I just made a psi/fire sent

[kelika2]

Holy shit.  Psi does horrifically amazing single target damage.  OK AoE damage

Fire armor just adds to AoE with Burn and Embrace just adds even more to everything.

 

I am now on a quest to make Fiery Aura everything Sentinel.  Burning arrows, hotter water, electrical burns and kinetic energy turned into fire.

 

 

New Archetype unlocked.

[Underfyre]

If Psi is blowing your mind, wait 'til you use one of the sets on the higher end of the damage scale.

[nihilii]

Yesterday, I hopped on a Psi/Elec Sent I didn't touch for years. The recent buffs are truly bringing the pain. Sure, Psi/ will never top the DPA charts - but laying out 700-800 damage hits regularly feels Good, also strangely unique in the ranged blast realm where animations tend to be shorter.

[Underfyre]

Yeah, it's the cumbersome activation times holding the set back.

[evetsleep]

2 hours ago, Underfyre said:

Yeah, it's the cumbersome activation times holding the set back.

 

Of all the sentinel primaries I really want to love Psi.  I've made a number of different versions (bio, invul, stone) and the damage isn't bad at all, but the attack chains just feel extremely choppy (maybe it's the activation times like you suggested).  Not sure how to describe it but they just don't flow.

 

That said I felt surprisingly effective with my psi/stone sentinel after getting the fire proc and bio is ... bio.  I imagine it's the same for /fire.

[kelika2]

45 minutes ago, evetsleep said:

but the attack chains just feel extremely choppy (maybe it's the activation times like you suggested).  Not sure how to describe it but they just don't flow.

I tend to use the slow>instant psi powers in pairs.

Tornado>Scream

Will Dom>TK Blast

Scramble>Strike

 

If I am far enough away from the target both abilities land at the same time

[drbuzzard]

Psi blast on sentinels is a reasonable set when it comes to DPAS (damage per activation second). DPAS is what really matters since it determines how much damage a chain of attacks can do over time. 

 

Let's compare a few sets for single target DPAS:

Psionic blast

Mental Blast 33
Telekinetic Blast 68
Will Domination 101
Psionic Strike 57
Scramble Thoughts 69

 

Radiation blast 

neutino bolt 51
X Ray Beam 54
Cosmic Burst 58
Proton Stream  75

 

Fire Blast
Flares 50
Fire Blast 70
blaze 132
blazing blast 72

 

(if these numbers appear to be a bit off from what you see in game, they are generated using arcanatime, which is the actual time needed for a power to activate rather than the listed value- the effect is greater, the shorter the activation time)

 

A few things stand out. Psionic definitely has some good hitters. Radiation doesn't really have the major wallop powers of other sets. Psi isn't bad, nor is it king (yeah, fire is). One thing I like to do on sentinels is make a chain of the three highest DPAS powers (mind you, I make every sentinel with perma hasten, so if it can't be chained in my builds, it likely can't really be done). For fire that's fire blast, blaze and blazing blast. Chained this is devastating. On rad the best you can do is X ray, Cosmic, and proton, and it is far behind fire, but it does chain smoothly. For psi it would be TK blast, Will Domination, Scramble, except these won't actually chain. There's a noticeable gap. Yes you could work in psi strike, but it will lower your DPAS and require resources to slot it up. 

 

So one reason psi seems a bit clunky is the chaining difficulty of the best attacks. Then there's the slow animations as the bolts slowly waft their way to target. This is a bit annoying as well. Last part of why psi doesn't get a whole lot of love, is how robots resist the hell out of it. Sure, in some cases psi is badass (say a cyclops doing unstoppable on an ITF and psi cuts right through it), but there's a lot more robots out there than baddies that use unstoppable. 

 

 

[chadius]

I love my Psi/Fire, but I'm very casual about this build. There's no easy way to chain everything, but I'm usually in melee anyway to use Burn, Psychic Wail, Psi Shockwave or Mind Probe.

 

- Will Domination takes too long and the projectile is slow. Skipped.

- Psi Scream is a big cone, I took it over Psi Tornado (another slow moving projectile when I could jump into melee instead)

- Scramble Thoughts -> Psi Strike -> TK Blast is a great "spike" combo to drop someone, or stun them while you hop in for melee. But you'll always have gaps in your attacks.

- Fighting Carnies hurts.

- It's fun laughing at Paragon Protectors who pop Unstoppable.