Hi.
I'm back to the game after a long break.
I've never taken tranquillity as a psionic and I was curious of what it could offer. Of course, one could always consider the 4 schools classical build and do very well in any situation, but I wanted something I would have never tried before the psi update.
Firstly, I considered the idea of a single school psi build, and both Temporal Manipulation (TM) and Psychokinetic (PK) seemed interesting to me.
TM only way to deal damage (by itself without the use of any other means such as grenades, traps, weapons, other schools and environment) is through Temporal Distortion (TD for short) and few Crowd Control (CC) abilities though a fantastic one (Stasis) and a situational but fairly good one - exceptionally against melee foes or single enemy - Psychotemporal Dilation (PTD).
As Sheepherder has explained on his thread (search timeless on search tool bar), pure TM presents a few problems even if one can mitigate them through clever use of flashbangs, taser and the two formerly mentioned CC abilities. He also decided to rely on Dodge and Evasion by pumping Agility and those skills, wearing Siphoner leather armors and boots and by further decreasing enemy's to hit chance (THC) with Intimidation (which scales with Will) through Yell and with Precognition (TM ability). It's a great synergy. It must be very fun. But it's a bit luck dependent and even more if you self limit yourself not to use any kind of grenades or tools (past Newton's warehouse mission) as I wanted. Also with the right feature, it can keep you under a permanent AP and MP buff.
On the other hand, pure PK is probably more complete and easy. Sheepherder toyed with the idea of a pure PK build centred around Electrokinesis (EK). I don't know why he's never covered it in a thread, maybe he found it boring? I guess he'll answer if he sees this. Anyway, EK is a really powerful tool if you invest in it. At first, it seemed to costly and deceitful as a source of damage, but with Tranquility (-5 AP per Psi Abilities casting at full health), Psychostatic Electricity (a feat that increases the chance an enemy has to get critically hit) with a good specialized psionic headband (Mufflers to reduce the high psi cost, and Magnifying Neuroscopic Filter: Electrokinesis to further raise the damages) and eventually Tesla Armor (+15% damage for EK), it ends up being more than satisfying in theory. Of course PK also has other tools up its sleeves such as PK punch, Implosion which combined with TK Proxy and provided you've taken Force User for the first one are tremendous source of damage, though costly and submitted to Cooldowns (CD). There is also other cool tools...
Well, I wanted to do something a bit more new (not implying Sheepherder's builds are not, they are, but I wanted to do something I'd figured out myself), so the idea to combine both and a dual school pure psi (no tools, no flashbangs, taser, grenades, traps, nothing... well stealth I guess even though it may not be necessary) :
https://underrail.info/build/?HgMDDQMDDQgAAAAAwqDCoMKgAAAAAGFhCVZ4AMKgAMKgAABHOSgrP8KGKmdkZlfCh0fCvcKIJMKlcsK3wp3Dh-KnlgLip5cD4qyWCeKslwHfvwEquipment:
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Headgear: Muffled PK and TM headbands specialized in EK and TD respectively;
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Armor: probably Infused Siphoner leather for the armor, perhaps Psionic tactical vest for the 10% psi reduction if I find myself needing it, other armors could be used situationally as always (including Tesla Armor for 100% Electrical Resistance or a bit higher EK average damage);
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Footwear: Probably Infused hopper leather tabis for CD reduction on Sprint. Other situationally (Infused mutant dog leather if there's acid puddle, snakes' leather for other effect, etc.)
Innervation:
As you might have guessed, I won't use PK punch nor Force Field. It might be a mistake though. I'll use the holy trio of TM abilities (PTC, LTI, Stasis), Electrokinesis most of the time. The other two slots could be Proxy, Implosion, Electrokinetic Imprint, Telekinetic Grounding, Entropic Recurrence, Precognition... TD would be mostly use when facing a small crowd when there is a chokepoint or against single isolated and robust target (some Nagas, some bosses), or for slow sturdy, EK immune, Psionic Crabs...
Few comments:
-No use of grenades (of any kind) is a self imposed limitation;
-I know the game enough and don't wish to explore the lore and some hidden content, I also don't plan to play on Oddities levelling system here hence the distribution of skill points and the over-investment in Crafting skills that I'm well aware of.
I have just started playing it, and I'm not sure the build is actually enjoyable (I've just passed Depot A and so far it was enjoyable) and here are what I believe to be good and bad points of this build:
Pros:
-At very high level, it can theoretically cast 6 EK per turn (Psi cost reductions, Tranquility for 25 AP EK, one free AP cast thanks to Premeditation and 125 AP per turn with Blitz : 50(base)+20(PTC)+25(vitality powder)+ 10(Expert Sprint)+20(Blitz) = 125.) While it's wildly unnecessary, I felt it could provide some fun;
-Even after Blitz, it is possible to regain MP with Psychotemporal Contraction (PTC) and Sprint, this build is very mobile;
-Good CC;
-Can deal with almost any enemies very efficiently with one big exception being (Greater) Coil Spiders.
Cons:
-(Greater) Coil Spiders exist;
-Reliant on gear very quickly for good results;
-EK is not the greatest attack for groups, but I believe it will do well despite the randomness of the bouncing.
There are a few
QUESTIONS on which I'd like to have your opinion:
-Is passing Force User such a bad thing on this build? I felt like anything EK can't deal with can be dealt with TD and PK Punch is costly and not the one hit killing machine it is on Psychosis builds with Psionic Mania while Force Field seems OK but not enough on its own to require a feat only for its health (still a good way to avoid a sniper ending your life off screen though, Force User or not, I guess?);
-Is Expanded Psi Capacitance a meme? As a Psychosis user only so far, I've never needed it. If it's bad then I'll exchange it with Force User or Uncanny Dodge maybe...
-8 Int is a bit low (6 Psi Abilities at a time), I can decrease Will to raise it to 10 or 12... Would it be worth it? (I refuse to lower allocated points on Agi as it's the meme the build revolves around!)
-What do you think of it in general? I'm curious to get your opinion.
EDIT: Corrected some mistakes and edited the title for marketing reasons.
EDIT 2: Changed spec points allocation, 5 spec for Blitz CD reduction currently.
EDIT 3: Changed the Feat, removed Expanded Psi Capacitance and replaced it by Nimble. Uncanny Dodge, Sure Step or any QoL feat might be a good candidate to replace it as well. 5 Spec Points are unallocated: Tranquillity for risk free adrenaline haste (instead of Vitality Powder) OR Blitz spec (5 points or 4 points putting the spare point in Psychostatic Electricity Duration). Yet antoher possibility would be to put them in Blitz:Maximum Points (3) and the remaining 2 in CD reduction...
EDIT 4: Changed spec points allocation though the precedent comments still hold.
