[1.0.4] Adventurer Experiment Slyar (short Arena win)

[Doctornull]

http://te4.org/characters/52902/tome/e3 ... 21c338a372

He's an Adventurer, so I'm going to discuss the trees he took.

Psionic / Psychic Assault - His main ranged attacks. He used Mind Sear very frequently, Sunder & Lobotomy on bosses (or when Mind Sear was on cooldown), and Static like... twice, maybe. When surrounded he'd usually just do his melee thing (Gestures).

Psionic / Absorption - An extra weapon slot which auto-attacks every round, and oh yeah, some really good shields which feed his Psi bar for more Mind Sear attacks. Pulled more than just its weight from round 1 to the end.

Cursed / Gloom - He's spending Hate for another tree, so he needed a source of Hate. That's either Gloom or Feed, and Feed is more work to use, so I went with Gloom. The passive debuffs were great since he was building Mindpower anyway, and Sanctuary meant I had 20% less pain from ranged attackers.

Cursed / Force of Will - This is where he's spending his Hate. It's ... decent. He used the first talent to push monsters into lines so he could get combo kills more easily via Mind Sear. He used the third when monsters wouldn't line up nicely for Mind Sear. He used the fourth when the field was full of monsters, just for laughs. He was mainly here for the 2nd talent (Deflection), and it seemed to perform okay in combo with Absorption, but Absorption was doing most of the work.

Cursed / Cursed Form - Relentless (the 2nd talent) is awesome. He spent very little time Stunned. The others are fine, too.

Race / Halfling - I was able to use this tree very effectively, but in retrospect it was a waste, since the Arena capped out at level 27. See, every point in Militant Mind was a point NOT spent in Gestures / Gesture of Power, and while the former was great for Arena mass battle, the latter would be good for the mass battles and also for bosses, while Militant Mind was useless in boss fights. Ideally I'd have 5/5 in both, but if I had to choose one, it would be Gestures. He never used Indomitable.

Cursed / Gestures - Awesome. Just awesome. My usual pattern was a Gesture attack to do a little damage + Malign (lower resistances), then Mind Sear through the Maligned fellow for massive damage, then melee again if he's still alive. Very efficient psi-to-murder ratio if I can hit multiple jerks with the Mind Sear. The last talent in this tree combos with Psi / Absorption to make him very tanky, and generates bonus counter-attacks. He was able to stand toe-to-toe with the final boss and win.

---

What the build lacked:
- Mobility. If he can't kill it with a Mind Sear, he's going to have to walk over to his enemy.
- Mobility. If he's surrounded, his options are very limited.
- Healing. He's not getting any special benefits out of his Infusions.
- Spike damage. He's got nothing like Flurry, so good thing his bump attack is a god-killer.

Gear:
- His healing had been very limited in the early game, so around mid-late when he got a store with a Healing Totem and a Healing Amulet, he bought both. He never used either item.
- His mindstars selection sucked. He killed the final boss with a mossy mindstar in one of his hands. Ugh.
- Also it looks like he's wearing a plain linen robe and plain rough leather gloves. So apparently his armor selection also sucked.

Overall:
- The core (Absorption, Mental Assault, Gloom, Gestures) is incredibly solid. I could have stuck on nearly anything and had it work.
- Cursed Form pulls its weight.
- Force of Will... isn't a good fit for this build. He's happy in melee, he doesn't use DoTs and he doesn't kite, but it's fun to push things around so the powers did get used sometimes.

[adamn]

Your psionic focus was a staff. Seems an odd choice. Care to explain it?

[Doctornull]

Your psionic focus was a staff. Seems an odd choice. Care to explain it?

Sure.

You'll notice how my equipment contains an iron longsword of erosion and another mossy mindstar? My equipment sucked. I was trying to see if the one tier 4 item I found (the staff) would be a better choice than the tier 1 gear which I'd been using.

I'm not sure if it was a better choice or not.

[adamn]

Ah, yeah that makes sense. The staff does have some decent buffs on it, at least. Too bad it can't get you +mind damage%, eh?