I specifically mentioned I was neglecting crits.
Sorry, didn't see that.
Dragon breath can crit too, and it might be worth comparing to firebombs or special weapon skills like mag dump. At max crit power you're dealing 7x basic strike damage so yes, 14% increase in that case. But alternatively I could spam triple Witch's Seal plus Arcane Strike which ups the hypothetical maximum number of opponents you can stunlock from 4 to 6 (seal lasts 2 turns non-crit with musician start). Or, and I am not entirely sure this one works, you could permastun several targets with Ice Shard+Flash while still sustaining some aura.
Fireball can oneshot two imps per cast with a bit of luck, not sure what the cap is on the arcane lightning spells.
The problem is that phys damage is just kinda broken, and without a major redesign there's not going to be a way to fix it where you don't just remove it from the game. Unless you're just trying to make the game harder for thematic reasons, there's no reason to use something unreliable or requiring luck to accomplish the same goal.
Why bother stun locking your enemies when they can just be died after one round of combat?
If the combat system was complex enough to really make a game out of it, like some games have pulled off, then I'd be more for experimentation. But it doesn't have the complexity or depth needed to make experimentation interesting. Specially when nothing has really changed in years. Most of the long-time regulars in this thread have already tried everything there is to try with this combat system. Turns out phys stacking lets you ignore that part of the game entirely.
You guys forgot about the elemental with just fireball in the skill bar.

Meraxis is the uncontested best part of this game, i think she even deserves a better game to be in honestly.
I take fireball out of the skill bar.
And yes, she is. Mostly just because she's the only one with a decent amount of individual content that isn't a shitshow or focused on other people half the time. She might be an obvious cliche, but at least it's done reasonably well lol
Meraxis is essentially the only reason I played (and continue to play) this game, as she seems to be the only character who is actually romantically (and physically) attracted to you.
I tried to argue against that, and the closest I could get to another example was Nyan/Lottie. But all the content involving those two is such a trainwreck I don't want to give it that much credit.