Psi Melee - Why so terrible?

[Troo]

Don't get me wrong, it is pretty and can do the job, but it feels so herky-jerky and slow.

 

The first time I saw the giant fist... wait, WHAT WAS THAT!!

 

I've tried a couple times, picking it and then shelving it. There's always a chance I'm doing it wrong and I really want to like it.

 

Is it better suited to a specific archetype?

 

It's not you psi melee, it's me..

 

Edited April 30, 2021 by Troo

[drbuzzard]

The funny thing about it was that when I first used it, I thought it was actually fast since the animations 'look' fast to me. Then I check the animations times and meh.

 

It's good against things which do unstoppable. Otherwise, meh.

[Outrider_01]

If you toss enough Skulls at it,, you can knock a cat out of a 50 foot tree from 3 blocks away.   

I ❤ mass levitate 

[Yomo Kimyata]

I detest all the elemental swords.  They are forbidden.

[MrAxe]

I have it on my main. Never thought I'd get telekinesis on a tank and along with my favourite mez its like it was made for me. I don't mind that it manifests itself as a fist. I just wish it was easier to see in a crowd. The tank buffs sorted out the issues I had with the cone and aoe so for me at least a tank was the right choice.

[Lazarillo]

I have two main beefs with Psi Melee:

 

First off, the animations are cool, but the SFX played when you miss sound like nails on a chalkboard to me.

 

Second, insight is janky.  Sometimes you get it, sometimes you don't.  Sometimes you want it, but can't get it, sometimes it would be better to "save" it because what you need it for isn't ready, but it expires.  And then you get locked out for an arbitrary amount of time.  It's like all the worst parts of the Savage Melee mechanic (which I'm also not fond of), combined with the worst of the ones from Water Blast (probably not surprising that both Psi and Savage were half-baked, unfinished sets at the time the game originally ended).

 

"Psi Melee" is a cool concept but I just can't see myself wanting to dedicate much time to a character with it.

[Replacement]

I am not super keen on Psi Melee's Feast or Famine sensation.

 

EDIT: Whoops.  I hit Submit to soon.

 

As for the best AT, I think Stalkers probably have it best for managing Insight, but the loss of Sweep sucks.  I like it on Scrapper, but it feels even more reliant on "the" ATO than other melee sets.

 

Critical Greater Insight Strike is delicious.

 

Neither here nor there, but I still kind of wish Psi Melee was more of a "grab bag" of benefits, such as an elemental/psi version of Parry, and other assorted per-attack benefits during Insight instead of +dot.

Edited April 30, 2021 by Replacement

[Replacement]

Also finally posted this, in case it helps explain why I think Psi skews Stalker:

 

 

[Placta]

2 hours ago, Lazarillo said:

Second, insight is janky.  Sometimes you get it, sometimes you don't.  Sometimes you want it, but can't get it, sometimes it would be better to "save" it because what you need it for isn't ready, but it expires.  And then you get locked out for an arbitrary amount of time.  It's like all the worst parts of the Savage Melee mechanic (which I'm also not fond of), combined with the worst of the ones from Water Blast (probably not surprising that both Psi and Savage were half-baked, unfinished sets at the time the game originally ended).

 

I'm not familiar with Savage or Water, but this is my main struggle with Psi Melee. It's a general buff to all your attacks, but using your best single-target attack kills it and locks you out for the full duration. So is it worth holding back on Greater Psi Blade to get more damage out of a couple more powers before using up Insight? I don't know. I've given up trying to figure it out. Now I just run my rotations, and if I get some extra damage from insight, nice.

 

(Also, Boggle took me a while to wrap my head around. You're giving me a bonus to attack a confused enemy? Now I think it's there so you can get some benefit from using Boggle on AVs and similarly unconfuseable enemies.)

[Xeph]

I've played the set to mid 30s on both a Brute and Stalker. On my Brute it felt... okay. Not terrible but not great.

 

However on my Stalker it felt far better. Given how a Stalker tends to fight it's a little easier to get value out of insight. Further - nothing is better than being in the middle of a big group, dropping the boss and then immediately launching the rest of the group in the air. Having a solid AoE on a Stalker like that feels great.

 

Additionally Boggle is an odd ball. Not terribly useful on a Brute, on a Stalker however it's fairly handy. Because using it doesn't break stealth you can use it to reduce the alpha a fair bit.

 

Psi Melee is kind of odd. It falls into the realm of almost being good but has some notable issues keeping it from really shining.

[Outrider_01]

8 hours ago, Lazarillo said:

Second, insight is janky.  Sometimes you get it, sometimes you don't.  Sometimes you want it, but can't get it, sometimes it would be better to "save" it because what you need it for isn't ready, but it expires. 

This, Insight goes off like an enhancement proc.  Mass levetivate, almost every time with its slower recharge.  With the faster single targets, almost never.

 

8 hours ago, Lazarillo said:

It's like all the worst parts of the Savage Melee mechanic (which I'm also not fond of), combined with the worst of the ones from Water Blast (probably not surprising that both Psi and Savage were half-baked, unfinished sets at the time the game originally ended).

Savage melee is pretty decent, trick is to build it up to 3-4 and consume with Hemorrhage or Rending Flurry before hitting 5.  If you build to 5, burn it off and hit Blood thirst again instant 5 to do a double combo.  Then you have a crash lock out.

 

And WTF is up with Blood Thirst?  Paragon Wiki says it used to be a +HP and +Regen.  Its a useless BU in that regard except Blood Thirst is 15 second duration to +DMG, with enough recharge you can get it down to 22 seconds without incarnate. I wouldn't mind a heal type in the attack powers, Dark Melee/Rad Melee is the only one with heal.  Savage Melee with Ice armor of any melee AT would be wicked fun as it would have a minor heal to back up Hoarfrost.

[SaintD]

It's too all or nothing.

Either it's great, or you're spending your entire endurance bar and five minutes to kill an Arachnos robot spawn. There is no in-between. While the set allows you to style all over some enemies who are normally problematic, the Catch-22 is being massively resisted by an entire type of enemies who are ridiculously common.

It's not a worthwhile balance, especially when I can just take Fire or Rad and style all over everything.

[Xeph]

8 minutes ago, SaintD said:

...just take Fire or Rad and style all over everything.

While this might be true, and you enjoy it, not everyone wants to play that particular combo. Rad debuff is a VERY strong set, which I fully acknowledge, but it's not my cup of tea.

 

The universal issue with all games. There are some things that are just better - no argument. Thankfully City of Heroes has sufficient flexibility that you can play something sub-optimal and still have a ton of fun.

 

Sometimes just the flair and style of something makes it worth while. To a certain extent I feel that's the case with Psi Melee. If you're not in it for the flair you might want to beware.

[ForeverLaxx]

The animations are what I don't like, or rather, how stiff and ad hoc they are. It can make the character feel a lot slower and looks unpolished, and considering the set was never really complete before the shutdown, it makes sense that it looks and feels the way it does. That said, I have fun with TK Blow and chaining it with Air Superiority to effectively infinitely juggle anything that I can't outright assassinate on my Stalker. It also helps fill the TWENTY LEVEL gap between 6 and 26 where you get ZERO additional attacks in-set. I'll probably end up removing Air Superiority once he gets high enough. It does make me wish there was a decent, entry-level pool attack for some minor AoE though to make exemplaring feel better, but I'm sure that will never happen in a million years.

 

Some people like Boggle, but I personally can't find a good use for it. It's effectively a pure, non-damage, single target control power in a melee damage set and while that's not unique to this set (though more common in ranged damage sets), it gets pushed aside like all the others in my builds even though the AT I use the set on (Stalker) would probably get the most out of it. It's short range, but doesn't break Hide to use, which can be a boon in the right situation. I just haven't found the "right" situation.

[TygerDarkstorm]

1 hour ago, Outrider_01 said:

And WTF is up with Blood Thirst?  Paragon Wiki says it used to be a +HP and +Regen.  

You may have mixed up Blood Thirst with Blood Craze. Dom's get Blood Craze, which gives +HP and +Regen.

[Outrider_01]

1 hour ago, TygerDarkstorm said:

You may have mixed up Blood Thirst with Blood Craze. Dom's get Blood Craze, which gives +HP and +Regen.

, Paragon wiki is wrong then.  Says melee sets get Craze

[MrAxe]

I use the persuasive coercion proc to turn boggle into an aoe. Makes it a lot more useful. In fact the whole set has some nice bonuses.

[Spaghetti Betty]

I have a Psi/WP scrapper. He's crazy good. I didn't like the animations until I landed on a concept for a blind hero. Now the very lax animations kind of make sense to me. It's not supposed to be super grandiose, since you're essentially making your enemies believe you're swinging a blade at them. That's the way I see it anyways.

 

Also, this set hits stupid hard. Greater Psi Blade is ridiculous. Sure, it takes a little setup, but I can't really complain when Build Up + Insight + Crit Strikes means GPB is 1 shotting +3 bosses. Psi Blade Sweep is an amazing cone move. I think the only gripe I really have is Mass Levitate is kinda weak but works wonders for my set with a Force Feedback proc thrown in there. It offers really good crowd control when you can get it coming back up pretty regularly, and with that and RttC he ends up doing very well in groups.

 

And finally, having skippable options in the set just allows me to spice up the build a little bit with stuff like Moonbeam so that I do have a bit of leverage for dealing with robots.

 

This is just my opinion. My perspective on its damage could be also be skewed by the fact my main 50s are a StJ/WP brute and a Staff/SR scrapper, so I'm used to working a bit for damage.

[Parabola]

My biggest gripe with psi melee is that all the attacks are a mixture of smash/lethal and psi. So not only do you have issues with enemy resistances but you don't have any pure psi attacks to punch through things like moment of glory. It really feels like they missed a trick there.

[cranebump]

16 hours ago, Yomo Kimyata said:

I detest all the elemental swords.  They are forbidden.

Can’t stand them as well. Wish we had alternate non-weapon choices.

[Leogunner]

8 hours ago, ForeverLaxx said:

Some people like Boggle, but I personally can't find a good use for it. It's effectively a pure, non-damage, single target control power in a melee damage set and while that's not unique to this set (though more common in ranged damage sets), it gets pushed aside like all the others in my builds even though the AT I use the set on (Stalker) would probably get the most out of it. It's short range, but doesn't break Hide to use, which can be a boon in the right situation. I just haven't found the "right" situation.

It's a "free buffs" button.

 

If a spawn has an Lt that tosses out a force field generator or defense bubble or an Accelerate Metabolism buff at the start of a fight, you get to just claim that yourself.  Or do you not like extra defense, attack, recovery, rech, etc?

[ForeverLaxx]

1 hour ago, Leogunner said:

It's a "free buffs" button.

 

If a spawn has an Lt that tosses out a force field generator or defense bubble or an Accelerate Metabolism buff at the start of a fight, you get to just claim that yourself.  Or do you not like extra defense, attack, recovery, rech, etc?

I tend to just blow up the spawn, or afk in mission so long the buffs time out. There's no middleground when I'm soloing, and when in a team, no one cares if I confuse the "buff bot" because they attack and kill it first anyway.

[TygerDarkstorm]

8 hours ago, Outrider_01 said:

, Paragon wiki is wrong then.  Says melee sets get Craze

Huh, yeah, Idk, I logged onto my grav/savage dom right before I posted that just to double check the power. I've heard Paragon Wiki can be a bit outdated though.

[Parabola]

5 hours ago, cranebump said:

22 hours ago, Yomo Kimyata said:

I detest all the elemental swords.  They are forbidden.

Can’t stand them as well. Wish we had alternate non-weapon choices.

I'd like to have the option to use alternative elemental sword animations for all attacks in those sets. All attacks with or without swords would probably be easier on the eye than some with and some without.

[Leogunner]

1 hour ago, ForeverLaxx said:

I tend to just blow up the spawn, or afk in mission so long the buffs time out. There's no middleground when I'm soloing, and when in a team, no one cares if I confuse the "buff bot" because they attack and kill it first anyway.

One could say that is either a "you" problem or one could use this as another example of just how exceedingly easy the game is that mostly no thought is utilized when committing to a combat engagement.

 

Some might respond that "they like the game easy so they can relax" to which I'd reply "turn your settings down then".