Wyrmic Tweaks(With addon!)

[Gatewalker]

Re: 100% strength wyrmic. Um...I would never ever even consider that, but that's due entirely to equi failure rate being Will based rather than anything in the class itself. That's just a problem with Equi as a resource, any class that uses it is going to need some Will investment to not start tripping over their own two feet after a few talent uses. Especially if they want to use sustains.

"Too many buttons" is a legit concern, yeah. I didn't really notice in my Higher Wyrmic clear due to a) a bunch of the buttons being bad, and b) I had just played Mindslayer before that so my perspective was kinda skewed(now THERE is a class with TOO FREAKING MANY BUTTONS).

Messing around with this addon now, Dorf Wyrmic, going 1H+Shield this time and purposefully ignoring Venom tree. About level 11 right now. Wing Buffet has been doing the heavy lifting with some help from Bellowing Roar. I maaaaaaay pick up enough in Storm tree to get the breath and try out new tornado, but I may not, not sure yet. I still don't really feel like getting more than 2 breaths is super necessary, but with the talent changes from this getting to the breaths isn't painful anymore at least.

So far I've been able to handle most things without problems, though orc archers in the starting zone were rough...as was damn near everything in Deep Bellow. Well, aside from The MOUTH but that thing is always a chump. No deaths, but several close calls. It's...roughly the same earlygame experience as before, except for one glaring thing. I'm not using Acidic Spray. Wing Buffet is actually a viable substitute for acid beem spam.

I'll report back in when I've fought Drakes/Wyrms in later areas to see what they do with the new talents. Hopefully the answer will not be "mangle me terribly"

[astreoth]

dude venom drakes are for buffing melee in general not just mindstars.

and your talking like caster wyrmics are all that common they aren't really referencing my examination of the wyrmic class at the start of my wyrmic democracy thread http://forums.te4.org/viewtopic.php?f=39&t=41571 it is clear that caster wyrmics are unpopular and or ineffective with about 3/4ths of the characters in the survey being melee types with weapon skills and when it comes to venom its mostly used for its Armour decaying aura not mindpower acid beam.

yeah wyrmics aren't casters and the class is ill inclined toward it exclusively with not nearly the kind of arsenal a caster class would need plus the most popular wyrmic ability's seem to be the ones that help with melee such as corrosive aura, dissolve, icy scales and all the first talents.

[donkatsu]

Scaling effects(Saves, powers) have flat rate, Percent effects (Devour, Prismatic Slash and Lightning Speed) have diminishing returns and are using some of Hachem's scalers.

So 35 levels of Prismatic Slash shouldn't be an issue. Unless I misunderstood those functions and made a mistake, at which point oops. That's why I release things as addons, just in case I screwed something up.

Oh, no I see you're correct, I just couldn't tell on the talents screen because of rounding.

[anonymous000]

Claiming Wyrmic is badly designed objectively, in basic concept, is quite interesting.

What makes you say that?

Thanks for the hard work, many talents are indeed better now. However, I feel Suslik made a valid point. Certainly Wyrmic has some good aspects, but its has flaws that you cannot ignore. The heated debates in Davion Fuxa's thread and in astreoth's poll are the evidences. People there didn't argue for nothing.

Some things that I think need to be addressed:

1. Lack of synergy between talents and therefore specialization is not feasible. As seen from astreoth's poll, players choices for either gearing the class toward draconic specialization or being all the dragon types are about 50/50 (with specialization slightly more in favor). I feel we can keep gearing towards all aspect good (as it is now), but Wyrmic certainly can benefit from more synergies between talents.

2. Breaths are made even more spammable. The opinions toward the breaths are pretty divided and I feel we need a compromise solution on allow spamming or not.

I have made my two cents on how to improve these two aspects here if you are interested (the Direction/Actual Suggestions one) http://forums.te4.org/viewtopic.php?f=3 ... 5&start=45

And regarding the number of actives, I don't really think it is a problem as I think the variety of actives which provided wyrmics with so many different options is what makes wyrmics fun. Also, with most talents are buffed I see people will invest points into some previous-1-pointers (like Burrow) and it might help reduce the buttons a little bit

[SageAcrin]

1. Lack of synergy between talents and therefore specialization is not feasible. As seen from astreoth's poll, players choices for either gearing the class toward draconic specialization or being all the dragon types are about 50/50 (with specialization slightly more in favor). I feel we can keep gearing towards all aspect good (as it is now), but Wyrmic certainly can benefit from more synergies between talents.

I am not sure how, in relation to my ideas, this applies.

As I said before, in conversation with Suslik, a split can be made between builds, now. One that is much more effective than before.

Would you please clarify where this needs to be improved?

2. Breaths are made even more spammable. The opinions toward the breaths are pretty divided and I feel we need a compromise solution on allow spamming or not.

I'll address that when someone comes up with an idea to prevent breath spamming that is A: More than vaguely articulated, and B: Works effectively for dragon enemies/enemy Wyrmics without making them pathetically ineffectual.

I'm not ignoring that people are discussing this, don't get me wrong. But it's not a balance issue, or a build issue, but largely one of player tastes as far as I can tell. Equilibrium racks up fast with constant breath usage(there's a reason I retooled a lot of Equi costs to place Breaths near the top of the costs!), and non-breath builds are viable now, as is limiting yourself to a few breaths, thanks to Wyrmic Guile.

I don't see a requirement of forcing people not to spam breath like a multi-colored water hose of death. If people enjoy it, and it's not broken(And it's not, it is one of the lower damage, more area control builds)... well, it fits well enough thematically, as far as I'm concerned.

[Suslik]

Your changes look like the best way if we are constrained with case like: "Don't change any core mechanics, just make work what's already there". Well yeah, that does work but I personally find such approach a little underwhelming - we can make the class more interesting than just a lot of separate skills without any synergetical interactions.

I just want to emphasize House Pet's idea that I really like(but he's forbidden to implemet it until he finishes mindslayers .__.)
That's pretty dramatic change, but hopefully it will save everything good wyrmics have and add way more options and variety:
- 1 basic tree like alchemist's bombs that has abilities like strong single-targe damage, weaker ray damage and AoE damage.
- every drake aspect tree has a utility talent(from every tree that currently exist), 1 breath, 1 general aspect augmentation and one sustain that does something to every skill in the basic tree and every melee attack. Like fire adds damage to every melee attack, chance to remove physical buff to the first talent in basic tree, increased range to the second ray talent and let's say reduces cooldown of the AoE basic ability. every tree has different sustainable augmentation effects but all of them augment your basic tree and multiple can be sustained at the same time.

This way you can build your wyrmic in those augmentations you see fit(cannot specialize in everything) and you're rewarded for using both melee(via passive buffs to it), breaths(your main source of AoE damage) and basic tree that gets progressively improved during the whole game. Major featuer is due to synegy between trees you can specialize in 1-2 aspects and become proficient in those or go all out and become multi-hued wyrm with like 5 aspects, get partial benefits of them all, but you'll won't be really proficient in any of those.

[HousePet]

(but he's forbidden to implemet it until he finishes mindslayers .__.)

[SageAcrin]

Well, if this is more about taking Wyrmic in a different direction, there's nothing that says that both answers can't be implemented.

Start with implementing this, then get feedback on the different take. Seems simple enough, and there does seem to be an agreement so far that this is an improvement on what's there.

[anonymous000]

I am not sure how, in relation to my ideas, this applies.

As I said before, in conversation with Suslik, a split can be made between builds, now. One that is much more effective than before.

Would you please clarify where this needs to be improved?

The specialization I was talking about (and in astreoth's poll) is about specialization in elemental aspects, rather than about Physical/Mindpower orientation.

Even though you improved the talents to make them more useful than before, the current setting still provide no synergy between talents (except maybe the Sand one as Burrow can boost the damage of Swallow and Quake). That makes specialization, for example, in Fire Drake Aspect, not feasible.

For your reference, I have made the following talent suggestion in Davion Fuxa's thread in the hope to bring more synergy to the Wyrmic talents

Drake Trees: My design is like this, the first 3 are active/passives/sustain, 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, Swallow moved to a General Drake Offense Tree):
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(this is Davion Fuxa's idea): 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.
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(this is Davion Fuxa's idea): 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. 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 (Sustain): 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

I'll address that when someone comes up with an idea to prevent breath spamming that is A: More than vaguely articulated, and B: Works effectively for dragon enemies/enemy Wyrmics without making them pathetically ineffectual.

I'm not ignoring that people are discussing this, don't get me wrong. But it's not a balance issue, or a build issue, but largely one of player tastes as far as I can tell. Equilibrium racks up fast with constant breath usage(there's a reason I retooled a lot of Equi costs to place Breaths near the top of the costs!), and non-breath builds are viable now, as is limiting yourself to a few breaths, thanks to Wyrmic Guile.

I don't see a requirement of forcing people not to spam breath like a multi-colored water hose of death. If people enjoy it, and it's not broken(And it's not, it is one of the lower damage, more area control builds)... well, it fits well enough thematically, as far as I'm concerned.

Actually I have posted an articulate idea (graywandsir's idea really) on the thread that I was showing you:
Breath Attacks are rolled into a single talent in a General Drake Offense Tree, by putting points into an elemental tree you get the respective breath. Different breaths have a shared cooldown. The Breath talent also gives you an long-cooldown active that removes cooldown of breaths for a few turns.

Benefits:
1. 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.
2. Avoid spamming,
3. but makes spamming possible, even more possible than before as in the past as you have to invest in multiple breaths if you want to spam, but now you can spam the same breath over and over for a few turns because of the active which removes cooldown. I guess this could be a cool factor for some players. Just that you cannot spam breaths all the time now
4. Encourage specialization because the talent level of the breath scales with the talent points you invested in a particular tree. But those who gear it toward all elemental aspects have more breaths available to handle different situations.

A side benefit is that single-element wyrm can also spam breaths like the multi-hued ones do, making them less inferior to their multi-hued counterparts

[Suslik]

Actually I have posted an articulate idea (graywandsir's idea really) on the thread that I was showing you:
Breath Attacks are rolled into a single talent in a General Drake Offense Tree, by putting points into an elemental tree you get the respective breath. Different breaths have a shared cooldown. The Breath talent also gives you an long-cooldown active that removes cooldown of breaths for a few turns.

Really cool suggestion about 1 talent for all breaths and cooldown-removing ability but shared cooldown looks like a really bad idea: you're not encouraged to have multiple breaths in this scheme except for different debuffs which's underwhelming. Suggest putting other breaths on like 1/3 of normal cooldown when using a breath so that you'll have to actually alter them.

Also there was a great idea about air as resource for breaths I wonder if we can combine them. But this conversation hardly belongs to discussion of this particular addon.

[DeNarr]

if you are 100% str-based wyrmic you're never going to use them due to having no willpower. That's what bad design is.

I wasn't aware that anyone did 100% Str-based Wyrmics.

I guess that's like a Rogue who avoids Cunning?

Is that a thing which people actually do?

This is a direct passage from the wiki:

"There are several viable builds for Wyrmics. The simplest is to boost Strength and bash things with weapons, and breathe on them. (All Wyrmic breath talents scale with Strength.)"

So, if that is not something that is viable, could those that know better update the wiki?

[edge2054]

My first impressions.

I like Ice Claw being a cone but I fear it will have to much overlap with Icy Breath.

I don't care much for the bonuses on the tier one talents. Feels really easy to dip. Plus it's just a lot of clutter since they already boost a resistance.

The new quake seems like it will get more use than it used too. Quake and Burrow should be swapped (I know this isn't you but still) as you can get yourself stuck with Quake otherwise. Granted you can quake yourself back out eventually but it can be annoying.

I only played till level five though. Gotta make dinner.

[SageAcrin]

I considered full tree boosts, which would have looked cleaner and felt more thematic(and would have been easy to do).

The problem with that though is that part of Wyrmic's issues is the earlygame, and I felt like an early way to crutch their mixed ranged fighting really would help them out, and it's still got a new kind of consistency(the first talent in every tree is what has a passive). I admit, the attacks have long descriptions, but in some cases(Static Field! Swallow!) it's just the attacks being complex.

Icy Claw doesn't really overlap with the breath. It caps at rad 3 cone, which is pretty small, and doesn't have the breath's new, spiffy ICE_SLOW damage type.

Also, new version up, fixes a very silly bug with Static Field where it was causing multiple lightning explosions, one for each enemy. Hee.

Edit: Also, to be clear, it being really easy to dip was intentional. The biggest issue Wyrmic has is very low amounts of statistical bonuses. So I gave them a bunch of easy to grab, solid passives... in every direction at once. Unfocused but strong was a general theme I had, since it's the main thing Wyrmic does right now.

[donkatsu]

Dumb subjective playstyle feedback:
I really liked the many build choices possible starting from turn 1, with the tier 1 passive bonuses. By the time you get tier 2s you've got so many ranged AoE's that you're not really melee anymore, you're a ranged caster who happens to use weapon damage for some of your spells. Which is fine in my opinion. I like ranged casters.

Power feedback:
However all these useful tier 1s make breaths sorta obsolete; breaths have some status effects on them but their main feature is damage and the damage is nothing special by the time you get them. It'd be different if they were tier 1s, because weapon attacks are inferior to stat damage for a good portion of the early game, so during the first few levels your breath damage would dominate everything else like Acidic Spray does, but the way things are with this patch, these tier 1s and 2s are doing just as much if not more damage, with a much lower cooldown and equilibrium cost. Quake, Wing Buffet, Devouring Flame, Ice Claw, Static Field, Tornado, Acidic Spray, and Corrosive Mist are way more AoE damage than you're ever going to need. In fact I went shield instead of 2h just so I could get some better single target damage. If breaths are to remain a relevant class feature, then Wyrmics can't have too many other AoEs.

Also Burrow scales in too many different ways. Have the cost and instant cast speed remain constant throughout; duration and power are enough scaling to make you want to invest in it if you're going to use it.

[SageAcrin]

Wyrmic Guile actually drops their CD to 6, which makes them one and all basically the lowest CD and highest area moves Wyrmic has. Additionally, they function as mass debilitation, meaning chaining them will usually leave a large group helpless, which the other talents don't do.

I'm not adverse to a possible buff though, if I can think of one that doesn't make them viciously powerful on dragons. Would lowering their Equi cost and raising other attacks for Equi costs help?

Edit: Other possible ideas; Moving breaths to slot 1 or 2 and reshuffling everything else, having Chromatic Fury grant a breath specific buff/debuff/DoT that they don't have otherwise.