Water Blast/Psi Armor... a few questions especially about Aura of Madness.

[Mindrivet]

I see very little talk about Aura of Madness in any forum. To me, it looks like a really good skill minus the short range. Water has a pretty decent heal over time with Dehydrate. I figured Dehydrate might offset some of the damage from the Aura of Madness and make it good?

The whole premise here would be to make use of it. I want to know if Aura of Madness just isn't that good.

Also, if I went with this combo what might enhance this vibe once I hit 50 for the extra abilities you can get?

[Octogoat]

Aura of madness does so little damage and with stacked psychokinetic barrier and devour psyche and momento mori you're going to be regenerating your pants off.

[JediDave]

Aura of Madness is very good. Ideal slotting late game is 2-3 Hami enhancements for acc/mez, since that will boost the mag on all of it's effects. If you have the inf for +3 HOs then 2 will be enough, but 3 is technically better, if very rarely noticeable. The cheaper option is the dam/mez HOs and maybe you go 2 of those and an acc IO. Damage slotting on it in general isn't going to do much, but the /mez enhancement you get from HOs is great. 

 

The damage you take from it is so minimal, I honestly forgot until this post that it deals damage to the player. With Mori up, my regen is hitting 160ish per second, and still pretty high but under 100 without Mori up. The damage isn't something you need to consider. 

 

That being said, I have 2 psi armor characters, one tank and one sent. The sent is usually at a decent range from the enemies, and I'm considering dropping aura just because I'm rarely in melee range, and I got just enough set bonuses to make ranged defense capped when teaming with my irl friends' added maneuvers. If your playstyle for water/psi keeps you at range the majority of the time, it may not be worth taking, at least not while leveling and unable to grab Hami-Os 

[Mindrivet]

Good to know, thanks

[Maelwys]

Aura of Madness/Insanity gets boosted and resisted by Magnitude, not by Duration.

It has 0.5 Mag (unboostable) plus 2.0 Mag (boostable).
You need it to be >Mag 3 to affect bosses, >Mag 2 to affect LTs and >Mag 1 to affect Minions.

2x Level 53 Acc/Mez HOs (+75.93% enhancement) will increase it to (0.5+(2.0*1.7593)) = Mag 4.0186 against even-level foes.
1x Level 53 Acc/Mez HOs (+38.30% enhancement) will increase it to (0.5+(2.0*1.3830)) = Mag 3.2660 against even-level foes.

Therefore a Single Level 53 Acc/Mez HO will get it to the point where it starts affecting Bosses; assuming you're only fighting even-level foes.
However typically at endgame, you will be fighting at +4x8 against Level 54 foes as a Level 50+1 character (so they'll be +3 to you!)

3x Level 53 Acc/Mez HOs (+97.23% enhancement) will increase it to (0.5+(2.0*1.9723))*0.65 = Mag 2.88899 against +3 foes.
2x Level 53 Acc/Mez HOs (+75.93% enhancement) will increase it to (0.5+(2.0*1.7593))*0.65 = Mag 2.61209 against +3 foes.
1x Level 53 Acc/Mez HOs (+38.30% enhancement) will increase it to (0.5+(2.0*1.3830))*0.65 = Mag 2.12290 against +3 foes.

So without an Alpha Slot or set bonuses helping you out, you can never get it to the point where it'll be kicking in against +3 Bosses.

Technically a T4 Intuition Radial Alpha Slot plus 3x Level 53 Acc/Mez HOs (+120.88% enhancement) will get it to (0.5+(2.0*2.2088))*0.65 = Mag 3.19644 against +3 foes.
...but that's only for HOLD aspect; not Confuse/Stun/Sleep/Fear. So "best case" you could get it to the point where it's able to occasionally hold +3 bosses.


TL;DR - without set bonus/alpha slot assistance; the breakpoints are:

Default Base Slotting: Will let you mez LTs at up to +1; and Minions at up to +4.

1x Acc/Mez HOs: Will let you mez Bosses at up to +0, LTs at up to +3; and Minions at up to +4.

2x Acc/Mez HOs: Will let you mez Bosses at up to +1, LTs at up to +3; and Minions at up to +5. 

3x Acc/Mez HOs: Will let you mez Bosses at up to +2, LTs at up to +4; and Minions at up to +5.


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"WTF Mael; just tell me how to slot the bloody thing!": 

For Mez purposes, you should really just stick a single Lv53 Acc/Mez HO in it and call it done.
But it has poor base accuracy (80%) so unless you have a sizable chunk of global accuracy... I'd go with:




And be aware that Mids' still thinks it's got 1.0 base accuracy instead of 0.8! 
In reality with the above slotting, my Stalker with 54% Global Accuracy is JUST capping their hit rate vs +3 foes.




 

Edited Thursday at 02:32 PM by Maelwys

[JediDave]

1 hour ago, Maelwys said:

*math*

 

I never actually sat down and did the math, just thought "I need this number bigger than 3, and more than that is a buffer for level adjustments" but it's nice to know the tldr section for future use. 

[Amp Up]

Absolute amazement is a good set to throw into aura of madness also if just for set bonus and utility.

[Sovera]

To counter Aura of Madness is a... well, an aura. A Sentinel is a ranged character. You should rarely be in melee range (most of the time). It's great for CC when mobs do get close to you though. 

 

I found Psi Armor a bit too busy on the melee characters but pretty solid for survival. I have no idea how familiar you are with Water Blast but I recently leveled one and considered it top notch. It's a Water/Bio a few posts down which ought to have some tips on slotting in case you feel you'd need them. Bottom line: don't trust Mids and what the damage it says Water Blast does 😄