Caster mindslayers are *funny*.

[Sirrocco]

http://te4.org/characters/939/tome/60b4 ... 05c91f531a

Really, it feels like the title says it all. I built this character with the intent of, in the endgame, destroying everything I saw with dual-conduit mindlash, cranking that up in every way I could find. To that end, I've completely neglected her physical abilities, in favor of cranking everything I could into will, followed by cunning. Constitution will likely be next, with possibly a few sprinkles into strength in order to support heavier leathers.

Early game, she played like a major passive-damage tank who happened to cart around huge panicbuttons in the way that passive-damage tanks usually don't get to. I got Tooth of the Maw early, and combined that with a few other pieces of gear that gave little bits of reflect damage here and there. Between that, my Kinetic Aura, and the autoattack from whichever weapon I was psionically wielding at the time, stuff that stood near me died pretty quickly. Psi from things attacking me ineffectually paid for my aura pretty easily. I also managed to luck into a decent amount of healing factor and +health gear early, and that plus my shields plus being a dwarf meant that I wasn't all that seriously threatened either. I did die a few times, generally to blunders that I've learned from.

(note: dwarven hp makes this easier than it might be, and I got lucky with the uniques, but I actually had very similar eperiences with yeek mindslayers up until I encountered Subject Z)

Recently, though, her abilities as a passive-damage tank started to suffer (partially because we started getting more enemies that don't care about such things as much). As such, I've swapped over to using mindlash as my primary attack, and it's involved disassembling a fair amount of what made her work before. My strategy has basically shifted completely from "passive damage tank" to "shoot and back" (both because my primary attack only fires once every 2 turns and because I run out of psi quickly). I don't think I've ever seen such a radical shift in playstyle on any of my previous characters.

Side note: mindstars feel like they're just about the best thing that's ever happened to this general build type.

[Sirrocco]

Actually, mindstars pretty much *are* the best thing that's ever happened to this build type. Filling your hands with mindstars means that you both have a higher mindpower and deal more damage (because your cunning and will are hugely above your str and dex, and you don't have the offhand penalty to deal with). More to the point, though, Tk-wielding a mindstar means that you get to have all the gem-boost goodness that you crave while also dealign out a decent amount of autodamage from your weapon and all of your conduit damage (which should be fairly decent). I've been honestly surprised at how easy things have been with this character (as opposed to the wyrmics and cursed I was trying before I started her). As a level 20ish character I even managed to take down a lvl 40 eternal bone giant (had to kill him *so* *many* *times*).

[lukep]

A staff giving +damage% is also amazing. If you are looking to maximize mindlash damage, look into getting a strong staff, and change it into giving + physical damage (or, look into it if you aren't antimagic, at least). This char got +52% physical damage from reshaped Telos's top half staff, boosting the average damage per turn to about 2500 (including recovering psi etc).

Some things also boost the power of that build amazingly well. Grip tree's Greater Telekinetic Grasp lvl 5 boosts many effects beyond what the descriptions show, as a top tier gem/mindstar is then treated as tier 6. Bind and deflect projectiles are also amazing from that tree.

It looks like you are lacking an AoE damage, which may hurt you against the Master (and his swarms of summons), as well as the ambush and Prides. I strongly recommend both Charged Aura and Pyrokineses for that. I could usually almost clear the welcoming party from the prides in one shot by the time I did them.

[Sirrocco]

Charge leech is also pretty nice for area-effect, at least for the moment, but point is taken. The fact that Termal Aura and Pyrokinesis don't stack is almost embarrassing. I did get antimagic, though I've begun to think it was a mistake. In particular, I don't really ever see myself having enough generics to make the antimagic tree or the fungus tree worth it. Maybe if I lucked into the mindstar tree I might be able to shake loose five points for its first skill, but otherwise?

Basically, I'm feeling really skill-hungry right now. On the class side, I want to complete my conduit-based damage boost, but that's 12 points away (4 in each of the non-physical auras, and 4 in conduit itself) and I'm still missing 6 points in shields. I really should max pyrokinesis as well (another 4), and it's not like Reach or Augmentation would be *bad* things. Given that, shaking loose 8 points to max Greater TK grasp... well, I can see how it would be beneficial in a lot of ways, but that's a lot of points that aren't being spent elsewhere. I suppose I can see how the other powers in the tree could be useful, too - but I've pretty much run out of slots on my skill bar as it is.

[ToxicChicken]

AoE damage isn't necessary for the Master. I killed him pretty quickly by just standing next to him in a corridor and spamming Mindlash, until he died. After a bit of fleeing to let my shields cooldown I repeated the process.

Mindslayers are pretty powerful. I have an AM mindslayer in the east and I haven't died yet (playing on Roguelike). I recommend mindstars of sand for the physical damage boost and penetration.

[donkatsu]

Thermal Aura and Pyrokinesis do stack, in the same way that all (regular) poisons and burn effects stack.