Difference between revisions of "Wyrmic"

Revision as of 20:15, 29 May 2013

Description

Wyrmics are fighters who have learnt how to mimic some of the aspects of the dragons. They have access to talents normally belonging to the various kind of drakes.

Their most important stats are: Strength and Willpower

Starting Equipment

• Iron Battleaxe
• Rough Leather Armor

Starting Talents

• Ice Claw
• Meditation
• Weapons Mastery
• Combat Accuracy

Talent Categories

Technique

Two-Handed Weapons (1.1 mastery)

Shield Offense (1.1 mastery)

Combat Techniques (1.0 mastery, locked)

Combat Veteran (1.0 mastery)

Combat Training (1.0 mastery)

Cunning

Survival (1.0 mastery, locked)

Wild Gift

Call of the Wild (1.2 mastery)

Sand Drake Aspect (1.3 mastery)

Fire Drake Aspect (1.3 mastery)

Cold Drake Aspect (1.3 mastery)

Storm Drake Aspect (1.3 mastery)

Venom Drake Aspect (1.3 mastery)

Fungus (1.1 mastery)

Higher Draconic Abilities (1.3 mastery, locked)

Harmony (1.1 mastery, locked)

Strategy

Wyrmics are warriors who possess the powers of dragons. They have strong offensive and defensive capabilities, using both weapons and talents.

Overview

The defining early-game skill for the Wyrmic is Icy Skin. This gives you a huge boost to Armour, and gives you retaliation damage against all monsters that hit you in melee. (In older betas, it was not uncommon for a low-level Wyrmic to do more damage just standing still and letting monsters hit him, than with his weapon(s). This has been rebalanced somewhat in beta 43, with Icy Skin giving greatly reduced results at low Willpower.)

Because of this, one playstyle for a Wyrmic is to boost Armor as high as possible, while keeping Defense fairly low. This way, monsters will hit you, and injure themselves, but not do much damage to you. Equipment that does additional retaliation damage can be stacked on top of this.

Dwarves and Thaloren make excellent Wyrmics.

Offense

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.)

There are two schools of thought regarding weapon choices. The class starts with a two-handed weapon, and access to Death Dance and Berserker, so they can choose to play like a Berserker (with breath weapons).

Wyrmics also start with the Shield Offense tree, so they can choose to switch to a one-handed weapon and shield (after investment in Armour Training). This lets them play in the style of Bulwarks (with breath weapons), using Shield Pummel and Assault for adjacent targets, and breath weapons for distant ones, or for groups.

Wyrmics do not start with Mindstar Mastery, but they can learn it by betraying an Alchemist escortee. This gives you a third build choice, using mindstars. A mindstar build will favor Willpower over Strength, and will lean on talents that scale with Mindpower or Willpower. Melee damage with the mindstars will be low at first (before tier 4 mindstars start dropping).

Survival

Boosting the Armour Training talent is highly recommended. Wearing heavy plate armour helps immensely, as you will frequently find yourself fighting hand-to-hand.

You have just one healing talent (Nature's Touch) -- or two, if you count Swallow -- but absolutely no monster detection or shielding capabilities. You probably aren't boosting Dexterity much, so you'll have little Defense, especially if you are running Berserker. You'll have to rely on Armour, infusions/runes, high Life (HP), saves and resists to survive at higher levels.

The Fungus tree talents make your healing and regeneration more effective. A special tip for Fungus users: Fungal Growth gives you a weak (but free) regeneration effect, which will appear to block your ability to use your regeneration infusions. You can remove the weak regeneration effect, if necessary, by right-clicking on its effect icon.

Lightning Speed is an excellent mobility talent, more versatile than Rush, although you could also spend points to get Rush as a fallback when Lightning Speed is on cooldown. (A category point is required, though, so it's an awfully expensive purchase from an otherwise useless tree.) Additional mobility sources will help -- a movement infusion, or a psychoport totem, are excellent choices. If you are not doing Antimagic, you can also wear an amulet of teleport, or use a rune of teleport or controlled phase door.

Wyrmics have some good disabling talents. Sand Breath (blindness breath attack) is quite effective against late game foes (Orc Prides). Bellowing Roar can confuse nearby opponents. Ice Breath can freeze them.

Eating the Heart of the Sandworm Queen unlocks the Harmony tree. The Elemental Harmony talent (sustained) gives you a variety of effects when you are hit by elemental damage; a common combination is to hit yourself with fire damage for the speed boost. Waters of Life doesn't cure diseases and poisons, but instead makes them heal you.

Confusion can be deadly, and you have no talents that help you resist it -- unless you are a Dwarf or Thalore. The Dwarven talent Power is Money gives a tremendous boost to saving throws in the mid- and late-game, and is one of the reasons why Dwarves are a top pick for this class.

Wyrmics, more so than any other class, may strongly consider pursuing Antimagic. The Antimagic talents scale with Willpower, which you are already boosting for the draconic talents. Resolve in particular helps you recover Equilibrium practically for free, and gives a little bit of elemental resistance. However, sacrificing the tools of arcane magic is never a small price, so consider the choice carefully.

Classes