Analyzing the Wyrmic Class

[Davion Fuxa]

In reference to most of my analysis I have done, I have suggested some talents might be up for removal or redesign; as well as suggested that a few talents could potentially be moved to another category. Based off most of what I've written, the Wyrmic class categories might look something like follows:

Stamina Driven Categories

• Two Handed Assault
  Shield Offensive
  Combat Veteran
  Combat Techniques

Potential Stamina or Equilbrium Category

• *Unarmed/Mindstar Option*

Equilibrium Driven Categories

• Sand Drake Aspect
  -Free Talent Slot-
  -Revised Quake-
  -Revised Burrow-
  -Sand Breath-
  
  Fire Drake Aspect
  -Free Talent Slot-
  -Free Talent Slot-
  -Revised Devouring Flame/Free Talent Slot-
  -Fire Breath-
  
  Cold Drake Aspect
  -Ice Claw-
  -Icy Skin-
  -Ice Wall-
  -Ice Breath-
  
  Storm Drake Aspect
  -Lightning Speed
  -Revised Static Field/Free Talent Slot-
  -Revised Tornado-
  -Lightning Breath-
  
  Venom Drake Aspect
  -Acidic Spray-
  -Corrosive Mist-
  -Dissolve-
  -Corrosive Breath-
  
  Higher Draconic Abilities
  -Prismatic Slash-
  -Revised Venomous Breath/Free Talent Slot-
  -Revised Wyrmic Guild/Free Talent Slot-
  -Chromatic Fury-
  
  Wyrm Aspect
  -Swallow-
  -Revised Wing Buffet-
  -Free Talent Slot-
  -Bellowing Roar-

One will notice from the above that there are more then a Few Talent Slots potentially opened up as a result of the changes my suggestions would have overall. Notably, the Fire Drake Aspect sees the most impact.

Potential Talent Concepts and Ideas

I figure I should at least try to attempt to contribute some possible ideas for replacements should it come to pass that older talents will get replaced. Here’s some ideas then:

General Drake Aspect

If Swallow gets moved to Wyrm Aspect, I truly think it should get replaced by another mechanism to help manage Equilibrium. I don't know if Sand Drake Aspect should specifically be replaced with such a talent as it could be thrown into one of the other Elemental Drake Aspect categories if desired. Some concepts then:

Conversion - Active or Passive - You reach into your stamina reserves to balance your Equilibrium. Cost X Stamina reduced by Talent Level to remove Y Equilibrium.

This is a Wyrmics Twilight, essentially. Not a whole lot of explanation needs to be offered here. Maybe for scaling the value could be something like removal of 20 Stamina +5*Talent Level for 10 Equilibrium + 10*Talent Level scaling if we want to make it so that the talent investment could be tailored to player taste.

Battle Rhythm - Passive - Your Mediation Talent Negative Damage Modifier is reduced by X% Scaling with Talent Level when using Bump Attacks.

This tries to make Mediation matter more, by allowing you to do more Bump Attack damage while you have Mediation on. Could do more perhaps when not using Mediation as a fluff effect.

Higher Draconic Abilities

Irresistible Strike - Active - You attack an enemy with chaotic elemental damage. The target takes X Untyped Damage, scaling with Strength and Talent Level. Due to the nature of this attack, X% of the Untyped Damage bypasses all Armor, Physical Resistance, All Resistance, Damage Shields, etc; at Talent Level 5 it completely bypasses such effects.

At Talent Level 5 this attacks is also so epic, it actually leads to the 'Irresistible Force Paradox'. When Irresistible Strike meets an Unstoppable enemy it cannot kill the Unstoppable enemy - but Unstoppable can't resist the Irresistible Strike and will be shut down. The Unstoppable opponent will obtain the healing benefit from any kills he made under the Unstoppable effect, and his Unstoppable effect will prematurely end at the very start of his next action turn.

This is really what the Shattering Blow from the Berserker class should be like in some ways, though obviously this talent is in a class next to Unstoppable due to it's 'absolute' propety. This really isn't an attack built for Synergy with Wyrmics to be honest, as it is more of a a way of nerfing Unstoppable - through indirect means. This would be an attack that I would envision being performed by potentially any Multi Hued Wyrm enemy in game - and maybe Gorbat; or at least the Wyrms (Multi-hued or Not) in High Peak (Since noticeable enemies get a bit of a passive buff in some flavor there). I'm sure Players would find a use for it too.

I'll note btw that the reason I'm including it here is because Wyrmics could probably use more single attack talents - so this could replace Venomous Breath.

Draconic Breath - Passive/Sustain - See SageAcrin's Wyrmic Guile quote below, now with a direct name associated with its effect:

Wyrmic Guile: Reduce all breath CD by 1 per level. (Cap at 6)

Additional effects that might be added to this is an increased damage modifier on breaths and other associated Breath Mechanisms (Mental Critical Rate For example).

- To Be Discussed-

In further analysis later in this thread, I plan to discuss Breath Spam and such from player Wyrmics and enemies. I personally think it would be better to lean Wyrmics towards stronger Breath attacks – at a cost of not being able to do them as much.

It might be better to make this sort of Talent as a Sustain depending on how the talent is worked; higher powered breath damage could be counterbalanced by a higher chance of failing to use those attacks due to equilibrium failure.

Wyrm Aspect

Elemental Specialization - Passive - You gain benefits depending on how your talent points are invested in the respective Elemental Drake Aspect categories. The effects would be as follows:

Every Point invested in Sand Drake Aspect provides +X% Physical Damage Reduction per talent level.
Every Point invested in Fire Drake Aspect provides +X% Attack Speed per talent level (Very Minor in Light of Harmony Category).
Every Point invested in Ice Drake Aspect provides +X Saves per talent level.
Every Point invested in Storm Drake aspect provides +X% Movement Speed per talent level.
Every Point invested in Venom Drake Aspect provides +X Mindpower per talent level.

This sort of builds on SageAcrins idea of passive buffs being built into talents - except now it isn't constrained to any specific talent in those categories, but rather every talent in those categories plays into improving the effects. This also potentially caters to players who may want to build more specialize builds.

If the Wyrm Aspect category is made I would put it over into it, as this would gear that category less away from breath attacks – Higher Draconic Abilities would hold that niche instead.

Sand Drake Aspect

Entrench - Active - You create a trench to give yourself cover from ranged attacks. The trench will exist for Z Turns and Will Cover R Radius tiles around your character. While in the trench, damage is reduced from ranged opponents by X% per talent Level; unless they are in the trench. Area of effect field properties can be placed over your trench, but you have a Y% Damage to ignore damage if in your trench.

I'm referring to stuff like Searing Light, Shadow Blast, Corrosive Mist, Glacial Vapour, Burning Wake, etc. This is sort of a nod to Fortescue in his design of Buckler Mastery in a way, but sort of with a World War I Trench theme attached to it.

Note that Entrench is very similar to Burrow, so it might make sense to Allow Burrow to Synergize with this talent.

Fire Drake Aspect

Blazing Zeal - Passive/Sustain/Active - When using your weapon in a basic attack on an enemy, you have a X% chance of hitting another enemy in melee range for Y% Weapon Damage (up to 100% at Talent Level 5, but never exceeding it). At Talent Level 4, if no adjacent enemy is present, you chance of hitting another enemy may also hit the original enemy you attacked.

A heavy nod to Diablo II again, this time to the Paladin character and his amazing Zeal ability. Depending on what is done to Ice Claw, this attack could use Fire Damage or just use the original Weapon properties for the attack. This sort of talent doesn't really synergize well with any other existing talents in the Wyrmic class since they don't really have any talents that improve their Bump attack.

In many ways this is very similar to Greater Weapon Focus - but without the feature of applying to Talent Attacks, just Bump attacks.

Burning Will - Active - When this talent is used, you remove X Detrimental Effects from your character for Y Fire Damage to yourself.

Wyrmic Providence and a clear nod to Draconic Will. Wyrmics don't need Status Immunities, they just burn the effects off them

Fiery Explosion - Active - When the going gets tough, the tough explode. Injure yourself for X% of your current hitpoints to inflict X*Y Fire Damage per turn for Z turns on tiles within your Sight Radius. At Talent Level 4, the talent won't harm Allies.

Should give a heavy use for Constitution on a Wyrmic. This should be scaled to inflict a lot of damage since it's a self inflicted wound.

Storm Aspect Category

Lightning Dash - Active - With Lightning Speed you instantly dash up appear next to your target. Target to reach must be unobstructed. For X Turns after you use this talent, your Global Speed is increased by Y%. While dashing to your target you gain 30% Physical Damage Resistance and 100% Lightning Damage Resistance. This is not an Instant use talent.

This is Tumble + Rush + Lightning Speed + Blinding Speed rolled into one. Not a whole lot to explain outside of it - it's just another movement ability to let a Wyrmic get on top of targets and crush them. Combat Techniques might be worth removing if this talent is added. Due to the nature of the talent, maybe it could synergize with Lightning Speed

[anonymous000]

I see some good suggestions. I also have something to add.

General Comment
1) I don't know if this is intended, but I feel your suggestion is about making the Drake tree have some special themes: Like having Sand for terrain manipulation (Quake/Burrow/Entrench), Fire for some Bloodcasting thing (Burning Will/Fiery Explosion), Lightning for speed manipulation (Lightning Speed/Lightning Dash). I think this is THE correct direction (although I don't agree on the Bloodcasting for Fire) and I would suggest modifying the existing talents to follow that direction more. This direction helps improve talent synergy in a tree and could encourage specialization in an indirect way, also making a tree have more focus and look less like a mess.

2) Elemental Specialization: Seems to me it helps encourage specialization, but not in a good way: 1. If I want to specialize in the Ice tree, firstly I would look at the talents to see are they fun/do they synergise each other to justify investing points in this tree, by then the Saves bonus is too secondary to take into consideration 2. If I want to build up the Saves, I am forced to invest in the Ice tree under this arrangement, even though I may not really want to. I think the correct way to encourage specialization should be following the direction about talent synergy, to make you want to invest in the tree because they are fun/there is synergy instead of just giving random bonus.

3) Breaths: Don't think it is good to further encourage breath spam by adding the Draconic Breath. To remake the Breaths, I suggest following graywandsir's way: Add a Draconic Breath talent that let you learn a particular breath by investing point into a particular tree (one extra benefit is that it frees up one slot in a tree), with the Breaths have a shared cooldown. I understand that there are players who want to spam breaths though, to do so I suggest adding an active talent with long cooldown which removes the cooldown on Breaths(or all active talents) in the Higher Draconic Abilities tree

Category:
Combat Veteran & Potential Stamina or Equilbrium Category: Suggest merging them and discard the old Combat Veteran tree. One resources management tree is enough.

Drake Trees: My design is like this, the first 3 are active/passives, and the last one would be a signature sustain that works well with the other 3 talents.

Sand (Emphasize on spells which let you manipulate terrain):
Quake: Add Disarm but remove knockback as knockback is covered by Wing Buffet.
Bury: AOE, summon sand (like that in the Sandworm Lair) to bury your enemies in a radius of x. Deal physical damage, suffocate and block enemies. Dissipate in n turns. A powered up Ice Wall
Entrench
Burrow: Sustain, also makes your physical attack reduce and pierce armor/magical shields. Works well with Bury(let you burrow a passage into the terrain and melee one by one), Quake(let you remove the new blocks of the new terrain to your liking), Entrench(need more thinking)

Fire (Emphasize on extra melee attacks and damage over time, the negative status burn and fire on the ground should stack)
Fire Claw: Upgrade to 1 range cone(2 at TL4), inflicts burn
Blazing Zeal: Active, cause Fire damage and inflicts burn
Raging Rush: Rush, cause fire damage at destination and inflicts AOE burn. So that players don’t have to unlock Combat Techniques just to get rush
Fan the Flames: Borrowed from graywandsir’s addon. If the target is burning, consume the burn to deal x% of its remaining damage instantly, and leave flames on the ground in radius n that deal that same amount of damage over a total of 5 turns. Also gives extra fire damage to your melee attack depending on the damage of flame on the ground on the tile that you are standing. Makes good use of the burn status that is normally associated with Fire talents, also looks cool.

Ice (about defense/trigger when hit), Lightning (about speed manipulation), Acid (about debuff): Don't have much idea yet

[Davion Fuxa]

@1

It was slightly intentional. I was trying to think up talents that could sort of synergize somewhat with each other; which is why I thought up Lightning Dash and Entrench. I'll note for Fire Drake Aspect btw I was trying to go for talents that sort of fit a 'In The Fray' Theme.

I guess an alternative idea would perhaps make Fire Drake Aspect more 'Basic Weapon' themed though:

Fire Drake Aspect:

Battle Rhythm
Blazing Zeal
-Nother Basic Weapon Themed Talent -
Fire Breath

Maybe the other weapon talent that could be added might be the one that makes you use Two Handed Weapons & Shields together if we want to visit that idea.

@2

Another idea I guess could be pursued could be a talent that effectively boosts all talents but the capstone talents so that they are more effective. IE, you get more Armor from Ice Armor, you get a bigger detrimental effect applied to enemies with Corrosive Mist, you hit harder with Ice Claw, Quake gains Knockback Penetration, etc. That would make the Breaths not as centred to builds for as many players.

The jist of what I was going for was making the Talents before the Breath Attacks more worthy of investment.

@3

The thing I like about Draconic Breath decreasing Cooldown is that it can let a player use 'the same' breath more. I actually have an idea to reduce Breath Spam by making it have a second cost attacked to it - AIR.

The sort of basis for the idea is say we make Breath Attacks cost 60 Air to use (and Maybe throw Bellowing Roar in there for 45 Air) then players won't be able to spam Breaths - they simply won't have enough 'Breath' for it. Draconic Breath could perhaps maybe increase Lung Capacity or Air Regeneration to help players a little bit, but the Air Capacity would be a major constraint.

Notably, Yeeks WOULD be able to still quite capably spam breaths most likely (They have 200 Air, they aren't hurting that much) but I think it's fine if they have that bump as it makes them worthy race candidates.

I'll likely throw all of this idea sort of into an analysis piece later.

[anonymous000]

Breaths: I still favor graywandsir's treatment regarding the breaths rather than using Air as the resource as the former brings the following benefits, besides already avoided spamming.

1) It frees up talent spots. As Gatewalker pointed out, Wyrmic is more about like a Red Mage type. They have many actives, although some of them might be 1 pointer / not useful in most circumstances, when combined they present wyrmics with a variety of options. In my opinion (which also seems to be SageAcrin's), this is the niche of wyrmics. graywandsir's treatment free up one slot for each tree and makes it able to keep the active talents in case we are going to add some passives/sustains.

2) It allows more points to be invested in other active talents as the talent level of the breaths scales with the talent points invested in a tree. This fits the Red Mage theme that is going for wyrmic

To let a player use 'the same' breath more, suggest adding a talent with long cooldown(Outrage?) in Higher Draconic Abilities that removes cooldown on Draconic talents. So that there can be some periodic spamming, but not all the time. Lower cooldown just encourage more spamming

Some talent suggestions about the Lightning tree (emphasize on mobility and speed control):

Lightning Speed: Suggest making it a passive. When you kill, you transform into a lightning beam, move to the target location and cause lightning damage to everything in the path. Currently overlaps with the Movement Infusion, and another thing I don't like about Lightning Speed is, although the talent description said "you transform into pure lightning", I don't feel that way, I just run faster. Don't think it will be overpowered as it is just an inflexible Step Up (as you are forced to move in a straight line) with some damage.

Thunder: You transform into a thunder, works like Dimensional Step+Static Field. More mobility thrown into the Lightning tree, and enable you to teleport to your enemies and use Static Field at the same time for maximum damage, instead of reserving the Static Field until you run into your at-full-health enemies

[Davion Fuxa]

I don't think there is anything wrong with the current Lightning Speed Overlapping with Movement Infusions. The same argument could be applied to Phase Door or Teleport in respects to Archmages, Necromancers, Shadowblades, and Arcane Blades; really all it does is has the talent eliminate the need for a Movement Infusion, freeing up room for other inscriptions. Notably I also like the Physical Damage reduction it gives compared to Immunities.

Also, one thing to bring up because I think it's relevant:

The Wyrmic do indeed play like a Red Mage - It starts out Awesome, then it craps out in the end. Being able to do everything is fine but the weak ability to do anything well really hurts.


*****

As a note, I've completed my Wyrmic run I had going. Davion Wyrmic Look was the first Wyrmic of many I have played to make it all the way to the Far East and win. In the End Fight I was making heavy use of the likes of Ice Wall, as I couldn't really keep up with the damage with Argoniel AND Elandar very well. Heck, I could barely keep up with the damage from just one of them at a time.

Key things to note is that where I suffered the most was from burst damage against my Wyrmic (obviously, I'm a Regeneration Tank, not a Shielded one) but also from my inept ability to do damage on single targets - Argoniel in particular just laughed at a lot of my attacks. Elandar wasn't as bad since I could Ice Wall to prevent him from running away while Aeryn could catch up to help pound on him.

There definetely needs to be more Single Target Abilities - if just for the end fight. I had to play as conservatively as possible to win it.

[anonymous000]

Actually what bothers me more is that Lightning Speed does not work like lightning. In spite of it, the current Lightning Speed is ok though, just a good utility.

Play like a Red Mage is good, just that the master of none ideal is taken too far and wyrmic is downright bad in virtually all aspects (except survivability). I think the correct direction is to improve all aspect but keep the master of none going, I don't really want wyrmic to be remade into a single-target master. Actually the point you made about you have to rely quite a bit on Ice Wall instead of outright pounding the 2 sorcerers to death demonstrated the fun of playing a wyrmic

[Atarlost]

I'm starting a new wyrmic and apart from a conscious decision to not go mindstar I fee llike I'm falling into exactly the same talent choices.

Take each tree exactly as far as the last utility talent. If the last utility talent is the third talent take that breath. Take higher all the way to get chromatic fury. Max all breaths except poison, which kind of sucks. Max roar and max or near max all the acid drake stuff because they don't.

Wyrmic really should feel as flexible as archmage. It has a similar elemental structure. It doesn't. Right now that's because it feels like I'm obligated to max as many breaths as possible.

I have a hard time imagining any change to fire or lightning that would make me willing to not choose Burrow and Ice Wall and therefore the corresponding breaths. They could be made to compete with Acid Drake I suppose.

I would prefer to spread the utility out better and make the utility abilities also combat abilities.

Lightning Speed is the first ability in its tree, which means I'm free to not take that tree all the way. That's good and not just because it's a crappy tree. Acidic Spray is the first ability in its tree, which means I'm free to not take that tree all the way either. I have to because fire and lightning suck but if they didn't or if there were other trees added or the offensive techniques trees weren't almost exclusively one point wonders I could just pick up the early ranged attack and be done with it. I'd like to see all trees like that. Put the must have up front, nice but noncritical (and possibly redundant between trees) abilities in slots 2 and 3, and the breath last.

To that end how about
Digging Claws (replaces burrow, goes in the first sand aspect slot) Temporary offensive melee buff added to burrow with the dig count limit some have suggested, or a offensive melee buff sustain that allows you to freely burrow walls at an additional eq cost that reduces with investment.
Ash Armor (replaces icy skin, goes in the first fire aspect slot) Icy Skin in a different damage type.
Ice Wall (goes in first ice aspect slot) does damage to anything between the caster and the wall when it's first cast or DoT to tiles adjacent to the wall or damage (but not iceblock, which would be too powerful for a tier 1) to anyone the wall is dropped on top of. Probably the last since that's how the stupid AI tends to try to use it.
Lightning Speed (doesn't move) when dropping out of lightning speed by making an attack you get a damage multiplier proportional to TL and distance traveled, maybe 1% per TL per tile to a max of +TLx10% or +100% or 0.5% per TL per tile uncapped or something.

Digging Claws could be low investment to just dig or high for melee wyrmics. Ash Armor is the utility that can be most easily moved into the fire aspect, though moving it along with swallow to an un-aspected draconic tree could work if someone can come up with another good utility for fire. Ice Wall could be made useful for damage at high investment. Lightning Speed would get some reason to invest heavily if you're using it as a closer rather than an escape. Acidic Spray is already fine.

[Davion Fuxa]

It is finally time to turn this analysis onto focusing on how the Wyrmic class plays. In general, the Wyrmic class currently plays alright in its current incarnation but there is room for much improvement.

As stated in the opening post of this thread, Wyrmics are a Melee class with many support abilities, many of which are tailored after the make Drakes and Wyrmics encountered in the game. Unfortunately, Wyrmics also are notoriously one of the worst classes to melee with as they don't have any passive benefits helping out their bump attack. They also tend to lead to players investing heavily in all their breath attacks and just spamming them one after the next to defeat foes, instead of making use of all the Wyrmic talents.

Jack of All Trades, Master of None

The Jack of All Trades, Master of None references perfectly fits the Wyrmic. For those not familiar with the definition "Jack of All Trades, Master of None", it is a reference to a worker who has practiced several different jobs but isn't an expert in the field of any of those talents.

In Tales of Maj'Eyal, Wyrmics take the above concept too far. Another common reference that Wyrmics infamously are referred to is that of the Final Fantasy 'Red Mage'. In Final Fantasy, the Red Mage was noted for being the character class 'that could do it all'; it was a very strong initial class to start out with but as the game progressed he would become less useful then any of the more specialized classes.

Tales of Maj'Eyal is a very balanced game, and sadly for the Wyrmic class, they really aren't that much harder or weaker then any other class initially. Unfortunately, much like the Red Mage however they get weaker as the game goes on. This leads to the Wyrmic class being very underpowered in relation to other classes players may play.

In reworking this class, it should be noted that having the Wyrmic class dabble in various functions and lack any specific specialization is not a bad thing. What needs to happen and is greatly desired in improving the class is that the Wyrmic class so that it's various functions available to it can lead the class to be useful regardless of the situation they encounter.

Problematic Functions: Single Target Abilities, Talents to Improve Wyrmics Offensive Statistics, and Breath Attack Spam

In looking at the Wyrmic class, there are essentially three functions that need to be looked at in how they are designed on the class. While all three of these problematic functions potentially don't need to be reworked to the fullest for the class, it is likely that for designing or revamping these aspects will greatly lead to improving the class.

In regards to why these three functions are problematic:

• Wyrmics have access to only a space few Single Target Abilities, and most of what they might choose outside of the Assault Talent with Shield Offense (when using Sword and Board conventional weapons) really comes off as true damage ability. This leads to the Wyrmic class lacking any talents which they can make use of for the purpose of 'bursting' an opponent down, dealing a lot of damage to a single opponent. The lack of Single Target Abilities in and of itself is not necessarily a bad thing, classes such as Cursed or Berserker similarly also lack such talents.
  
  However, unlike the Cursed or Berserker, the Wyrmic also additionally lacks any talents that tie into improving their overall damage. A Berserker for example has several talents that will improve their overall damage which makes them very powerful in a long term battle, while the Cursed has talents that can give it a temporary boost for a limited time to do great damage - Wyrmics lack either of the mechanisms and as such their offensive ability is quite poor in conjunction to the fact that they also lack Single Target Abilities to compensate.
  
  Finally, Wyrmics are unique in that they make use of Breath attacks to dispatch multiple foes. However, they are currently the Wyrmics only real source of being able to deal with enemies, and players will tailor their Wyrmic characters to invest in multiple Breath Attacks so that they can spam them in order to overcome enemies. While it can be fun to breath different elements, spamming similar talents over and over again is quite boring. Worse, it leads the class to being a 'One Trick Pony, Copied and Pasted' feeling.

As a passing note, nothing occurs in a vacuum. The above three functions all pertain to the offensive elements present in the Wyrmic class, and the use of one can be used to supplement another - such as how Breath Attacks are currently being made of use to deal with most any and all encounters a player might face by most players. Where redesign occurs, in needs to take into account the other offensive aspect for balance as well as their use.

[HousePet]

Lack of huge bursts isn't too big a deal for a tough class like Wyrmic.
Lack of a good range of single target talents kinda is though.

[Davion Fuxa]

Lack of huge bursts isn't too big a deal for a tough class like Wyrmic.
Lack of a good range of single target talents kinda is though.

Lack of a Huge Bursts AND lack of talents that increased overall damage is sort of what I'm getting at. I'd be fine if Wyrmics don't get any burst damage talents in favor of them getting an overall damage buff, but the alternative would be just to make some very powerful single target abilities in place of passive buff talents.

[anonymous000]

I don't think it is a problem that Wyrmic lacks huge burst.

Firstly, Wyrmic shares the melee damage talents of Berserker/Bulwark, yet nobody really complained about Berserk/Bulwark being weak at melee. This shows the melee talents are not the problem, the lack of passive/sustain to boost melee is. Secondly, as your analysis pointed out, Wyrmic plays like a Red Mage. I feel this is the positioning of Wyrmics, if we are going to remake Wyrmic, it would be better for us to keep that position, just make them decent in all aspects instead of adding some high damage melee talents that would potentially make them very strong at one-on-one. I agree that Wyrmic can have some extra melee talents, but I think they should focus on utility rather than pure damage (e.g. Ice Claw turns into a cone melee talent, Prismatic Slash dispels magic, etc)

My two cents about how to remake wyrmic:

Direction
1) Continue their Red Mage theme. Wyrmic's most important strength would be their utility, not because their utility are strong, but because of their variety that let you handle a lot of different situations. Other aspects of wyrmics should be decent, not very good but by no means bad. Enhancing Wyrmic's arsenal of melee attack is fine, but they should provide utility rather than pure damage.

2) Limit spamming Breaths but makes spamming possible

3) Wyrmics should primarily be a melee class, spells are kept to enhance utility instead of replacing melee. But keep mindstar build viable

4) Encourage specialization but makes gearing towards all aspects also a good choice

5) Better resources management

Actual suggestions
1. Related to direction 1)Improve all aspects
Which includes Melee/Defense/Utility/Spells. This is done by 1. Introduce more sustains and passives 2. Active talents should be improved rather than removed to keep wyrmics's arsenal of so many things

2.) Improve tree design
2.1 Related to direction 1&2) Rework the Breaths in the same way as grayswandir did in his addon to free 1 talent slot from each tree, so that we don't have to sacrifice the active for sustains/passives if we place them in the elemental trees. This also avoids spamming as the breaths have shared cooldown
2.2 Related to direction 1&4) Give each tree a theme, like Fire for extra melee arsenal / Sand for terrain manipulation / Lightning for mobility and speed control / etc. So that those who specialize in Fire drake tree get better at melee, those who specialize Lightning have better mobility, etc. This encourages specialization but by then taking random talent here and there is good too as you have different utilities to help you.
2.3 Related to direction 1&4) To further encourage specialization, there could be a signature sustain placed in the 4th slot in each tree that is designed in a way that they offer synergy to other talents in the same tree, like what I have mentioned in my previous post about Sand/Fire talent design. On the other hand, those who prefer to gear towards all aspect can invest more in the passives / non-4th slot sustains / general drake sustains

3 Related to direction 1,3,4,5)
Introduce new trees, which could include
3.1) General Drake Passive/Sustains + Resources Management (rolled into one?)
3.2) General Drake Actives (Swallow, Wing Buffet, Bellowing Roar and Breaths)
3.3) New Mindstar Tree?
3.4) Locked Trees: Recommendation 2.2 applies, for example, Higher Draconic Abilities tree for general buff, Blink Drake tree for conveyance, Mental Prowess tree for fear, Wild Drake for Anti-magic, etc

4 Related to direction 2) Add an long cooldown active which makes draconic abilities takes no cooldown if players want to spam breaths

[Davion Fuxa]

I'm not disagreeing against Wyrmics gaining passives or sustains to synergize with their weapon output - I'm just not discounting the fact that improving their damage output against single targets can't also be done through just creating very powerful single target talents.

Partially why I suggested 'Irresistible Strike' is that is an example of how they could pick up a powerful Single Target talent to deal with enemies. There's the potential of it being worked to being a very damaging attack since it's concept is about ignoring the defenses of the target it hits; assuming it hits (Could make it subject to Defense and Evasion). This also makes the talent add utility and it keeps well with the Red Mage theme. Adding more talents in a sort of similar vein could also be done; or old talents like Static Field could be refurbished to actually be meaningful - the Wyrmic can pick up its damage without Passives and Sustains where talents are properly designed to let it do so.

As for your suggested Direction I don't think 3.) is necessarily needed. I'm personally fine if Wyrmics are kept viable at being slightly useful as 'spellcastery' adversaries if players wish to design their class that way.

[anonymous000]

The rationale behind my opposition is that, when Wyrmics are given passives/sustains to boost their melee, the Shield/2H/ordinary wyrmic melee talents should be able to deliver decent damage against bosses. By then the primary purpose of the powerful melee nuke, that is dealing enough damage against bosses, could be accomplished by the other not-too-powerful melee attacks. This leads to either the nuke being unnecessary (purpose fulfilled by ordinary melee talents), or being too strong (much better than the decent-enough standard wyrmic melee arsenal).

As for Direction 3, yes I guess it would be better to keep mindstar build a niche build and we probably don't need a mindstar tree to encourage people to pick mindstar.

[notacorporal]

I suggested auxilliary attacks before, by which I mean secondary attacks that automatically follow any melee strike. These would work equally well with any choice of weapon.

[Davion Fuxa]

This has been a long time coming.

Wyrmics, Dragons, and Breath Attacks

Breath Attacks, easily the most defining feature of Wyrmics and the various Dragon type enemies you will face. Breath attacks are coned shaped AoE's that can hit multiple foes in the direction that the Wyrmic targets the talent. Drakes, Wyrm, and the Dragon Bosses Rantha and Varsha do damage in the respective damage type that the represent - in Physical, Fire, Cold, Lightning, and Acid. Each respective elemental attack also has a fluff debuff ability attached to it. Multi-hued Enemies and Wyrmics can gain access to all the different types of Breath Attacks for their use; and can also make use of an additional Poison Themed Breath Attack which does no initial damage but will provide a powerful Poison Debuff on targets it hits.

Breath Attacks in general are one of the advantages that Wyrmics have, as it can allow them to easily dispatch groups of foes. Depending on the Breath Attacks used, the damage and debuff effects can help soften up enemies or outright kill them in tandem with subsequent Breath Attacks or other Wyrmic abilities that can hit multiple opponents. They also have a very manageable Equilibirum cost of 12. Unfortunately, with how the Breath Attacks Talents work, they have some notable problems that should be addressed.

The Breath Attack Talents aren't set up very well in terms of point investment. Initially at 1/5 Talent Investment the Breath Attack is a very weak attack with a very limited cone area effected in the direction of the attack. In many cases this renders Breath Attacks only really useful once they are fully invested in up to 5/5 Talent Points. In some cases such for Sand Breath or Lightning Breath it might be fine to make use of a lower invested Breath Attack - but this is due in part to the debuff effect attached to it.

Individually as well, Breath Attacks do very good damage when initially invested in. However, because there is neither any real support talents outside of Chromatic Fury to boost the effectiveness of Breath Attack nor due to the difficulty in increasing Mental Critical Rate a way to make them critical more, the damage will drop off from Breath Attacks as the character progresses through the game.

In relation to the overall class, a Wyrmic character can if the player wishes, invest in several Breath Attacks. A Result of this is that the player can gain access to multiple Breath Attacks in different elements; which gives an advantage if one specific Breath Attack it weak against a certain enemy due to the elemental resistance on that enemy. The added debuff effects can also play a roll in managing groups of enemies as well.

Later on as the game progresses though, as players manage to accumulate additional Breath Attacks, the game simple turns into a constant 'Breath Spam Fest'. Players will just use one Breath Attack after the next when dealing with foes to continue progressing through the game, use Regeneration Infusions or Swallow where applicable, and whatever meagre useful active talents are available for that the player can meaningfully use on the Wyrmic character.

Arguably this 'Breath Spam Fest' situation is brought on by the lack of other attacks the Wyrmic Class can meaningfully use as well each individual Breath being quite weak. It is also partly brought on because there is no real additional costs to using Breath Attacks in this sort of attack pattern.

Notably, the problems with 'Breath Spam Fest' carry over to Multi-Hued Dragon enemies because they also have access to multiple Breath Attacks. There attack patterns tends to lead to a situation where they also are capable of spamming Breath Attacks one after the other at your character; and frequently they will do so. This partly makes Multi-Hued Dragons very fearsome opponents overthe rest of the Dragon types which are limited to their respective Breath attack element; but it is also makes the other Dragon Types disproportionately weaker.

Reworking Breath Attacks

When addressing Breath Attacks, a few things should be done both to gear player Wyrmics away from just spamming Breath Attacks as well as closing some of the distance between Multi-Hued Dragons and their counterparts:

-Breath Attack Spam should be addressed so that Wyrmic's and Multi-Hued Dragons do other actions more
-Breath Attacks for Non-Multi-Hued Wyrms (and maybe Drakes) should probably get some notable improvement in their single Breath Attack
-Breath Attacks should be balanced out more in relation to the game so that an individual Breath Attack is still decently powerful later in the game

As a Note, it is likely that with reworking Breath Attacks that this isn't necessarily about weakening them as it is more about balancing how they work and their usefulness at different stages in the game. Additionally, Single Target Abilities or Passives can fit in better to fill the void in not being able to use Breath Attacks as often.

Some Ideas on Breath Attacks

Much like many other aspects of the Wyrmic, multiple ideas have been thrown around to improve Wyrmics. The first idea to note is that it has been suggested that Breath Attacks trigger and 'Out of Breath' debuff which will prevent additional Breath Attacks from being used. This has a notable advantage in that Shaloran characters will gain a notable use when playing the Wyrmic class with Timeless, and it will also mean that there will be a few turns delay before a Multi-Hued Drake or Wyrm can use a Breath Attack again.

Another idea is that Breath Attacks should be rolled into One Talent, and thus result in Breath Attacks sharing the same cooldown as a result. Different Breath Attack Elements would be the result of investing in the different Elemental Drake Aspect categories relating to that element. This has the advantage of freeing up several Talent Points for Wyrmic characters to invest elsewhere as they no longer need to invest as many points in Breath Attacks. It also means many more Talent spaces open which can allow for new talents to fill a Wyrmics Weaknesses can be dropped into the respective Elemental Drake Aspect categories instead of making new ones.

I would imagine that a single Breath Attack Talent would reside in a more 'General Drake Aspect' category, which could potentially be locked initially to give Wyrmics something to do with Category points - and this could lead to scrapping the whole 'Wyrm Aspect' idea I had initially; or both category ideas could potentially run alongside each other to further give Dragon enemies more to work with and players more Categories to look into.

Finally, I have my own idea for improving Breath Attacks.

I've hinted at this elsewhere but as an idea, Breath Attacks (and perhaps Bellowing Roar) could be made to draw from a characters Air Capacity when using such attacks - say 60 Air Capacity per Breath Attack (45 for Bellowing Roar). Unlike the other above ideas, this has the advantage of allowing Wyrmics to briefly use 1 or 2 Breath Attacks immediately after the other as their Air Capacity 'Resource' allows; which means that if the Wyrmic is attacking a group of enemies, he can burst them down with Breath Attacks instead of potentially having to tactically move back or handle the fray while he's out of Breath or waiting for the Breath Attack Talent to come off cooldown. It also means that Yeeks would get a huge advantage of other Races with Wyrmics due to their extra Air Capacity - which of course would help offset their disadvantage of being 'Yeeks'.

Notably, this could also potentially be and idea that could tie in with the above ideas - such as having only one Breath Attack talent but also making it so that it takes Air Resource to use Breath Attacks. That could have the advantage of providing significant drawbacks to Breath Attacks such as the ideas presented above. If taking the single Breath Attack example and applying the Air Resource to it, many talent points might be needed in a specific Elemental Drake Aspect and the Breath Attack talent itself to get Breath Attacks in that specific element being effective intially. Later, a Draconic Breath Talent could be invested in that could further improve Breath Attacks by ways of allowing players to use the Breath Attack more then initially, or expanding their Air Resource to make more Breath Attacks before running out of Air for more attacks after.

Another idea relating to the Air Capacity as well is that it could tie into the use of other detrimental effects - like Constriction. Potentially Constriction could prevent the use of talents that require Air Capacity. This could be further run on to lead to interesting gameplay with Wyrmic characters or even when fighting Dragons.