How to improve Wyrmic?

[Skyknight]

Granted I'd like to see every class at at least tier B, but I'm playing Wyrmic right now.

I've seen at least one criticism of the class as "unfocused". I'd guess that means there's little tactical cohesion between the abilities, although I will say I like all the various statuses that can be inflicted (Is it really that important that they're not 100%? The breaths at least would probably be overpowered if they were 100%, given their very wide area of effect.). Confusion, blind, stun, disarm, slow...who needs overwhelming power when you can just make the opposition incompetent? (Yes, I know, I'm being optimistic...And in any case, I kind of wish cripple was in there, too.)

That said, the other main criticism I've seen thus far is that Combat Training is stuck by class-designer fiat at 1.0. Seeing where the 1.3s are--namely, the Drake Aspects--I have a feeling that the class wasn't meant to be a perfect melee/mindpower hybrid, so much as majoring in mindpower, with melee a backup plan. Question is whether such a priority is tenable. Especially given how quickly equilibrium failure seems to stack up, at least compared to a Temporal Warden's paradox.

So I'm not opposed to Combat Training being raised in efficacy (although I would like to find the class-designer's reasoning for keeping it at 1.0...Where is it hiding?). I'm just worried about an uncareful focusing breaking the class's precepts.

[Arcvasti]

The fundamental problem with Wyrmic is the notion that each type of elemental drake needs to have its own category with four talents in it and a breath at the end. This leads to sticking useless and uncreative talents like Corrosive Mist or Devouring Flames so that all the Drake categories have four talents. There's also the problem that all the breaths are more or less identical, which is both boring and a huge hit to the class's power, since you get five mediocre skill-based damage talents instead of five useful category capstones.

There are a few ways to address this:
-Revamp or replace all the truly awful abilities so that you have more then 8-9 talents that you can actually justify using.
-Scrap the notion of different Drake categories and instead divide up the talents by what they do[Breaths, weapon talents, mindpower talents, defense talents, utility talents]. This would require evening out the Wyrmic talents a lot[Give them more then one defense talent and cull, say, Swallow and Storm Breath] and also making the mindpower talents not suck terribly.
-Add more Drake categories until Wyrmic gets enough weird broken abilities to cheese everything. This is probably the worst way and, unfortunately, seems to be the way Wyrmic development is headed. Yes, I'm salty about Undead and Scourge Drake being added.

[PseudoLoneWolf]

Yes, I'm salty about Undead and Scourge Drake being added.

Whoa, what now? Did I miss something?

[Arcvasti]

Yes, I'm salty about Undead and Scourge Drake being added.

Whoa, what now? Did I miss something?

I am happy to announce Forbidden Cults the third expansion to Tales of Maj'Eyal!
It works just like Ashes of Urh'rok, adding new and *wonderful* stuff to the base game instead of a new campaign like Embers of Rage did, but adding more!

-snip-

[*]New wyrmic tree: Unlock the scourge drake for your wyrmics.

Its going to be in the next DLC, just like Undead Drake was in Embers of Rage[I think? Maybe it was in the other DLC?].

[Razakai]

My favored approach would probably be the splitting up of categories along playstyle rather than elemental type, and keeping the draconic theme in another manner. So you might have a general 'Draconic Combat' style category with 'Elemental Claw' that does various things based on what type of dragon you choose, which also alters other things. So more focus on being a Fire Dragon themed wyrmic with the ability to splash into other elements to a limited degree.

That's a major change though and very unlikely. So the most likely way Wyrmic would be buffed is just making their weakest talents better, which is much simpler. For example, Devouring Flame instead of the weak 10% leech it could be 'your melee attacks against targets in the flame deal an additional x% damage as fire, and heal you for y% of the damage dealt'. This synergizes a lot better with Wyrmic's current real strength, which is hefty melee damage hits.

[HousePet]

I've still got a design sitting around where you get three basic 'style' categories of melee, range and support.
The talents in them change as you invest points in different flavours of dragon.

[Skyknight]

I was thinking that the original intent was probably that you'd only invest in two, maybe three different Drake Aspect skillpaths. That would be why the breaths differ only in element and inflicted status; to make absolutely sure you'd get a breath, but not require you to go to a specific aspect just for that. The addition of passive bonuses to Swallow, Acidic Spray, Wing Buffet, Ice Claw, and Lightning Speed can be argued to contradict that plan, instead encouraging scattering yourself among all the aspects. So, how to once again encourage focusing on just a couple of particular aspects?

Then I remembered the old elemental infusion method for the alchemist. The solution is probably to set up a skillpath that contains the basic four/five aspects without requiring points in "previous" aspects to get to "successive" aspects. (If we can do this for Combat Training...) Admittedly, I'm not sure how the aspects would differ from each other besides typical status maladies inflicted. I can only see such a skillset altering the breaths--and I'm not sure early level breaths are a good idea.

[Razakai]

That problem is relatively easy to solve. Imagine that instead of the general 2h/shield/dw offensive categories, you instead had a single 'Draconic Combat' category. The first talent might be Elemental Claw. A Cold Drake Wyrmic might treat this as per Ice Claw, but a Fire Wyrmic might instead have it project fire damage and ignite the ground. Plenty of ways to put in talents that do different things based on aspect as well as the breaths. Just have to pick a coherent theme for each elemental type.

[Effigy]

It really wouldn't take much to bring Wyrmic up to a good power level. It has good damage, mobility, utility, and healing already. All it's really missing is damage mitigation and a way to deal with status effects. Changing 2-3 of the weaker talents to cover those bases would make it a really solid class.

For instance, Devouring Flame could remove negative status effects from the caster (with adjusted duration/cooldown for balance). Corrosive Mist could have a chance to remove beneficial effects from enemies. Tornado could be replaced by a talent that reduces damage taken or gives a chance to avoid damage. This would be much easier than trying to overhaul the whole class.

[Davion Fuxa]

This should probably be in the Idea's forum.

I'll note that for reference here is a link to an old thread I had regarding Wyrmics when there was talk about updating them last time:

Analyzing the Wyrmic Class

[Drazhya]

I'm thinking it could be good to have a full overhaul something like this:

Rather than have separate drake trees, you have one. This one tree's talents are a Strike, a Roar, a Defense, and a Breath. The elemental aspect of the tree is set by a separate talent in a locked, high level tree. This separate talent can be activated to change elemental aspect (likely with a cooldown dependent on level or enemies killed).
In this case, Strikes would be things like Ice Claw and Dissolve. Roars would be like Bellowing Roar and Static Field. Defenses would be mostly new talents, but could include things like Ice Wall.

The high level tree would further improve your current aspect with appropriate resistances, resistance penetration, lower breath weapon cooldown and such.

Then there would be another 'Chromatic' tree (not the current one) that would improve your ability to use multiple aspects, either by making talents available from two or more at once, or by allowing you to change it more often, or immediately change it to a different one for a few turns before reverting back or something.

Then there would be room for more talent trees. Possibly draconic trees without specific dragon types, just ones that make you stronger/bigger/move faster/more durable. Moving Swallow and Wing Buffet to a non-aspected tree could be good.

[furtbat]

I think wyrmics are better than people give credit. If you want damage mitigation go anti magic.

If I were to improve the class, I woud divide the class into two areas will based minstar/breath/status and strength combat. Obviously there is some overlap. I do not think they need another skill tree.


1. Make all status application checks based on mindpower. Strength wyrmics still have some mindpower. Slightly increase chance to daze, blind, disarm etc (or even better make it based on will). At low str make them 50% lower, and high str 120+ make them do 50% more. I'd scale it so they are where they are now at 90 str and then go way higher.
2. Make the damage percentage of melee attacks scale with strength see cursed. Now str based wyrmics deal real damage.
3. Give high nature respen to the poison breath skill. Makes mindstars more build in.
4. Give higher resists to final draconic skill. 10 to acid/fire/frost/lightning/phys
5. Make breaths scale off of willpower. Make their damage at 100 willpower like 600. Balance it so that at 60 willpower it is only 400ish.
6. Make icy scales better at low levels. Right now you get 6 armor and 3% hp to start with 1 point? Just add 10 armor to that. Yeah ok, at high levels it gives you lots of HP so its fine. 6 armor? 6 armor? Why? Great, so wyrmic has a defensive skill that gets good post dreadfall. Before that, when the game is actually hard...

Done. Net proposed changes.

Str: Vastly increased damage on weapon based attacks (to counter the diverse damage types), more status effects but less likely to apply them, +7% resist to draconic resists, 10 armor.

Will: nature respen for mindstars , more likely to land status effects, lower damage on weapon based attacks early, breaths become viable, +10 armor, +7 resists.

Wyrmics already have fungus, anti-magic, icy scales.

That'd probably take them from D tier to B tier. Honestly though, they are perfectly playable. All of those changes above are solvable by farming better gear before going to high peak. I wouldn't fix any of the class weaknesses (cleanse etc). With great gear, all of wyrmics problems go away.

Problem with breaths now is they have low damage base, so even with +damage/crit/crit damage they still are bleh. Even completely decked out I only got my breaths to 1.5k Should be more like 2.5k at that level of gear at least and that is still bleh damage. With 270% crit damage, 100% crit, and +100% damage you should do 3.5k with the breaths i think. That'd take about 700 base damage.

[Steven Aus]

Has Wyrmic had any balance improvements since this last post?

[Arcvasti]

Has Wyrmic had any balance improvements since this last post?

Yes.