Mental powers vs. machines

Hello all. I've long been intrigued by the various psionic/mental powers but also put off by their weakness against machines. (i.e. drones, bots, mech men, etc.) I was hoping that players experienced with these power sets could answer some questions I have. I'm referring specifically to psychic blast, mental manipulation, mind control and psionic assault.

1) How do you deal with mechanical opponents? Do you pair your psionic power with another that is effective against these foes? Do you find certain tactics to be effective? Do you just avoid enemies of this type? How do you handle it?

2) Do the secondary effects affect machines? I'm not talking about psionic damage, but rather sleep, -Recharge, KB, disorient, fear, confuse, etc.

3) In checking out the Guides on the Blaster boards, I didn't see any dealing with Psychic Blast. Do any exist? Was I looking in the wrong place? Their absence seems rather strange.

I'd appreciate any light you could shed on these issues. Thanks.

Also, as character building programs became more widespread and builds became a lot more finicky, people became less eager to make guides. There's a clear drop-off in the number of guides on any powerset the later you go.

Heroes, Villains ♦ Reviews ♦ Retrospect

OK. Thanks for the responses.

I took a Psychic Blast/Mental Manipulation blaster to 50. It was fun, but not against robots or ghosts. Telekinesis is the most effective attack. Still, it was a blaster, so I kept blasting until they went down. It took longer than usual, that was all.

I avoided carnies, which is really easy to do.

The worst part was doing the Praetorian arcs. Long missions against Neuron's and Antimatter's robots were tedious. It was annoying enough that I started dropping robot heavy missions.

TK Blast/TK Thrust will help a ton against mechanical opponents

I appreciate the input. Based on what I've read, I'm inclined to create a blaster with MM as a secondary. Probably go with Fire as the primary. Thanks all.

I soloed through that one Striga mission with a warehouse full of nothing but robots on a mind/storm controller before Storm's damage powers. I ended up confusing them, then Galeing the last survivor, still confused, down the hall to the next spawn - it was still faster than trying to mind-control them to death.

For Mind Controllers, your best weapon is Levitate, which is smashing damage. Robots are generally weak to smashing damage.

Illusion Controllers also do only Psi damage until Phantasm, who does smashing/Energy damage. The high resistance to Psi damage is one reason I recommend Ice, Fire or Primal for the APP set for Illusion controllers. A different damage type is needed for these guys.

Funny thing i noticed: some machines (like the Romulus Phalanx control computer) are WEAK against psi. Also, psi damage is rarely resisted when it comes to AVs, Honoree and Reichsman being two prominant examples. So it's not all bad!

I don't like pure psi characters... things that resist psychic damage tend to resist the heck out of it. /Mental is a great Blaster set, but I wouldn't pair it with Psychic Blast unless it was a theme character (in which case effectiveness isn't the main goal)... Fire / Mental is probably one of the most powerful Blasters out there and Ice / Mental keeps Ice's great single target damage and control while adding AoEs. Sonic / Mental is also interesting... you can have an all-cone attack chain with -resist effects.

For Controllers... well, most Controllers are fairly painful to solo at the best of times so does it matter? On a team you're there to provide buffs or debuffs and keep enemies from attacking, not to do damage. Solo... you're still there to do buffs / debuffs and contain enemies rather than to do damage. (Obviously there are exceptions, usually involving /Kin and Fire or Plant)

Of course if you really want to make things die with your mind, go with a /Psi Dominator. Again, avoid Mind / Psi unless your concept demands it... go with something like Fire / Psi (the redside Fire / Kin) or Plant (good damage for a control set, and Smashing damage which wrecks bots) / Psi.

And if you do go for an all-psi character, make it a Psi / Mental Blaster. The best way to overcome heavy resistances is to debuff them (which requires a non-psychic set) or just do so much damage that things still die fairly quick. That's pretty much a Blaster's sole function... and they do it very well.

Mind Control has a hidden feature that allows it to bypass positional defense. As far as I'm aware, it is the only power set that does this consistently. While the set loses some effectiveness to mental resistant enemies, it cuts straight through annoying powers robots sometimes try to use like Force Fields, so it balances to some degree.