Psionic Armor..how is it?

[Razor Cure]

Mainly:

What was the justification/reasoning behind Devour Psyche being a cone rather than a PBAoE? I cant think of any powersets (aside from maybe claws and spines, with the aoe cone) where a Cone is not way way worse than a PBAoe. I am a scrapper..I dont want to stand in front of a mob to use use a cone (most of the time)..I wanna dive right in and let my Aoe's and any offensive/defensive secondary powers go to work. 

 

Other musings:

Every secondary armour set has a click Heal now (some like Dull Pain being +hp as well). Maybe the 'drain psy' type effect makes more sense, but just looking over the powers, I think a click heal would have (have to play more, my scrapper is only 17!) helpful. 

Also with Harmonic Mind already beinfg a power..the set having now auto (or tacked on) +rec and +_regen feels..odd. Every other new armour set has this.  A agrro/taunt auro that gave +recorery (and maybe regen) would have been pretty unique.

 

How are people finding Psi Armour?

[Erratic1]

1 hour ago, Razor Cure said:

Every secondary armour set has a click Heal now (some like Dull Pain being +hp as well).

 

Shield and Super Reflexes got heals?

[bAss_ackwards]

I've been enjoying it so far - made a Psi/Psi/Psi Scrapper  While I would prefer an AoE for Devour Psyche the cone does have some distance to it so I do use it as an initiator, which lets me get a high amount of stacks if not max. Psychokinetic armor can be used often and lets Devour do its thing when paired together. Memento Mori is a powerful tool to completely fill your HP back up and also keep you in the fight should you go down. The fear from it also gives a brief pause in combat. Aura of Insanity is nice to deal with the clunps of minions surrounding you, and I suspect will be a monster with Control Hybrid and Cognitive Interface. Adaptive recharge makes the set less prone to "sitting on cooldowns for that certiain right moment." It's an active set that gives you the goods.

 

I am still leveling it up, but at the moment I have a positional softcapped build I've made to back up the res/regen/barrier the set has. Should be fun in endgame! 💪🥳

[Razor Cure]

22 hours ago, Erratic1 said:

 

Shield and Super Reflexes got heals?

Haha, would be nice! I have a few Shield toons, so no clue how I forgot those!

[That Ninja]

On 6/21/2025 at 3:04 PM, bAss_ackwards said:

I've been enjoying it so far - made a Psi/Psi/Psi Scrapper  While I would prefer an AoE for Devour Psyche the cone does have some distance to it so I do use it as an initiator, which lets me get a high amount of stacks if not max. Psychokinetic armor can be used often and lets Devour do its thing when paired together. Memento Mori is a powerful tool to completely fill your HP back up and also keep you in the fight should you go down. The fear from it also gives a brief pause in combat. Aura of Insanity is nice to deal with the clunps of minions surrounding you, and I suspect will be a monster with Control Hybrid and Cognitive Interface. Adaptive recharge makes the set less prone to "sitting on cooldowns for that certiain right moment." It's an active set that gives you the goods.

 

I am still leveling it up, but at the moment I have a positional softcapped build I've made to back up the res/regen/barrier the set has. Should be fun in endgame! 💪🥳

sounds fun, would love to see what the build looks like

[Generator]

On 6/21/2025 at 3:04 PM, bAss_ackwards said:

I've been enjoying it so far - made a Psi/Psi/Psi Scrapper  While I would prefer an AoE for Devour Psyche the cone does have some distance to it so I do use it as an initiator, which lets me get a high amount of stacks if not max. Psychokinetic armor can be used often and lets Devour do its thing when paired together. Memento Mori is a powerful tool to completely fill your HP back up and also keep you in the fight should you go down. The fear from it also gives a brief pause in combat. Aura of Insanity is nice to deal with the clunps of minions surrounding you, and I suspect will be a monster with Control Hybrid and Cognitive Interface. Adaptive recharge makes the set less prone to "sitting on cooldowns for that certiain right moment." It's an active set that gives you the goods.

 

I am still leveling it up, but at the moment I have a positional softcapped build I've made to back up the res/regen/barrier the set has. Should be fun in endgame! 💪🥳

I started a DB/Psi over the weekend, and one reservation I've got about using Devour Psyche as an opening move is that you lose the Damage buff from Mask Presence, but maybe as I get a more complete build that'll be less of an issue.

 

If you'd be willing to show a build (be it actual or tentative), I'd be eager to see it.

 

Later on,

Generator 

[aethereal]

On 6/21/2025 at 5:58 AM, Erratic1 said:

 

Shield and Super Reflexes got heals?

 

Willpower also doesn't have a click heal, unless we're counting Resurgence.

[SomeGuy]

I can't comment about Psi Armor on Scrappers, since I only have experience with it on a Brute so far, but...it's really strong. It's not as damaging as other secondaries, but it has some really cool tools at its disposal. Overall, the set feels like a very solid win. I can definitely recommend it. When all three OH SHIs get pooped your HP/s can get really damn high. Surprisingly high. To the point the HP/s it gets up to actually matters. Aura of Insanity's HP drain isn't high enough to really worry me in practice, whereas it was before when I read about it. The PBAOE aura is actually really cool. 

 

The set makes use of the new Adaptive Recharge mechanic really well. To the point I wish it would get used with older sets who could greatly benefit from it (looking at you Dark Melee's Soul Drain...).

[Thraxen]

Just played some today.  The GIANT RED POP UP MESSAGE is already super annoying.  Like do I really need to know only first target affected, twice?  Seems like it's always twice.  And do other players need to see it?  Just a nuisance really.  Set plays fun though.  

[bAss_ackwards]

1 minute ago, Thraxen said:

Just played some today.  The GIANT RED POP UP MESSAGE is already super annoying.  Like do I really need to know only first target affected, twice?  Seems like it's always twice.  And do other players need to see it?  Just a nuisance really.  Set plays fun though.  

 

Known issue that has a fix in upcoming patch.

[bAss_ackwards]

On 6/22/2025 at 5:41 PM, That Ninja said:

sounds fun, would love to see what the build looks like

Sure thing! Will try and remember to get it uploaded later tonight. It's deeply expensive build, and heavily customized to playstyle but it might give some ideas.

[Thraxen]

2 minutes ago, bAss_ackwards said:

 

Known issue that has a fix in upcoming patch.

 

Awesome news.

[MTeague]

So, one thing I've been pondering.... what "weakness" does Psi Armor have (if any)

• Ice Armor is weak to Fire
• Fiery Aura is weak to Cold, and has no knockback protect.
• Invuln used to be weak to Psi, though that got shored up at least in part.
• Super Reflexes is great vs a lot, but you tend to get Whomped when you get his.
• Energy Aura is weaker vs Negative
• Dark Armor and Electric armor are great for Resists, but have no defense. Electric also has the whole "grounded" bit.
• Stone has slow movement to deal with, as well as nullifying your costumes in Granite. 

What's the "catch" on Psi Armor (if there is one)?

[Erratic1]

32 minutes ago, MTeague said:

So, one thing I've been pondering.... what "weakness" does Psi Armor have (if any)

 

Recharge reduction and sapping?

[mistagoat]

It has a Toxic hole and no Def debuff or Tohit debuff resistance. The Def doesn't matter but the tohit can make fighting COT a take longer than you'd like. Can also confirm, Sappers must be target number 1 or you die quick. Otherwise it seems pretty solid so far.

[aethereal]

1 hour ago, MTeague said:

 

What's the "catch" on Psi Armor (if there is one)?

 

It has lower Lethal resist than Smashing.  Not necessarily enough to constitute a "hole."

[bAss_ackwards]

On 6/22/2025 at 5:41 PM, That Ninja said:

sounds fun, would love to see what the build looks like

Build is set to +3 enemies.

 

Scrapper (Psionic Melee - Psionic Armor).mbd

[Thraxen]

11 hours ago, bAss_ackwards said:

Build is set to +3 enemies.

 

Scrapper (Psionic Melee - Psionic Armor).mbd 44.86 kB · 6 downloads

 

 

Looks crazy good.  I have a psi melee tank.  I love the animations while hovering.  Much more animated I feel.  While standing just seems like your whole torso down barely even moves.  Just me though.  I tried the PSI pet and didnt' like it.  Seemed like a lazy lil f'er.  

 

[bAss_ackwards]

5 hours ago, Thraxen said:

 

 

Looks crazy good.  I have a psi melee tank.  I love the animations while hovering.  Much more animated I feel.  While standing just seems like your whole torso down barely even moves.  Just me though.  I tried the PSI pet and didnt' like it.  Seemed like a lazy lil f'er.  

 

The pet is more for theme and set IO mule. 😆

[Lazarus]

20 hours ago, Erratic1 said:

Recharge reduction and sapping?

 

Psychokinetic Barrier

can be stacked up 3 time for 60% debuff res.

just put it on auto cast and love it.

[Erratic1]

8 minutes ago, Lazarus said:

 

Psychokinetic Barrier

can be stacked up 3 time for 60% debuff res.

just put it on auto cast and love it.

 

You mean this Psychokinetic Barrier?

 

 

The resistance lasts for 45s and the recharge time on the power is 60s. To maintain 3 stacks* , you would need to have +200% Global Recharge on top of +100% in the power itself--not exactly a trivial thing and certainly not something autocast will deliver on its own. And the default 20% is not really much in the way of protection.

 

*Mid's does not indicate is possible, but then Mid's can be wrong. Could you perhaps toss out a screenshot of it triple stacked?

 

[aethereal]

9 hours ago, Erratic1 said:

 

 

*Mid's does not indicate is possible, but then Mid's can be wrong. Could you perhaps toss out a screenshot of it triple stacked?

 

 

Check out City of Data!  It gives you this info.  Hover over or tap the icon that looks like a clock on that power effect that you screenshotted: "stacks and updates durations of current effects up to three times."

[Erratic1]

3 hours ago, aethereal said:

 

Check out City of Data!  It gives you this info.  Hover over or tap the icon that looks like a clock on that power effect that you screenshotted: "stacks and updates durations of current effects up to three times."

 

So it does. Still, you are going to need 167% Recharge to maintain two stacks and the aforementioned 300% Recharge to maintain to three stacks. Three stacks is in the realm of needing to have perma-Hasten. Between the two, probably better to shoot for maintaining two stacks and using Winter's Gift to get to 60% or just live with one stack combined with Winter's Gift to maintain 40% because the other tradeoff to getting the recharge down to 15s or so is it is firing off every 15s and takings its cast time out of your damage rotation. 

 

That still smacks of having a weakness to recharge reduction because you have to make use of non-trivial build workarounds to get some protection. 

[aethereal]

3 hours ago, Erratic1 said:

 

So it does. Still, you are going to need 167% Recharge to maintain two stacks and the aforementioned 300% Recharge to maintain to three stacks.

 

I'm not sure about this, but I think the "updates durations" part of the stacking rule means that when you apply a second stack, the first stack gets its remaining duration reset to 45 seconds?  Worth checking out, at least.

 

EDIT:  I just ran a quick test on Brainstorm.  It does appear to work like that: I put 100% recharge enhancement in the power (so recharge time was 30s), then clicked it, and stacked three icons in my buff bar, with none of them blinking or anything, at the end of my 1 minute period of clicking every 30 seconds (so, t=0, click once, t=30, click second time, t=60, click third time, three buff icons, none of the icons blinking at any point).

 

Edited 36 minutes ago by aethereal