IMPORTANT DISCLAIMER :
Stoicism does NOT provide invulnerabily anymore as damage reduction has been nerfed (you can't have more than 90% mechanical damage reduction down from 100%), I'd nowadays play this build like this. Therefore, I've deleted the original post and edited it entirely. But in case you are playing with Legacy version, the idea was to have Escape Artist, Stoicism (+5), Locus of Control while equipping Infused Siphoners, to have 3 turns of total immunity to damage and most status. Except for this, the build edited below is pretty similar. However, you'd be better taking a 4 schools psion for Legacy... Main build. 8 int version for easier start, hacking and PSF.Strategy: Psi AoE are strong but do not always kill in one shot the enemies, same for grenades. Both compliment well with each other.
Leveling up: Start with 9 Con. For the first build 6 Int and 6 Dex, the second 8 Int and 5 Dex. Put the rest into Will. Level up Will every other level EXCEPT if you need to pump Dex for Feat (Grenadier at level 4 needs 6 Dex and 30 Throwing, Three pointer/ Quick Tinkering need 7 Dex). Pump Metathermics every level and put enough points into Temporal Manipulation to get Psi abilities (most notable ones: Temporal Increment at level 5 with 35 TM, 55 TM for Psychotemporal Contraction to get BEFORE the feat PTA, 70 TM for Statis). Do as you please for the rest, but pumping chemistry early for grenades is a safe bet, especially with the 8 Int version. Don't bother leveling up Throwing after getting 80 effective skill until level 24 where you'll take Three Pointer then max it out gradually. Spec points go to Psychosis (critical hit chance) first then Survival Instinct (critical hit chance) for 99% critical rate at level 30 with Focus Stim ;
Psi abilities: Cryokinesis, Pyrokinesis, Cryogenetic Orb, Themodynamical Destabilization, Plasma Beam, Limited Temporal Increment, Psycho-Temporal Contraction, Stasis. At the beginning, you'll make use of Cryostatis, Psycho-Temporal Dilatation and Temporal Distortion (for bots in the early game, before having access to supplies in large ammount to craft grenades) ;
Equipment: Metathermics Neuroscopic Amplified Headband, Sturdy Psionic Overcoat (Black Cloth, Sturdy Vest, Laminated Fabric Panel or Super Steel Sheet, Psi Beetle Carapace), Ninja Tabi Boots, Spririt Staff, Doctor's Pouch. You can equip the
Høddurform which is more complicated to obtain, provides a tad bit less damage and has a Psi cost penalty (+15% multiplicative... it's starting to stack! Maybe Motion can compensate?). However, it provides +5% to critical rate which would free 4-5 specialization points that could be used elsewhere (Premeditation, Last Stand cooldown, Quick Tinkering cost are all great choices).
I'll assume equipping the Spirit Staff from now on ;
Other Gear: Bioinvestigative Belt (choose Biology departement in Tchort Institute, if not reallocate points from stealth accordingly) for +15 bonus in Biology and the ability to craft special Health Hypos, Jacknife for +7 bonus in Lockpicking and +7 traps, always in your other hand ;
Drug addiction: Focus Stim for 84-99% chance to critically hit, Hypos, Spirit Potion, Psionic Accelerator, Adrenaline Shot, Hypercerebrix for crafting, iron guts for Biology based damage immunity with the Bioinvestigative Belt (If not eat Canned Mushrooms) and Morphine Shot, Trance (for better criticals), Bullhead, Thrid Eye. 150 effective Biology with Bioinvestigative Belt (+15) Boning Knife (+2-7, random), Underpie (+3) and Workbenches (available after Core City part of the main questline, +15% bonus applied after everything else) is only needed for
Motion. It is a great help because of low Psi pool and high consumption, but you have Hemopsychosis and I consider it "high maintenance", if you don't want to craft it you can still buy it or live without it. You only need 95 effective (I recommend 80 without bonus and 95 with the belt to craft better Hypos) otherwise ;
Grenades and mines: Frag Nades (MK number depending of what is available at each stage of the game) for most things, HE nades then Plasma nades for damaging bots, EMP nades for bots in general. Concerning mines, bear traps to root enemies and use choke points, EMP mines massively before combat for Nagas or during combat from time to time while confronted to bots. Joining Coretech is good for getting the components required to craft all of this. Consider also picking other people traps and using them.
Food: Not important but Psi Bettle Soup for cheaper Psi costs and Pickles for better criticals are nice. Both are rare. Have underpies on you all (as soon as you find one) the time to help you pass some checks.
Cool stuff: With Psychosis, Advanced Psy Empathy and the forementionned Tactical Psi Vest and the penalty from using 2 schools, you have a modifier of ~95% of the psi cost. Plasma Beam is 70 base psi cost, hence 67 psi cost. With Premeditation, you can cast two of them assuming full psi bar and you have obtained Philosophy II (which you can with Hypercerebrix) and/or In Motion state. With Last Stand and Hemopsychosis, you then cast Psionic Mania, Psycho-Temporal Contraction and use an Adrenaline Shot to throw 3 others Plasma Beams, one being a guaranteed crit. Assuming
60 quality Sturdy Vest and Spirit Staff, you have 326 HP, some calculations show that you'll have approximately 29% total health before casting the last Plasma Beam, hence enjoying SI bonus.
It means that you can cast 5 PLASMA BEAMS INCLUDIND 3 with 99% critical rate, 1 with 64% critical rate and 1 guaranteed to crit. With a higher quality, one Plasma Beam will have a 64% critical rate instead of 99%.
You can in fact do this combo as soon as level 26/28 assuming higher quality for the Sturdy Vest, your goal value being ~326 HP or even sooner with the Soup and Motion. If you have remainder AP from the last turn, you can also pop an Hypo and not even use Hemopsychosis at all with the Soup assuming you've already applied PTC when starting your turn.
This combo is ridiculously strong, and I don't see anything in the game competing with it when used against organic targets. If you don't want to use the vest, it will still be possible with Psi Bettle Soup.
A specialized Tranquility build with Cyclop's Eye can cast 6 beams in one turn (with Blitz which mean it's not every turn neither) while depraving itself from any other psi abilities with Higher base damage value but only 40% critical rate (and lowest critical multipler). However the Tranquility version can cast 3 Plasma Beams during two other turns easily, which you really cannot do here.
The pure Psychosis build at the end of this post can do the 5 Plasma Beams combo as well. It's easier to set than with the main build discussed here.
Quick tips:-Fishing is a good way to obtain most components necessary for your drugs, with 6/7 DEX you have a good catch rate, but getting the Fisherman feat (see
Fisherman) is interesting ;
-The main sidequest of Foundry, especially in DOMINATING!, provides a lot of organs for drugs, crushing Borers in mines there too, and the local butcher have a great supply after finishing forementionned quest ;
-Be careful and compliant with Abram in Junkyard to get access to the best store in the game. Finishing the three quests (any way you want to finish them) he proposed you in JY will unlock another branch in Core City (meet Abram in the Hardcore Bar). Be careful with those quests and always choose to handle things without violence this time. It needs 95 Mercantile to enjoy its full potential, hence the 92 effective Mercantile (+3 with Underpie, common enough Food) ;
-I prefer ditching Hacking with low INT, but you can deal with turrets in Depot A with Temporal Distortion (taught by Ethan in SGS) ;
-Be careful to meet the requirement for Psi Abilities and/or feat and distribute points accordingly, P-T Acceleration needs 45 TM AND either P-T Dilatation or P-T Contraction (Psi abilities, see wiki if needed) learned BEFORE leveling up;
-You have abyssimal Initiative. Pumping Stealth and/or Tailoring (to get Stealth bonus from pieces of armors) is a good idea in order to start fight on your own terms. There is one Initiative check you can't avoid early on at GMS just after leaving the sentry bots floor. Just heal yourself, take a Root Soda and equip a good armor beforehand.
Obtaining Forceful Innervation with Steam:-Right click on the game, go to Properties then Betas and switch to Legacy Version. Start a game normally, get the pill from Pasquale, ask him where to learn abilities and
get a Psi abilitiy, I recommend talking to Ethan in the cantina and get Temporal Distortion. Close the game, change the setting back, load your save. You can now export your character and play again with a fresh start: this allows you to choose among various random element generated in the beginning of a run. Note you'll have to talk to Pasquale again if you decide so, take the pill in order to be able to ask him where to learn abilities again in order to have access to Quinton and Ethan for this purpose. It won't lower your health again.
Avoiding Soothsayer encounter:-Coral is a random NPC. She's exclusive with Booth who provides the Tatoo feat. If you really want Tatoo, go to the game files and delete gc_gypsy.obj (into fragments/frags in game files) : now every new games have Booth. Don't forget doing so before starting a new game with your exported character.
Note that tatoos are not so important.
Other small remarks and tips:-Check your computer at the beginning of the game. If you see "Domination" then you have the Ice Tower dungeon, if you see Skull Masters, you have one of the toughest bosses encounter in the game. Both are optionnal ;
-You can ditch Will to get 8 or 10 Int (even 12 but I would not ditch this much Will) to either have earlier high tier grenades (see wiki for crafting requirement), hacking, high quality psionic headband, earlier access to special stores, the tier 3 of the Philosophy feat or to just not do the Forceful Innerversion trick if you find it cheap. I'd say 8 Int is the sweet spot (if you keep FI) for getting Psychoneural Flexibility (ditching QT, see remark below) and having an easier beginning (60 Hacking in Depot A makes everything smoother). Without FI, I would go for 10 Int and sacrifice Thermodynamic Destabilization ;
-Quick Tinkering, Three Pointer are optional, you can take Psychoneural Flexibility if you have 8 Int (see above remark), Escape Artist if you allocate 30 points to Dodge, Pyromaniac or anything you want, really! Note that if you don't take either one, you can take one point from Dex and put it into Will or Int for example ;
-Psionic Mania becomes mostly obsolete in late game. But it's really good to have before that and while your health is greater than SI threshold (after Last Stand for example), or when you don't want to waste a Focus Stim or when you need to lose just enough health to toggle SI, hence I recommend keeping it regardless. It's also very good for an alpha strike from stealth with Last Stand and Hemopsychosis to mow down 'trash' mobs totally for free: it's the only build besides Unarmed that can do that now, but way more effectively ;
-Check out the Bloodpsican build in here (by Drizzle), it's less powerful (because it would not make use of grenades) but way more sturdy, create a character (with correct Basic Abilities points) for this build while doing the Forceful Innervation manipulation while you're at it ;
-If you want a pure Psionic character that does not even use grenades nor Forceful Innervation, here is my favorite one:
Pure Psionic character. It has a larger Psi pool, slightly cheaper Psi Abilities, one less Psi Abilities slot (sacrifice Thermodynamic Destabilization). It will use other schools (namely TC for sea snakes or discreet single or mass murders, PK for robots although it will have a hard times with the latter and much more even with Nagas which are dealt with Stasis and Temporal Distortion mostly). Would it be for the hassle of changing the set of psionic abilities so often, I'd prefer this build to the one discussed above.
