Most people can agree that the Lizard's Fire Breath ability is not good. It does poor damage and quickly becomes only good for igniting surfaces - a job which can be replaced with a candle in your inventory.
The poor damage is not the only reason why it is sub-par. It is the only racial ability which benefits from points in one specific ability (Pyrokinetic), making it even worse for non-Pyro builds.
The skill can stay in the game, going into the general Pyrokinetic school, but Lizards should get a better Racial Skill.
The best idea I heard was from Nivv.
Definitely agreed. As I mentioned in another topic, it would be ideal if there were multiple special bonuses one could choose from that was unique to each race, but able to benefit any build.
As an example, for lizard they get +2 int and a breath attack that doesn't really scale well. If it were me, I'd have made the active ability something more universally useful, like say...a shed skin ability that lowers con for 1 turn, but purgres all positive and negative effects.
(Credit where credit is due)I've tried to flesh the idea out a bit more.
Shed SkinAP Cost: 0 or 1
Cooldown: 4 to 6 turns
Effect: Immediately removes all positive and negative status effects (except for semi-/permanent ones like the curses from Braccus Rex and the Blood Rose potion), and decreases CON by 1-2 for 2-3 turns (CON penalty scales up with player level to a maximum of -25% health).
Note: Can be used while Muted/Silenced and will clear those effects.
Shed Skin allows Lizards to remove any debuffs and DoT effects on themselves (this cannot target anyone except the Lizard using it), something which is great for ANY build, not just pyromancers. Think how great clearing cripple would be for a warrior or blind for an archer (and possibly even mute for a mage).
Obviously, you cannot remove status effects which cause hard CC because YOU CANNOT ACT TO ACTIVATE "Shed Skin". I didn't think such an obvious statement needed to be pointed out, but I was wrong.
The removal of positive effects and the CON penalty add in tactical considerations to it. If you are buffed, you might not want to sacrifice the buff, if your armor is gone you might not want to sacrifice the health.
Elves get a strong offensive racial skill, this would be a strong defensive racial skill which is useful without being extra powerful.
Also in my personal opinion it is also a better fit for the Lizard race than Fire Breath.