Psychic Blast tips?

I'm having a go at building a Psychic/Fire or Psychic/Ice (haven't decided which yet) for PvE (solo/small group, mainly). In the absence of a Psychic Blast guide, would anyone be able to give me a quick rundown on which powers are great, meh and awful, and whether it would play best with /Fire or /Ice?

From the planner, the first two blasts look like standard first-two-Blaster-blasts. TK Blast looks great, Psychic Focus is pretty much Aim, Will Dom looks a bit wussy compared to TK Blast (and the sleep isn't even guaranteed), Lance is a standard snipe, Tornado is a long animation for a tiny amount of damage and a little bit of knock, Scramble is again with the long animation time for tiny damage but at least the stun is guaranteed this time, and Wail is a standard draining nuke.

Just based on the numbers, I'd probably take Psi Dart, Mental Blast, TK Blast, Will Dom (though I'd grumble), Focus, Snipe and nuke. I'm fond of having control options, but the Tornado and Scramble take 2-3 seconds to animate, which I think is probably Too Long. I note that my AoE consists of Psychic Wail, which makes me wonder if /Fire might be the better choice, to rectify that.

There isn't anything that Psi/ does that Ice/ doesn't do better with only a couple of very minor exceptions.

Pairing Psi/Fire means that you are pairing a single target, low mitigation, primary with a melee based, low mitigation, AoE heavy secondary. Those 2 things in combination are not survivable in inexperienced hands.

For Psi/Ice the secondary provides the mitigation that the primary lacks, however your secondary power set makes the secondary effects of your primary entirely redundant since you can cap -rech with your secondary alone.

The best pairing for Psi/ is with /Energy. Using boost range, hover, and capping out your ranged defense with IO sets.

Your observations regarding the set are entirely accurate. The lack of any guides is also a fairly obvious danger signal. IME Psi/ is the worst blaster primary. I played it once, deleted the character at level 33, and have never looked back.

Kind of hard to give you some tips on Psy/ besides just "go for a different primary."

It really is a sub-par primary for Blasters...

Ah. Well, I've done every other primary, so I'm still going to give it a shot - but I'm going into it with accurately low expecations

I'll have a look at an /Energy build, too. I was considering /Fire and /Ice for similar reasons to Psi/, just haven't used them much.

Energy or Electric would probably be a good secondary pairing, as you can pummel enemies that resist your Psi damage (it isn't resisted that often, but when it is resisted, it's resisted a lot).

And meh, don't let other people saying it's not that great get you down. You can make it work, even if it doesn't toast things as quickly as Fire.

psi is the most range friendly of the primaries right? that could be one perk.

Revisiting thread, taking a fresh look at the original post and original question.

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Originally Posted by GrantAnderson Just based on the numbers, I'd probably take Psi Dart, Mental Blast, TK Blast, Will Dom (though I'd grumble), Focus, Snipe and nuke.

Good start.

Snipe is iffy. The damage, animation time, and recharge time are standard for a snipe. So if you're looking for a snipe, you will like Lance. The side effect is nearly nonexistent (less recharge debuff than dart!), so if you're looking for a nasty single target debuff, you will hate Lance (stick to dart & MB for that).

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I'm fond of having control options, but the Tornado and Scramble take 2-3 seconds to animate, which I think is probably Too Long.

Tornado's damage is so-so, but it does put out a fair amount of -recharge over a wide area with a half decent duration. The 50% chance of knockup provides another (thin) layer of mitigation. Think of it as the set's utility power. I wouldn't skip it in PvE, personally.

A single target hard mez is nice to have. Scramble should be your last choice. But if your secondary and APP come up empty for hard mez, Scramble will have to do.

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I note that my AoE consists of Psychic Wail, which makes me wonder if /Fire might be the better choice, to rectify that.

If you're looking to mesh a psi blasting concept with AoE damage, consider a */MM blaster (pretending your secondary is your primary, which, with MM, isn't a big stretch!), or a */Psi offender, or a */Psi dominator. Punish yourself with Psi blaster primary only if you really, really need those Fire or Ice Manipulation powers for concept (I understand, Fire and Ice swords are cool), or really, really don't want to play a defender or dominator (but why?!).

If it's gotta be Psi/Fire or Psi/Ice... well, that's going to be a really tough decision. Each brings something Psi is lacking (yay!), but each lacks what the other is bringing (doh!). Psi/Ice has cool toys like Shiver and Ice Patch, but no AoE damage whatsoever, and Frozen Aura is the sad pathetic version the devs let Tankers off the hook from but not Blasters. Psi/Fire has AoE damage in spades, but no utility to speak of. It'll come down to your personal preference, I think.

In addition to Psi/Eng, Psi/Elec and Psi/MM aren't bad options, either. /Eng and /Elec both give you splendid damage type pairing, though your AoE damage will be stunted. /MM gives you a cone blast and a PBAoE, though your damage type will be stunted.

I kinda feel bad for Psychic Blast...it had so much going for it when it was first announced, but the devs figured it would be wayyyyy too overpowered so it was nerfed a wee bit too much...pity.