Recommend psyker origin

[Finrod]

I want to play a psyker as my main, so...
Taking into account the companions and the combats, what would be the best psyker origin? (Not only in terms of pure damage output of the main, but also in synergies, global damage output of the team, survivability of the team etc)

Idira seems a telepath, so this one is covered. Pyro seems good.

What would you recommend? Are the gaps between them big or are their power level / utility more or less equivalent?

[Cutlass Jack]

Pyro is the only one not covered by companions. Can't tell you how useful it would be though.

[Schlumpsha]

You will unlock two more types of Psyker powers as you level up. My Biomancer Psyker winded up to wield biomancy, pyromancy and telepathy at the end of the game.

[dim128128]

Originally posted by Schlumpsha:

You will unlock two more types of Psyker powers as you level up. My Biomancer Psyker winded up to wield biomancy, pyromancy and telepathy at the end of the game.

I don’t quite understand - will you automatically open 2 more psyker schools during the story? Because there are only 8 slots of active talents in the game and I don’t want to spend 2 out of 8 just to open a 2, 3 psyker school.

[Schlumpsha]

Originally posted by dim128128:

I don’t quite understand - will you automatically open 2 more psyker schools during the story? Because there are only 8 slots of active talents in the game and I don’t want to spend 2 out of 8 just to open a 2, 3 psyker school.

It's a choice you can make for your Sanctioned Psyker character build. If you don't want to, simply select other talents. In my case I specced fully into Psyker relevant talents.

[DarkFenix]

Idira has divination and telepathy, Heinrix has biomancy and sanctic. Pyromancy is not present on any companions by default. Honestly, psykers are well covered by companions, I'd say only make one yourself if you want to a) go pure pyromancy b) go pure dogmatic and put a bullet through Idira's heretical head, or c) really want to hybrid psyker powers with something like officer.

Originally posted by dim128128:

Originally posted by Schlumpsha:

You will unlock two more types of Psyker powers as you level up. My Biomancer Psyker winded up to wield biomancy, pyromancy and telepathy at the end of the game.

I don’t quite understand - will you automatically open 2 more psyker schools during the story? Because there are only 8 slots of active talents in the game and I don’t want to spend 2 out of 8 just to open a 2, 3 psyker school.

There's no automatic, you can simply pass up another talent in favour of unlocking another school. But if you're going pure psyker and have no need for your archetype abilities, you have more picks available than there are psyker abilities in a single school, so taking a second one is no detriment.

[Cat]

Pyro is not recommended as a starting psyker discipline as you have 0 psy rating until after level 10 and thus your pyro abilities will be worthless until then, you are far better off picking something else and getting pyro after level 10.

[Nox]

if you're min maxing, I highly recommend bio+sanc. you'll thank me later.

[wendigo211]

Depends on what you want. If you're going pure pysker (as in using it for offensive purposes) you probably want to start as an Officer. Sanctic and Telepathy are probably the strongest offensive schools.

Since you start at Psy rating 0, you might want to start as melee. In that case Warrior with Biomancy and Pyro (later you can add Sanctic since they also have a good melee ability). The interesting thing with that combo is you can raise your Psy rating 3 points higher for the purposes of buffs (one point higher for offence). If you are going for Pyro you probably want the Death World or Forge World backgrounds since they have talents that reduce burning damage and as a pyro you want to be on fire.

[dim128128]

Originally posted by Sunricer:

Pyro is not recommended as a starting psyker discipline as you have 0 psy rating until after level 10 and thus your pyro abilities will be worthless until then, you are far better off picking something else and getting pyro after level 10.

stupidity. If you want to focus specifically on damage from the very beginning, Pyromancy is the best choice. At level 4 you can take the self-immolation talent (increases your psi rating when you burn by 1, you are essentially comparable to an unauthorized psyker). At level 6, you can take the “controlled flame” skill and 1) cause almost no damage to yourself from burning, 2) add damage from melee fire attacks, 3) saving throws against fire are no longer possible and therefore the burning will not come off you by accident. So this is the earliest way to get a damage-dealing psyker. Level 4 versus 10. Whether this is necessary or not is a different question, because level 10 can be achieved quite quickly, but +1 to the psi rating will always be with you.

[tainawoman]

My MC is a level 16 officer pyro-biomancer psyker (now GS also) and I mostly use her for support cause the dmg she makes is peanuts. People tell me that she will get better at 20th level, but I have my doubts. For example in the final C1 battle she did 1dmg (!!!) to the boss with ignition vs 50-70 (or more) almost all the others in my team. I love to throw flames, but in this game you must wait for a loooong time for that.

[Trolleur_Durden]

I've messed around with various psyker builds, here's what I have discovered so far:

-Pyromancy is at odds with the current "meta" of the game, which is alpha-striking the opposition into oblivion by giving extra turns to your heavy hitters. Pyromancy's starting damage is low, it becomes much better at higher level, but the whole idea of damage over time through burning is made irrelevant by how powerful Officiers are.

-Biomancy is a bit lackluster because healing is also at odds with the "alpha strike meta". If you kill almost everything before they can react, you hardly have to heal, and even so, there are less expensive ways to do so. Cassia for example can give an absurd amount of temporary wound should you have someone getting wounded. Besides that, there's some good buffs available, making this domain a bit uneven.

-Divination has some solid low level buffs, and you can improve those even further through talents. The higher level stuff seems more defensive (reverting wounds to a previous state and so on) and thus less relevant, but Divination makes for a very good secondary psyker domain.

-Sanctic is very strong when it comes to buffs. And it has an AoE heal too, which makes Biomancy even less appealing. But what's very interesting with Sanctic is that it's the only Psyker domain which doesn't use at all you Willpower modifier. Everything depends of your psi rating. This means that you can pair sanctic with any kind of build with ease and not have to worry about your psyker characteristics.

-Telepathy is a very good offensive school, leaning on the strong single-target damage side. Later on it has also some good crowd control options too. However, the unique Navigator archetype which Cassia uses is basically a stronger version of Telepathy, which can make this school feel lackluster.

[Balekai]

Originally posted by Trolleur_Durden:

I've messed around with various psyker builds, here's what I have discovered so far:

/snip

-Sanctic is very strong when it comes to buffs. And it has an AoE heal too, which makes Biomancy even less appealing. But what's very interesting with Sanctic is that it's the only Psyker domain which doesn't use at all you Willpower modifier. Everything depends of your psi rating. This means that you can pair sanctic with any kind of build with ease and not have to worry about your psyker characteristics.

/snip

Small correction: Depends on Psy Rating and Resolve leaning more on the resolve side. Meaning the more we pump it up the more crazy Sanctic comes and a lot easier to scale up than Psy rating or Willpower between Word and party memeber's own resolve creating abilities and talents. :)

Originally posted by Trolleur_Durden:

I've messed around with various psyker builds, here's what I have discovered so far:

...which Cassia uses is basically a stronger version of /snip EVERYTHING!, which can make this school feel lackluster Edit: IN ADDITION TO MANY OTHER THINGS!

Another correction. Freakin Cassia! :p :P

[tainawoman]

Yeah, I didn't think at the beginning when choosing pyro and now I don't wanna restart.

I wrongly thought that I will have someone like a sorceress with Hellfire Ray and Sirocco from WOTR, This is my penalty for no research beforehand. And I thought that, if they already changed the system, they will put it in RT too.

[dim128128]

Originally posted by Trolleur_Durden:

I've messed around with various psyker builds, here's what I have discovered so far:

-Pyromancy is at odds with the current "meta" of the game, which is alpha-striking the opposition into oblivion by giving extra turns to your heavy hitters. Pyromancy's starting damage is low, it becomes much better at higher level, but the whole idea of damage over time through burning is made irrelevant by how powerful Officiers are.

-Biomancy is a bit lackluster because healing is also at odds with the "alpha strike meta". If you kill almost everything before they can react, you hardly have to heal, and even so, there are less expensive ways to do so. Cassia for example can give an absurd amount of temporary wound should you have someone getting wounded. Besides that, there's some good buffs available, making this domain a bit uneven.

-Divination has some solid low level buffs, and you can improve those even further through talents. The higher level stuff seems more defensive (reverting wounds to a previous state and so on) and thus less relevant, but Divination makes for a very good secondary psyker domain.

-Sanctic is very strong when it comes to buffs. And it has an AoE heal too, which makes Biomancy even less appealing. But what's very interesting with Sanctic is that it's the only Psyker domain which doesn't use at all you Willpower modifier. Everything depends of your psi rating. This means that you can pair sanctic with any kind of build with ease and not have to worry about your psyker characteristics.

-Telepathy is a very good offensive school, leaning on the strong single-target damage side. Later on it has also some good crowd control options too. However, the unique Navigator archetype which Cassia uses is basically a stronger version of Telepathy, which can make this school feel lackluster.

complete nonsense. The "meta" of alpha strike can only be discussed if you want to exploit balance holes and broken mechanics. If you want to make the first playthrough normal, then almost any school of psionics will be useful. Biomancy provides enormous survivability and good constant dot damage. Sanctic, by increasing determination, can give good damage and good buffs, telepathy is an excellent attacking school and, with proper leveling of the GG, can cause significantly more damage than cassia (even if you use broken mechanics on it). The school of divination is frankly useless for gg, there are useful buffs there, but it is better to give them to a companion so that he can strengthen them with them. Pyromancy - the potential for dot damage is higher than that of telepathy (if you accelerate the combustion by fanning the flame), however, this will take time, which is better spent on something else + pyromancy has absolutely no visual effects of skills (bug or hack - it doesn’t matter) except for the combustion itself. When you launch a stream of fire from a flamethrower, you enjoy the visuals; when you launch a fiery beam of pyromancy, you don’t see anything except the combustion itself. As a result, the school is 2nd in uselessness after divination (if it weren’t for the bug/crash with the visual it would be good)

[Trolleur_Durden]

It is not an exploit to be able to reach 200 momentum before enemies get a turn and use Finest hour on Argenta, allowing her to spend 6 or 7 AP on attacks, obliterating everything. Everything works as it is written. It's simply very badly balanced so far.