Psychic/Mental Manipulation Blaster

I haven't seen any guides for this, despite from what I can tell, there is very little in the way of defense against a P/MM save for being a robot (and even then, we can just knock 'em around the room like pinballs).

I'm starting a new toon with it, and was wondering about slotting and such, anyone have some advice for what to get/what to slot/what secondaries to get?

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There's a guide to Mental Manip on the guide page somewhere, but yeah, no Psi/MM guides. I just made a Psi/MM Blaster, only level 8, but enjoying it so far. Psi Blast is light on AoE, so planning to take the AoE's in MM to fill that gap. Not sure about World of Confusion, though.

Edit: Found that Mental Manip guide. From I12, so not exactly recent.

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My Arc: The Power From Out Of Space, ID# 64800
Mrs. Spoon's Arc: Shades of Betrayal, Acts of Salvation, ID# 59147

In my opinion Psi is a weak blast set for PVE. Blaster defiance tells us that blaster survival is defeat them before they can defeat you.

Psi deficiencies are:

1. Single target focused. - Being low in AoE damage means that minions live a long time and can contribute a significant amount of damage to you before they are defeated.
2. Pure Psi Damage - Except for Telekinetic Thrust all of the damage in the primary is pure Psi damage. Against things that are weak to Psi (only a few PvE mobs are weak to Psi) this is a bonus. Against things that resist Psi this becomes a significant problem. Things that do resist Psi usually have very high resistances to Psi (robots, carnies) making defeating these mobs with your primary excruciatingly slow.
3. Secondary effect does not keep mobs out of melee range. - The secondary effects of Psi are -rech on the enemy. -Rech is a decent form of mitigation if it can be stacked up to the cap and can be applied to the entire spawn. Psi/ does not do this.
4. Single target Mez does not stack in the primary. - Psi has 2 single target controls. Will Dom is a mag 3 sleep that does decent damage. The damage component means that it won't stack. Scramble thoughts is a very low damage power that takes 3 seconds to cast. If a Mob is in melee they can defeat you long before you can get it cast.

With the above in mind Psi can be made to work if:

1. You slot set bonuses that provide you with capped (or near capped) ranged defense and a moderate amount of AoE defense. (to mitigate 1 above)
2. You combine this with Hover to keep the mobs out of melee. (to mitigate 1 above)
3. You select an Epic Power set that provides an other AoE attack (to mitigate 1 above)
4. You pair the set with something other than Mental Manipulation so that you have a damage type that isn't Psi for when you run into Psi resistant mobs. (to mitigate 2 above)
5. You select an Epic Power set that provides an AoE immob (to mitigate 3 above)
6. You select an Epic Power set that has a fast activating single target Mez (to mitigate 4 above)

In regards to 1, 2, and 4 in the second section above, the Secondary Power set that provide the best fit is Energy Manipulation. It fills several gaps:

Smashing and Energy Damage, stackable stuns with moderate activation times (High Damage on Total focus but at the cost of animation time), and boost range to keep the mobs out of melee range longer.

In regards to 3 in the second section above, the Epic Power sets that provide an additional AoE attack that is not Psi based are:

Mace Mastery
Mu Mastery
Electric Mastery
Leviathan Mastery
Munitions Mastery (caveat)
Soul Mastery

The caveat on Munitions Mastery is that the AoE attack is extremely powerful, has tremendous range, but is on a long recharge timer. That makes in unsuitable for the intended purpose.

In regards to 5 in the second section above, the Epic Power sets that provide an AoE Immob are:

Mace Mastery
Mu Mastery
Leviathan Mastery
Soul Mastery

In regards to 6 in the second section above, The Epic Power sets that provide a fast actvating single target mez are:

Electric Mastery
Flame Mastery (caveat)
Leviathan Mastery (bonus)
Munitions Mastery

Caveat to Flame mastery is that even though the animation is fast the power has a slow moving (you can pass it with unslotted Super Speed) projectile making it unsuitable for our purposes.

The Bonus in Leviathan is that it has a fast activating ranged hold AND a hard hitting melee hold that provides Knock up. Using this first gives you the opportunity to stack a hold on a boss before it can retaliate.

Taking every thing into consideration the best possible combination would be a Psi/Energy/Leviathan blaster. I would not play or recommend it since it is about as opposite a traditional blaster as it is possible to be (ie: goes against the grain of defiance), would not come into it's own until VERY late game, and I can't stand the Leviathan animations.

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