[1.5.10] Mechamindslimer build (Insane/RL winner)

[Effigy]

Build Overview
I wanted to play an antimagic build for variety and to get some unlocks. Then I realized that Mechanical Arms works with Psiblades, and this build was born. It's mainly based on talents from Mindslayer, Oozemancer, and Psyshot, with a couple extra categories thrown in for synergy. I won Insane/RL without too much trouble, so I'd recommend it to anyone wanting to try an antimagic melee Adventurer.

Race
Cornac is the only real option since the build is tight on both class and generic points. I had to skimp on several talents even with the extra Cornac points.

Stats
Willpower > Cunning > Strength > Constitution

Your damage is primarily from Willpower, so max that first; it's also important for psi and equilibrium. Cunning provides some mindstar damage as well as crit chance and accuracy, so focus on that second. However, you'll want to max Strength by level 42 for Pain Enhancement System before maxing Cunning. You can get about 35 base Cun before you need to start pumping Str. Finally, put leftover points in Constitution for some healing modifier and life; Con isn't that great, but it's generally better than Dex for this build.

If you need help meeting stat requirements for talents/gear/prodigies, you can temporarily wield a gem in your telekinetic slot for a stat boost.

Prodigies
Level 30: Superpower
Level 42: Pain Enhancement System

I recommend getting Superpower first because it's solid damage and reliable. Pain Enhancement System is more powerful when it's active, but it has only 33% uptime and requires high Strength, which you won't want to focus on during the early game. I recommend getting PES second. There are other good prodigies, such as Windtouched Speed or Flexible Combat, but the damage and other perks of PES are hard to pass up. Feel free to try something else if you want. Even if you don't take PES, you'll probably want to max Strength for the physical power and mindpower from Superpower.

Class Talents
Psionic/Solipsism: 5/1/5/0
Psionic/Psi-Fighting: 3/3+/5/0
Steamtech/Thoughts of Iron: 5/1/2+/1+
Steamtech/Dread: 5/0/0/0
Wild-gift/Ooze: 3+/1/1/5
Wild-gift/Mucus: 4/1/5/1
Wild-gift/Oozing Blades: 1/1/1+/5
Wild-gift/Sand Drake: 5/1+/1/0 or your preference

Sand Drake isn't essential to the build, but I think it's a good fit. You might also consider Wild-gift/Slime for the mobility and cooldown reset of Slime Roots, or Wild-gift/Eyal's Fury for magic buff removal with Acidfire and a little extra protection with Nature's Defiance. I considered Wild-gift/Vemon Drake for Dissolve, but that category lacks utility and Swallow is situationally superior anyway. Grabbing Cunning/Lethality for Expose Weakness and Blade Flurry is probably very strong.

Generic Talents
Technique/Combat Training: 5/3+/0/0+/5/0
Steamtech/Physics: 1+/2+/1+/0
Steamtech/Chemistry: 3+/1+/2+/0
Wild-gift/Mindstar Mastery: 5/1/2+/1
Wild-gift/Antimagic: 1+/2+/5+/0+
Wild-gift/Fungus: 1+/1/1/1
Wild-gift/Harmony: 0+/0+/0+/0+
Psionic/Finer Energy Manipulations: 1/1/1/2+ or your preference

Thanks to feedback from @visage, you don't technically need Psionic/FEM because the damage/accuracy reduction from Beyond the Flesh doesn't affect mindstars. It's still a solid category for enhanced TK weapon damage and other goodies, but you can try something else if you want. One option to consider is Psionic/Dream Forge 1/1/1+/0+ for extra psi recovery and defenses. Psionic/Augmented Mobility 1/5/0+/0+ is another good option for global speed, crit, and accuracy, plus Telekinetic Leap is nice if you can swing the points.

You don't need to spend category points to unlock Mindstar Mastery, Antimagic, Fungus, or Harmony. Mindstar Mastery can be purchased from the trinket shop in Zigur. Antimagic is unlocked for free after doing the antimagic trial in Zigur; I recommend doing it around level 20. Fungus is unlocked for free after completing the Storming the City quest for Zigur. Harmony is unlocked for free after eating the Heart of the Sandworm Queen.

There will be some leftover class and generic points to distribute as you like. I listed the minimum recommended for a lot of the generic talents so you can customize the investment to your playstyle.

Category Points
Level 1
Psionic/Solipsism
Psionic/Finer Energy Manipulations or your preference
Psionic/Psi-Fighting
Steamtech/Thoughts of Iron
Wild-gift/Ooze
Wild-gift/Sand Drake or your preference
Wild-gift/Mucus
+1 inscription slot
Level 10
Tinkers (wait until you're strong enough for the zone, probably level 15+)
Level 20
Steamtech/Dread
Level 36
+1 inscription slot
Wyrm Bile
Wild-gift/Oozing Blades

You could unlock Oozing Blades at level 36 if you want, but I don't think it's necessary. You can keep a couple mind-damage mindstars if your inventory in case you come up against something with high nature resist/affinity.

Helpful Addons
This build uses tinkers from an escort reward. If you don't like relying on the luck of the draw to be able to play your intended build, you can use the Select First Escort addon to ensure that you get a lost tinker escort.

If you haven't yet unlocked any of the relevant categories, the Ignore Race/Class Locks addon is nice. This addon doesn't actually mess with your unlocks (you will still unlock things normally through achievements) but lets you use races, classes, and talent categories that are currently locked.

Inscriptions
Early: Movement, Healing/Regeration, Wild(physical or physical/magical), Steam Generator
Late: Regeneration, Heroism, 2x Medical Injector, Steam Generator

You can get by without a Wild(mental) because you'll get Psionic Mirror at level 8. Having a hybrid Wild(physical/magical) may be useful until you switch over to medical injectors, but Oozewalk is also a decent tool for getting rid of magical effects.

Equipment
You'll want start wearing massive armor as soon as it's feasible. During the early game, use a one-handed sword/axe/mace in your mainhand with either a dagger or mindstar offhand. You'll want to use a two-hander in the telekinetic slot for the whole game. You can switch to mindstars once you find a couple decent ones and you have enough spare generics to invest in both Psiblades and Weapons Mastery, recommeded by level 20 for when you unlock Steamtech/Dread. During the early/mid game, just use the best mindstars you can find regardless of damage type. In the late game, you'll want to use nature-damage mindstars to synergize with Unstoppable Nature.

Important mods to look for on gear include: life, psi, heal mod, nature and physical damage/penetration, physical crit chance, crit multiplier, immunities, resists, and melee procs (e.g., slow, cripple, gloom, disease). I recommend using the Bloodcaller ring for some automatic healing, unless you have two really nice rings.

Tinkers
Weapons: Your preference; I used a mix of Acid Groove and Viral Injector
Helm: Headlamp
Cloak: Grounding Strap
Body: Ablative Armor
Gloves: Iron Grip, or your preference
Belt: Fungal Web, Alchemist's Helper, or Back Support
Boots: Rocket Boots

I made a fairly light investment in tinkering, so I didn't have access to some of the juicy attachments like Crystal Edge and Alchemist's Helper. You could go for those if you want, but you'll have to make sacrifices elsewhere.

Alchemist Quest
There are tons of uses for generics in this build, so definitely get the Elixir of Foundations first. Next get the Elixir of Focus because class points are also tight. After that, feel free to take whatever you like.

Trapped! Quest
Prior to the release of Forbidden Cults DLC, it was always preferable to rescue the merchant during this quest. If you have the DLC and you're playing on Insane or higher difficulty, it's now potentially worth siding with the assassin lord because he gives you access to a crafting bench that can be used on rare and randart items (i.e., pink/orange item name). You can make some very nice items with this, but its usefulness is really limited by the quality of loot you're finding normally. If you're not finding randarts for a given item slot, you'll generally be stuck using random drops for that slot whereas you could just buy a randart of that type if you sided with the merchant. This is more noticeable for less-common items like mindstars, pickaxes, jewelry, etc.

I'm not sure whether it's optimal to go with the assassin lord for this build since T5 mindstars can be hard to find and they don't have the greatest egos to craft anyway. I chose to do it on my character and I did make some nice modifications to my armor and 2H weapon, although the mindstar crafting was marginal. If you've never tried the crafting bench, I suggest checking it out though.

Class Talents
Psionic/Solipsism 2/0/0/0 early, 5/1/5/0 core
Solipsism essentially splits the damage taken and healing received between our life and psi pools, and reduces the damage taken to psi. At 5/5, this is equivalent to ~22% damage mitigation, which is pretty solid. The downside is that we suffer a global speed penalty if we go below the "threshold" (20-40% of max psi, depending on talent investment). That's a little risky, but the build has quite a bit of healing available. Another consequence is that we pay "life" for psi-based talents, but since health is easier to recover than most other resources, this is usually a net benefit. You should get 1/5 here at character creation to adjust your life rating, then get 2/5 fairly soon. I'd probably wait to max this until you have Clarity maxed.

Balance isn't that important since we're not stacking saves. It doesn't hurt (apart from raising the solipsism threshold), but it's not worth more than 1/5 in this build. Don't put a point here until you're ready to train the next talent.

Clarity is a very nice upgrade in the mid/late game, providing up to 35% increased global speed at full psi. Most of the time, we can keep our psi pool near full due to constant healing from several sources. I wouldn't rush this though, since you don't want to raise you solipsism threshold before all your healing tools are online.

Dismissal isn't a good option for this build since we're not trying to stack mental save and we don't want to raise our solipsism threshold more than necessary. We already have Antimagic Shield for flat damage reduction. Leave this at 0/5.

Psionic/Psi-Fighting 3/1/1/0 early, 3/3+/5/0 core
Keep Beyond the Flesh sustained at all times for the bonus melee attack (or bonus stats from a gem, for requirements scumming).

Telekinetic Smash is a decent stun but also deals potent damage, since it hits with both of your mainhand/offhand weapons as well as your telekinetic weapon. I recommend 3/5 here to get a decent stun duration and a bit of damage scaling. It would be nice to max this skill, but points are pretty tight.

Augmentation helps increase Strength for Pain Enhancement System. I recommend at least 3/5; it's arguably worth maxing, but there are competing priorities. If you choose not to take PES, you could leave this at 1/5 or 2/5.

Warding Weapon is like block, only much better. It's instant cast, deals a free hit to the attacker, and at higher levels can disarm. It's worth noting that the automatic random block at 5/5 doesn't put the skill on cooldown, so you can double up on your blocks. I recommend 5/5 because it's decent damage mitigation and we can afford the psi cost.

Impale is decent, but there are too many other options in this build. I would leave this at 0/5.

Steamtech/Thoughts of Iron 1/1/1/0 early, 5/1/2+/1+ core
Molten Iron Blood provides significant resists and status effect reduction at higher levels. You'll want 1/5 early so you can get Psionic Mirror as soon as possible, but I recommend maxing this fairly soon when you can spare the points.

Mind Drones are okay, but not really worth investment and you'll rarely if ever want to use them. The steam cost is not an issue for this build, most of the time it's not worth spending a turn to cast. Just grab 1/5 to continue on.

Psionic Mirror is excellent and you'll want to get 1/5 at level 8 so you can get by without a Wild(mental) infusion. Note that since this is instant-cast, it can remove sleep effects whereas salves and items can't. Having this talent makes it safe to drop your Wild infusion(s) for salves in the late game. I recommend at least 2/5 eventually, in case you get hit with sleep alongside another mental effect; it's worth considering additional points here when you can afford them.

Mind Injection is basically a third injector, albeit with suboptimal power/cooldown. It's fine to leave this at 1/5, but if you have extra points this is a decent place to throw them.

Wild-gift/Ooze 1/1/1/2 early, 3+/1/1/5 core
Mitosis makes you more durable by spawning oozes that absorb some of the damage you take. As a bonus, it also let's you recover equilibrium while resting. 1/5 is fine for the early game, but you'll eventually want at least 3/5 to allow spawning multiple oozes and to have a better chance to spawn them.

Reabsorb is okay. I didn't end up using it much, but if you're into micromanaging your oozes you could probably get some decent mileage from it. In any case, you only need 1/5.

Call of the Ooze is a nice one-pointer. It summons oozes on demand, distracts enemies for a short while, and also delivers a melee attack. The scaling isn't great and the cooldown is fairly long, so I would leave this at 1/5.

Indiscernible Anatomy is a solid defensive boost, providing some nice immunities and a large amount of crit reduction. You'll want 2/5 in the midgame to make status effects less annoying, then max it when you can spare the points.

Wild-gift/Mucus 1/1/1/1 early, 4/1/5/1 core
Mucus is handy for equilibrium management at 1/5 during the early game, and once it's upgraded it will be an enabler for the other talents. You'll eventually want 4/5 to increase the radius. I don't think it's worth going 5/5 for the extra duration though.

Acid Splash is decent for creating more mucus to spawn oozes, and deals okay damage if there are already oozes on the field. Since we're melee-focused, I wouldn't invest more than 1/5 here though. This is a good skill to toss in while waiting for cooldowns, or if you need to create mucus for Oozewalk.

Living Mucus is sort of a luxury talent in this build. You could probably leave it at 1/5 and do okay since you have good melee damage, but I feel like it's worth going 5/5; you'll summon more oozes more often, they'll hit harder, and last longer. Even if they do less damage than your melee, they are good meat shields to distract your enemies.

Oozewalk is a one-point wonder. I wouldn't invest additional points here because it's very situational, but being able to remove 2 status effects at 1/5 is solid. This may be your only tool for removing magical effects during the early/mid game before you switch to salves, so I recommend putting a point here fairly early.

Wild-gift/Sand Drake 3/1/1/0 early, 5/1+/1/0 core
Swallow is a pretty versatile talent. It can serve as a potent melee attack, or be used to finish off a tough enemy when their life gets low. It's worth noting that negative life is not counted toward the insta-kill threshold, so this is very handy against necromancers and other enemies with a lot of negative health. Furthermore, it passively gives up to 10% crit chance for both melee and mind powers, and (along with the other Sand Drake talents) gives physical resist, which is useful because Antimagic Shield doesn't work against physical damage. Get 3/5 fairly early for reduced cooldown and a manageable insta-kill threshold, then max it when convenient.

Quake is a handy tool for breaking line of sight when you're facing unfavorable odds. You probably won't need to use it often, but you'll be glad to have it when you're in a room of 3 uniques/randbosses or whatever. You could leave it at 1/5, but I like 2/5 for the extra radius.

Burrow is a great utility skill, especially paired with a Movement infusion or high-tier Rocket Boots. 1/5 is fine since you can still dig out many tiles during a movement speed boost, and since we're focusing on nature mindstars we don't care that much about the armor/physical penetration.

Sand Breath is...okay? Blind is decent, but once you get Mechanical Arms you'd be better off just getting blind-on-hit from an item. If we had a bunch of spare points laying around it might be worth investing here, but this build has other priorities. I recommend leaving this at 0/5.

Steamtech/Dread 5/0/0/0 early and core
Mechanical Arms, even better than regular arms! It's almost like having Mindslayer's Frenzied Focus active all the time. You'll want to max this talent soon after unlocking the category. The build goes from pretty good to really good once you get this. Oh, and it applies a damage debuff to enemies it hits. MECHANICAL. ARMS.

Lucid Shot and Psy Worm are for steamguns, and thus irrelevant to this build. No Hope is good in theory, but I don't think it's worth the point investment given that we don't care about the other two talents. We already have damage debuffs from Mechanical Arms and item procs, so it's no great loss. Just stick with the Arms and ignore the later talents in this category.

Wild-gift/Oozing Blades 1/1/1+/5 core
Oozebeam is a decent talent, but this is primarily a melee build. Leave it at 1/5 and maybe cast it when you don't know what else to do.

Natural Acid is okay, but too unreliable to merit more than 1/5. Still, not bad for a little resist and nature damage.

Mind Parasite is potentially quite useful against bosses and other enemies with numerous talents. This build should have enough mindpower to make it stick in the late game. It's fine to leave at 1/5 if you don't plan to use it much, but 2/5 is a good value since it doubles the number of talents disabled and more than triples the time they're put on cooldown.

Unstoppable Nature is the main reason for unlocking this category. Since we mostly deal one damage type, we need a way to deal with resistant/immune enemies. This talent will make those fights significantly easier, and with good gear you may even get 100% penetration. As an added bonus, mucus oozes get free attacks when we use our talents. You'll want to max this out soon after unlocking the category, which will be in the late game anyway.

Generic Talents
Technique/Combat Training 0/3/0/2/3/0 early, 5/3+/0/0+/5/0 core
Get Heavy Armor Training and Weapons Mastery both to 3/5 as soon as possible. You may want to delay maxing Weapons Mastery until you have Psiblades maxed. I recommend floating 2/5 in Combat Accuracy to help during the early game; if you chose not to max Resonant Focus, you could leave them here, otherwise respec them after switching to mindstars. Maxing Heavy Armor Training is an option, but I recommend waiting until endgame to see if you can get armor hardiness from an item like Unbreakable Greaves. Eventually you'll want 5/5 Thick Skin since it pairs well with Molten Iron Blood, but that can wait until late game.

Wild-gift/Mindstar Mastery 5/1/1/1 early, 5/1/2+/1 core
Psiblades are obviously required to deal respectable damage with mindstars. You'll want to max it around level 20 when you unlock Steamtech/Dread.

Thorn Grab doesn't do enough to be worth the bother. Just 1/5 and move on.

Leaves Tide is very strong, but the scaling isn't very good until you have high mindpower and good mindstars. You can leave it at 1/5 for quite, then go 2/5 once you get ~5% avoidance from the extra point. It's worth putting additional points here at endgame, but I was short so I left it at 2/5.

Nature's Equilibrium is a one-point wonder. It does a high-damage attack and then heals you or an adjacent target. Even at 1/5, the heal is quite large once you have stacked heal mod.

Wild-gift/Antimagic 1/2/2/0 early, 1+/2+/5/0+ core
Resolve is pretty useful, but we want to use Antimagic Shield and we don't really have the spare points to go 5/5 here to make them work together. You get 1/5 here for free after the antimagic trial, and that's generally good enough for our needs. I wouldn't bother with additional points unless you manage to fit 5/5 in the build.

Aura of Silence is a potent tool for disabling spellcasters. 2/5 is a decent radius and duration breakpoint, but I recommend getting 4/5 eventually for radius 10 and 50% uptime.

Antimagic Shield makes the build considerably more durable. You'll want 2/5 fairly soon after unlocking antimagic, but I recommend maxing this talent eventually. You need high Willpower and decent equilibrium management to keep it up during longer fights though.

Mana Clash is pretty good, but it's totally optional. I went 2/5 here, but didn't see a huge impact in most fights. You would probably be okay skipping it, but it's a decent place to throw a couple spare points.

Wild-gift/Fungus 1+/1/1/1 core
It might be a while before you can afford to invest in this category, but I think you'll want at least the minimal investment, both for the extra healing and the equilibrium management. Wild Growth is fine at 1/5 to enable the other talents, but I'd throw any spare points you have here in the late game. While it doesn't increase the healing per second from a Regen infusion, it increases both the total healing and the uptime.

Fungal Growth is a decent one-pointer. It typically doesn't create a very large regen, but it helps keep you topped up. You can right-click cancel the regen buff if you need to use your Regen infusion before it ends.

Ancestral Life makes Regen infusions much more efficient since they no longer take a full turn to use, and they help you manage your equilibrium. I would leave this at 1/5 because points are tight.

Sudden Growth is a one-point wonder. When you have a strong regen going, this skill can give a full heal and then some, even at 1/5.

Wild-gift/Harmony 0+/0+/0+/0+ core
Waters of Life is a one-point wonder. Damage from poison and disease can be quite high on Insane difficulty, so throwing a point in here is generally worthwhile.

The rest of the Harmony talents aren't really needed for this build, but are decent if you can afford them. If you chose not to take Psionic/FEM, it's probably worth grabbing Healing Nexus to deal with Vitality and other problematic healing talents on enemies. If you didn't unlock tinkers for whatever reason, I would go 5/5 One with Nature so you can reset your infusions.

Psionic/Finer Energy Manipulations (optional) 1/1/1/2+ early and core
Realign is decent one-pointer, with a reasonable heal and a physical cleanse. It would be nice to invest additional points to remove more effects, but it's hard to justify the points in this build.

Reshape Weapon/Armour gives a modest bonus, but we just need 1/5 to unlock the later talents.

Matter is Energy is potentially useful if you get low on psi, but I never had to use it. Thanks to Solipsism, all of our healing replenishes psi. I guess you could also eat a gem to get some temporary bonuses at the start of a tough fight. We just need 1/5 to continue on.

Resonant Focus is the reason for taking this category. Without this talent, our non-mindstar weapon damage and accuracy are scaled down to 60% of the normal amount, but at 5/5 we get the full values. Get 2/5 early for an efficient bonus to damage and accuracy (as well as more stat bonus from gems) and consider additional points when you can afford them.

[visage]

Resonant Focus is the reason for taking this catgeory. Without this talent, our weapon damage and accuracy are scaled down to 60% of the normal amount, but at 5/5 we get the full values. It's a steep price, but well worth it to use three full-power weapons. Rush this to 5/5 early on; it's more important than maxing weapon masteries.

Am I correct in thinking that once you're running mindstars Resonant Focus only applies to your TK slot? It seems like you could benefit from floating points there and then eventually pulling a few out to put elsewhere. Perhaps in Combat Accuracy, to help out the TK weapon?

Telekinetic Smash is a decent stun but also deals potent damage, since it hits with both of your mainhand/offhand weapons as well as your telekinetic weapon.

One thing I learned recently is that if you have a projection ego weapon in the TK slot, the projection attacks are made with your non-TK weapons. This turned out to be quite exciting since in that case I was Ogrewielding Sawrd....

The rest of the Harmony talents aren't really needed for this build, and there are lots of other options. If you didn't unlock tinkers for whatever reason, I would probably go 5/5 One with Nature so you can reset your infusions.

You didn't feel the lack of Healing Nexus? Did you use something else to deal with Recovery and similar?

[Effigy]

Am I correct in thinking that once you're running mindstars Resonant Focus only applies to your TK slot? It seems like you could benefit from floating points there and then eventually pulling a few out to put elsewhere. Perhaps in Combat Accuracy, to help out the TK weapon?

Ah yes, good catch. I'm used to using Beyond the Flesh with conventional weapons. I just tested it and mindstar damage doesn't get reduced by BtF, so you would actually be okay skipping the whole Psionic/FEM category if you want. Without Resonant Focus your TK weapon will have 40% less base damage and somewhat reduced accuracy, but that's totally workable. I'll leave Psionic/FEM in the OP because it's still a good damage upgrade with some utility, but this does open up more options in terms of generic investment. I still think it would be hard to play this build as a non-Cornac race though, because class points would be tight and even without Psionic/FEM you'd be even tighter on generics assuming you want to spend more than 3 points on your racial category.

One thing I learned recently is that if you have a projection ego weapon in the TK slot, the projection attacks are made with your non-TK weapons. This turned out to be quite exciting since in that case I was Ogrewielding Sawrd....

That's very useful info. I'll keep that in mind in the future. Ogres can make especially good use of this, but it also benefits this build because dual mindstars do more overall damage than the TK weapon.

You didn't feel the lack of Healing Nexus? Did you use something else to deal with Recovery and similar?

There were a few times that enemies had annoying heals, but it's a fairly rare issue because we can shut down spells with Aura of Silence. Against Vitality, you can just play defensive while they're regening and try to kill them with heavy attacks when it's on cooldown. Swallow is helpful in that regard. You can also reduce their healing by using a TK weapon with a wounding proc or using a Bleeding Edge ring (which I believe always spawn with gloom procs, so they're nice anyway). Vitality reduces wound duration, although this is less of an issue with the weapon proc. Since it turns out Psionic/FEM isn't entirely needed, you could choose to invest in Healing Nexus if you want though.

[Snarvid]

I guess you could say
•_•)

Your build’s named
( •_•)>⌐■-■

OPERATION MINDSLIME
(⌐■_■)
YEEEAAAAHHHH

(or just a band reference that dates me badly)

Absorption instead of Solipsism, Tinkers instead of FEM? Psi for getting punched?

Other than that, looks like a lot of fun. Reminds me of some of the Ogrewielding Possessor in a Psyshot body melee shenanigans I’ve really enjoyed.

[Effigy]

The build name is ridiculous, I know.

The build already uses tinkers, but yeah you could take Psionic/Absorption instead of Solipsism if you want. You miss out on the global speed, but don't have to worry about solipsism threshold and the psi-shields are pretty solid. I guess Psionic/Augmented Mobility would be a decent alternative to Psionic/FEM as well.

[Snarvid]

Oh, if you look at my track record I think you’ll see we have almost an identical Adventurer build naming heuristic.

Yeah, I missed Tinkers in the build. In my vague defense, they have their own section but aren’t discussed in the generic point part. Augmented Mobility was my initial thought as well once you decided against the need for maxing Resonant, as I’ve been playing around with Drem builds lately and they really benefit from global speed to max Frenzy applications.

Other more random lateral swaps:

Do you like Mucus a lot outside of EQ? You’ve got the points to max resolve if you’re a Cornac, and Fungus and Ooze both give EQ management tools (and with maxed Resolve you could think about running Toxic Cannister, which with Resolve and AM shield gives you back EQ for standing in it, and IIRC if you have Nature’s Defiance you get the affinity heal while the damage is blocked by your AM shield). If you swapped it out for Eyal’s Fury (just letting the extra cat point ride for 10 levels), do you think you would miss it in the early game? That would give you 2 more EQ tools (Nature’s Defiance when you get hit with a spell, Eyal’s Fury when you eat up arcane resources), and you get to make an AoE really unpleasant for enemies with Mechanical Arm’s damage debuff, Acidfire’s blind and removal (which is worth the price of admission, I think), and Wrath’s resource destruction (which has good synergy with Mana Clash’s added manaburn damage on your attacks).

If you did drop Solipsism and FEM and added Absorbtion, you could run 3/1/3/2 and still break even on class & cat points by adding Psionic Fog 1/1. This gives you an instant speed teleport+heal+wet effect for stun enabling which would trigger Ancestral Life and give you a free turn. Would also free up a huge chunk of generic points if you wanted more Leaves Tide, AM, or Harmony.

There’s a new mindstar in Cults... Seeds of the Black Tree. It has a chance to proc Tendril Eruption on any weapon hit. It applies a damage debuff (although it seems like Tendril’s debuff is always replaced by the Harassment debuff on the enemy’s sheet), but it’s still a solid choice for your offhand mindstar due to it’s ability to drop AoE damage as a part of your Mechanical Arms aura.

e: I just realized I’m walking you slowly towards my Oozy Punishot build, but it’s ALSO worth noting that you could grab Mental Tyranny and Punishments as a 1-1 point swap for Oozing Blades. It gets you res pen, damage, and lots of status shenanigans.

[Effigy]

Those changes seem viable. It's mainly a question of preference I think.

That new mindstar sounds interesting. I haven't encountered it yet, but I'll have to play around with it when I find it.

[visage]

OPERATION MINDSLIME

I just realized I’m walking you slowly towards my Oozy Punishot build

Yeah, we all have our favorites. I took one look and this and thought that Strife would be perfect for it.