Lowering enemies' Will by 30 points with a Morning Star

[NotDumbEnough]

5 hours ago, Boeroer said:

This underlined part is exactly what I didn't really grasp until I played my first Psion for a longer time: that Soul Mind even generates focus while you are spending it. Some powers take some time to cast. The longer the casting time for a normal Cipher the worse. For a Psion it's no problem because focus is just flowing in. I totally underestimated how big of an advantage this is. As I said: as long as my casting speed isn't too high I cannot spend the focus fast enough even as an SC Psion (if not using high Power Level spells all the time).

 

 

I've never tried a Psion before, but I don't really see what's so strong about this. At max level, a multiclassed Psion gets 56 focus every 14 seconds. Meanwhile, a Skald can use his first tier invocations at roughly every 14 seconds as well (4 sec recovery, 6 sec/phrase) not counting phrases from crits. Considering that Skalds also get useful auras, can potentially get more phrases via crits, and only lose phrase generation if they're hard CC'd, I think the two are roughly comparable, and neither is overwhelmingly powerful.

[Elric Galad]

Another question about Psion is the duration of the no Focus Gain effect : is itit increased by INT and PL ? Is it decreased by RES ? This is another category of possible tweaks.

[Not So Clever Hound]

37 minutes ago, Elric Galad said:

 

Another question about Psion is the duration of the no Focus Gain effect : is itit increased by INT and PL ? Is it decreased by RES ? This is another category of possible tweaks

 

Hi @Elric Galad In cased you missed it I mentioned earlier in this thread that after testing, the 6s pause seems incompressible and is unaffected by INT, PL, RES, Strand of Favor/Cabalist gambadons/Lone Wolf. 

[Boeroer]

9 hours ago, NotDumbEnough said:

I've never tried a Psion before, but I don't really see what's so strong about this. At max level, a multiclassed Psion gets 56 focus every 14 seconds. Meanwhile, a Skald can use his first tier invocations at roughly every 14 seconds as well (4 sec recovery, 6 sec/phrase) not counting phrases from crits. Considering that Skalds also get useful auras, can potentially get more phrases via crits, and only lose phrase generation if they're hard CC'd, I think the two are roughly comparable, and neither is overwhelmingly powerful.

56 focus every 14 secs would mean you only get 4 focus per second. But Soul Mind scales with universal Power Level. That means stuff like Acute, Stone of Power, potions etc. may lift you to 5 or even more focus per second. You cannot speed up the phrase generation of Skalds with Power Levels. 

Another difference is that chanting stops after an invocation is cast - and as you said once you suffer hard CC and so on.
Soul Mind never stops (besides the pause after getting damaged/ getting a crit).

Keep in mind that Skald only has favorable invocation costs for offensive invocations while the others are more expansive. This limits his versatility. Psion doesn't have those limitations. 

Comparing the costs of the PL1 stuff of Skald with PL 3 stuff of Psion is not fair, is it? If we compared PL1 stuff of Skald with PL1 stuff of Psion then at higher Power Levels the Psion could dish out his spells a lot faster than the Skald - even if we included the phrases he would get on melee crits. Psion could generate the 10 focus for Soul Shock every 2 secs for example - while the Skald would be stuck at a Her Revenge every 14 secs (with a crit in between maybe halved every now an then). Her Revenge my be the stronger spell in general, but I'm just using the spells here to compare the resource generation/spell cost of the power levels. If we compared PL3 stuff of the Skald with PL3 stuff of the Psion: the Psion could cast a PL3 spell every 10 secs while the Skald could only cast an offensive PL3 invocation every 22 secs if I'm not mistaken (maybe every 16 if he gets a crit refund in between).

Skald needs a lot more micromanagement/his harder to script than Psion. For a caster Psion is very easy to script - especially if you only use a few abilities (like in my case Puppet Master and Mental Binding as backup). That's no advantage for a player char of course but it's very nice for a hireling.

Of course Psion has no chant aura with useful effects.

But then: why handle them as opposites? The best use of a Psion so far was it to pair it with a Chanter actually. I prefer Troubadour (bc. of Brisk Recitation). Other casters also work. It's just insane to use the "action time + recovery of one class" to generate resources for the other. With Psion/Troub this works in both ways: resources will almost never be zero - while it's an incredibly versatile combination. Also lots of fun to play imo. 

Anyway: I was also very skeptic with the Psion at the start until I actually played one (or two now: Psion/Troub: and now lately SC Psion). There's something to it that only unlocks if you actually play it rather than theorycraft it. Maybe the game mechanics with RTwP are just too complex to relaly predict how every combo will play out in the end. It's just so that even the SC Psion* really suprised me with how effective it was. I ddidn't mean to say it was super strong - jsut that it is way, way better than I anticipated. Together with Beguiler my favorite Cipher subclass now. Maybe even better than Beguiler because I played the heck out of Beguiler in the past.  

)* which I only included because I did an "SC only/refreshing resources/maximum AI!"run - and I thought SC Psion would be supereasy to script   
 

 

Edited October 31, 2021 by Boeroer

[Elric Galad]

And what would you think about having Psion stopping gaining focus only when damaged by WEAPONS ? This way it would remain challenging to play but at least won't be too penalizing when fighting groups with multiple AoE who make avoiding damages super tedious.

Also would kind of mirror other Ciphers Soul Whip which only works with weapons.

[thelee]

20 hours ago, NotDumbEnough said:

I've never tried a Psion before, but I don't really see what's so strong about this. At max level, a multiclassed Psion gets 56 focus every 14 seconds.

I think you might be undervaluing what Boeroer is saying, which goes to Boeroer's later response:

11 hours ago, Boeroer said:

There's something to it that only unlocks if you actually play it rather than theorycraft it.

 

I think it's very easy to get into a trap of missing subtle interactions with a psion, because it's very different than how a normal cipher plays. It's not "a psion plays like a normal cipher except that you instead have this different focus generation," because the psion is different enough that your playstyle will fundamentally change once you've had some time with it and realize what it's doing. Yes, an optimized normal cipher may generate focus faster, but outside of brilliant, they are only doing that while doing something lame for a cipher: attacking with weapons. And, while they're using powers, they are generating 0 focus. And if the cipher is underpenetrating the enemy, that focus generation goes down quite a bit. A psion may overall still have less burst focus generation than an optimized cipher, but a psion will be much more... action-efficient and consistent with how that focus is generated.

That has playstyle consequences. This is redundant with what Boeroer has said, but I feel like have to double-underline this: You literally can cast psion powers nonstop with a psion. As a simple, degenerate example: with minimal metagaming, you can literally chain together non-stop Mental Bindings (perma-paralyze), for example. Or non-stop Soul Whips (lock down spellcasters). Like, literally, literally nonstop. Mostother ciphers will have to pause at some point to regenerate focus with lame-o weapon attacks (outside of beguiler interactions). Your skald alternative will still need downtime to generate phrases somehow. A psion can lock down tough enemies at 100% uptime.

Another consequence is that when you run low on focus... you can still do stuff. For a normal cipher, they have to start attacking and doing something "lame" by comparison. For a psion, I may just start using cheap powers (Soul Whip remains a highly effective thing to use in tough fights or fights with spellcasters). Esp single class and/or with bonus PL, you can still have a substantial net gain in while using your cheaper powers. And the auto focus generation means it creates an odd reward structure: I don't mind slow casts nearly as much because it means I'm still doing something productive and getting even more focus while I'm doing it. As Boeroer mentions, this is also why psion multiclasses very very well with other casters - a normal cipher still has to grind to a halt and start attacking, whereas a psion can just start casting spells from the other class while generating focus at full blast. (edit: not to mention those cases where you are just shy of being able to use a power. a normal cipher will waste action/recovery to land an attack, or--worst case--self-empower. a psion will probably have enough focus to use that power in the time it takes you to reposition)

 

 

3 hours ago, Elric Galad said:

And what would you think about having Psion stopping gaining focus only when damaged by WEAPONS ? This way it would remain challenging to play but at least won't be too penalizing when fighting groups with multiple AoE who make avoiding damages super tedious.

Personally I think the psion's downside is at an acceptable place, and shouldn't be narrowed. The amount of times my psions have been shut out from doing stuff in a fight is actually quite low. It requires a little bit of skill, but if it's reduced to just weapons, it basically borders on 0 effective downside for most typical psion playstyles.

Edited October 31, 2021 by thelee

[Elric Galad]

1 hour ago, thelee said:

Personally I think the psion's downside is at an acceptable place, and shouldn't be narrowed. The amount of times my psions have been shut out from doing stuff in a fight is actually quite low. It requires a little bit of skill, but if it's reduced to just weapons, it basically borders on 0 effective downside for most typical psion playstyles.

Then it might be the one case where CP buffed something that needn't to be buffed  

[Boeroer]

I guess so.

The mechanics of Soul Mind don't sound very impressive and it's difficult to deduce its usefulness from the description alone -  and I suspect not many had done a whole playthrough with a Psion when the CP was created.

The description of the original Soul Mind were like "on getting damaged" and CP changed that to "on receiving a critical hit". So in theory getting crit by CC/affliction wouldn't pause Soul Mind in the vanilla game because there's no damage involved - while the CP version would stop, right? 

If that's correct then maybe the CP version isn't really a buff but just shifts it from damage to crirital hits.  

[MaxQuest]

5 hours ago, Boeroer said:

The description of the original Soul Mind were like "on getting damaged" and CP changed that to "on receiving a critical hit". So in theory getting crit by CC/affliction wouldn't pause Soul Mind in the vanilla game because there's no damage involved - while the CP version would stop, right? 

Yes, that's right.

 

5 hours ago, Boeroer said:

If that's correct then maybe the CP version isn't really a buff but just shifts it from damage to crirital hits.  

When I was initially proposing that change I was thinking of an indirect buff. A change that would not affect much a ranged psion; but would enable a sword-and-board one.

Specifically was thinking about melee Troubadour/Psion and Bloodmage/Psion.

 

On 10/30/2021 at 4:06 PM, Elric Galad said:

The original design feels maybe a bit too punishing for non-expert player while CP current one feels a tad too simple to use. Probably there could be a good middle ground to find.

That's how I felt when I asked for feedback)

I had an idea how to make it a tad more conditional, but still reliable enough. Here are a few variations:

• v1. Incoming hits temporary pause psion's focus generation too. But only if he is not under Concentration effect (while crits pause it anyway) 
• v2. Incoming hits and crits temporary pause psion's focus generation if he is not under Concentration effect. Critical hits taken remove 1 Concentration.
• v3. Incoming crits temporary pause psion's focus generation, and remove 1 Concentration. Incoming hits temporary stop psion's focus generation if he is not under Concentration effect.

Or just increase the focus generation pause.

Does any of these feel 'just right' to you?

Edited November 1, 2021 by MaxQuest

[NotDumbEnough]

I think you could make the focus generation much more conditional, but also increase the generation rate to compensate, to distinguish psions from chanters. e.g. double the focus generation rate, but have it turn off if engaged or afflicted/flanked or on hit, etc etc.

[Elric Galad]

15 hours ago, MaxQuest said:

Yes, that's right.

 

When I was initially proposing that change I was thinking of an indirect buff. A change that would not affect much a ranged psion; but would enable a sword-and-board one.

Specifically was thinking about melee Troubadour/Psion and Bloodmage/Psion.

This is a good point. Official design is hard to play and completely prevent from sitting even just behind the frontline.

15 hours ago, MaxQuest said:

That's how I felt when I asked for feedback)

I had an idea how to make it a tad more conditional, but still reliable enough. Here are a few variations:

• v1. Incoming hits temporary pause psion's focus generation too. But only if he is not under Concentration effect (while crits pause it anyway) 

A bit complicated IMHO.

15 hours ago, MaxQuest said:

• v2. Incoming hits and crits temporary pause psion's focus generation if he is not under Concentration effect. Critical hits taken remove 1 Concentration.

Why not, having 2 separate and not directly intricated effects could work. Still a bit strong if your defenses are high enough to prevent Crits.

15 hours ago, MaxQuest said:

• v3. Incoming crits temporary pause psion's focus generation, and remove 1 Concentration. Incoming hits temporary stop psion's focus generation if he is not under Concentration effect.

A bit complicated too IMHO.

15 hours ago, MaxQuest said:

Or just increase the focus generation pause.

Does any of these feel 'just right' to you?

I don't know. The issue is that Psions being one of the rare suclass to have completed the Ultimate kinds of prove they don't need a buff.

But what they might need is a tweak : making the focus pause a bit less punishing for semi-frontliner + adding another drawback can be the way to go.

Psion being easy to interrupt (and loosing concentration) à la Grimoire of Vaporous Wizardry feels about right. I think this is a good idea, although I don't have a clear tweak in mind. But I think the targetted level of power should be comparable to the one proposed by the devs.

"Hit and Crit interrupting + preventing focus gain for 6s" is an example of simple and clear design (Graze won't do anything, still a gain), although a bit too punishing so a conditional should be added.

I don't think is it technically possible to remove exactly 1 Concentraion without Interrupting. Or is it ? 

Edited November 2, 2021 by Elric Galad

[Elric Galad]

Just to add a random brainstorming idea :

If we want Psion to have more interaction with Concentration, we could have Telekinetic Burst add 1 Concentration to the Psion on top of its current effect.

[Boeroer]

That all sounds a little bit too complicated for my taste. So far I would still prefer the crit-based approach of the CP.

In addition I would propose that any interrupt (that's not countered by concentration of course) will also pause Soul Mind to tune it down a bit - also fits thematically imo.  

I don't dare to suggest anything that's solely interrupt based although it would be the "cleanest" solution from a systems standpoint (I would like the mechanics of the Grimpoire of Vaporous Wizardry to be applied to a Psion: damage causes an interrupt - but no pause to focus generation) because of the ability to circumvent that completely with the Fractured Casque or perma-courageous. 

[Elric Galad]

1 hour ago, Boeroer said:

In addition I would propose that any interrupt (that's not countered by concentration of course) will also pause Soul Mind to tune it down a bit - also fits thematically imo.  

The issue is that I don't know if it's possible to implement an effect that specifically applies when interrupted.

1 hour ago, Boeroer said:

I don't dare to suggest anything that's solely interrupt based although it would be the "cleanest" solution from a systems standpoint (I would like the mechanics of the Grimpoire of Vaporous Wizardry to be applied to a Psion: damage causes an interrupt - but no pause to focus generation) because of the ability to circumvent that completely with the Fractured Casque or perma-courageous. 

That's a good point.

[Noqn]

2 hours ago, Elric Galad said:

The issue is that I don't know if it's possible to implement an effect that specifically applies when interrupted.

Yeah, I don't think it's possible either. There's the OnSuccessfulInterrupt event which triggers when you interrupt a target, but no corresponding event for checking when the the effect owner themselves get interrupted.

[Boeroer]

How are concentration layers removed once the target receives interrupts? Is there no accessible event for that?

[Noqn]

17 minutes ago, Boeroer said:

How are concentration layers removed once the target receives interrupts?

Game finds the first status effect of the target that grants Concentration. If one is found it will be removed and the interruption negated.

23 minutes ago, Boeroer said:

Is there no accessible event for that?

Sadly no. Only thing I can think of involves editing all statuseffects that add concentration...

[Elric Galad]

10 hours ago, Boeroer said:

That all sounds a little bit too complicated for my taste. So far I would still prefer the crit-based approach of the CP.

Honestly, I start to think that the right solution may actually be very close from CP one :

Just make Hit or Crit stop Focus Regeneration instead of just Crit.

 

Compared to non modded design :

- It excludes Graze

- It includes Hit from various debuff, so overall it's not a real buff but a tweak (which is right when speaking about a subclass able to complete the Ultimate)

The biggest difference is that you're a bit more likely to be prevented regeneration by various AoE debuff but staying in melee would still be viable to some extant (Psions aren't meant to be tank anyway). Excluding Graze means a slide of 25 points on roll result, and this can be enough to still get some Focus while taking a few attacks in melee. Stacking stuff such as Shield, dagger modal, high Resolve (fitting for a Psion IMHO), Borrowed Instinct and whatever your multiclass can provide can help toward this goal.

[MaxQuest]

20 hours ago, Elric Galad said:

Just make Hit or Crit stop Focus Regeneration instead of just Crit.

I am bit worried by hostile auras and periodic stuff.

Also for an offtank psion it gonna be really hard to not get hit in melee.

---

Btw, I don't quite remember: are there beneficial effects that roll for hit on cast?

[Elric Galad]

45 minutes ago, MaxQuest said:

I am bit worried by hostile auras and periodic stuff.

Also for an offtank psion it gonna be really hard to not get hit in melee.

Offtank Psion shall not be IMHO. It is a subclass that basically has a penalty when attacked. You can't have it tank and hope being optimal for this role. Or you're basically creating a subclass with a completely different feeling.

At least an Offtank Psion WILL take hits. But the right build should be able to not get too many of them and still get a decent amount of focus. Priest should pick Shield for the Faithful. Etc... Bloodmages should work too.

Troubadour... Hey... Not. But Troubadour / Psion is an Ultimate winning MC combo, so should be viable, just not as Offtank.

45 minutes ago, MaxQuest said:

---

Btw, I don't quite remember: are there beneficial effects that roll for hit on cast?

Roll, not. But they do hit. I should have specified Hostile Hit and Crit indeed.

[Testlum]

What I did in my own mod was to make the Psion gain bonus defenses while their Focus Gain is disabled, though I'm not sure if that would fall within the scope of the Community Patch since it's basically a totally new feature instead of tweaking Soul Mind.

[Boeroer]

7 hours ago, Testlum said:

What I did in my own mod was to make the Psion gain bonus defenses while their Focus Gain is disabled, though I'm not sure if that would fall within the scope of the Community Patch since it's basically a totally new feature instead of tweaking Soul Mind.

Hm... not such bad idea imo. That way focus generation (and spell spamming) will stop, but in a different way it's still useful to be a "tanky" Psion in melee then. Stackable bonus defenses are hard to come by and have increasing returns, so they are valuabe. A the same time you can't make full use of your defining ability (to cast cipher powers). I like it!

[Elric Galad]

8 hours ago, Testlum said:

What I did in my own mod was to make the Psion gain bonus defenses while their Focus Gain is disabled, though I'm not sure if that would fall within the scope of the Community Patch since it's basically a totally new feature instead of tweaking Soul Mind.

Same here.

I guess it's not meant to be faithful to the original intention, but I think it's a nice idea.

[MaxQuest]

14 hours ago, Elric Galad said:

Roll, not. But they do hit. I should have specified Hostile Hit and Crit indeed.

I have remembered one thing now: when I was experimenting with Defensive Mindweb, and have put the removal condition OnHitOrCriticallyHit; the application itself was considered a "hit" and instantly removing the Mindweb buff.  I had to put MaxTriggerCount: 2 to accommodate for that; because I didn't see how to make it trigger on hostile hits/crits only.

 

14 hours ago, Elric Galad said:

Troubadour... Hey... Not. But Troubadour / Psion is an Ultimate winning MC combo, so should be viable, just not as Offtank.

Yes there are tricks when psion can run in circles, go invisible, or run away (with Berath's challenge) wait for focus regen as much as he wants and re-engage in battle. And the fact that he doesn't have to deal weapon damage for that and can simply wait is huge for Ultimate runs.

On the other hand: in an optimized 5-man party the subclass balance is different. If I am building a ranged cipher who will rarely get hit or damaged, I can take an ascendant or beguiler, that when property built and supported can generate focus 3+ times faster, and will be more efficient in almost all battles that don't involve a single boss with super high deflection.

Thus if I would be considering a psion for a 5-man group he would have to take some extra jobs, that he can do passively, just by being there.
Chanting is one way. And if there are 2+ firearm users, Aefylath + Sure-Handed, is good enough. Otherwise I would need him to offtank. Not for long, but he should be able to hold 1-2 enemies for 20..30s if need be.

 

14 hours ago, Elric Galad said:

Offtank Psion shall not be IMHO. It is a subclass that basically has a penalty when attacked. You can't have it tank and hope being optimal for this role. Or you're basically creating a subclass with a completely different feeling.

I do agree to an extent here.
A tank psion that could stand and soak physical/weapon damage feels wrong thematically.

But I think there could be a compromise of sorts. Just an example:
- Soul Mind (passive): psion gets passive focus generation. It is paused for awhile after being hit or critically hit
- Mental Grit (once-per-encounter): psion channels his inner resolve and temporary gets: +10 deflection/will/fort?, and his focus generation is not paused by plain hits. This lasts for a number of seconds equal to his Resolve. (also it could give 1 Concentration; or vice-versa consume 1 Concentration to activate)

Edited November 4, 2021 by MaxQuest

[Testlum]

What if you tied it in with Telekinetic Burst? Given its function of shoving enemies away, it's clearly meant to give the psion some space to gain Focus. I could envision something like enemies being struck by Telekinetic Burst not being able to disable Soul Mind for X seconds. Granted, that sounds like a hassle to put together in the code.