What's better for brain burst? 6 stacks or empowered?

[EvilJoshy]

Title. I'm trying to make a build for all abilities. I haven't done any math. Is it better to use 6 stacks perk or empowered psionics?

[Fryskar]

Vote for EP, simply due to castspeed.

[Aralous]

i like the 6 stacks for the improved cd reduction

[vodan]

Warp stacks also help you with magic sticks very much, but with them you can't one-shot rager, empowered psionics give you possibility to one-shot rager,(one of them,(maniac) so it's not good) but you will run out of them fast on first crusher so i don't understand them.
And anyway you can BB safely from 97 peril.

[Mosey]

Right now, I'd say I prefer Empowered Psionics just because of three things.

1) Extra damage. It helps Brain Burst take out more targets in one shot, and you need the one shot.

2) Extra cast speed. Brain Burst casts way too slow otherwise. Even with just EP I feel it's too slow, but EP is the only cap for cast speed.

3) Returns an EP stack upon killing specials. This lets you chain Brain Burst while keeping the above effects for longer.

Warp is a generally better tree in just about every way with a few important exceptions, but for brain burst in particular I think EP is the better choice. Sadly brain burst in general is somewhat lacking, but I'd say it's viable even if it's targeting is kind of awful to really get max use out of EP.

Just my opinion though.

[xDaunt]

If you are building around your blitz for damage, then you want empowered psionics. I just think that it’s a bad way to go with brain burst.

[EvilJoshy]

Originally posted by xDaunt:

If you are building around your blitz for damage, then you want empowered psionics. I just think that it’s a bad way to go with brain burst.

Assail I just don't like. Smite it's okay but I hate relying on randoms to do the killing. I finally knocked out that annoying penance "kill 100 specials with BB at max stacks". I've been using BB for awhile now that I just got use to it

[olstar18]

Originally posted by EvilJoshy:

Originally posted by xDaunt:

If you are building around your blitz for damage, then you want empowered psionics. I just think that it’s a bad way to go with brain burst.

Assail I just don't like. Smite it's okay but I hate relying on randoms to do the killing.

Smite may leave most of the kills to someone else but as an oh ♥♥♥♥ skill when your being swarmed by 8 crushers its an effective means of buying time for them to reload or pick someone up.

[Steinar]

I prefer Warp Charges, mainly because they work better with staves imo.

[EvilJoshy]

Originally posted by Steinar:

I prefer Warp Charges, mainly because they work better with staves imo.

The only thing I hate is when using blitz burns up your stacks. I tend to run front shield and 2 charges. I lose stacks quite often.

[xDaunt]

Originally posted by EvilJoshy:

Originally posted by Steinar:

I prefer Warp Charges, mainly because they work better with staves imo.

The only thing I hate is when using blitz burns up your stacks. I tend to run front shield and 2 charges. I lose stacks quite often.

Building stacks is as easy as breathing on auric missions. I never think twice about burning my stacks.

[xDaunt]

Originally posted by EvilJoshy:

Originally posted by xDaunt:

If you are building around your blitz for damage, then you want empowered psionics. I just think that it’s a bad way to go with brain burst.

Assail I just don't like. Smite it's okay but I hate relying on randoms to do the killing. I finally knocked out that annoying penance "kill 100 specials with BB at max stacks". I've been using BB for awhile now that I just got use to it

Don't get me wrong -- I don't like any of the blitzes. I have brain burst because it's there and fits most efficiently into my build.

[Arani]

Originally posted by EvilJoshy:

Title. I'm trying to make a build for all abilities. I haven't done any math. Is it better to use 6 stacks perk or empowered psionics?

Warp Siphon costs 9 talent points total to get all the way down to Warp Battery for the 24% total dmg increase. That's a third of all talent points you can get, with most of the talents on the way having mid to low value. It also has horrible internal synergy since you need the Warp Charge stacks for the passives, yet lose them all every time you use your ult. You'd think the keystone would be strong with BB's Kinetic Resonance since faster ult CD's means you can use it more often, but since you lose all the buffs every time you use the ult, that defeats the purpose.

Empowered Psionics meanwhile costs only 4 points down from Warp Rider to get everything important about it (Leech is an easy skip). And you *always* want Warp Rider (+10-20% dmg scaling on peril). It has no internal conflicts so you can spam your ult any which way you like without having to worry about losing your buffs. It has twice the chance of Psychic Vampire to stack out of the box, can recharge itself instantly on elite kills with Overpowering Souls, the stacks never deprecate until you use them. And ofc most importantly, it buffs your BB with +50% dmg, 2x faster cast speed, and makes it free.

So to sum it up, Warp Siphon affects many things where EP only affects your blitz. Someone here in the forums put it well once: Many people still don't understand that Warp Siphon is no longer the same it was before. If you want to make a BB / Smite / Assail build, Empowered Psionics is what you get. It's simply cheaper, more reliable, stronger, and better in every way.

Personally, I only take Warp Siphon with builds that 1) need Solidity, 2) don't use blitzes much, and 3) benefit from faster ult CD's. And with these builds I rarely put more than the one point into Warp Siphon itself, as even the 2 talent points I would need for for Inner Tranquility and Empyrean Empowerement are usually better spent somewhere else where I don't have to depend on Warp Charges to get their benefits.