Early End Game Material... Just anti-psi?

Is it just me or are a lot of the factions designed during the early CoH days just exceptionally psi-unfriendly?

I ask this because I soloed all of the RWZ arcs with my emp/psi defender with no problems at all. I also soloed the Midnighter stuff and the Cimerora stuff also with minimal issues. And then I went back to try to solo some of the earlier arcs, like those containing Nemesis and the Praetorians and it seems like every faction is heavily psi-resistant.

Her psi-lance does about 195 to a white con minion. It seems like every minion I run across in this material drop the psi damage down to 95-98. Basically, for a melee character, this is more or less like every minion you run across being made of steel. It's not like, you know, she is in immediate danger of death. It basically means a mission that could be finished in about 15-20 minutes takes like 45 minutes to an hour.

So my question is basically... why??

It wasn't like /psi defenders were generating tremendous damage anyway. And if I recall, before power prolif, the /psi defender and one of the controller AT's were the only two that were generating this damage type anyway. So what was the thinking behind this?

To stop the damage output of the illusion controller?

Options!

DE aren't particularly resistant to it, but they slow you down in other ways of course. Malta are rough because any psi character you have isn't going to have any Mez protection per se, which means that you're probably going to be spending quite a bit of time stunlocked.

For a psi defender solo, your best bets are probably CoT, Knives (if you have hover), Carnies, and Rikti. The Rikti do have some mobs that are psi resistant, but they are typically the lieutenants or bosses, which means you aren't having to beat through a wall with every mob

I am pretty sure Carnies are psi-resistant.

Either that, or I am imagining those nightmares I still have about soloing them on a Psi/Mental Blaster.

Again, like the Rikti, the ones that are psi-resistant are not the minions. The thing the causes the massive slowdown isn't psi-resistance in a faction, it's psi-resistance in minions, which you see a lot more of.

(Of course all of this is from the standpoint of a solo defender, so I tend to see a lot more minions than lieutenants and a lot more of both than bosses.)

Every Carnie, including the Minions, has a 20% Psi resist. The AVs have more than that. 20% isn't terrible, though. Human Nemesis soldiers and Fake Nemeses have no resists to Psi. The reason that Praetorians seem so bad is that you mostly face robots in that early arc, and all true robots have 50% resists to Psi, on account of not having a mind to attack. Bobcat's group doesn't resist Psi at all. Shadowhunter's Wolves resist everything, Smashing and Lethal being the heaviest.

That robot Psi resist is the key to why it is so tough on a Psi user in the late game. I can only guess as to the motivation for there being so many robots in the late game, but I suspect that it was to help with suspension of disbelief. You have grown in power so much that simple human foes just wouldn't feel like they should be able to stand up against you, so they threw in a lot of robots to make the mobs look like a more credible threat.

Carnies are the only faction that don't have resist out their wazoo to Lethal, though, unlike every other freakin' faction. Except, maybe Mu...I think their big resist is in the Energies and Elements department.

Carnies are good times when you have a sword/claws/gun/whatever else does strictly Lethal.

Probably one reason they've not done the Psi Weaponry like some scrappers have wanted for their Psylocke-types, or the leet pvpers who want Psi because it's such an unresisted/undefensed against damage type. It might actually be even WORSE than just another sword set in PvE. I know some enemies just resist the heck out of Psi, even worse than Lethal.

I'd rather Scrappers have a new Sock Offense with a Swap Ammo mechanic. You can load a hard piece of ice in that sock, put a piece of poop in that sock like old EverQuest players used to do (poopsocking was required on long raids when you couldn't go AFK to bio) and it's so nasty it gives off toxic fumes, or SET IT ON FIRE FOR THE WIN!

Out of curiosity, how many end-game mobs resist Smashing and/or Lethal damage? The way it seems, those are the two most commonly-resisted damage types. Just wondering how that compares to enemies who resist psi.

On that note, I never had much of a problem with Council robots, even that one mission that was full of them and only them. I didn't even have the smash attacks, either. I have yet to try the Praetorian robots on my Blaster and the Malta robots... well, it's Malta, they're tough either way.

It's really just the Carnies who not only resist and defend against Psionic Damage, but do Psionic Damage themselves. Even the Carnie AVs (downgraded to EBs) were unsoloable for me even with gratutious use of inspirations. It's a grudge I bear to this day.

Makes the third costume slot mission red-side hella fun for me, though.

Carnies. Full Auto. Stuff dies. Lots of stuff dies. >=D

Quote:

Originally Posted by Zwillinger GG, I would tell you that "I am killing you with my mind", but I couldn't find an emoticon to properly express my sentiment.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Captain_Photon NOTE: The Incarnate System is basically farming for IOs on a larger scale, and with more obtrusive lore.

Also the smashing/lethal sets tend to either hit incredibly hard or have other options available.

Warmace/Waraxe/Broadsword hit very slowly but hit like a freight train meaning even decent Smashing/Lethal resists only do so much. Dual Blades and Katana hit lightly but very quickly which means they can deal out enough damage quick enough that the S/L resists aren't too much of a bother.

Assault Rifle/Archery has non-S/L using attacks (blazing Arrow/Flamethrower etc.), Dual Pistols can switch ammo types.

Almost every mob resists S/L but only upto a medium degree but nothing except most AVs resist it a lot (still annoyed that the invulnerable using AVs get 100% resistance to smashing/lethal when unstoppable, no mob should resist a damage type 100% even AVs). Psi is the reverse, virtually nothing, including most AVs, resist Psi damage but the mobs that do resist it, resist it quite heavily.

Robots have the biggest Lethal and Psi resists if I remember right. Energy messes em up good though.

dont forget Matla engineers summon Gun turrets and i think the Herc and Zeus bots they have may be psi resistant too. i could be wrong about that.

having said that, Psi is a weird damage type, it rules early on but in the late game the robots are simply too numerous. still on some AVs (typically the "unstoppable" ones) have a real weakness to psi.