[1.7.4] Krog Mindslayer Guide
Posted: Sat Feb 12, 2022 6:11 pm
Although the last mindslayer guides are a bit old, they're not really outdated as this class almost hasn't changed since that patch. Absorption category is nerfed but the whole game is easier. But I think there can be improvements about how to play this class, especially if you choose to go antimagic with it. Here is my winner https://te4.org/characters/235359/tome/ ... fe03f404b6.
Mindslayer is a simple, strange but strong class. It seems to be featured by 3 aspects (kinetic, thermal and charged), each having several talents spreaded and a whole locked category focused on it, but actually, nobody cares about these. The shields are nice defenses, but are basically just weaker flat damage reductions, while almost all other talents simply don't fit with the nature with this class: a melee fighter. In most situations the character is simply bumping, and it even doesn't have a "charge" talent (although it is quite mobile). However it is a really strong melee fighter, and the reason is simple: it can equip another 2h weapon. This weapon not only auto attacks every game turn, even when the character is sleeping or slowed to hell, but also providing great passive bonus (a single ruin ego on a T5 weapon can provide up to 21% physical critical chance and 49% critical multiplier).
Race: Krog
Actually not the best race (which will be explained later), but Krog is still a solid choice. It offers 2 important disables (stun and confuse), some defenses and increases the offhand damage. If you prefer an Antimagic mindslayer, you should definitely choose Krog.
Prodigy:
Flexible Combat and Pain Enhancement System
Flexible Combat is simply the best offensive and passive prodigy for characters wielding more than 1 weapon. When dual-wielding and with a T4 glove with war-making ego, you have about 20% chance each bump to trigger lv5 Cripple, which deals 190% weapon damage, so this is already about 38% damage bonus, and this is without counting the damage of the punches.
Pain Enhancement System is better than Arcane might in this case. First as an Antimagic character you cannot get so many Magic and spellpower from equips. We don't need additional physical critical chance either since we're going to have 3 ruin egos
. Due to Beyond the Flesh PES gives 4% more stat usage to weapon damage (while the power part is covered by the fact that, adding strength naturally increases physical power), and PES also improve aspects other than offense. Most importantly, PES has synergy to Augmentation. Augmentation will add another 17.5% of your strength to strength and dexterity during the activation of PES.
You may notice that both prodigies are rather useless at lv25. If you really don't like this, replace Flexible Combat with a strong active Prodigy, such as Windblade or Giant Leap and take it at lv25.
Stats: When you no longer needs to worry about talent requirement, focus on wllpower first, then cunning but make sure that you can max strength at lv42. After maxing these 3, put the rest into dexterity for critical damage reduction.
Alchemists' rewards:
+2 generic is at top priority since this class is tight on generic points.
+2 class points and +4% physical critical chance are always good.
Get stat points if you can still get others.
Class talents:
Absorption 3/3/3/5 core, any luxury
Remember to switch shields according to the enemy type and the fact that, from lv3 they can give a damage shield on deactivate (which may save your life sometimes). If you have luxury, the priority of the shields are kinetic > charged > thermal. Kinetic Shield has the most common coverage, while Charged Shield covers another damage type uncovered by Antimagic Shield.
Forcefield makes you confident in bad situations, but don't rely on it. It just makes your recover or flee safer. Note that this is not all resistance so it's unpenetrable and good.
Projection 1/1/1/4 core
Auras are useless. You can sustain some to get some small proc damage and you have a rather large psionic pool. You'll never use the deactivate effect intentionally but if you sometimes start targeting out of nothing, then it's somebody stripping this sustain and you should right-click to cancel and save time.
Frenzied Focus is your answer to group of enemies. Plus it's a ranged attack so it's useful against other melee enemies. You can weaken them when they're still approaching or even try kiting them.
Psi-Fighting 5/5/4 core, 1 in impale luxury
Telekinetic Smash is your stun and probably your most devastating damage talent. Although the multiplier isn't that high but it attacks with the mainhand weapon and the TK weapon, instead of the mainhand and offhand weapons. The stun uses mindpower though so it's not that easy to beat the save.
Augmentation is simple and powerful.
Warding Weapon is very useful against melee enemies. Note that in code it functions in attackTargetWith so although it can attack both weapons of a dual-wielder, it doesn't work against some talents specifically attacking with a certain weapon.
Impale doesn't deal much damage since it only attacks with the TK weapon. It can sometimes be useful since it has 3 range.
Focus 1/1/1/3 core, Mindlash luxury
Mindlash is very useful in early game and you should float points into it. In late game if you have luxury class points and an OK mindcrit rate without PES you can still use it, since PES will make OK rate to good rate.
Pyrokinesis is useless without Transcendent, except in early game.
Brainstorm is sometimes useful since it can reach enemies at range 5 while most of your other ranged attacks only have 4 range.
Iron Will gives stun resist and with 3 points you'll have 100% along with grounding strap and Drake-Infused Blood. The clease effect is also useful to have but play the game as you don't have it.
Augmented Striking 1/1/1/2 core, Kinetic Strike and Psi Tap luxury
Kinetic Strike is another usable attack talent.
Thermal and Charged Strike are useful in early game since they deal additional flat damage. Thermal Strike also freezes.
Psi Tap is for reseource manage point and I think 2 points are enough.
Voracity 0/4 core
Thermal Leech is the best since it deals damage and freeze is the strongest debuffs among the 3. 4 points for range.
Kinetic Mastery unlock at lv34, 1/5/5 core
Transcendent scales poorly so 1 point is enough even if you bother use it.
Kinetic Surge is basically a better Telekinetic Leap. It has longer range, enables you to move through walls, and can even be used as a beam. Note that it knockbacks the enemies damaged so you sometimes don't want to damage your target. 5 points is a good investment since it lets you reach enemies at range 10.
Deflect Projectiles offers defense against ranged weapon enemies and some casters. You'll probably never use the deactivate effect intentionally but if you sometimes start targeting out of nothing, then it's somebody stripping this sustain and you should right-click to cancel and save time.
Implode is one of the strange talents of mindslayers. If there is an enemy at range 5 I'd rather use Frenzied Focus.
Thermal Mastery optionally unlock at lv20 and x/1/4/1 core
This category offers some strong debuffs and another resource management to fuel these debuffs. Transcendent Pyrokinesis makes Pyrokinesis a flameshock, which is a better stun, and makes Thermal Leech decrease enemies' damage. Heatshift pins and disarms.
It seems that this category is nice to have at lv20, but according to my actual play, it's not that good. At lv20, your mindpower is probably not high enough to apply these debuffs, and although mindslayer has many spare class points, it's not the case at lv20. At lv20 without unlocking any class categories, you can use the points to upgrade your Absorption shields and extend your Frenzied Focus, and unlocking tinkers instead will give you some important immunities. Both make you far stronger in face2face combat and this choice also fits well with the nature of this class: simple but strong.
Charged Mastery is basically useless.
Even though mindslayer has many class points and is tight in general, Thought Senses still cannot replace Track. The range is too short and the CD is longer, and more importantly it costs too much resource.
Heartstart can be deactivated intentionally to cleanse stuns, otherwise its defensive function is just terrible.
Generic talents:
Combat Training 0/1/1/x/5/0 core, Thick Skin and Light Armour Training luxury. Level and float Combat Accuracy as needed but note that you probably don't have points to max it. Defense instead of armor is the current meta game so more points into Heavy Armour Training are useless.
Survival 1/1/1 core, Device Mastery luxury
Even though we're tight on generic, it's still better to spend 3 points to get Track. It's more stable, and we can float more points to get additional range, and more importantly, other rewards from the rogue are also great.
Antimagic 1/1/1/1 core, Antimagic Shield luxury
You don't really need the additional resistance offered by Resolve.
Antimagic Zone silences, and can deal damage to enemies with arcane resource bar at range up to 9(you'll find such enemies more often than you think).
With Absorption nerfed, only with Antimagic Shield can one fully nullifies damage.
Manaclash removes magical sustains, and can deal damage to enemies with arcane resource bar at range 10.
Augmented Mobility 1/5/3/3 core, Mindhook and Telekinetic Leap luxury
Simple and strong tree. I don't think that an explanation is needed.
Finer Energy Manipulation 2/1/1/5 core, Form and Function luxury
Realign heals and cleanse physical debuffs.
For a weapon with 40 base power, 5 points into Form and Function only gives 11% more damage than 1 point, not that great since we're tight here.
Matter and Energy gives emergency resource but I never need it.
Resonance Focus simply gives more damage increase than Form and Function, especially since we're taking PES.
Krog 1/1/1/1, Drakeblood Strike luxury
Wrath of the Wilds is a really strong stun.
Drake-infused Blood gives you very high proc damage and carries you through early and mid game. We'll get stun resistance elsewhere so leave it with 1 point.
Fuel Pain may save your life in some case and we definitely don't want such case happens so often to make more points useful.
Drakeblood Strike is not only a silence, but a high multiplier weapon attack with low CD and no resource cost. Another silence is also useful against orcs and Shalores.
Physics and Chemistry, unlock at lv20
We want crystal edge, ablative armor, grounding strap, iron grip, fungal web with all salves except the unstoppable force salve, and kinetic stabiliser, as well as focus lens/head lamp/air recycler (requirement covered by former tinkers). White light emitter and unstoppable force salve luxury.
Category points usage:
Inscription at lv10, tinker at lv20, Kinetic Mastery at lv34. The last one has some options.
Although 5 inscription slots may seem a bit too many for a Zigur follower (Primal Infusion+Movement+2 Injectors are enough), it's never bad to have another Movement. A double Wild covering mental effects is also useful since it solves sleep.
Unlocking Scoundrel and dump points into Lacerating Strike makes you more dangerous.
Unlocking Harmony and Elemental Harmony gives various useful stats.
Unlocking Fungus gives sizeable max life and more importantly, Ancestral life gives you speed when Primal Infusion is on
Inscriptions:
Regeneration/Heal + Movement + 2 Wild early, Primal/Movement + Movement + 2 Injectors late
Don't forget to check the infusion shops for the Primal Infusion.
Note that the TK weapon attack breaks Movement, so if you're fleeing, you'd better deactivate Beyond The Flesh before using Movement.
Escorts rewards:
lost warrior: always choose +strength
injured seer: always choose Nature's Touch (it heals you more than Realign with the same points)
lone alchemist: always choose +willpower
repented thielf: choose Misdirection and then always Lacerating Strikes, or ask for the category
lost sun paladin: choose Telekinetic Leap to save points, or +willpower
lost defiler: always choose Resonance Field, and put it on autouse
temporal explorer: always choose +willpower
worried loremaster: always choose Disarm
lost tinker: learn tinker
Why Shalore is better as a mindslayer?
First we need to know although Antimagic (even with Krog) is very strong by itself (I believe that the infamous Krog Archmage is still able to clear Insane difficulty), these strong points can be overshadowed by the class itself, and this is the case of mindslayer. Mindslayer itself has flat damage reduction (Absorption category), stun, and stun resistance. It can also get silence from tools since it has rather high mindpower. The high-proc damage offered by Drake-Infused Blood can be replaced by elemental weapons, and I think in early game the number is even higher. And by being Antimagic, the character lose access to a lot of strong items and egos. Font of Sacrifice doesn't help with this because unlike the merchant, it doesn't generate options according to the player. It also lose access to a very strong tool in early game (the lighningstorm wand) and the strongest defense in end game (Stormshield Runes).
And being a Krog doesn't actually save you generic points. Although Krog race is perfect at 1/1/1/1, but you will throw at least another 4 points into Antimagic, so the total is 8. Shalore needs at most 1 more point (1/1/1/5 in race with probably 1 in Dagger Mastery). Krog makes you able to wield a 1h weapon in offhand, which is a damage increase. However with a natural 50% damage penalty, your offhand damage won't be great anyway. Seeing that damage penalty, you're also likely going to focus on supporting egos, so the actual difference will be higher. 5 points into Mastery only gives about 30% more damage than 1 point, so the Krog actually only increases the damage by less than 20% even assuming that all 1h weapons are maces and with max accuracy bonus. And this is without TK weapon.
On the other hand, Shalore has a highspeed boost which can easily outspeed a Krog with a Blinding Speed from ring, and with their own speed they can freely use a Rush charm to start a fight to increase the burst. Not to mention that they have the almighty Timeless to extend PES and the speed boost.
Mindslayer is a simple, strange but strong class. It seems to be featured by 3 aspects (kinetic, thermal and charged), each having several talents spreaded and a whole locked category focused on it, but actually, nobody cares about these. The shields are nice defenses, but are basically just weaker flat damage reductions, while almost all other talents simply don't fit with the nature with this class: a melee fighter. In most situations the character is simply bumping, and it even doesn't have a "charge" talent (although it is quite mobile). However it is a really strong melee fighter, and the reason is simple: it can equip another 2h weapon. This weapon not only auto attacks every game turn, even when the character is sleeping or slowed to hell, but also providing great passive bonus (a single ruin ego on a T5 weapon can provide up to 21% physical critical chance and 49% critical multiplier).
Race: Krog
Actually not the best race (which will be explained later), but Krog is still a solid choice. It offers 2 important disables (stun and confuse), some defenses and increases the offhand damage. If you prefer an Antimagic mindslayer, you should definitely choose Krog.
Prodigy:
Flexible Combat and Pain Enhancement System
Flexible Combat is simply the best offensive and passive prodigy for characters wielding more than 1 weapon. When dual-wielding and with a T4 glove with war-making ego, you have about 20% chance each bump to trigger lv5 Cripple, which deals 190% weapon damage, so this is already about 38% damage bonus, and this is without counting the damage of the punches.
Pain Enhancement System is better than Arcane might in this case. First as an Antimagic character you cannot get so many Magic and spellpower from equips. We don't need additional physical critical chance either since we're going to have 3 ruin egos
. Due to Beyond the Flesh PES gives 4% more stat usage to weapon damage (while the power part is covered by the fact that, adding strength naturally increases physical power), and PES also improve aspects other than offense. Most importantly, PES has synergy to Augmentation. Augmentation will add another 17.5% of your strength to strength and dexterity during the activation of PES.You may notice that both prodigies are rather useless at lv25. If you really don't like this, replace Flexible Combat with a strong active Prodigy, such as Windblade or Giant Leap and take it at lv25.
Stats: When you no longer needs to worry about talent requirement, focus on wllpower first, then cunning but make sure that you can max strength at lv42. After maxing these 3, put the rest into dexterity for critical damage reduction.
Alchemists' rewards:
+2 generic is at top priority since this class is tight on generic points.
+2 class points and +4% physical critical chance are always good.
Get stat points if you can still get others.
Class talents:
Absorption 3/3/3/5 core, any luxury
Remember to switch shields according to the enemy type and the fact that, from lv3 they can give a damage shield on deactivate (which may save your life sometimes). If you have luxury, the priority of the shields are kinetic > charged > thermal. Kinetic Shield has the most common coverage, while Charged Shield covers another damage type uncovered by Antimagic Shield.
Forcefield makes you confident in bad situations, but don't rely on it. It just makes your recover or flee safer. Note that this is not all resistance so it's unpenetrable and good.
Projection 1/1/1/4 core
Auras are useless. You can sustain some to get some small proc damage and you have a rather large psionic pool. You'll never use the deactivate effect intentionally but if you sometimes start targeting out of nothing, then it's somebody stripping this sustain and you should right-click to cancel and save time.
Frenzied Focus is your answer to group of enemies. Plus it's a ranged attack so it's useful against other melee enemies. You can weaken them when they're still approaching or even try kiting them.
Psi-Fighting 5/5/4 core, 1 in impale luxury
Telekinetic Smash is your stun and probably your most devastating damage talent. Although the multiplier isn't that high but it attacks with the mainhand weapon and the TK weapon, instead of the mainhand and offhand weapons. The stun uses mindpower though so it's not that easy to beat the save.
Augmentation is simple and powerful.
Warding Weapon is very useful against melee enemies. Note that in code it functions in attackTargetWith so although it can attack both weapons of a dual-wielder, it doesn't work against some talents specifically attacking with a certain weapon.
Impale doesn't deal much damage since it only attacks with the TK weapon. It can sometimes be useful since it has 3 range.
Focus 1/1/1/3 core, Mindlash luxury
Mindlash is very useful in early game and you should float points into it. In late game if you have luxury class points and an OK mindcrit rate without PES you can still use it, since PES will make OK rate to good rate.
Pyrokinesis is useless without Transcendent, except in early game.
Brainstorm is sometimes useful since it can reach enemies at range 5 while most of your other ranged attacks only have 4 range.
Iron Will gives stun resist and with 3 points you'll have 100% along with grounding strap and Drake-Infused Blood. The clease effect is also useful to have but play the game as you don't have it.
Augmented Striking 1/1/1/2 core, Kinetic Strike and Psi Tap luxury
Kinetic Strike is another usable attack talent.
Thermal and Charged Strike are useful in early game since they deal additional flat damage. Thermal Strike also freezes.
Psi Tap is for reseource manage point and I think 2 points are enough.
Voracity 0/4 core
Thermal Leech is the best since it deals damage and freeze is the strongest debuffs among the 3. 4 points for range.
Kinetic Mastery unlock at lv34, 1/5/5 core
Transcendent scales poorly so 1 point is enough even if you bother use it.
Kinetic Surge is basically a better Telekinetic Leap. It has longer range, enables you to move through walls, and can even be used as a beam. Note that it knockbacks the enemies damaged so you sometimes don't want to damage your target. 5 points is a good investment since it lets you reach enemies at range 10.
Deflect Projectiles offers defense against ranged weapon enemies and some casters. You'll probably never use the deactivate effect intentionally but if you sometimes start targeting out of nothing, then it's somebody stripping this sustain and you should right-click to cancel and save time.
Implode is one of the strange talents of mindslayers. If there is an enemy at range 5 I'd rather use Frenzied Focus.
Thermal Mastery optionally unlock at lv20 and x/1/4/1 core
This category offers some strong debuffs and another resource management to fuel these debuffs. Transcendent Pyrokinesis makes Pyrokinesis a flameshock, which is a better stun, and makes Thermal Leech decrease enemies' damage. Heatshift pins and disarms.
It seems that this category is nice to have at lv20, but according to my actual play, it's not that good. At lv20, your mindpower is probably not high enough to apply these debuffs, and although mindslayer has many spare class points, it's not the case at lv20. At lv20 without unlocking any class categories, you can use the points to upgrade your Absorption shields and extend your Frenzied Focus, and unlocking tinkers instead will give you some important immunities. Both make you far stronger in face2face combat and this choice also fits well with the nature of this class: simple but strong.
Charged Mastery is basically useless.
Even though mindslayer has many class points and is tight in general, Thought Senses still cannot replace Track. The range is too short and the CD is longer, and more importantly it costs too much resource.
Heartstart can be deactivated intentionally to cleanse stuns, otherwise its defensive function is just terrible.
Generic talents:
Combat Training 0/1/1/x/5/0 core, Thick Skin and Light Armour Training luxury. Level and float Combat Accuracy as needed but note that you probably don't have points to max it. Defense instead of armor is the current meta game so more points into Heavy Armour Training are useless.
Survival 1/1/1 core, Device Mastery luxury
Even though we're tight on generic, it's still better to spend 3 points to get Track. It's more stable, and we can float more points to get additional range, and more importantly, other rewards from the rogue are also great.
Antimagic 1/1/1/1 core, Antimagic Shield luxury
You don't really need the additional resistance offered by Resolve.
Antimagic Zone silences, and can deal damage to enemies with arcane resource bar at range up to 9(you'll find such enemies more often than you think).
With Absorption nerfed, only with Antimagic Shield can one fully nullifies damage.
Manaclash removes magical sustains, and can deal damage to enemies with arcane resource bar at range 10.
Augmented Mobility 1/5/3/3 core, Mindhook and Telekinetic Leap luxury
Simple and strong tree. I don't think that an explanation is needed.
Finer Energy Manipulation 2/1/1/5 core, Form and Function luxury
Realign heals and cleanse physical debuffs.
For a weapon with 40 base power, 5 points into Form and Function only gives 11% more damage than 1 point, not that great since we're tight here.
Matter and Energy gives emergency resource but I never need it.
Resonance Focus simply gives more damage increase than Form and Function, especially since we're taking PES.
Krog 1/1/1/1, Drakeblood Strike luxury
Wrath of the Wilds is a really strong stun.
Drake-infused Blood gives you very high proc damage and carries you through early and mid game. We'll get stun resistance elsewhere so leave it with 1 point.
Fuel Pain may save your life in some case and we definitely don't want such case happens so often to make more points useful.
Drakeblood Strike is not only a silence, but a high multiplier weapon attack with low CD and no resource cost. Another silence is also useful against orcs and Shalores.
Physics and Chemistry, unlock at lv20
We want crystal edge, ablative armor, grounding strap, iron grip, fungal web with all salves except the unstoppable force salve, and kinetic stabiliser, as well as focus lens/head lamp/air recycler (requirement covered by former tinkers). White light emitter and unstoppable force salve luxury.
Category points usage:
Inscription at lv10, tinker at lv20, Kinetic Mastery at lv34. The last one has some options.
Although 5 inscription slots may seem a bit too many for a Zigur follower (Primal Infusion+Movement+2 Injectors are enough), it's never bad to have another Movement. A double Wild covering mental effects is also useful since it solves sleep.
Unlocking Scoundrel and dump points into Lacerating Strike makes you more dangerous.
Unlocking Harmony and Elemental Harmony gives various useful stats.
Unlocking Fungus gives sizeable max life and more importantly, Ancestral life gives you speed when Primal Infusion is on
Inscriptions:
Regeneration/Heal + Movement + 2 Wild early, Primal/Movement + Movement + 2 Injectors late
Don't forget to check the infusion shops for the Primal Infusion.
Note that the TK weapon attack breaks Movement, so if you're fleeing, you'd better deactivate Beyond The Flesh before using Movement.
Escorts rewards:
lost warrior: always choose +strength
injured seer: always choose Nature's Touch (it heals you more than Realign with the same points)
lone alchemist: always choose +willpower
repented thielf: choose Misdirection and then always Lacerating Strikes, or ask for the category
lost sun paladin: choose Telekinetic Leap to save points, or +willpower
lost defiler: always choose Resonance Field, and put it on autouse
temporal explorer: always choose +willpower
worried loremaster: always choose Disarm
lost tinker: learn tinker
Why Shalore is better as a mindslayer?
First we need to know although Antimagic (even with Krog) is very strong by itself (I believe that the infamous Krog Archmage is still able to clear Insane difficulty), these strong points can be overshadowed by the class itself, and this is the case of mindslayer. Mindslayer itself has flat damage reduction (Absorption category), stun, and stun resistance. It can also get silence from tools since it has rather high mindpower. The high-proc damage offered by Drake-Infused Blood can be replaced by elemental weapons, and I think in early game the number is even higher. And by being Antimagic, the character lose access to a lot of strong items and egos. Font of Sacrifice doesn't help with this because unlike the merchant, it doesn't generate options according to the player. It also lose access to a very strong tool in early game (the lighningstorm wand) and the strongest defense in end game (Stormshield Runes).
And being a Krog doesn't actually save you generic points. Although Krog race is perfect at 1/1/1/1, but you will throw at least another 4 points into Antimagic, so the total is 8. Shalore needs at most 1 more point (1/1/1/5 in race with probably 1 in Dagger Mastery). Krog makes you able to wield a 1h weapon in offhand, which is a damage increase. However with a natural 50% damage penalty, your offhand damage won't be great anyway. Seeing that damage penalty, you're also likely going to focus on supporting egos, so the actual difference will be higher. 5 points into Mastery only gives about 30% more damage than 1 point, so the Krog actually only increases the damage by less than 20% even assuming that all 1h weapons are maces and with max accuracy bonus. And this is without TK weapon.
On the other hand, Shalore has a highspeed boost which can easily outspeed a Krog with a Blinding Speed from ring, and with their own speed they can freely use a Rush charm to start a fight to increase the burst. Not to mention that they have the almighty Timeless to extend PES and the speed boost.