Focused Feedback New Powerset - Psionic Armor (Brutes, Scrappers, Sentinels, Stalkers, Tankers)

[Shin Magmus]

Looks perfect as-is, send it!

[JayboH]

1 hour ago, StarkWhite said:

Someone's psi armor was making me hallucinate that I posted in it an awful lot, then.

Was it in the Patch Notes threads instead?  I just looked and there isn't one, nor is there one in the archives?  PM me

[Parabola]

I've realised I really dislike random mez effects. Two main reasons. Firstly they can't be easily enhanced (hamis being expensive and end-game). Secondly working out how to stack enough mez magnitude to shut down bosses is an enormous part of my character building these days. There are more and more bosses that do something deeply annoying if they aren't mezzed. A random effect mez is unfortunately almost completely useless for this.

[KittyEater88]

1 hour ago, Wavicle said:

Psi epic shields are resist based.

Link Minds

[Kalean]

Having played with it for a (very) short time, +4/8x was pretty handily solo-able on a sentinel as long as Sappers and the like were focused.  Not face-roll, mind, but with minimal kiting or strategy involved. This was with a fully IO set build, but it's not like I fine tuned it much beyond the obvious uniques.

 

My observations were :

 

• The resist numbers were a little low on the Sentinel.  Even with very rare and PVP/event sets, I didn't even approach hard-cap on any resistance but Psionic.
• Defenses got up to the low 30s, but with no DDR, key enemy types strip them right off.
• Max Devour Psyche stacks and minor regen slotting kept regen at around 4.2%, very nice w/some max hp bonuses.  And endurance just wasn't a problem at all while at max stacks.
• Aura of Insanity was quite fun at lower levels, but didn't work so hot in +4 content.
• Memento Mori was surprisingly good even unslotted; I pulled three groups + missed a sapper, so died.  MM got me up, killed the sapper, and had time for toggles/stacks.
• Keeping Devour Psyche up on the enemy group was very effective at keeping their endurance empty for something that lasts a full minute.

 

On the whole, I'd say the set is a little under-tuned defensively, but over-packed with neat ideas.

 

It's quite fun to play with on a sentinel, imo, the maintaining of Psyche stacks while darting in for the aura to proc lines up well with the reduced nuke times for sentinels to make a constant loop of stuff to do, and the adaptive recharge really makes keeping those stacks up easy as hell once you have em.  Memento Mori is ALWAYS UP, which is great as long as you remember to toggle impenetrable mind right away upon res and get psyche back up.

 

I'd suggest making pre-cog either give out more defense, or give it DDR.  Both in my wildest dreams. 

 

If you want to get dirty, you could also have Aura of Insanity's magnitude and effect area increase a bit depending on Devour Psyche Stacks.

 

I'd play it with those changes, easy.

 

 

[Kalean]

A few minimal FX options wouldn't go unappreciated.

Edited Thursday at 08:44 PM by Kalean

[Wavicle]

38 minutes ago, KittyEater88 said:

Link Minds

That’s a team buff power, not self shields.

[BrandX]

Is Memento Mori supposed to be Dark Energy damage, or is it meant to be Psychic damage?

[BrandX]

2 hours ago, Parabola said:

I've realised I really dislike random mez effects. Two main reasons. Firstly they can't be easily enhanced (hamis being expensive and end-game). Secondly working out how to stack enough mez magnitude to shut down bosses is an enormous part of my character building these days. There are more and more bosses that do something deeply annoying if they aren't mezzed. A random effect mez is unfortunately almost completely useless for this.

 

I will say, I was going around attacking groups of Anniversary enemies and the random effects seems to happen plenty, but I have to agree, it makes it hard to stack anything and the damage effect didn't seem to pop up enough even if they didn't look to get mezzed.

 

Interesting power, but weird in use.

[Videra]

So, the big secret, the thing that will save Psionic Armor . . . 

Is that its aura debuffs enemies that have been mezzed by any source. So if you mez something in your aura radius, everything inside is hit with -7.5% res. Which means I was right! This is the most homecoming set ever! It's still bad and I have no reason to ever use it in endgame, but you know, whatever.

[Seed22]

On +3×8 council it can do decent.

 

+4×8 is a noticeable struggle.

 

All on a Psi/SS meta build tank.

 

 

This set's secret interaction btw is AoI has -res when a target is mezzed. I barely glanced at it in CB but back then a lot of powers werent working right so I forgot about it plus well...trying to stay on my own two feet with it was most important.

 

 

This set makes me think: I really miss Paragon Studios.

Edited yesterday at 01:23 PM by Seed22

[macskull]

22 minutes ago, Videra said:

So, the big secret, the thing that will save Psionic Armor . . . 

Is that its aura debuffs enemies that have been mezzed by any source. So if you mez something in your aura radius, everything inside is hit with -7.5% res. Which means I was right! This is the most homecoming set ever! It's still bad and I have no reason to ever use it in endgame, but you know, whatever.

It's only -res if the target is/was slept, the debuff is different for each type of mez.

 

One very important aspect of this power that is not mentioned anywhere in the patch notes is that the magnitude of mez and strength of debuff get lower for each target affected. This really does seem more and more like a "random bullshit go!" power.

Edited yesterday at 12:52 AM by macskull

[Vanden]

3 minutes ago, macskull said:

One very important aspect of this power that is not mentioned anywhere in the patch notes is that the magnitude of mez and strength of debuff get lower for each target affected. This really does seem more and more like a "random bullshit go!" power.

 

But the patch notes also don't mention that enhancements increase the magnitude of the mez rather than the duration, so it all evens out, I guess...?

[macskull]

Just now, Vanden said:

 

But the patch notes also don't mention that enhancements increase the magnitude of the mez rather than the duration, so it all evens out, I guess...?

Not really, no, but that would also be good information to put in the patch notes.

Edited yesterday at 12:57 AM by macskull

[Videra]

Oh goody, that makes it even more ridiculous!

[Koopak]

Ran into tech issues so cant provide footage tonight but ill just highlight, if you enhance the power for what it does rather than what you want it to do, and take a complimenting Alpha it very reliably keeps +4 enemies in check.

Edited yesterday at 03:31 AM by Koopak

[Kalean]

31 minutes ago, Koopak said:

Ran into tech issues so cant provide footage tonight but ill just highlight, if you enhance the power for what it does rather than what you want it to do, and take a complimenting Alpha it very reliably keeps +4 enemies in check.

I'll happily test that if you can be slightly more specific.  Mine didn't hit +4s often with some Hamis in it.

 

[Kaballah]

Overall really happy with this how this set works, except I think Psychokinetic Barrier is very skippable. The absorb is fine, the 20% debuff resist in various types doesn't feel very exciting at all. Would rather have a narrower set of debuff resistance types in larger amounts or some other utility effect. The power FX makes it look like something awesome is happening and the mechanics don't really feel like a big deal at all, Memento Mori feels much more impactful.

Otherwise I think it's a great set and has a bunch of interesting options to it, I really like Aura of Insanity because it encourages a lot of odd choices in incarnate power choices and gearing.

[Kaballah]

One thing I'd like to see is a Universal Control enhancement set, akin to Universal Damage.

[Wavicle]

5 hours ago, Kaballah said:

The absorb is fine, the 20% debuff resist in various types doesn't feel very exciting at all.

The debuff resistance stacks. If you fire off the power often enough you can have significantly higher debuff resistance.

[Seed22]

17 hours ago, Shin Magmus said:

Looks perfect as-is, send it!

Agreed. 
 

It’s giving me Arsenal vibes, which as we all know is one of the most popular control sets. This’ll be a main tank for HM and hami easy

[Koopak]

11 hours ago, Kalean said:

I'll happily test that if you can be slightly more specific.  Mine didn't hit +4s often with some Hamis in it.

 

I'll be handling it today barring more issues, but in the interest of more eyes on things. You need both accuracy and general mez slotted into the power, its not auto hit, and you really aught to have a T3 alpha for the level shift. But that's all true for most sets. Even if you go musc core, you should be look are around mag 3.4 or so mez, which should stay over mag 3 for at least the first 2 probably first 3 targets, letting it effect bosses.

I'd probably go Intuition Radial though for a dps AT, and Vigor Radial for a tank. D-Sync Binding is the easiest way to get your all mez slotting combined with accuracy, so I take 3 of them, and pump them to 53, the remaining 3 potential slots you can get creative with. Damage is a solid option due to the dot applied if the mez fails, in fact slotting the power as a pure damage aura is completely valid if you wont be holding aggro anyways. Damage procs and procs that roll and apply to enemies don't do well since its your usual aura toggle, but subsequently self buff procs do as they check per target, hence me calling outn Entomb and Call of the Sandman earlier. You can leave it 3 slotted with Bindings or go 4-5 slow and franken slot for mez and itll still perform very very well without the procs to be clear. I know some people like taking my explanations out of context.

[Shin Magmus]

Have they said why they wanted this one random power, with random effects, to be the exception to Mez Enhancements increase duration and instead have Mez Enhancements increase magnitude?  I'd just like to know why.

[Koopak]

 

17 minutes ago, Shin Magmus said:

Have they said why they wanted this one random power, with random effects, to be the exception to Mez Enhancements increase duration and instead have Mez Enhancements increase magnitude?  I'd just like to know why.

If i recall correctly, the same flag that makes a mez's duration ignore purple patch also makes the mez's magnitude now be effected by purple patch and by extension enhancements. That means either you make the mez not be effected by enhancements at all, and have a static mez that is reduced by purple patch, or you make it enhancable. Otherwise its duration is effected by purple patch and you don't get the clean switch over between mezes every 4 seconds.

Edit: This is how Cloak of Fear works as well.

Edited yesterday at 04:09 PM by Koopak

[arcane]

Just logged onto Beta to write down numbers so I can start builds. Three comments:

 

1) The lethal weakness also looked like an error to me at first glance, but I see that’s been addressed.

 

2) Patch notes say Impose Presence is Def(All) but the in game info doesn’t show AoE defense. Is this intentional?

 

3) We’re all in agreement that Aura of Insanity is the power to skip right? (I’m totally fine with that - picking 9 primary powers is painful)