What will be your first build in Expedition and why?

[Tamior]

Elecktrokinesis stuns them, sure, but unless you've got some crit stuff going on, it takes a while to kill even sentry bots with it.  I haven't played a psion far enough to comment on the other abilities.

Elecktrokinesis  deals about x3 damage when there are several targets nearby to chain. You can easily easily stun up to 3 bots during your opening turn, and finish them all next turn.

@Tamior, do you find psi as powerful as guns against robots? I sure don't. When there are several robots, it is a nightmare, and I often find that the elektrokinesis abilities do not damage them fast enough. I keep thinking to myself "I wish I were a gun build".

That said, from a role playing perspective I don't mind it. It kinda makes sense that psi is not as strong against technology as it is against living organisms.

When there are several robots, Elecktrokinesis start to actually chain, thus getting BETTER. And nothing really prevents you from using EMP 'nades as a psion if you need to.

[Trashos]

Yeah, I know about the chain bouncing, I have played full psi a lot. I still don't find it strong enough.

If there is a doorway, you can always use mines. I do not consider this an important argument (also, gun users have high DEX and Quick Tinkering).

A gun user has way more skill points for Throwing than a full psi. Full psi with crafting, eg, is skillpoint starved.

Finally, a generic gun user can use energy weapons against the robots. He already has PE and DEX. Electroshock pistols do chain bouncing too at a much lower opportunity cost than eating mana.

All in all, I never have problems with guns against robots. With psi, there are a few situations where I have serious problems (eg, playing on Hard, I face problems in the Arke Powerplant and also in RAF- probably several other places too that I don't recall now).

[harperfan7]

I played a tranquility psi right before expedition, and while I only got to the mid-game, I did find that robots were one enemy I wasn't equipped to deal with very well.  I mostly did what epeli says; premeditation + doors spam.

[Tamior]

As soon as you get eletrokinetic imprint you can literally just place it in the patrol path of a robot and deal damage without even going into combat.
It's about as foolproof as it gets.

And before you can get eletrokinetic imprint you only have to fight security bots. Which deal whopping 0 damage if you have a half-decent tactical vest.

[harperfan7]

As soon as you get eletrokinetic imprint you can literally just place it in the patrol path of a robot and deal damage without even going into combat.
It's about as foolproof as it gets.

And before you can get eletrokinetic imprint you only have to fight security bots. Which deal whopping 0 damage if you have a half-decent tactical vest.

There's at least three plasma walkers before depot A, and you can run into industrial bots before getting the imprint.

[Tamior]

As soon as you get eletrokinetic imprint you can literally just place it in the patrol path of a robot and deal damage without even going into combat.
It's about as foolproof as it gets.

And before you can get eletrokinetic imprint you only have to fight security bots. Which deal whopping 0 damage if you have a half-decent tactical vest.

There's at least three plasma walkers before depot A, and you can run into industrial bots before getting the imprint.

And you have to fight exactly 0 of those plasma walkers before you grab the imprint. At worst you might have to juke one of them when getting the disk for Eddy.

[Faeren]

I like crossbows because they are pretty balanced, power wise. Plus the Expedition is bringing some cool new feats that have potential to make this playstyle a little more dynamic.

What ones do you refer to?

[TheAverageGortsby]

I have played full psi a lot. I still don't find it strong enough.

Well, Temporal Manipulation brings into play a really excellent robot-killer power.  If you pick up the feat for it, you can actually just gather up most of Arke/RAF all at once, layer a dozen+ TDs on one target, then forcefield up and watch everything die in ripples.

[newageofpower]

I have played full psi a lot. I still don't find it strong enough.

Well, Temporal Manipulation brings into play a really excellent robot-killer power.  If you pick up the feat for it, you can actually just gather up most of Arke/RAF all at once, layer a dozen+ TDs on one target, then forcefield up and watch everything die in ripples.

Please make a video of this.

[bati]

I like crossbows because they are pretty balanced, power wise. Plus the Expedition is bringing some cool new feats that have potential to make this playstyle a little more dynamic.

What ones do you refer to?

Strafe (new) + Hit and Run + Concussive shots, Versatility (new) + Expose weakness. And then you can mix it up further with specialisation points.

[Tamior]

So, speaking of expedition builds:
Am I the only one who's getting the vibe that temporal manipulation above 70 base skill is really not going anywhere? Few abilities scale with effective temporal manipulation skill, fewer still scale in a way that matters...
With thought control there is, at least, the question of beating target's resolve, so at least in theory higher effective skill is good for practically all abilities. With temporal manipulation most of best abilities are self-buffs, so they literally can't fail...

[TheAverageGortsby]

So, speaking of expedition builds:
Am I the only one who's getting the vibe that temporal manipulation above 70 base skill is really not going anywhere? Few abilities scale with effective temporal manipulation skill, fewer still scale in a way that matters...
With thought control there is, at least, the question of beating target's resolve, so at least in theory higher effective skill is good for practically all abilities. With temporal manipulation most of best abilities are self-buffs, so they literally can't fail...

I think for support purposes on a high-Will, multischool character there's no real need to take TM above 55-70 raw points. Stasis isn't a bad skill but at 60 you max your synergy and get 160 effective, then + gear.  For other builds, even 65 might be overkill - just go to whatever the top-end ability you want is, and stop there.

If you have a lot of points, though, TM still scales usefully up high.  Precog is linear, after all, and highly useful at extreme values.  Entropic Recurrence can be a huge help at high values against enemies that you're having a hard time damaging.  Temporal Distortion is sort of the primary damage dealer for TM.  Even poor, dodgy-looking Temporary Rewind can save you if you're riding Morphine, took a huge hit, and can pull back a big chunk of your health bar for a moment before the buff ends; or will give you back what Morphine took from you and give you one last turn mid-combat to hit cooldowns or LTI to get a hypo back into play.  (Yes, I know you can also use TR on high mech resist to effectively set up an Implosion echo but I never even on DOMINATING was able to keep a boss alive long enough for that to work - not even Balor who's pretty tanky)

[hilf]

So, speaking of expedition builds:
Am I the only one who's getting the vibe that temporal manipulation above 70 base skill is really not going anywhere? Few abilities scale with effective temporal manipulation skill, fewer still scale in a way that matters...
With thought control there is, at least, the question of beating target's resolve, so at least in theory higher effective skill is good for practically all abilities. With temporal manipulation most of best abilities are self-buffs, so they literally can't fail...

My evasive puncher doesn't agree. Precognition did help him greatly at evading/dodging attacks. Temporal Disortion did help as well since it's a ranged attack and is good vs armoured enemies. It's going to be even more necessary now, after unarmed/fists got nerfed and Black Sea offers some pretty hard nuts to crack.
Expose Weakness helps but it has cooldown, not to mention Disortion benefits from this feat too.

So this was my first build - fists, dodge, evasion, tailoring, electronics, mechanics, max DEX, 8 AGI, 7 INT, 6 WIL, 3 CON. Spec points went into Nimble and Cheap Shots.

[Tamior]

(Yes, I know you can also use TR on high mech resist to effectively set up an Implosion echo but I never even on DOMINATING was able to keep a boss alive long enough for that to work - not even Balor who's pretty tanky)

Speaking of this, can you deal 70% of HP via implosion, and then buff it to 200%+ of that via Entropic Recurrence on the spot? So basically anything with mech resistance <60% will just insta-die no-matter-what?

[TheAverageGortsby]

[can you deal 70% of HP via implosion, and then buff it to 200%+ of that via Entropic Recurrence on the spot? So basically anything with mech resistance <60% will just insta-die no-matter-what?

No. ER is an end-of-turn DoT, and the damage is smeared pretty wide (it was originally far too powerful and was brought back into the realm of reason - it *used to be possible* to do as you describe, but no longer).  Still, if you ER a good heavy Implosion/TK Punch you certainly can put a lethal DoT on the target, then just go run away and let them die off on their own.  For one-turn kills, you're still probably better off with a Proxied Implosion on your main target, then maybe a ThermoD from a secondary target or if your main target is alone, use that Proxy again for a TK Punch.

EDIT: Let me make an amendment, here, but leave the original post since I don't hide my mistakes   If you can get a *single* Implosion to do over 50% (second edit: not 40, 50 - typo) of the target health, and you proxy the Implosion, and ER that, then the target should die at the end of their following turn, so if you would call that insta-die then absolutely yes, and I was wrong to say no.

OK, I'm tired enough that I'm confusing myself.  Basically, ER will kill an enemy after they've taken their turn.  It will not apply damage at the end of the turn when you apply it, so if ER is going to kill an enemy they will always get a turn before they die, no matter what.  I'm going to take a nap before I confuse anyone else - myself included - any further