Metathermics feels weak

[Seven Samurott]

Compared to the other PSI disciplines I find Metathermics to be less impressive than the others. It's feat selection isn't great except for maybe Thermodynamicity, and a lot of enemies just straight up resist the damage. I find it annoying that you need to take a feat to set people on fire with Pyro and the Chill effect feels less impactful than the status effects you can inflict with the other disciplines. I concede maybe I'm just not using it right. I'm running a full PSI caster right now and I often just find myself using the powers from other disciplines than with Metathermics.

[noobrzor]

Isn't Thermodynamic Destabilization + (especially Psionic Mania) Cryokinetic Orb one of the most powerful opening combos you can execute?

[Seven Samurott]

Those abilities are good but I find the rest of the discipline lacking.

[harperfan7]

Isn't Thermodynamic Destabilization + (especially Psionic Mania) Cryokinetic Orb one of the most powerful opening combos you can execute?

Cryo abilities ruin thermD.

[TheAverageGortsby]

I concede maybe I'm just not using it right.

Yup, that's pretty much it, right there.

[Seven Samurott]

I concede maybe I'm just not using it right.

Yup, that's pretty much it, right there.

I used your post on PSI builds to help me get started in the game. What am I missing about Metathermics? I often find myself in positions where I'm faced with the choice to spend PSI points on a Metathermics ability or something else and I often wind up getting more mileage out of the other ability. To be honest when going pure PSI I feel like I have TOO many options.

[TheAverageGortsby]

What am I missing about Metathermics? I often find myself in positions where I'm faced with the choice to spend PSI points on a Metathermics ability or something else and I often wind up getting more mileage out of the other ability. To be honest when going pure PSI I feel like I have TOO many options.

Metathermics is probably going to be your most efficient bread-and-butter type damage against most organic targets.  You're really going to want Pyromaniac and Thermodynamicity for it, though. Pyromaniac is going to give you group crowd-control via fear in that pre-level 14 zone where you can't just winbutton LoC+Enrage and end turn until it's time to loot.  It'll also give you a devastating opener in the form of Psionic Mania + Cryo Orb if you've gone Psychosis; that opener leaves bleed debuffs which won't disappear when you follow up the Cryo Orb with a Pyrokinesis, overwriting Chill (a weak debuff) with Burning (probably the strongest debuff in the game if the target also fears burning).  Cryokinesis is a cheap, very-long-range puller that also inflicts Chill which means it's your ideal kiting ability against heavy-damage melee types, or an excellent addition to psi slow when facing enemies with out-of-control high move points.  The fire avatar ability will both let you cheese stealth melee enemies (Crawlers especially, which do not willingly run into the flames while stealthed and instead wait outside them long enough for you to find them and kill them at no risk to yourself) and also generally disregard fire in all forms, meaning you can safely molotov yourself and also trivially cheese Industrial Bots.  If you just hate the idea of challenge at all, then you can just beat almost every fight in the entire game (only four come to mind in the entire game that are highly resistant to this) by just making some noise, manually starting combat, hiding behind a four-turn force field, then popping out and triggering a ThermoD explosion to destroy entire groups in an instant.

If you don't want to cheese ThermoD, and are playing on DOMINATING where you can't always (but can usually) wipe the entire map with just a cryo orb + fireball combo, then Thermodynamicity will let you output horrifying amounts of damage by alternating hot and cold.  This isn't a whole lot of help early on because psi costs are your limiting factor, but later on in the game it's action points that restrict you, not psi points, so being able to dump eight or ten abilities in a turn will be a huge help.

Now, of course, you don't need to do any of that. I'm not trying to convince you to like Metathermics, or even use it at all. I just want to point out that if you feel like it's weak, that's because you're not using it well, yet.

[Seven Samurott]

Perhaps I need to take Thermodynamicity earlier then. On paper I liked Metathermics I just found myself using other abilities instead for stuns or better debuffs. Something I have learned from playing the game and restarting multiple times is that I'm not super into taking all four PSI disciplines for a PSI build. The current character I am using only has 3, and I'm using the points I would have invested in Metathermics to boost another skill. Perhaps its not the Metathermics I don't like but rather taking all 4 disciplines that's giving me issues.

I do wish the Metathermics feats were a little more impressive tho. I think Pyromania should make it to where Pyrokinesis leaves behind burning ground and the chance to set on fire should be baked into the ability.

How should I use the other Metathermics abilities? Like the Shield and the Shard Barrier?

[TheAverageGortsby]

Perhaps its not the Metathermics I don't like but rather taking all 4 disciplines that's giving me issues.

How should I use the other Metathermics abilities? Like the Shield and the Shard Barrier?

If you're playing full psi, there's no real point in going more than 75 points into Thought Control, so you can save a bunch of points that way.  Also, unless you really want to use Precognition - and it has its uses, and it's not bad, but it's certainly not for everyone - you can safely stop investing in Temporal Manipulation at 55 points if you need those points for somewhere else.  Your Uni-Psi headband and Psi Beetle tac vest coupled with your extremely high Will stat will bring your effective TC skills up over the 200 mark, which is all you'll need to reliably defeat Resolve checks.  So I'd say a typical "four school" psi build should realistically be a "two and two halfs school" build, which does free up a bunch of points.

Cryo Shield lasts a good while, so it's great additional insurance against quick melee attacks that you might not see coming.  It's very handy in the Underpassages, as the stealthed Lurkers there generally use knives which do little damage per attack for many attacks. It's also nice in dark scary screen where you might find Crawlers all up on you before you can react.  A full set of Cryo Shield shards will generally allow even a 3 Con character to easily survive a full turn of surprise attacks from a Crawler, a knife-wielding Lurker, or even a Death Stalker.

If by Shield you mean Cryostasis, it's a five-turn incapacitate. That should be easy to figure out.

[Seven Samurott]

Sorry I should have clarified more. How is Cryostasis more or less useful than Temp Stasis?

As far as end game gear. What kind of carrier vest base do you recommend for the endgame?

[Seven Samurott]

Oddly enough running 3 schools minus metathermics has worked out well for me from a RP standpoint. I based my psyker on Olivia Dunham from Fringe and Thought Control, Psychokinesis, and Temp Manipulation fit her powers fairly well.

[Quidam Craft]

I'm currently on a build with metathermics as a secondary skill. (ambush energy pistol build with average perception, high dexterity and low will). Note that I did not need to take any feats (at least early on) to use metathermics well. Anything I took was a nice late game bonus but nothing needed to make the use of metathermics viable.

Since I played a lot with Psychokinesis on other hybrid builds, I wanted to try something different and went full metathermics.

I'm surprised how efficient it is, even with 3 will and lower damage.

Cryokinesis is very nice early game to slow down targets and amazing with caltrops. It's nice throughout the game as a long range finisher against wounded targets with its perfect accuracy. Also nice to trigger opportunist.

Pyrokinesis is good to set mines from a safe distance, and combined with pyromaniac feat, has a 50% chance to set targets on fire bringing fear as a CC and light for ambush.

Cryostasis is just amazing on hybrid builds. The high psi cost might be an issue for a full psi build, but as an hybrid build you don't really care to use almost all your psi on an ability. It really shine with its low AP cost, you can use it in the end of your turn to CC anyone even if the target was stunned recently. And compared with TM stasis it is available way earlier and does not prevent you to kill the target with an execute for instance.

TD destabilization is also amazing for any builds that have high damage potential on one target but lack AOE damage (sniper, plasma gun, some crossbow build).

Exothermic aura is also very nice to have. First as a panic flee button. You activate the thing, run to a safe spot and most foes won't follow. Also nice against melee foes especially with low health like spawn. Can also be used against crawler and other naughty stealthy targets. It also makes you immune to heat, can help against few targets or to protect yourself if you need to navigate through fire.

Plus all the other psi abilities that you people already mentioned.

...

To sum up, I thought that metathermics was only nice as a damage psi school, this playthrough of the game made me think otherwise, utility is really nice as well and on some hybrid builds it's not weak at all compared to other psi school.

[Sykar]

Perhaps its not the Metathermics I don't like but rather taking all 4 disciplines that's giving me issues.

How should I use the other Metathermics abilities? Like the Shield and the Shard Barrier?

If you're playing full psi, there's no real point in going more than 75 points into Thought Control, so you can save a bunch of points that way.  Also, unless you really want to use Precognition - and it has its uses, and it's not bad, but it's certainly not for everyone - you can safely stop investing in Temporal Manipulation at 55 points if you need those points for somewhere else.  Your Uni-Psi headband and Psi Beetle tac vest coupled with your extremely high Will stat will bring your effective TC skills up over the 200 mark, which is all you'll need to reliably defeat Resolve checks.  So I'd say a typical "four school" psi build should realistically be a "two and two halfs school" build, which does free up a bunch of points.

Cryo Shield lasts a good while, so it's great additional insurance against quick melee attacks that you might not see coming.  It's very handy in the Underpassages, as the stealthed Lurkers there generally use knives which do little damage per attack for many attacks. It's also nice in dark scary screen where you might find Crawlers all up on you before you can react.  A full set of Cryo Shield shards will generally allow even a 3 Con character to easily survive a full turn of surprise attacks from a Crawler, a knife-wielding Lurker, or even a Death Stalker.

If by Shield you mean Cryostasis, it's a five-turn incapacitate. That should be easy to figure out.

I strongly disagree with this suggestion. I tried that and even with 13+ Will I see plenty of resists, especially against other PSI users, PSI beetles and Burrower Warriors.Furthermore it seriously reduces the amount of damage of Neural Overload which is fantastic for taking out targets silently. In fact there is probably no greater stealth killer than a maxed out TC user. To me TC is an all or nothing school. Going just for LoC does not cut it, especially on stealth PSI.

[Fufuneraire]

Personal experience : stomped the game with metathermics + psychokinesis skills (premeditation, thermodinamicity, pyromaniac and some cryokinesis psiband - 'cause it's a spell you can launch several times per turn).

Metathermics can snipe, slow, bleed, burn, zone, bypass some mechanical tresholds if your cryokinesis is strong enough (even if telekinetic punch is stronger, you can't use it from long range), and kill for a small psi-point cost if you manage it well with thermodinamicity (and specialization if you play Expedition). Pyro stream can almost kill a [last boss part] by it's own if well used.