ToME: the Tales of Maj'Eyal

Anyone have any luck or fun with these? Since the classes creation I thought the IDEA of using a gem to focus your psionic powers through and amplify them was cool. The effect of this is less than staggering. It seems like it only slightly upps the damage of focus abilities, and I have seriosuly not noticed very much more efficiency in spikes when using a gem. Sure conduit can make mindlash do some decent damage, but my spiked kinetic aura can do way more damage.

Just seems like there is no reason at all to use a gem over a weapon.

I was doing okay with one the other day until she got killed by Cecilia's friends in the graveyard. The main advantage of mindlash + conduit over the aura spikes is that the cooldown for mindlash is much shorter. Mindlash is kind of like Steady Shot. Good solid single-target damage you can deal pretty much every other turn. For dealing with crowds, you have the Leeches and Pyrokinesis.

Plus, even if you want to focus on aura spikes for your main damage instead of using Conduit, there is still the Focused Channeling talent that pumps up the power of your auras and shields when you're wielding a gem.

And that's not even considering the Grip tree.

I was doing very well with a focus mindslayer until I tried to fight Atamathon (RIP).

At talent level 5/5 (for both) and a grade 5 gem, mindlash does more damage in two hits than kinetic aura's spike does in one (activate then deactivate).

The increased spike efficiency is a decrease in cost, not an increase in damage. The main fault with a gem mindslayer is that they are quite weak until they get a grade 4 or higher gem, and reduce the cooldown of mindlash to 1.

Focus mindslayers can be quite powerful, with good AoE damage, single target damage, and no worries about accuracy.

you can reduce mindlash cooldown? Maybe that was my problem, at a 3 turn cooldown it just couldnt compare to spiking all 3 of my auras back to back.

Sradac wrote:you can reduce mindlash cooldown? Maybe that was my problem, at a 3 turn cooldown it just couldnt compare to spiking all 3 of my auras back to back.

Yup, it is reduced by the tier of the gem, so with a tier 5 gem, it is 0, tier 4 it is 1, tier 3 it is 2 etc...

I really wish that kind of stuff was in the talent descriptions, all it says is wielding a gem focus will greatly increase the potency or power or efficieny of the talents. Is it just mindlash or are all from that tree like that?

Mindlash, pyrokinesis, and Bind (from Grip tree) have it reduced by the tier of the gem, Implode (also from Grip tree) has it reduced by twice as much, IIRC.

I have to wonder how much sense that mechanic makes. Seems like it's just discouraging a playstyle until later in the game.

Mindlash is still good supplemental damage early, but it can't be your main attack, so it can still be used, even if it is not optimum. This wasn't as much of an issue when focus was a locked level 10 tree.

This belongs to ideas, but I think it's also appropriate to discuss here...
Basically, I think I saw someone(Sus perhaps?in chat suggest that perhaps you should get bonus psi_regen based on the gem tier.
Maybe 0.2 or 0.3 per tier?

I think that's a decent idea, would help with giving you enough psi to consistently use Focus - if you're away from the enemy, then absorbing energy with shields might be more difficult.

lukep wrote:Mindlash is still good supplemental damage early, but it can't be your main attack, so it can still be used, even if it is not optimum. This wasn't as much of an issue when focus was a locked level 10 tree.

I guess what I meant is that there is nothing really interesting about wielding higher-leveled gems for Mindlash. It only gets better. What I think would be better is if both cooldown and damage scaled upwards with gem tier, so you'd have reason to choose between, say, quartz and diamond.

Um, when you're a Fighter, you have no real reason to go back to stralite once you find a nice voratun weapon. Why in the world should a Mindslayer want to go back to a lower tier gem? Why Shouldn't it get better?

Valid point, but iron weapons don't have a 50% attack speed penalty, either. Not that gem-wielders don't have other options, I just don't see the point of the current implementation.

It gives you a reason to focus on gems instead of letting your brain wave some badass artifact weapon around with Beyond the Flesh for zero psi cost instead. It gives you a reason to look forward to better and better gems, just like the weapon mindslayer looks forward to better and better weapons to use with Beyond the Flesh (which you're totally missing out on with a gem mindslayer). Beyond the Flesh with a powerful weapon can hit Hard, and hit Every single time you're in melee range of something, for free. So I don't think it's unfair for a gem psion to be able to eventually hit things hard every turn, too.

My triple wielding/focus mindslayer winner from a couple betas ago could do much more damage in a melee attack than with mindlash, despite focusing much more heavily on the focus aspect of the class. I don't think that mindlash needs to have a cooldown at high levels.