Psychosis Cryokinetic/Electrokinetic/Temporal Theorycrafting

[mir]

Hello Everybody,

I've been lurking these forums for a couple years now, playing the game on and off and decided to get on for the new Heavy Duty DLC. One of the new items, Psychophract armor, caught my attention and I thought I'd give making my own build a try instead of relying on someone else's guide. However, I haven't actually given a 10 con hemopsychosis build a go and I thought I'd get some suggestions from you all. Ideally, I want a build that can clear Hard reliably, and Dominating with some effort.

underrail.info/build/?HgMDAwoDEAgAWQAAAADCkU96AAA8awxCaADCoMKgRi0APSsIX1BiKixlZsKHwoTCvcKIVx9yZ8K34qK1AuKsgwLirIwK4qyXAd--

Ironically, despite the psychophract armor catching my attention, I can't really justify the strength requirement to use it. So, I thought I'd try my hand at something that may work just a bit better, and won't have to wait until the hardest content to get something to make the idea work.

Base Stats:
- Strength: 3
- Dexterity: 3
- Agility: 3
- Constitution: 10 (+1 Equip +1 Food)
- Perception: 3
- Will: 10 (+6 Leveling +2 Feat)
- Intelligence: 8

Here is the current level 30 setup I have planned out. This has been strongly influenced by the quad-school psychosis build guide suggested by the insightful PoopiemcButtface, with my own edits for what I'd like to play with, particularly. I do have some questions I'd like to ask some more experienced players with, I would appreciate the feedback.

My standard innervations would be as follows:
- Cryokinesis
- Cryokinetic Orb
- Electrokinesis
- Electrokinetic Imprint
- Psycho-Temporal Contraction
- Limited Temporal Increment

Other spells I'd learn and keep as backup as necessary:
- Pyrokinesis
- Thermodynamic Destabilization
- Exothermic Aura
- Plasma Beam
- Stasis

I would love to have at least 8 innervation slots so I could include some more spells without having to dump my psi reserves to switch them or just use them all in one battle, but that's the old days, we don't get that anymore, and I can't justify the psi headband slot for the extender or two intelligence points. On equipment plans, I plan to rely mostly on crafting with the unique Sørmirbæren Spirit Staff.

Loadout:
- Head: Muffled Uni-Psi Amplifier
- Body: Antithermic Sturdy Psionic Overcoat (Super Steel)
- Belt: Doctor's Pouch
- Feet: Infused Bison Leather Striders (High Density Padding)
- Weapon 1: Sørmirbæren Spirit Staff
- Weapon 2: Not Used
- Shield Emitter: High Efficiency Medium/High Frequency Shield Emitter
- Utility 1: Flashbang
- Utility 2: Incendiary/EMP Grenade
- Utility 3: Taser
- Food: Burrower Burger

I intend to have a sneak suit for when I have to get around to explore and all that but avoid combat, most likely black cloth tabi and the lovely Rathound Regalia. For crafting to get the tech segment of the skills list, Lemurian Engineer Suit and Bioinvestigative belt. For reaching the last of the persuasion checks, Hypno Goggles, and Large Waist Pack for the last mercantile checks.

I believe a more min-maxed approach to the headband would be to use a Neuroscopic Metathermic Amplifier instead, or swap out the Proximal Neuroscopic Filter for one of the Magnifying Neuroscopic Filters. I'm not sure how well that would work in practice, however. I can imagine almost immediately draining all my Psi instantly when Hemopsychosis is on cooldown and having to constantly wait for  my Psi Booster cooldown to refresh. The crit chance is already high enough, especially with the addition from Psychostatic Electricity. The damage should already be very high as well, so my thoughts are that the Psionic Mufflers would give the build some more longevity and make up for the psi penalties that come along with Psychosis, but since I haven't tested it out late game in practice, I'm not sure what would be more efficient, or if stacking all crit and damage would be too much overkill and too little staying power.

Following up on Feat choices, I followed a lot of the structure from what PoopieMcButtface suggested. For convenience, I'll list them below:
- 1: Conditioning (Mechanical, heat, and cold damage reduced by 17% total)
- 1: Stoicism (1% less damage from all sources for each 4% health missing)
- 2: Fast Metabolism (Healing increased by 25% and Psi Boosters give +25 Psi)
- 4: Survival Instincts (+30% Crit chance when under 30% health)
- 6: Premeditation (Half Psi cost and negate AP cost of next spell)
- 8: Psychosis (+15% Increased psi crit chance for +20% increase psi cost)
- 10: Psionic Mania (Guaranteed psi crit at a 15% health cost)
- 12: Neural Overclocking (+30% psi crit damage)
- 14: Psycho-Temporal Acceleration (+1 Duration for Psycho-Temporal Contraction and Stasis)
- 16: Hemopsychosis (Psionics cost HP instead of Psi for 1 turn)
- 18: Future Orientation (1 Turn cooldown reduction for all Temporal Manipulation abilities)
- 20: Psycho-Neural Flexibility (Psi cost reduction)
- 22: Neurology (Crafted headbands provide +15 Psi)
- 24: Last Stand (Restore health to max, then reduce health to 1 after 2 turns)
- 26: Advanced Psi Empathy (-15% Max Health for -20% Psi cost)
- 28: Psychostatic Electricity (+5% Change to get crit on hit debuff on target, stacking 1 times for 2 turns)
- 30: Increased Will (Will +2)

I am a little unsure about both the inclusion of Psychostatic Electricity and its positioning, as well as Fast Metabolism. Preferably, I'd like Psychostatic Electricity earlier, but all the other feats seem too important, but at level 28 it just seems like a minor nudge to boost my crit rate just a little bit higher. Fast Metabolism also seems useful, but with only a marginal benefit, but an extra 25 Psi points from each booster seems useful for squeezing out an extra psi ability. Also, these traits are edging out Thermodynamicity in my current plans, which may not be a good idea, but I don't plan on running around with both cryokineticss and psychokinetics.

For specialization, I'm planning on the following:
- Neural Overclocking 10/10 (+20% Crit damage)
- Premeditation: Cooldown 2/2 (1 Turn cooldown reduction for Premeditation)
- Psionic Mania: Cooldown 2/2 (1 Turn cooldown reduction for Psionic Mania)
- Psychostatic Electricity: Duration 1/1 (+1 Duration for Psychostatic Electricity)

Overall, the plan for this build includes a good amount of stuns, should be quite beefy and strong in theory, but poor sneak and initiative seems like it could be a lot of trouble for a build that performs best at 30% health. What are all of your thoughts on this? Any suggestions for rearranging the feats or swapping some out? Would this concept work better as a tranquility build? I'd love to see what you all think about this!

[ShoggothWhisperer]

I’d recommend going with a metathermics headband and a separate psychokinesis headband over a uni-psi headband, you’ll get greater psi cost reduction that way and you can swap headbands depending on the enemies you are facing. A magnifying filter+ amplifier headband for cryo orb is really nice, using mania and premed to start off combat with a crit cryo orb will generally kill any normal enemy hit by a shard and can obliterate bosses if they don’t have high mechanical and cold resistance. Personally I don’t really like electrokinesis on psychosis builds since it costs 30 ap per cast, so you’ll need an ap boost or ap carryover to cast more than 1 per turn. TK punch may be a better option since it also stuns and only costs 10 ap. Overall the build looks fine, although I’d sink some neural overclocking spec points into stoicism since you can max out damage reduction with Aegis+specced Stoicism+Morphine/Nervosomnifer.

[Fins]

...

My standard innervations would be as follows:
- Cryokinesis
- Cryokinetic Orb
- Electrokinesis
- Electrokinetic Imprint
- Psycho-Temporal Contraction
- Limited Temporal Increment

Other spells I'd learn and keep as backup as necessary:
- Pyrokinesis
- Thermodynamic Destabilization
- Exothermic Aura
- Plasma Beam
- Stasis

...

Based on my psi builds times in Dominating, i'd rather propose the following:

base innervations changed to

- Cryokinesis
- Plasma Beam (instead of Cryokinetic Orb)
- Electrokinesis
- Electrokinetic Imprint
- Psycho-Temporal Contraction
- Thermodynamic Destabilization (instead of Limited Temporal Increment)

for the following reasons:

- Plasma Beam is no-cooldown, unlike the Orb; deals 3rd different damage type - energy damage (quite many things are resistant to cold and you already got Cryokinesis for things which aren't, and Electrokinesis is relatively low damage attack, while Plasma Beam is a very heavy hitter); Plasma Beam works great to make massive Thermodynamic Destabilization explosions happen, while the Orb simply extinquishes TD's debuff on a target; Plasma Beam can and will crit on multiple targets per cast whenever there are more than 1 target hit by it; it is simpler and much more reliable to deal heavy damage to multiple targets with Plasma Beam than with Cryokinetic Orb.

- Thermodynamic Destabilization deals 100% of target's-health-when-debuffed-by-TD as half mechanical, half heat damage - which in many circumstances is _the_ highest damage possible to deal with any psi ability; TD's psi and AP cost is very little considering its damage potential; TD generally scales with number of enemies: the more there are, the better it gets, meaning it's best exactly in most difficult situations; benefits from your build's use of Psycho-Temporal Contraction, which allows significantly easier times about inflicting TD on a full-health target and killing that same target all during a single turn, thus ensuring multiple enemies being hit by TD exactly the way you want them be: the more AP you have to work with, the more damage you can burst out in a single turn; and, with Cryokinetic Orb removed, Limited Temporal Increment would only be beneficial for reducing PTC cooldown - which in practice is rarely important, as everything is either dead by the time 1st PTC cast ends, or you just ran away and reenter stealth (vanishing powder grenade if need be) anyway. It'd also reduce grenades' cooldowns, yet with TD readily available, it's similarly rare you'd need more than 1 frag/HE/emp grenade to be used.

By the way, note that you can use Cryokinesis for very last (killing) blow on a target with a TD debuff on it, if need be - which works especially well whenever you're too low on AP to do another Electrokinesis / Plasma Beam, but got enough AP to do a Cryokinesis cast, and/or when Electrokinesis is a couple tiles too short range to reach the target.

Of course, if you'd be making the change i proposed above, then most likely you'd want certain feats and gear adjusted to better suit the changed psu setup, as well - but i think it'd be no big problem for you to do it. Well-made post, man. Good luck!

[mir]

I'd recommend going with a metathermics headband and a separate psychokinesis headband over a uni-psi headband, you'll get greater psi cost reduction that way and you can swap headbands depending on the enemies you are facing. A magnifying filter+ amplifier headband for cryo orb is really nice, using mania and premed to start off combat with a crit cryo orb will generally kill any normal enemy hit by a shard and can obliterate bosses if they don't have high mechanical and cold resistance. Personally I don't really like electrokinesis on psychosis builds since it costs 30 ap per cast, so you'll need an ap boost or ap carryover to cast more than 1 per turn. TK punch may be a better option since it also stuns and only costs 10 ap. Overall the build looks fine, although I'd sink some neural overclocking spec points into stoicism since you can max out damage reduction with Aegis+specced Stoicism+Morphine/Nervosomnifer.

Thanks for your suggestions! I started a Dominating run and found myself really disliking the psi cost of TK punch, I forgot it was 50 psi. However, I'm incorporating your suggestion about stoicism spec points, that extra boost seems substantial and you only need so much crit damage. A build concept I'd like to stick to (even if it's unoptimized) is the idea of freely switching between different damage types and attacks mid-fight, so I'm a bit hesitant about swapping around different headbands. Psionic mufflers seems too important to have applied to all my skills, since each school hosts an ability with a considerable psi cost I intend to use in my daily driver innervation set.

- Thermodynamic Destabilization deals 100% of target's-health-when-debuffed-by-TD as half mechanical, half heat damage - which in many circumstances is _the_ highest damage possible to deal with any psi ability; TD's psi and AP cost is very little considering its damage potential; TD generally scales with number of enemies: the more there are, the better it gets, meaning it's best exactly in most difficult situations; benefits from your build's use of Psycho-Temporal Contraction, which allows significantly easier times about inflicting TD on a full-health target and killing that same target all during a single turn, thus ensuring multiple enemies being hit by TD exactly the way you want them be: the more AP you have to work with, the more damage you can burst out in a single turn; and, with Cryokinetic Orb removed, Limited Temporal Increment would only be beneficial for reducing PTC cooldown - which in practice is rarely important, as everything is either dead by the time 1st PTC cast ends, or you just ran away and reenter stealth (vanishing powder grenade if need be) anyway. It'd also reduce grenades' cooldowns, yet with TD readily available, it's similarly rare you'd need more than 1 frag/HE/emp grenade to be used.

I appreciate your insights on this! Thermodynamic Destabilization and Plasma Beam was actually the alternative I was thinking to my original post. On further consideration, I think I'll take your suggestions here. Revising my innervation loadout:

- Cryokinesis
- Electrokinesis
- Electrokinetic Imprint
- Thermodynamic Destabilization
- Plasma Beam
- Psycho Temporal Contraction

I'll also be taking your suggestion about cutting out Limited Temporal Increment, and dropping Future Orientation as well. Since I'm using Plasma Beam a metathermics headband seems like it would be great still, but doing some work on the numbers...

I made a quick table with different spreads on costs of the skills, with +40% psi cost columns coming from psychosis and tri-school innervation, +20% when accounting for Psionic tactical vests and Psycho-Neural Flexibility, and -5% when adding on a uni-psi headband, and another two columns with +20% & -17% to account for uni-school headbands. I could dig into the other interactions a lot more taking into consideration the increase to skill level, but that would take more time. Also included is a table with AP costs.

I could go into my conclusions further but again, that's more time that I could use to continue testing the build in practice. This setup does seem to have a lot of tools to it though, illustrating it all would probably take more time than it's worth for more than what I have already done. I'm up to level 6 on an oddity exp dominating run, my goal is to get a full clear with this setup as a proof of concept. I did another run with my previous plan up to around this point but rerolled with this new plan, picking up pickpocketing for that economy boost early game. I think I'll be wearing black cloth gear in general, the positioning advantages stealth gives has been super useful. I'm a bit torn about the minor investment in chemistry because it's a nice convenience for the eventual Depot A, I'd like the acid damage reduction from mutated dog leather. It's such a minor investment, and it would just go to stealth anyway, so it's not worth splitting hairs over, I suppose.

Here's an update with my revisions:

underrail.info/build/?HgMDAwoDEAgAAEkAAAAAfkdtOABPawxCaADCoMKgNzAANisIX1BiKixlZi7ChMK9wodnVx9ywrfiorUC4quGBeKsgwLirIwF4qyXAd-8