The flying through the air, disoriented and immoblised ones! I so hate them.
I remember ploughing through a mission on my stupidly overpowered plants dominator at high speed, cackling to myself as I went until I met a slinky Arachnos boss-ette that needed about fifty holds stacked to actually hold her. Anyway she had me flying through the air, disoriented and immobilised in the blink of an eye and I woke up in hospital.
In the same evening I took my storm/elec into the dimension mission with the clockwork king and psychic clockwork... solo. I also forgot to switch on steamy mist so as I approached the clockwork (hoho clockwork at lvl 40. what nubs!!) I found myself flying through the air, disoriented and immobilised and woke up in hospital.
Feeling sorry for myself for being completely schooled by only five clockwork in the blink of an eye I ditched the portal missions and went to the Firebase Zulu! Wooah check out these freaky mobs I thought as I picked up a rescue mission and came face to face with spindly alien beings and floating eyes. Anyway within a minute I was flying through the air, disoriented and immobilised and woke up in hospital.
So whatever that combo is I would get it. Is that TK blast, subdue and will domination? I have no idea but it kicked my jacksie good and proper three times in one evening and I'll never forget it. 
My defenders current attacks are Subdue (ok damage + chance to immob), TK Blast (good damage + high chance to knockback) and Will Domination (good damage + sleep). Mental Blast is not on my power tray, this may change in i8 when the animation will take less than 3 days to complete as is currently the case. I also have the nuke but that's mainly for PvE (Fulcrum Shift then Wail ftw).
Scramble thoughts is a disorient but does virtually no damage. It's not hugely useful imo as, in PvP, you can already drop a squishies toggles with WD.
If you are going the Psychic Mastery route then consider Telekinesis. Not many sets resist it but it's high endurance usage (I'm kinetics so I tend to push them away while draining their and and topping mine up.)
Octavian Vanguard
@ohmsEU and @ohms 2
Badging character: Bimble on the Union server, Badgehunter.com and City Info Tracker.
Tis a shame you're not running hasten - helps a lot with /Psi's looong recharge.
Subdue>TK Blast>Will Dom>Domination makes a nice chain with hasten up, dunno how you'd fare without Hasten though. Could slot a recharge on WD and TK to help, I guess.
Mental Blast should get better in I8 if I've heard right - may be worth using that as part of a chain if they can reduce the 2-3 seconds of rooting.
What's this maybe business about Regen aura - Turn your team near-unkillable for about a third of the time? Yes please. It's very very powerful.
Out of interest, do you use the Teleport pool for a main travel power? I can't think of any possible use for recall friend after level 14 - Everyone's got a travel power!
DON'T eat muffins while I'm developing you.
Pants! Turkey Magnates! A man in a box! Rogue AI! Come one, come all, to arc ID 10107 - It's [i]'Not as long as some other arcs'[/i]!
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Out of interest, do you use the Teleport pool for a main travel power? I can't think of any possible use for recall friend after level 14 - Everyone's got a travel power!
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It's somewhat useful in the empathy set as you can tp people away and rez them safely.
Octavian Vanguard
@ohmsEU and @ohms 2
Badging character: Bimble on the Union server, Badgehunter.com and City Info Tracker.
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I can't think of any possible use for recall friend after level 14 - Everyone's got a travel power!
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You've never been to the Shadow Shard, have you?
Besides, not everyone is equally good at navigating the normal zones. People may need to sell enhancements, they may be caught by an ambush after everyone else has zoomed off, you may be teaming with a SK'ed sub-14 or a number of other things. RF is still useful post level 14.
Each to their own, I guess. I just don't see how it could be more useful than Hasten, ever.
DON'T eat muffins while I'm developing you.
Pants! Turkey Magnates! A man in a box! Rogue AI! Come one, come all, to arc ID 10107 - It's [i]'Not as long as some other arcs'[/i]!
Take Regen Aura.
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Each to their own, I guess. I just don't see how it could be more useful than Hasten, ever.
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Recall friend is a nice power but between that and Hasten...I'd pick Hasten any day.
SingStar:
"Extremists LOVE to fish to get us annoyed so we break the forum rules."
CRACK68:
"The origin of life wasn't planned either, should all life be declared a bug and wiped out?"
Lionsbane:
"You know me.Ever the realist"
Thanks guys for the advice, but getting a little off topic...
To clear up the reasoning for my power choices - Regen Aura: Don't want, don't need. Hasten: same. TP: No don't use TP as a travel power. I exemp down alot with Mystie to help out lower level teams. Plus late night Hollows patroling helping out more littleones requires Recall Friend. It's the power I've missed the most since specing it out.
Hope that's cleared that up. Now what Psy attack powers should I take? Is Psy Tornado actually any good? Should I bother with the snipe? Does the nuke (wail) do lots of damage, or is it about as effective as an un-mired WS nuke?!!
(Edit: Oh, and a sneeky PS- Telekinesis is in my current build. I think it's great but I just don't use it enough to keep it in I think?)
Last time I used it Psionic Tornado (around issue 4 i think) it had a 50% or so chance to Knockup. It does ok damage over time but I dropped it for Psychic Scream as that attack suited the play style of the team I was in at that time.
The snipe does reasonable damage has a HUGE range and is good for pulling if that's your thing.
Wail does lots of damage for me as I always Fulcrum Shift first. I have no idea how well it will gel with empathy so someone else can answer that one.
I know what you mean about TK. It usually takes me several deaths in RV before I remember I have it 
Octavian Vanguard
@ohmsEU and @ohms 2
Badging character: Bimble on the Union server, Badgehunter.com and City Info Tracker.
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- Regen Aura: Don't want, don't need. Hasten: same.
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(Edit: Oh, and a sneeky PS- Telekinesis is in my current build. I think it's great but I just don't use it enough to keep it in I think?)
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If you wish to PvP those are essentials...especially RA. If you dont take it you're just another easy squishy kill for the most part.
TK is a VERY useful power in PvP and should definately be taken if you wish to take Psi and PvP...otherwise primal is always good for empaths.
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Hope that's cleared that up. Now what Psy attack powers should I take? Is Psy Tornado actually any good? Should I bother with the snipe? Does the nuke (wail) do lots of damage, or is it about as effective as an un-mired WS nuke?!!
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Defender damage isn't very good to begin with unless you have debuffs but if you are gonna take attacks Subdue, Will Domination and Telekinetic Blast are the good ones in the set.
SingStar:
"Extremists LOVE to fish to get us annoyed so we break the forum rules."
CRACK68:
"The origin of life wasn't planned either, should all life be declared a bug and wiped out?"
Lionsbane:
"You know me.Ever the realist"
Echoing Archy's words of wisdom here. Regen aura is really good in PvP, surprisingly effective when I was hammering with my blapper 
Telekinesis is a defensive power in PvP to keep the biggest threat from your throat. Incredibly effective at times. Defenders still qualify as squishies after all
And to add 2+2 = recover aura, which helps keep telekinesis up as much as possible..
subdue 3acc/3dmg , TK Blast 3acc/3dmg , Will Dom 3acc/3dmg , Scramble Thoughts 3acc/3stun
get psy mastery and dominate 3acc/3hold
this means scenario :-
3 mobs at u, dominate on one, held, scramble thoughts other, hes out of actio,n your left with one to pulverise (RA where applicable) gank the stunnned one, then kill the held, your done,
hasten rocks for those above, flight travel FTW, leadership helps no end (pvp + teaming etc) stam OFC :P ; thats your 4 power pools taken so no tp, but I make do without it anyway.
also i kept RA(hp) as yes it powerful but for me solo'ing helps if u decide to go mad n aggro a room n take em all on :P
assault 3endrdx, tactics 3endrdx/3tohit, hasten 3recharge, flight 3endrdx/3flight, you know stam etc
ive sent tyl over about 12 times now changing about, finally got to that build above and found it a hell of alot more faesible
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subdue 3acc/3dmg , TK Blast 3acc/3dmg , Will Dom 3acc/3dmg , Scramble Thoughts 3acc/3stun
get psy mastery and dominate 3acc/3hold
tactics 3endrdx/3tohit
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Not much warrants 3 slotting for accuracy as 2 accuracy SOs are usually enough...and with Tactics thats basically 4 slotting for accuracy....total overkill.
SingStar:
"Extremists LOVE to fish to get us annoyed so we break the forum rules."
CRACK68:
"The origin of life wasn't planned either, should all life be declared a bug and wiped out?"
Lionsbane:
"You know me.Ever the realist"
I think I'd be tempted to drop one or two of those accuracies and slot recharge.
DON'T eat muffins while I'm developing you.
Pants! Turkey Magnates! A man in a box! Rogue AI! Come one, come all, to arc ID 10107 - It's [i]'Not as long as some other arcs'[/i]!
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I think I'd be tempted to drop one or two of those accuracies and slot recharge.
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I may put a Range in TK Blast as well.
Oh, and for PvP Acro really, really helps a support toon. Hell, I won't PvE without it on a support toon either, nothing sucks more than being on your [censored] when you should be healing/buffing/debuffing/em dancing.
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subdue 3acc/3dmg , TK Blast 3acc/3dmg , Will Dom 3acc/3dmg , Scramble Thoughts 3acc/3stun
get psy mastery and dominate 3acc/3hold
tactics 3endrdx/3tohit
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Not much warrants 3 slotting for accuracy as 2 accuracy SOs are usually enough...and with Tactics thats basically 4 slotting for accuracy....total overkill.
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thats for the SR/nin lovers that whamp on u in RV archy
and for acro (Ex) cant fit that into my build having fly etc
Hi Mystie,
My defender is kin/psi, and the way that I've built her is as follows (with the attacks):
01) --> Mental Blast==> Acc(1)
04) --> Psionic Lance==> Acc(4) IntRdx(9) Rechg(9) Dmg(13) Dmg(13) Dmg(17)
16) --> Telekinetic Blast==> Acc(16) Dmg(19) Dmg(25) Dmg(34) Rechg(36) Rechg(36)
20) --> Will Domination==> Acc(20) Dmg(21) Dmg(21) Dmg(25) Rechg(34) Rechg(36)
24) --> Subdue==> Acc(24) Dmg(37) Dmg(37) Dmg(37) Rechg(43) Rechg(50)
35) --> Scramble Thoughts==> Acc(35) DisDur(40) DisDur(45) DisDur(45) Rechg(45) Rechg(46)
38) --> Psychic Wail==> Acc(38) Dmg(39) Dmg(39) Dmg(39) Rechg(40) Rechg(40)
44) --> Psionic Tornado==> Acc(44) Dmg(46) Dmg(46) Dmg(48) Rechg(50) Rechg(50)
I basically took them all apart from psychic scream (which is pants - JUST over the attack strength of mental blast, which is next to zero lol - and has just as long an animation). Yes, I DID take scramble thoughts - but only as another controlly power rather than an attack power. WD causes sleep, SC causes disorient (3-slotted for disorient). My attack chain, as is everyone elses (it seems) is WD, Telekinetic Blast and Subdue. I use Psychic Wail (which does AMAZING damage - I believe that it's second only to rad's Atomic Blast - according to CoH/CoV builder, it's even more powerful than a blaster's Nova or Inferno) - and even though it's super-beefed up on my defender (cos of the mass hypno -> FS -> PW combo) it would do you fine just 3-slotted with damage w/out the FS kick to boot.
Psionic tornado is a bit pants too (for damage) - it's nice to have an AoE attack and the knockup feature can give you a breather for a second or two as the minions and lieuts fall down - but it's not part of my attack chain. Psionic lance is used for pulling and also use it sometimes after using Psionic Tornado (with the breather whilst they're being knocked over). Mental blast is used if I ever get attacked by 20 mobs of 'swarm' and all my other powers (including brawl!) are recharging.
Hope that this helps!
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I use Psychic Wail (which does AMAZING damage - I believe that it's second only to rad's Atomic Blast - according to CoH/CoV builder, it's even more powerful than a blaster's Nova or Inferno)
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Here we see the problem inherent with BI - It's less powerful than the blaster nukes stated, because BI doesn't account for the ranged damage modifier applied to defenders (x0.65). So, multiply the number which the builder gives you for Wail by 0.65 for a clearer picture when comparing with the Blaster nova attacks (which have a modifier of 1, so can stay as they are).
Wail's still ace, but can't compare to a blaster final.
DON'T eat muffins while I'm developing you.
Pants! Turkey Magnates! A man in a box! Rogue AI! Come one, come all, to arc ID 10107 - It's [i]'Not as long as some other arcs'[/i]!
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Psionic tornado is a bit pants too (for damage) - it's nice to have an AoE attack and the knockup feature can give you a breather for a second or two as the minions and lieuts fall down
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You say that the knockdown of the tornado gives you a breather for a second or two but slam psychic scream's damage! The scream has a 62.5% recharge debuff and the tornado 37.5% for 10 seconds. Both together that's a pretty hefty breather from incoming damage imo
Even without the debuff portion, any AoE attack is going to have much better total damage per endurance vs several mobs than a single target attack. You only have to hit three mobs with psychic scream to be doing more total damage than your snipe, for even less endurance.
Aaaah, but Scream isn't technically an AoE power - it's a cone (and I have an aversion to cone attacks, since you have to be very precise with them). And I find that there just isn't the time during the middle of a fight to make sure that I'm lined up nicely with a few bad guys to hit them all - MUCH easier to do that with an AoE power. And I didn't say that I took Tornado for the attack power (which, incidentally, is almost twice that of scream according to CoH/CoV builder) - I took it for the knockup breather. I've got a very nice chain of damage with Subdue/Telekinetic Blast and Will Domination. I took the other powers for control (Scramble Thoughts for disorient and Psionic Tornado for knockup). I don't see Scream fitting into my build because a) it doesn't do enough damage to justify it for an attack and b) it doesn't offer enough control aspect to justify it being a controlling power. Even if I hit Fulcrum Shift (as my defender is kinetic), Psychic Scream can only just top over 100 damage to the bad guys. And that's only hitting 2 or 3 in a cone. Compare that to over 150 that Tornado can do, and it's got a pretty big AoE (20 feet from the initial hit). So Tornado wins it for me hands down for the multiple-hit power.
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(and I have an aversion to cone attacks, since you have to be very precise with them).
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Psychic Scream is a wide cone, precise here means targeting in the general direction.
Even so, scream has a base damage of 2.9 (rounding to 1 decimal place) and mental blast being base damage of 2.8 (again 1 decimal place), I think that almost all people agree that mental blast is pretty much a redundant power. So why would anyone use a multiple-hit mental blast (which is what, in effect, it is). Aside from the fact that the damage that mental blast (and scream) deals is minimal, the animation time for a NON-snipe move is horrendous - 2.67 seconds. Compare that to 1.67 for subdue, 1 for telekinetic blast and 1.1 for will domination, they're going to be the powers to use for damage. Even psionic tornado, with its activation time of 2.37 seconds (still a long animation time, but not as long as scream or mental blast) is more worthwhile than scream due to a) its knockup component (if they're lying on the floor, they're not attacking you) and b) its base damage is 4.8615, nearly double that of scream.
Remember that we're not arguing purely on numbers here - we're debating what powers a DEFENDER should take. A defender is not primarily a blaster, and I can't really see scream fitting into a defender's build. Even my defender, which is primarily an offensive build, doesn't take scream (as I've said before - it doesn't do enough damage to warrant it as a damaging power, and it doesn't have enough control aspects for it to warrant a controlling power).
As for the fact that it can hit several opponents at once, I think that I can honestly count the amount of times on one hand that I've finished off a baddie with mental blast. That is basically what you'd be hitting multiple targets with - mental blast - the power that very few defenders who play with psionics as a power set ever uses.
Scream does huge -recharge, to a large number of foes. Where there's a good tank or controller, there's no reason not to. You're not just attacking your own target, you're helping out with everyone else's. Say it takes off the equivalent of 1/6th of a minion's life - spread that across six minions and you've effectively killed a minion, as the team will spend that much less time beating up the rest.
Sometimes the time is just ripe to fire off all AoE's.
If you can justify taking any pure-damage single target power, you can justify scream. You can't see its controlling effect, like you could with WD or TKB, but it's definitely there.
DON'T eat muffins while I'm developing you.
Pants! Turkey Magnates! A man in a box! Rogue AI! Come one, come all, to arc ID 10107 - It's [i]'Not as long as some other arcs'[/i]!
Mystie gets a respec with the Vet Rewards when i8 comes in the next few days.
), Subdue (Not bad), Scramble Thoughts (What was I thinking when I took this?!), and Will Domination (Very good, I'll keep that). Yes, I know... n00b respec lol!!
I've been waiting and waiting for this respec for a long time! Now, I know what I'll be changing in the Empath pool, but, well... I kind of bodged up what Psychic Blast powers I spec'd in last time.
I want Leadership, Flight, Teleport and Fitness pool sets. (In fact, I'm in two minds wether to drop the TP or Leadership powers for the Stealth pool.) I'm taking every Empath power, except Regeneration Aura (possibly). I just want a build of 4 or 5 powers that can do good damage, I can use in the Arena, or PvP. Hell, I may even dare to dream of soloing the odd mission here or there...?! Oh, and I'll be taking the Psychic Mastery - 'Dominate', 'Mind Over Body' and 'Mass Hypnosis' powers to help.
Not having PvPed with Mystie much before my last respec I didn't really know what I was doing so took: Mental Blast (have to take it
So... if anyone wants to recommend 4 or 5 powers that will serve me well in PvP and the Arena, and please please please any tips on slotting them, that'd be superb!!
You always give out great advice, so thank you in advance guys