How's Psion for a Melee Cipher Build?

[Cyrus_Blackfeather]

Hey guys,

 

So, now that we have all of the expansions, I was thinking of (finally) starting on my 'main' playthrough with my Mindstalker melee Cipher build (Trickster/Soul Blade) - Buuut, I noticed the Psion subclass was a recent addition to the game, and I was wondering how that would stack up compared to Soul Blade in a melee Cipher build? 

[Boeroer]

It stops generating focus when getting hit. Sounds not so awesome for a melee cipher

[Ensign]

It would be one of the few truly poor choices you could make in character creation. All other flavors of Cipher generate enormous amounts of focus as a Mindstalker from - you would be trading that in for a small trickle of focus that turns off as soon as you take a hit. Do it if you want to troll yourself.

[Dr <3]

Terrible

[DozingDragon]

While not optimal, I think this could work if you stacked your defenses as high as possible, used a shield, and built around engagement. Basically, you could passively generate focus while engaging multiple opponents and hopefully negating incoming enemy attacks with your defenses and/or shield modal. Throw in Riposte and some items that grant a riposte-like effect (Champion’s Helm from SSS), and I could see this build being decent.

[Boeroer]

A lot of effort for little outcome in my opinion.

 

Except when the focus generation continues on grazes and only stops on hits/crits. Didn't test that.

[Climhazzard]

If it's anything like trying to use Dance of death in melee (the un-upgraded version) it's probably a fairly useless combination especially when compared to any other melee cipher combo.  I'm sure you can probably get it to work on fights with few enemies, but a regular cipher/melee combo gets a ton of focus from very few hits, whether or not they're getting hit themselves.

 

It's probably not going to be a match for other Cipher's even for ranged builds, unless telekinetic burst ends up being good for it's cost?  Using Ydwin as an example, a gouging strike from stealth, then another right after unstealthing, using frostseeker, nets well over 100 focus.  Granted her focus generation is a bit frontloaded, but she'll still get decent focus generation for the remainder of the fight even if she just uses auto attacks, unless the enemy has very high defenses.

Edited December 17, 2018 by Climhazzard

[Boeroer]

Dance of Death is uselessful even when getting hit: you turn 2 Mortification into a wound and bonus ACC - immediately after touching the button. And you can still gain wounds from the damage you take.

Psion gets hit and is just screwed...

 

Edit: damn - I wrote useless instead of useful. Sorry.

Edited December 18, 2018 by Boeroer

[hilfazer]

I had a vision where Obsidian buffed Psion's focus gain and allowed Soul Mind to work regardless of damage taken.

[Ensign]

I had a vision where Obsidian buffed Psion's focus gain and allowed Soul Mind to work regardless of damage taken.

I don't think they need to buff the passive focus gain TBH. The subclass exists to combo with classes that can't generate a bunch of focus via Soul Whip; given there isn't a cost (one you build around, granted) a modest benefit is fine.

 

Turning off when you take damage is totally unacceptable though. It makes it worthless on a melee character, and in genuinely hard fights it is often nigh impossible to keep you backline from taking stray hits - making your character not work at all under those circumstances is killer.

 

If it were reliable though I would happily spam Secret Horrors and Silent Scream on a tanky character.

[DozingDragon]

What if focus generation temporarily stopped after using a cipher ability? That’s basically how chanters work, right?

[TheWeaver]

 

I had a vision where Obsidian buffed Psion's focus gain and allowed Soul Mind to work regardless of damage taken.

I don't think they need to buff the passive focus gain TBH. The subclass exists to combo with classes that can't generate a bunch of focus via Soul Whip; given there isn't a cost (one you build around, granted) a modest benefit is fine.

 

This is my current assessment as well.  On paper the rate seems low, but in practice it actually isn't that bad.  It is however a matter of what you are trying to achieve.  For a character that spends their time doing things other than weapon damage I think it works quite well (doesn't work for solo or DPS-centric builds).  I'm playing a Tactician/Psion right now that is working quite nicely.  The character is back/mid line, ranged, and focuses on CC.  I spend a lot of time maintaining the conditions needed for Brilliant and reacting when things move away from that.  Having a constant stream of resources which I don't have to attack to gain works well.  I honestly don't think it would mesh as well with either Ascendant or Soulblade (since they encourage focus dumps/spamming instead of constant maintenance).

 

As for getting hit -- in most fights I actually don't find it that hard to stay out of the way, but I'm glad I have Brilliant to tide me over when Soul Mind does drop (fortunately it doesn't stay out for long, one tick I think).  That said, if there is one area for tweaking, this is it.  A power like Enduring Dance would have been nice for example.  That would let you spend a power pick to mitigate the penalty a bit.

 

Anyway, not everyone's cup of tea I'm sure and certainly not for melee, but not in dire need of a buff as is being suggested (increasing the rate and removing the damage penalty entirely would be way too much IMO).

[Verde]

Soulblade or Beguiler would be tremendously better imho.

[VeritasWaits]

When I read it I assumed it was intended to enable multiclassing cipher with spellcasters, which is usually considered a poor choice given that spells don't generate focus. I'm thinking of something like a Priest of Wael Psion or control focused wizard who alternates between cipher spells and per encounter spells. I still don't think it's "high tier" (if that's really a thing) but it's a perfectly viable way to play one of those types of characters if you've been wanting to. Definitely worlds better than Wizard/Ascendant, for example.

[Fredward]

When I read it I assumed it was intended to enable multiclassing cipher with spellcasters, which is usually considered a poor choice given that spells don't generate focus. I'm thinking of something like a Priest of Wael Psion or control focused wizard who alternates between cipher spells and per encounter spells. I still don't think it's "high tier" (if that's really a thing) but it's a perfectly viable way to play one of those types of characters if you've been wanting to. Definitely worlds better than Wizard/Ascendant, for example.

 

I saw someone on Reddit pairing it up with Lifegiver and he said he liked it. But yeah, since it stops regenerating focus when it's damaged I also thought the intuitive pairing would be a backline spellcaster. I'm just having trouble picking one. And then a lesser one considering whether or not I wouldn't be better off just taking a pure class instead of mixing it with psion. 

[Boeroer]

The good thing is you even generate focus when executing and recovering from lenghty abilites (so, mostly spells/cipher powers). So I guess the rate of generation is ok.

 

But this "stop when getting hit" is a bad thing in my opinion and reduces the subclass as a whole so much. Put it away! 

[MaxQuest]

I had a vision where Obsidian buffed Psion's focus gain and allowed Soul Mind to work regardless of damage taken.

During beta, Soul Mind focus generation was even lower than now

 

 

And changed from

 

PL1: 1 focus/s

PL3: 2 focus/s

PL6: 3 focus/s

PL9: 4 focus/s

 

to:

 

PL1: 1 focus/s

PL3: 2 focus/s

PL5: 3 focus/s

PL7: 4 focus/s

PL9: 5 focus/s

 

as I suggested: here

 

 

 

P.S. I wish Soul Mind pausing was prevented by having Concentration... what was also suggested in that thread.

This would open up a possibility of creating a melee psion offtank with a twist.

[FleetFeet]

NerdCommando has an interesting Psion/Tactician build vid on YouTube. Idea is to use telekinetic burst to generate discipline - it inturrupts, costs only 10 focus, and is a fast cast. Uses a pike to stay behind the frontline to help with focus regen issue. Spams mule kick as that too interrupts. Bonus, phantom foes really helps attaining brilliant tactician. I toyed around with it a (very) little bit on Port Maje and it was working well. There are drawbacks: telekenetic burst is friendly fire and requires some care. You are somewhat pigeonholed into pikes and quarterstaves because mule kick is melee and you need the reach. Have doubts the focus regen will be satisfactory at higher levels.

[Boeroer]

If he spams Mule Kicks (interrupts on graze) - why not take a cipher with Soul Whip?

[FleetFeet]

If he spams Mule Kicks (interrupts on graze) - why not take a cipher with Soul Whip?

Mule kick will refund its cost IF you succeed with interrupt. Using telekinetic burst allows you to regenerate discipline in perpetuity. Which of course you can use for any fighter ability, not just mule kick. Important part is that telekinetic burst is only 10 focus so easy to spam with psion’s slowish regen which allows for unlimited discipline.

 

Not in front of my PC but Mind Lance might also be an option but i don’t think it’s interrupt is on graze and may be slower cast.

[TheWeaver]

 

If he spams Mule Kicks (interrupts on graze) - why not take a cipher with Soul Whip?

Mule kick will refund its cost IF you succeed with interrupt. Using telekinetic burst allows you to regenerate discipline in perpetuity. Which of course you can use for any fighter ability, not just mule kick. Important part is that telekinetic burst is only 10 focus so easy to spam with psion’s slowish regen which allows for unlimited discipline.

 

Not in front of my PC but Mind Lance might also be an option but i don’t think it’s interrupt is on graze and may be slower cast.

 

 

I think the question is less about the use of Mule Kick on a Tactician and more about the choice of Cipher sub-class.  If you are going to be doing lots of weapon attacks then other Ciphers will generate focus faster.  So in this case is the addition of TK Burst worth the lower focus generation.  I'm a Psion fan, but I'm not sure it would be.  TK Burst is fast cast and ranged so you can use it to interrupt guys in the back line.  However, if you are spamming MK then you may find yourself in recovery at the exact moment that you need to use TK Burst.

 

I really like MaxQuest's idea of having concentration prevent Soul Mind suppression.  Missed that in the beta forum.  I think with that one addition the sub-class would be more than fine (still not teh ub3r choice, but reasonably balanced).

[PugPug]

When I read it I assumed it was intended to enable multiclassing cipher with spellcasters, which is usually considered a poor choice given that spells don't generate focus.

 

It's not that great as a single class? 

 

I was thinking that depending on the focus gen, it might actually be a better Beguiler than the Beguiler. The Deception range buff doesn't help with your beguiling very much, but not having to rely on Str/Dex to generate focus would enable you to pump Per/Int and have really accurate, large, long-lasting debuffs.

[Verde]

The 20% Deception range does help...it's quite noticeable. What makes you say otherwise? Plus you get Focus back for using Deception spells.

 

Scion appears half baked at this point.

Edited January 2, 2019 by Verde

[Ensign]

 

It's not that great as a single class? 

 

I was thinking that depending on the focus gen, it might actually be a better Beguiler than the Beguiler. The Deception range buff doesn't help with your beguiling very much, but not having to rely on Str/Dex to generate focus would enable you to pump Per/Int and have really accurate, large, long-lasting debuffs.

 

 

It's...not good as a single class.  You can pump PER and INT to the max and still do plenty of damage to outpace Psion's focus generation.

 

The exception is if you just want to spam low level powers.  You can't cast 1st and 2nd tier power faster than you can spend the focus at high levels, and tier 3 powers won't leave you with a ton of time.  So that is an option.  Casting higher level powers frequently would leave you with enough time that you're better off with the empowered attacks and focus generation.

 

Plus there are a bunch of tricks to generate focus faster on a non-Psion - Thunderous Report chief amongst them - that a Psion can't replicate.  You really need to have a high burden on your time for Psion's passive generation to be valuable, and the only things that really qualify are conventional casters.

 

 

The issue with Beguiler is that Ascendant pretty consistently out-Beguiler's Beguiler.  I even like the additional range a lot!  Beguiler gets its value out of throwing a lot of AoE deceptions to get additional focus gen, and that generally means spamming low tier powers (Mental Binding, Phantom Foes, Secret Horrors) which hit in an AoE and can generate focus.  On the flip side, Ascendant gets it value out of ascending and spamming high tier powers.

 

As it turns out, spamming Phantom Foes to generate focus stops being attractive pretty fast, while Ascendant is scaling into spamming Time Parasite and Mind Plague.

Beguiler is pretty clearly unfinished.  Just look at its Soul Whip - Biting Whip adds...nothing, and Draining Whip causes you to do less damage?

[Boeroer]

Why does draining whip cause less damage?