Make Black Draconian breath aimed

[Psiweapon]

I can already hear someone saying "symmetry is not a part of the crawl philosophy!"

It's not because of symmetry. Right now, black draconian breath blasts great thunder and lightning in all directions. It's a mini disc of storms.

It packs a punch, but its random nature means it's only reliable when you're surrounded by enemies. I don't mean adjacent, I just mean a lot of monsters around. And this is a bad thing. Why is it a bad thing? Because getting yourself in the middle of a lot of monsters is usually a bad idea, and as such, black drac breath is only actually useful in situations you shouldn't have gotten yourself into to begin with. And in the cases where getting yourself in the middle of a great bunch of enemies is not a bad idea (because you can handle them with little to no problem) you probably just don't need the breath attack at all.

If part of the problem is that it's too powerful to be aimed, well, the damage output can be toned down. If it was aimed, it obviously shouldn't shoot like three different kinds of lightning at the same time, just one proper electrical attack that actually makes sense would be a lot better.

It's just incredibly silly when you're facing 3-4 enemies with normal positioning and have to cross your fingers hoping your toon discharges lightning in roughly the general direction of your enemies instead of, you know, farting a mighty lightning ball on the opposite direction, blasting a terrifying and life-threatening wall 7 squares behind you.

You know what, even just hitting the 8 squares adjacent to you in a static discharge fashion would be a lot more useful.

TL;DR:
Current black drac breath:
-Completely unreliable in a normal scenario
-Only reliable in a bad-idea scenario
-If by chance reliable in a scenario that's not a bad idea, it's superfluous.

[sanka]

I do not really agree with your premises: I think black draconian breath is useful (and fun) even when you do not go to situations you should not. It's not very strong, but I think design-wise there are more problems with the more useful breath weapons.

[XuaXua]

Why not make it act like a short-range rod of lightning?

[Psiweapon]

Or something like the lamp of fire, where you choose the general direction but not the exact path.

[Psiweapon]

I do not really agree with your premises: I think black draconian breath is useful (and fun) even when you do not go to situations you should not. It's not very strong, but I think design-wise there are more problems with the more useful breath weapons.

Don't get me wrong, I *enjoy* it! It's devastating, it's electrical, it's flashy.

But there's too much of a luck factor involved. Even imperfect aiming would be something. Granted, it'd be a pity to lose the awesome power, but it's too much of a crapshoot right now - literally, you'll be farting lightinig out of your ass a lot of the time.

[crate]

Try using black drac breath in a corner, it's pretty good then. If you use it in the open and it misses, well, yep, no surprise there.

[Psiweapon]

Try using black drac breath in a corner, it's pretty good then. If you use it in the open and it misses, well, yep, no surprise there.

Yeah, it's just like farts. Lure your targets to an enclosed space to ensure best coverage.

[phobetor]

I've only played a black drac like once or twice so take my opinion with that in mind. I found his breath attack to be frustrating because of how unreliable it was, but fun because of how random it was. To explain further, because I think my last statement made exactly no sense, the thing I like about the attack was you had little control over it, using it was a complete gamble. What I don't like about it is most of the time it did little to nothing.

For a comparison lets look at decks. Pulling a card is fun because you know something, good or bad, is going to happen. However if 3 out of 5 card were blank and did nothing decks would be frustrating.

I think dracs lighting breath should be kept random but made a bit more reliable. Your suggestion to add directional targeting seems like it would make the attack be a great improvement. Aim it like a semi-controlled blinks and have the attack fire in a semi random cone in that direction. That way you'd be more likely to hit while still retaining the random elements.

[damiac]

Well, I think under most circumstances it's just not worth wasting the turn to cast lightning breath, especially considering the noise generated in the process. Making it at least directional would help.

[Bloax]

Nothing says that it should have pin-point accuracy, but being able to specify the general direction would already be a huge improvement over

farting a mighty lightning ball on the opposite direction, blasting a terrifying and life-threatening wall 7 squares behind you.

[KoboldLord]

Clearly if you get a bad direction from your lightning breath, you should immediately kite the problematic monster that you wanted to hit in a wide circuit so your breath weapon recharges and you can try again.

What was the general consensus on highly randomized mechanics that directly encourage extensive kiting, again?

[sanka]

You only get it at level 7. It also generates a lot of noise. You won't kite too much with it, because kiting becomes worse and worse as the game progresses. Also, the more accurate breaths are just as good for kiting.

Black draconian breath may not be the most useful of the breath weapons, but why is it worse from the design perspective than other breath weapons? Low-accuracy attacks are bad? The fact that positioning matters makes it better (from the design perspective, not more powerful) than for example the yellow breath weapon.

[duvessa]

Personally I think it's worse from a design perspective than other breath weapons because it duplicates a common item.

[PleasingFungus]

Personally I think it's worse from a design perspective than other breath weapons because it duplicates a common item.

Is Disc of Storms really all that common?

[XuaXua]

Personally I think it's worse from a design perspective than other breath weapons because it duplicates a common item.

Is Disc of Storms really all that common?

Heck, I never use that Disc when I find it. Does that add to disqualifying me from being even a mediocre player, or am I just not doing it right?

[and into]

I'd say I find a disc of storms before finishing depths in more than half of my winning games, and a lot of characters are training evocations these days thanks to cooler rods and the revamped elemental evocables. So the redundancy is perhaps significant for Draconians, now, to a degree that hadn't been the case before.

[Psiweapon]

Personally I think it's worse from a design perspective than other breath weapons because it duplicates a common item.

Yeah, and that too. Very good point. At least the disc of storms you can choose whether to pick it up or not; the breath is innate (regarding the randomness, disc is completely opt-in if it does appear, you're stuck with the breath so you might as well try and make the best out of it)

Is Disc of Storms really all that common?

I'm talking out of my ass and personal experience here but, back in 0.14 or so, I felt like the Disc was almost guaranteed by the time you clear lair or one of it branches. Nowadays, it doesn't feel so common. I don't have any clue whether it's generation rate has been changed so it's probably just an illusion, but I used to count on the disc of storms back in the day.

[TeshiAlair]

I'd take knockback and AC pen off of white draconians (where it makes zero goddamn sense) and give them maybe a one turn slow or blind (snowblinded) instead, and give the very suitable for air magic effect to Black.