The idea of this build came when I realized that many of the AoE talents for wyrmics apply "to hit" procs on *everybody* in the AoE. Not only that but they have really large weapon scaling. Finally, most of these talents come with really powerful passive buffs that make the early-mid game incredibly easy. The other nice thing is that it is very pragmatic and can be adapted to both magic using or AM characters.
One of the problems I had with the wyrmic class when I was just starting out was that there was too much choice. I ended up with a mishmash of skill that didn't build well with each other. This build is actually really minimal and invests very heavily in only a few skills. This makes it a really easy build for beginners I think. In order to keep this semi-guide simple, I'm going to describe the build in the way you should select skills rather than discussing whole trees. I'm also going to separate the class skills from the generics.
First class skills:
Levels 1-4: Wyrmics are blessed with great passives in the beginning skills. We can use these to our advantage to make the early game very, very easy. The idea is to max out (yes all 5 points!) Wing Buffet right away. This gives you a passive +20 in each accuracy and physical power. You will hit almost everything with that and do enough damage to kill whatever you hit. I put one point in Ice Claw for when I need the extra damage.
Levels 5-9: Put an early point into Swallow to help manage equilibrium and the rest in Ice Claw. At 5 points Ice Claw gives you +20 in all your saves. Remember that being even 10 points above your competition means you have a 75% chance to resist any effects and even if you fail you have a 50% reduction in duration.
The big thing to realize here is that both Wing Buffet and Ice Claw are "weapon cones". This means you get "to hit" procs on *everything in the cone*. Each hit has a chance to crit. This is absolutely insane. Use Ice Claw if you can for damage and Wing Buffet if you need the range. Hunt for "to hit" proc or "on crit" proc items. Slow on hit is especially nice. Rings of misery are practically godlike as every hit makes 13% of the opponents in the cone screwed.
Levels 10-14: Put a point in Lightning speed. This is essential for neutralizing spell casters and archers. Run up. Swallow. Burp. It also makes "Storming the city" child's play with 100% lightning immunity. You can actually do this a bit earlier if you want, but it depends on how soon you hit spell casters. The rest go into Swallow. Swallow reduces it's cooldown up to level 4. You want that because it does over 200% damage *and* automatically kills once the opponent gets below 25% health. And applies "to hit" procs (are you sensing a pattern here?). We're going to stop at level 4 for Swallow for now, but eventually max it because it gets you up to 262% damage. Oh... did I mention Swallow is 100% nature damage too! Even though all your weapon procs work!
Swallow is also kind of special depending on what you do on the generics side. Instead of going with wild growth, and keeping yourself healthy with regeneration infusions, you can actually use a single healing infusion and max Fungal Growth. What this means is that every heal gives you a regeneration, which gives you nearly a free turn. That means that every Swallow gives you a free turn if you don't already have a regeneration effect going. With Swallow and a healing infusion that means a free turn every 7 (possibly more if you cancel regenerations). Although it is tempting to think of this as a speed increase, because you can plan ahead *when* you want to take the turn, it can be much better. Fiddly, though, and it depends on how much micro-managing you can stomach (pun intended). I will talk some more on the generics side.
I should mention that at level 10 you don't need the category point for anything. Spend it on an infusion. Even if you are a Cornac, take 2 infusions. You don't need the category points.
Levels 15-20: This is the most underrated skill in the whole set I think: Quake. At 5 points you have 221% weapon damage, you scatter your foes to the four winds, you vault yourself who knows where (great escape!), you blow up the terrain so that spell casters and archers can't hit you... AND it's like a radius 5 Death Dance! Your *weapon* hits everything in the circle. All your procs work. This is godlike. However, before you use it, you should probably take one point in Burrow just in case you can't get out. BTW, this works fabulously well for sealing in monsters that you can't quite kill yet. Just keep Quaking until they are burried in some hole somewhere. Note that Burrow does not work on trees, so make sure you have a digger just in case!
Levels 21-27: Take a single point in Acidic Spray and Corrosive Mist. I don't usually use Corrosive Mist because at 10 equilibrium it's a bit pricey for me. Acidic Spray is useful as a single point for chasing down almost dead runaways, or to hope to get a disarm (better than waiting if they are far away and everything else is on cool down). What we really want is Dissolve. 4 hits. At level 4, 2 of them blind. All your procs fire. At this point in the game that means an almost certain crit hit as well. If you have a weapon of amnesia handy here, it is incredibly useful.
I should point out that with alchemy and worm hearts you can get to this point a little quicker than level 27, but you get the idea. During this time you should be looking for the best 1 handed weapon and the best 2 handed weapon you can find as well as a couple of good shields. Put the one handed weapon and the shield in you main set and your two handed in the off set. Normally it's a good idea to go with shield because even without Riposte, counter attack gives you a decent damage bonus. When you need more power switch to the 2 hander. The extra turn given by Ancestral Life can be used to good advantage here (you can even block, take a healing infusion, swap, and then hit with the 2 hander and still get the counter attack in many times).
After you've maxed out the good weapon skills in the wild gifts, *then* start adding points to Technique. You can feel free to add to *both* Two Handed Assault *and* Shield Offense because you will be switching between the two all the time. Riposte is probably your highest priority: get it up to 4 so that you get multiple counter attacks and make everything else 1.
At level 20 you get yet another category point. You don't really need it, until about level 30 or so, but it can be used to unlock Higher Draconic Abilities or Combat techniques: your choice. I prefer the former because Prismatic slash is really nice (and fits the theme). If you went magic, you can also use the point to improve Fungus. But after about level 30 the character is pretty flexible and you can pretty much do what you want with the remaining 22 class points.
Stat Points:
These are actually easy. Max out Strength and Willpower, keeping them about even the whole way. For the rest, it depends on what you want, however I will let you in on an interesting alternative. If you go magic, instead of using a shield with your 1 hander you can actually use Shantiz. Since all of your range attacks proc weapon skills, you can blow up missiles with any of them. My personal favourite is Quake as everything goes absolutely insane. Shantiz also lets you swap to your 2 hander with no time. To do this, you will need 30 dex, which is quite an investment, but you get and extra 20 dex from Shantiz, so it brings you up to 50 points. You'll never have to worry about accuracy again...
I'm running out of time here so I will try to rush through the Generic quickly and hopefully edit this document with more details later.
Generics:
Generics are super tight, even when you are not going AM. This actually means that Cornac is reasonable even though you don't need the cat point. I won't talk about racials, but you will be squeaking them in where you can fit them if you aren't a Cornac.
Levels 1-5: The biggest priority is to get your Armour Training up to 3 as fast as possible. This allows you to wear plate and carry a shield. Remember that Equilibrium is not affected by fatigue!!! And we aren't going to use anything except Equilibrium until about level 30 (at which point you will have a excrement-tonne of Stamina thanks to your high Willpower). By level 5 with a mediocre totem of thorny skin you will have 100% armour hardiness and 50 armour. That combined with your high saves makes you nigh on invincible in the early game. Apart from that, take 1 point in Accuracy at level 4. The other points will be 1 point in meditation (the only point you will spend there) and one point in wild growth.
It's personal preference, but I don't actually activate wild growth until level 8 when I get ancestral life. The 15 Equilibrium is just too high.
Levels 6-8: 1 point in fungal growth, one in ancestral life one in Nature's touch. You can actually leave it like this for quite a long while. Just depending on what happens you don't *have* to add any more points until you feel the need for more healing or better Equilibrium reduction.
Of course as I mentioned, Ancestral Touch potentially gives you a free turn. If going with healing infusions, I would probably wait a while because you usually don't need those free turns until much later in the game (about the same time you need the Equilibrium reduction). This makes it a bit easier than going with regeneration infusions since you need the turn saving to offset the regeneration infusion time. Healing infusions have other benefits too. Usually you can get ones that are half the size of the equivalent regeneration infusion. If you max out Fungal Growth, you get nearly the same amount of healing -- with the benefit that Swallow is also healing you reasonably well by mid game. Healing Infusions also clear poisons and wounds which can be very nice in some situations. But they are fiddly.
I want to point out, though, that Nature's Touch can crit. It's quite possible to be getting 7-800 point heals on Nature's Touch by mid game when it crits. With Fungal Growth maxed out, you then get 80-odd points of regeneration for 6 turns. That's essentially a full heal followed by almost as much regeneration as a decent regeneration infusion. So in the end, I think Fungal Growth is *slightly* more powerful than going with Wild Growth and regeneration (since you need 2 regeneration infusions to deal with the long cool down of regeneration infusions). But it's pretty even. If you've never tried the Healing Infusion version, I would encourage you to try it out.
Really after that, you are just wacking points into accuracy and Weapons Mastery. You should try to get Accuracy up to 3 as soon as possible, but then after that it depends on how frustrated you get with Dreads
. Likewise Weapons Mastery and then just tune it depending on how much damage you need. When you get Harmony unlocked, I would take 1 point in Waters of Life immediately, but then after that it's up to you.I haven't really explored AM all that much (doing that now), so I won't comment on it yet.
That's about all I can think of at the moment. I hope someone gives it a try. Like I said, it is super easy and straight forward for beginners. Once you get to the East you can then go off in many different directions, but this base is really incredibly powerful.
My previous characters were magic based and I ended up getting distracted by shiny objects. This time I will concentrate on just the basics. I've never won roguelike, so we'll see...
but I should see about trying to win with my current character first.
So that's a point in favour of using a regeneration infusion...