Passive): When you walk you gain x% damage buff per tile (capped at y%) for the next melee attack. The bonus recounts if you do anything other than walking; using Movement infusion or Lightning Speed; or using Propel without connecting it to enemies.

[Sirrocco]

Personally, I'm going to have to disagree with this. I play wyrmics specifically *because* they are the "spamming cones o' damage" class. It's one of the things I really like about them, and it'd be a shame to see them lose it. The talent structure is a bit weird (having to put points into a bunch of skills I'll never use so that I can get my damage cones isn't my favorite thing in the world) and maybe that could do to be rejiggered a bit, but "fear my devastating breath" is a big part of what makes wyrmics awesome in my eyes, and I'd hate to see them lose it - or to have it marginalized to the point where you couldn't really make a build around it anymore.

[parcel]

Having a devastating breath and breathing less frequently are not mutually exclusive, you know.

[SageAcrin]

Dissolve: Change the negative status to cripple. Doesn't seem to me we need another skill for blinding enemies

I'm open to changing the status on Dissolve, but their best offense talent does not need one of the best overall status in the game attached.