Mindslayer Prodigies

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So I'm currently trying out Mindslayer (made it to the East most recently) and am at the point where I need to think about prodigies. I thought I'd share my thoughts here and see what other people have done historically.

Here are prodigies I think may be useful, grouped by Stat.

Strength Prodigies

- Flexible Combat: A better than choice that it may first seem, as you can get really decent Str and Dex from Psi Fighting to boost the glove damage.

- Legacy of the Naloren: Telekinetically wield the trident, could it get any better?

- Superpower: More mindpower is always nice, as is 30% more Wil contribution to weapons. Again, you can get Str from Psi Fighting.

- Pain Enhancement: Great if you have high Str and critrate.

Dexterity Prodigies:

- Swift Hands: Seems that this can always be a good utility.

- Windblade: Maybe? Pretty much pure damage.

Constitution Prodigies:

- Spine of the World: No fuss, no muss, no bad physical effects.

- Subcutaneous Metallisation: If you have really high Con I can see this being worth it.

Magic Prodigies

(None, unless you do something really weird.)

Willpower Prodigies:

- Draconic Will: Always useful.

- Hidden Resources: I sometimes find Psi very hard to regenerate mid-fight, so this might be useful?

- Mental Tyranny: Could be okay, mostly for the resistance penetration.

- Range Amplification Device: So many mindslayer talents have range shorter than 5. 60% fatigue is a major, major downside.

Cunning Prodigies:

- Eye of the Tiger: If you have good critrate.

I find it interesting that Str has what I see as the most useful prodigies, despite Str not being a core stat for Mindslayers.

[Frumple]

If you're interested in the range booster and worried about the fatigue, just pair it with carry the world. Zero is zero, heh, and once you get carry there's pretty much nothing that can increase your fatigue above zero, range amplification included (I just checked to be sure, hehehe). S'also a fairly alright thing to consider for any of the strength scaling prodigies... better on classes that scale better otherwise with strength (you get a physpower bump as a slayer, but that's about it outside the prodigies unless for some arcane reason you're forgoing using beyond the flesh), but it can still be pretty nice. Much better thing to consider for an embers campaign than maj'eyal, though, since there's a third prodigy point to be found in that'un.

Think the more obvious good choices would be one of the defensive talents, though. Spine as you noted, draconic will or body, indeed the metalization (since you have no need to invest in anything except willpower and cunning, it's fairly trivial to max con out, too -- and you've got an additional con boost on tap via gems, if you get in a particularly bad spot), maybe corrupted shell, etc., etc. They're usually solid, if fairly boring, choices.

Also worth noting strength and dex probably do... nothing for you scaling wise, if you take flexible combat. Beyond the Flesh overwrites glove scaling for those stats, too. One of the easier things to overlook, really... it was only a few months ago I finally noticed BtF replaces str/dex scaling with will/cun on everything, not just TK held weapons, and I've been playing slayers fairly often since the ruddy things were first introduced :V

Annnnd... you can probably assume good (enough) critrate. You're going to max cunning, and you've got up to three weapon slots to stick +physcrit into (find three of those lovely randarts that give 20+% chance? If one's a dagger, say hello to passive 60+% crit before any other boosts). Slayers probably have one of the most trivially easy times of getting 100% physcrit in the game, if for whatever reason they actually want to take things that far.

... as for Naloren. I'd probably say only take that if you're an ogre. The big reason to take it is those five extra points of exotic mastery (the trident's good, but it's not that good), and you'll need ogre if you're still going to have dual-wielding on the table (unless you're going to sink points into basic weapon mastery or mindstars, too, which... well, the latter'd be fairly alright, actually. Wastes some of any investment you may have made into reshape, but eh) to any meaningful degree (tridents are plentiful enough. Whips are... not.).

Anyway, about all I can think to mention at the moment. Hope it helps out a bit!

E: Almost all. Don't underestimate Eternal Guard -- shields are fairly viable for slayers (or at least about as much as dual-wielding, hehe), and it can add even better damage mitigation than metalization, if you're going with shields, once you get your hands on that tlvl 5 block.

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If you're interested in the range booster and worried about the fatigue, just pair it with carry the world. Zero is zero, heh, and once you get carry there's pretty much nothing that can increase your fatigue above zero, range amplification included (I just checked to be sure, hehehe).

That's a very clever idea! Tempting to play with if I try a more caster-y build (my current mindslayer is melee-focused).

Also worth noting strength and dex probably do... nothing for you scaling wise, if you take flexible combat. Beyond the Flesh overwrites glove scaling for those stats, too. One of the easier things to overlook, really... it was only a few months ago I finally noticed BtF replaces str/dex scaling with will/cun on everything, not just TK held weapons, and I've been playing slayers fairly often since the ruddy things were first introduced :V

Wow, that's very good to know. Definitely bumps Flexible Combat up my list.

... as for Naloren. I'd probably say only take that if you're an ogre. The big reason to take it is those five extra points of exotic mastery (the trident's good, but it's not that good), and you'll need ogre if you're still going to have dual-wielding on the table (unless you're going to sink points into basic weapon mastery or mindstars, too, which... well, the latter'd be fairly alright, actually. Wastes some of any investment you may have made into reshape, but eh) to any meaningful degree (tridents are plentiful enough. Whips are... not.).

My thought was to TK wield the trident so you'd still have both hands free. My mindslayer duals mindstars currently and is a damage machine.

[Frumple]

Oh aye, you can TK wield it just fine. Rub is while it is a (very) good weapon, it's also one that doesn't synergize that much with the slayers themselves (the psychic assault boost isn't even for mindslayers and the damage types don't fit it all that amazingly, imo -- the mind's sorta' there and I guess conceptually you do some cold damage, but...), and there's also quite a number of other 2 hand artifacts (or randarts) that are in roughly the same ballpark. If you want to get the most out of the prodigy, you almost certainly want to go in intending to come out using exotics as your primary weapons, if you weren't already. If not, well... the exotic mastery is five points you don't have to spend generics on, but personally I'd value the prodigy point over that fairly substantially

... basically, for all the trident is pretty hard hitting, it's a fairly clumsy fit for the class itself. The psionic category it boosts isn't even one the class has (it's a solipsist tree), and the mind damage boost is low-ish (and again, would benefit builds of the class more that would seriously rather be wearing something else)... other than the mind and sorta' cold boost, it's only particularly good in that it hits hard (very hard, if you actually did what you're more or less supposed to and got exotic up to 10) and some iffy stat boosts. And there's a notable problem with it if you're intending to TK wield it, as basically everything about it except the raw weapon damage primarily benefits more range focused slayer builds and they'd much rather be wearing a gem or mindstar in that slot.

All that said, I have had some fun with it, running ogre and going full tri-wield exotics. That 10/5 exotic mastery definitely helps you hit hard, hehehe. I'd just value a number of other artifacts (or just gems or randart 2handers/mindstars) over it if I'm not doing exactly that, is the thing.

... what I really wish is that there was a prodigy or something that'd get you steamsaw mastery, though. That two handed one that gives you a full heal on kill every 15 turns or so (among all the other stuff it does) is pure sex, for lack of a more colorful way to describe it. Plus it'd let you do even sillier things with eternal guard, since block stacks and that'd be how you'd turn a 3-400 point block value into a 4-550 one... basically perfect for a shield using slayer.

[visage]

Annnnd... you can probably assume good (enough) critrate. You're going to max cunning, and you've got up to three weapon slots to stick +physcrit into (find three of those lovely randarts that give 20+% chance? If one's a dagger, say hello to passive 60+% crit before any other boosts).

What about daggers makes that true? Is there a hidden dagger crit bonus?

[Frumple]

Nah, nothing like that. What makes it true about daggers is that they're something that gets weapon (i.e. non-mindstar et al) egos that you can offhand. It's possible to find a randart/rare mindstar or shield that gives 20+% to crit, but you are massively more likely to find that on a dagger, to the point you can run into daggers like that on just blue/purple items, rather than basically having to find a randart or rare.

Probably worded it a little poorly; one of those three slots mentioned is basically unusable unless you've got a dagger to stick in it, at least insofar as physcrit goes, is what I meant.

[visage]

Probably worded it a little poorly; one of those three slots mentioned is basically unusable unless you've got a dagger to stick in it, at least insofar as physcrit goes, is what I meant.

Ah, I see. Thanks!

[ster]

pes and naloren always, superpower over naloren if you really like using frenzied focus with silly randarts/black maul. pes was literally made for this class

Oh aye, you can TK wield it just fine. Rub is while it is a (very) good weapon, it's also one that doesn't synergize that much with the slayers themselves

naloren doesn't have to synergise with a class to be the best weapon in the game by far lol, and given that MS will have absurdly high mind + phys power the stun and silence procs will do a great job of disabling final and superbosses

[jenx]

Naloren and Flex combat. BNaloren with Mindslayer is unbelievably good.

not all chars can gain PES.

[Frumple]

naloren doesn't have to synergise with a class to be the best weapon in the game by far lol, and given that MS will have absurdly high mind + phys power the stun and silence procs will do a great job of disabling final and superbosses

... I'd disagree pretty strongly that the naloren trident's the best weapon in the game,* especially by any substantial degree. I'd give the best exotic set artifact, and probably the best guaranteed one in the main campaign, but that's about it. The procs are nice but two 10% procs (that have effects you can get elsewhere without spending a prodigy point on) and raw damage that gets matched or near enough by randarts (and only somewhat trailed by set ones) doesn't exactly knock the thing out of the ballpark, particularly for mindslayers where that's about all it really gives. Add on that the whole exotic thing probably means it's going to cost extra generics one way or another if you take the prodigy, the benefit just... really isn't worth the cost, most of the time (as noted above, an ogre trident wielder would be an exception, heh, and there's probably others). Go with something else and pick up a prodigy that's going to do something more for you than a fairly marginal damage bonus and inconsistent debuff overlap, heh. The thing's good, it's just not prodigy point good for most mindslayers, t'me.

... but yeah, PES is great if you've got embers. Only real thing stopping an MS from getting it (size matters and 50 str is silly easy to get on a MS), but there's folks that don't have it.

*You'd have a hard time convincing me it isn't the twisted blade, barring some ridiculous high level randart, so far as non-caster melee gear goes. Full heal and decent lifesteal t'boot, eesh. Still not super far ahead of the pack, though. I'd call it best, but there's a good handful of other things that are a close second and there's stuff that's better for specific encounters besides.

[ster]

... I'd disagree pretty strongly that the naloren trident's the best weapon in the game,*

ok yeah i forgot about sawrd and i guess the 2H steamsaw that works like sawrd but you can't offhand that on a class it would be relevant on

(naloren is the best weapon in AoA because of the 140% strength weight and the 10 points of exotic weapon mastery you get from the prodigy, btw. so you're doing 100% extra damage instead of 50% and that's disregarding the combat training boost it gives you)