Is neural overload the new top dog in psi?

[OH_EO]

Should I invest in Neural Trauma now that that spirit staff is a thing?

I've seen people rave about how good neural overload is before the dlc, but the damage to me just seems like poop. My character is level 13 so I don't have locus control. I've mainly used metathermics and psychokenisis to wreck everything. Cryoball is strong, telepunch proxy is strong, implosion proxy is insane, firestream does great cc dams... and neural overload to me... just looks like they're good against organic enemies with armor... is that it?

I've seen a dude (shazbot) screenshot his psi mania neural overload on carnifex with 700. How does this happen? that damage is insane! And he said that he just got out of junkyard and went to murder the former invictus.

I mean carnifex was a cake walk to me too, but I had to proxypunch crit, shield, proxypunch crit him to murder his butt.

Am i missing something guys? How does this happen?

[Morgian]

My own overload does more like 450 when it crits. But he might have aid: the feats, specilization in the overload feat, better gear, and drugs.

[OH_EO]

Originally posted by Morgian:

My own overload does more like 450 when it crits. But he might have aid: the feats, specilization in the overload feat, better gear, and drugs.

Nice ty. I'm glad I wasn't missing anything crazy, but would you still invest in cerebral trauma for an all psi build?

[kirill-busidow]

Originally posted by AudioMedic:

I've seen a dude (shazbot) screenshot his psi mania neural overload on carnifex with 700.

Carnifex have very high Intelligence score. More than any enemy you find (!). More than psionics.

He have at least 10, probably 12 Int (!). So damage is Greatly increased against him.

So damage on him is not example. It is exception.

[kirill-busidow]

Also he used Mental breakdown = 2x damage.

[OH_EO]

Originally posted by kirill-busidow:

Also he used Mental breakdown = 2x damage.

Nice. Makes more sense now. Ty bro.

[Morgian]

I did take it. The ability has a couple of important (imho) advantages. You can use it three times per round and it bypasses physical defenses, even the temporal psi-images. That makes it valuable enough to bolster it.
But you can (and have to) do that with everything in this game - when you specialize in something it becomes much more powerful, way better than one would think, who didn't. I wouldn't have guessed that laser weapons are probably the strongest weapons from a look at their base damage, until I built a character around them.