Psion ideas?

[yorname]

What are the possibilities for psion builds?

My understanding is that they are meant to multiclass with caster class, but what are the advantages of a psion over fighter/ranger/monk in supporting the other half? They can sustain Borrowed Instinct, and perhaps 1 or 2 other debuff on an enemy, that's pretty much it. I don't think they can even comfortably offer Ancestor's Memory. Borrowed Instinct isn't much better than what other classes can offer, and prevents another cipher from working efficiently if I want a cipher with full debuffing potential.

The only other idea I got is as SC, using Death of 1000 cuts and Mind Wave non-stop on a single enemy. but when fighting tougher enemies I would want at least Borrowed Instinct and Psychovampiric Shield, perhaps Ancestor's Memory on someone else. I feel psion would have problem getting enough focus for just these, and don't see an advantage over normal ciphers let alone SC ascendant.

 

[omgFIREBALLS]

For background, my parties are always five multiclassed paladins. If I play the game again, it's with some tiny (or no) adjustment to the same party. The other multiclass half of that party has been, for years, two fighters (one devoted, one tactician or unbroken), two chanters (both troubadours), and one cipher (psion). So let me tell you about that inquisitor of mine...

The awesome thing about a psion is you have very reliable resource generation. You're not dependent on doing damage, only on not taking it. Paladins have great defensive bonuses and you can get a hilariously high will save with this multiclass (178 on my latest save, out of combat). Soul Mind is also fairly generous with its functionality. It doesn't get cancelled by DoTs. So, you're not an attractive target, and you thrive on that. Why risk it by playing a fighter or monk? Sounds like you want to get into the fray, where you make a more tempting target than someone standing with a large shield at range firing wand shots. Your ranger? Well, probably won't have the shield.

As for spells, late game there are only two that matter: Pain Block and Ancestor's Memory. I always play for the long game, and so this healing and resource replenishment means time is always on my side. You'll notice they don't even require accuracy. There can be cases of debuffing mobs with Borrowed Instinct, Psychovampiric Shield and Recall Agony, but frankly if I can spare the resources to cast those, I'm already winning and these are just speeding it up (I might say they matter for Belranga). It's fun to use them, but not required.

I haven't played other cipher kits so I can't say how the resource generation compares, but I get the feeling from your post you will be happily surprised by how fast it goes for a high level psion. Either way, I think if you want to play one, your multiclass of choice should be one that works well with not drawing attention to itself. If you want to jump into the fray of melee combat, you might consider some other cipher kit.

[thelee]

1 hour ago, yorname said:

My understanding is that they are meant to multiclass with caster class, but what are the advantages of a psion over fighter/ranger/monk in supporting the other half? They can sustain Borrowed Instinct, and perhaps 1 or 2 other debuff on an enemy, that's pretty much it. I don't think they can even comfortably offer Ancestor's Memory. Borrowed Instinct isn't much better than what other classes can offer, and prevents another cipher from working efficiently if I want a cipher with full debuffing potential.

the advantage is that you get a cipher w/ basically zero downtime. it's less "what does this cipher add to the caster," it's "what does this caster add to the cipher".

borrowed instinct is good but is not the reason you want to do a psion/caster multiclass. more generally rather it's that you get the versatility of a multiclass caster w/out the negative action economy of having to actively generate focus, and a psion/caster multiclass mitigates the early game issues of having very slow focus generation (and late game issues where you take incidental damage or are waiting for high-level powers). you augment the cipher, not vice versa.

the question is more akin to "how does adding caster to psion compare to adding fighter/ranger/monk" versus your original "how does adding psion to caster compare to adding fighter/ranger/monk"

Edited January 7 by thelee

[thelee]

i'd also suggest that if you haven't played psion before but are interested, you really should give it a try.

when you're thinking about focus generation, keep in mind that a psion continues to generate focus *while you cast powers/spells* which i feel is a bit of an unobvious interaction, or at least easy to understimate in terms of impact. this means that with the right stats/gear as you progress to higher levels you can cast tier 1 and then tier 2 powers indefinitely (you literally generate more focus passively then consume... you can nonstop interrupt [from the telekinetic burst psion power] or paralyze-lock [mental binding] enemies) and you get a substantial amount of the focus on higher powers back. add in some other spell casting from a multiclass and you'll find yourself flush with focus every time you switch back to casting powers.

Edited January 7 by thelee

[yorname]

42 minutes ago, thelee said:

i'd also suggest that if you haven't played psion before but are interested, you really should give it a try.

when you're thinking about focus generation, keep in mind that a psion continues to generate focus *while you cast powers/spells* which i feel is a bit of an unobvious interaction, or at least easy to understimate in terms of impact. this means that with the right stats/gear as you progress to higher levels you can cast tier 1 and then tier 2 powers indefinitely (you literally generate more focus passively then consume... you can nonstop interrupt [from the telekinetic burst psion power] or paralyze-lock [mental binding] enemies) and you get a substantial amount of the focus on higher powers back. add in some other spell casting from a multiclass and you'll find yourself flush with focus every time you switch back to casting powers.

I only tested a lv19 SC mercenary for a while. He was generating 5 focus/s, probably slightly more if he got lv20 and some additional PL. In combat I just found his focus very limited compared to a normal cipher unless the enemies are somehow too powerful for weapons. Unless there's only one boss that the cipher can't reliably hit, I believe a normal cipher can always manage to generate more focus even factoring in downtime. The only thing that kind of worked for me is like you said, lower tier spamming. I guess The Complete Self is essential for this playstyle? What caster multiclasses do you suggest, besides chanters? I can't really think of great synergies off the top of my head

[Boeroer]

Psion/Troubadour is one of the most versatile builds there is and great for a party. At the same time it's also one of the best solo builds: as the record shows it's viable for the Ultimate challenge (without too much cheese that other combos will need).

You can combine summons (chanter side) with constant mind control (Whispers of Treason, Puppet Master, Ring Leader) which means that you can turn almost every encounter into a "many vs. one" scenario easily while not receiving a scratch. While you summon with an invocation your focus fills up. While you cast a mind control power your focus fills up, too. If you run around your focu fills up. Should you get disabled, your focus... you get the idea. ;).
I almost never had a situation where I couldn't cast anything bc. of scarce resources. There's always either enough phrases or focus (if you don't try to spam the highest tier stuff nonstop).

But you can also go another, less "minion-y" route and spam Killers Froze Stiff (or in cases of immunity Ben Fidel's Neck) and for example Soul Shock all the time at lower levels. It's a nonstop chain of debuff/CC and damage. Jut use Blightheart (bound to chanter) and even get additional phrases if you kill enemies (doesn't matter how). If you add Many Lives later as chant you can even add "passive" summons to the mix. Almost no downtime, great action economy, big impact. 

Btw.: Death of 1000 Cuts is more effective in combination with Antipathetic Echo than with Mind Blades - if you can use another enemy as anchor. But mobs are common in boss fights. Very cheap and procs an instance of shred 1/sec over 10 secs. It's easy to spam it without downtime.
Another cool feature of SC Psion would be Shared Nightmare you can watch your AoE grow by the second.

If you have a really fast dual wielder in the party (I tried a Streetfighter/Barb with daggers) then Reaping Knives is absolutely great for a Psion, too. The knives don't actually give focus based on the damage they case but instead a flat +5 focus with every hit(!). If you hit very quickly you'll produce a lot of additional focus for the Psion so that he even can spam high tier powers. I didn't try if a Monk's Swift Flurry/Heartbeat Drumming attacks also produce that +5 focus. If so then that could be used against weak enemies in order to create great focus bursts.       

[Boeroer]

7 minutes ago, Boeroer said:

I didn't try if a Monk's Swift Flurry/Heartbeat Drumming attacks also produce that +5 focus. If so then that could be used against weak enemies in order to create great focus bursts.       

I tried now: doesn't work.  

[thelee]

45 minutes ago, yorname said:

He was generating 5 focus/s, probably slightly more if he got lv20 and some additional PL. In combat I just found his focus very limited compared to a normal cipher unless the enemies are somehow too powerful for weapons. Unless there's only one boss that the cipher can't reliably hit, I believe a normal cipher can always manage to generate more focus even factoring in downtime.

yes, it's true, even a slightly-optimized vanilla cipher will easily out-generate focus than a psion.

however, an optimized vanilla cipher/caster multiclass will never be able to out-generate the focus gen of a psion/caster multiclass.

an early psion build i did was a psion/lifegiver. that thing carried my party for similar reasons to boeroer's post. if my party needed buffs or healing, i excelled at that and did that. by the time i was done casting spells i had tons of focus for cipher powers. i would basically switch between being a psion or a support caster and i basically always had uptime with spell casting.

whereas a normal, un-cheesed cipher *has* to spend time physically attacking to generate focus, a psion/caster multiclass essentially generates focus by casting spells from the other caster. 

also i think you're underestimating the power of being able to endlessly spam powers. it is true that objectively speaking a normal cipher can out-generate a psion, no normal cipher can indefinitely paralyze-lock an enemy - at some point they have to stop and attack for a while. a high level psion can in fact indefinitely do so, and in fact i set up some AI scripts at a certain point that would either spam burst or mental binding and it is shocking in how many fights you can get away with doing this and trivialize them.

 

that being said, a SC psion is not nearly as powerful as a MC psion IMO. if you really want to get to tier 9 powers you can, but you only get slightly more focus generation while still having a lot of drawbacks. a caster multiclass pretty much covers the main drawback of a psion, which is well worth losing tier 8 or 9 cipher powers.

 

edit to add: historically there was a lot of skepticism about psion when it was first released in patch 4.0. and the thing is, there's a lot to be skeptical about, if you imagine playing a psion is just like playing a normal cipher. but in truth, a psion ends up playing very differently than a normal cipher, and is very powerful at that alternate playstyle. for me it was really a "see it to believe it" kind of mental switch i had to do.

Edited January 7 by thelee

[Boeroer]

17 minutes ago, thelee said:

for me it was really a "see it to believe it" kind of mental switch i had to do.

just like that

---

By the way: the focus generation of reaping knives is not tied to the knives themselves (for example an essential phantom with Reaping Knives who got the weapons from its wizard master generates no focus for the cipher). Instead it's a seperate "buff" on the character you cast the reaping knives on. But that also means that if you replace Reaping Knives with let's say Concelhaut's Draining Touch or Spirit Lance or whatever summones weapon, you still get +5 focus per hit. Or better: per attack. The AoE hits of the lance don't produce any focus unfortunately. Don't know if that's exploitable - I just found out.    

Edit: heh - Forbidden Fist attack also works for focus generation if you had Reaping Knives cast onto you (at least with Community Patch). 

Edited January 7 by Boeroer

[yorname]

1 hour ago, thelee said:

also i think you're underestimating the power of being able to endlessly spam powers. it is true that objectively speaking a normal cipher can out-generate a psion, no normal cipher can indefinitely paralyze-lock an enemy - at some point they have to stop and attack for a while. a high level psion can in fact indefinitely do so, and in fact i set up some AI scripts at a certain point that would either spam burst or mental binding and it is shocking in how many fights you can get away with doing this and trivialize them.

That's a good point, I'll try some builds on mecs and perhaps a new watcher.

[abot]

Try this with another classes combo...
 

Edited January 8 by abot

[yorname]

On 1/8/2024 at 5:50 AM, thelee said:

that being said, a SC psion is not nearly as powerful as a MC psion IMO. if you really want to get to tier 9 powers you can, but you only get slightly more focus generation while still having a lot of drawbacks. a caster multiclass pretty much covers the main drawback of a psion, which is well worth losing tier 8 or 9 cipher powers.

By the way, aside from psion/chanter, do you feel the lack of brilliant for endgame bosses? As they will likely be the only cipher in the party, the other class can be eventually drained out in those boss fights, and interrupt/paralyze spam don't work in those situations.

I'm about to start one but planning for megabosses is stopping me from making the final decision. Most other fights are whatever since we can't really not beat them, that's why my mindset is always focused on those bosses.

[Zone Jiujitsu]

@thelee would you mix Bellower with Psion? Having a tough time choosing a bellower multi.

Edited January 15 by Zone Jiujitsu
spelling

[dgray62]

The nice thing about the troubadour/psion mix is that you can rapidly generate resources on both sides, and pretty much alternate casting between the classes. Bellowers regenerate phrases more slowly, but hit with greater oomph. Personally, I prefer multi classing bellower with melee classes, such as barbarian or monk. Probably the best combo is a bellower/barbarian (berserker, mage slayer or fury shaper), wielding Blightheart, which gives you +1 phrase per kill, dramatically increasing your phrase regeneration, while the Barbarian gives you faster speed due to Bloodlust and Bloodthirst. You can really crank out devastating invocations with this build.

[Boeroer]

It's great. If you go Berserker/Bellower and "accidentally" kill your own Many-Lives-Skeletons you'll trigger Blood Thirst (not working for reloading but invocations' recovery), Bloodlust, +1 Phrase (Blightheart), Blood Storm duration bonus and healing from heal-on-kill pet (self and/or party-wide effect).

Also healing from Triumph of the Crusaders will trigger - should you have a Priest with that spell in the party. Makes the Berserker/Bellower almost unkillable if done right. 

If you have a SC Paladin then you'll get +2 Zeal per dead skeleton at PL9 (Devine Retribution). 

Btw.: Confusion doesn't affect the friend-or-foe mechanic of chants - fortunately! Doesn't matter with Many Lives anyway - but until then you might want to use other chants and feared the Confusion of Frenzy would make a huge mess - but it doesn't.