Psi-grenadier tips?

[MilkyMan]

So I've just gotten to Junkyard on my first character; who's a crossbow, stealth, trapper type person. I've spread myself a little too thin though so I'm starting fresh and looking for a different style.

I'm going to keep digging through the forums, but any advice for a PSIchotic bomber who crafts and has good speech? Or is that too thin and reckless?

All advice appreciated. Thank you.

[Triste]

I don't think you'd need or want Granades plus Psionics to do an explosive / burning build, since Metathermics can already do what granades do with Pyrokinesis and Cryokinetic Orb and more, and you won't need to spend extra on Chemistry and Throwing. Also you can make people blow up after they die with Thermodynamic Destabilization and have the other goodies that come with Metathermics.

Then again all builds are more or less possible; I think so you could do maybe Temporal Manipulation for the buffing / debuffing and Thowing and Chemistry to make it happen. Then you could also add maybe Though Control for Frighten and Mental Breakdown, to incapacitate enemies or make then run around while you bomb the rest. You need something to keep them together or to kite them around, but with enough feats and powerful enough granades one or two throws will kill just about anything.

[chimaera]

You don't need that much throwing, dexterity or chemistry to be an effective bomber, so it's very viable. Especially now that Expedition added plasma grenades that you can craft with electronics.

Search on these forums for the psi guide by TheAverageGortsby. I'd recommend the tranquility build as a base, raise dex to 6 (just go with lower int if you need stat points) and squeeze in the grenadier feat somewhere.
Throwing effective 80-90 is enough for someone who uses grenades for support.

Regarding chemistry, I think you need ca. 70  to craft mkiv grenades, which will also let you craft flashbangs & the best molotovs. But you could also go for plasma grenades instead and not invest in chemistry at all, because molotovs can be bought and a lot of enemies drop flashbangs.

[MilkyMan]

Thanks very much. I might swap grenades for chem pistols then?

[chimaera]

Not quite. The thing about grenades is that it's easy to incorporate them as a support skill into a full psi build. Chemical pistols on the other hand are intended as main offense; you could use them for support if you have relatively high perception. There is an interesting crossbow build using acid pistols on these forums, Iook it up.

To sum it up: for a psi-grenadier I'd recommend focusing first and foremost on psi, and using grenades for support. For a psi-pistoleer, I'd recommend focusing on chemical pistols instead and using psi for support. In this case you start with 10 perception, but only 3 will, and spend only the minimum skill points needed to get the psi abilities that can be used for disabling or buffing.

[HulkOSaurus]

So I've just gotten to Junkyard on my first character; who's a crossbow, stealth, trapper type person. I've spread myself a little too thin though so I'm starting fresh and looking for a different style.

I'm going to keep digging through the forums, but any advice for a PSIchotic bomber who crafts and has good speech? Or is that too thin and reckless?

All advice appreciated. Thank you.

It will make your life quite easy. You can invest enough in Chemistry/Mechanics to have MkIII 'nades for Depot A, while keeping your chosen Psi schools high enough, plus the Grenadier Feat, as well as Psionic Mania, Premediation and Force User. You will be able to make and use a good enough variety of tools to steamroll through that part of the game, even on DOMINATING. A Premediation/Psionic Mania Pyrokinesis, followed by a MkIII Frag, shoot weapon, then block the passage with Force Fields. Reduce cooldowns with Temporal Manipulation, then repeat. 

For social you won't have enough points to go into anything else than Mercantile, but that alone will make your life easy enough. You will be able to buy Adrenaline shots, instead of crafting them, but later on you will be able to craft those. If you ask me, take Thought Control, Metatermics and Guns as main skills. Put enough points into Temporal and Psychokinesis to get the good support skills. At first you will need only 25 in each, I think. You can double check how much is the cooldown reduction. 

Why take Guns, as well, you ask? Because you won't be able to clean everything with 'nades and Psi all the time. Having a weapon to fall back to will help immensely here, and Guns will offer the lowest AP investment for a very high return in terms of damage. SMGs seem like a solid choice here because of your initial investment into Dex for Throwing. Throughout the course of the game you will be able to craft the best possible SMGs with W2C bullets. 

[chimaera]

Why take Guns, as well, you ask? Because you won't be able to clean everything with 'nades and Psi all the time. 

Except you can, pure psi even without any support skills is quite easy.