Best belt fo defence?

[Karina]

Playing as high endurance psycho psion without stealth. Which belt provides the most effect in terms of defence?

1) Groin guard reduces crit chance (at some point i may take paranoid as well)
2) Heavy lifters belt reduce mechanical damage by 10% (at some point i will take conditioning, my endurance is 9)
3) One that i dont remember the name of reduces medicine ap to 2, allowing for more actions in combat. It does not provide any defence directly but more ap means more damage dealt and less damage taken. Also psi-ammo counts as medicine as well.

[harperfan7]

groin guard, paranoia, and boxing gloves will give you good enough crit reduction for most enemies assuming you aren't wearing tabis (but you likely will be)

even with stoicism, I dont think I'd rely on damage reduction as a psion

doctors belt is good if you intend to use a lot of medicines; if you have high biology skill, this is probably your best bet

[Qiox]

I always use option 3) on a psi. The reduced AP cost of psi boosters is too good to pass up.

[dergefata]

Just take the hits. With 9 CON you're going to have enough health to facetank. If you don't have Survival Instincts with that build, you're confusing me, so I'll assume you have it. Take the hits, build up that crit, pop morphine if you need to, then hit all your powers at once.

It sounds like a recipe for disaster but as long as you keep a finger over the Enter key so you can manually start combat when you see something headed your way, you really can just facetank through the game on any difficulty setting, even with the doubly-reduced health pool from Advanced Psi Empathy. For areas you expect to be dangerous, don't overlook your mirror images or your cryoshield.

AFAIK there is only one map in the entire game that is unreliable to facetank with mirror images and cryoshield up, and that's the Protectorate Docks in Core City back behind the warehouse. Everywhere else, with a good crafted tac vest and high CON, you can just take the hits and then unleash hell.

[Karina]

Originally posted by dergefata:

Just take the hits. With 9 CON you're going to have enough health to facetank. If you don't have Survival Instincts with that build, you're confusing me, so I'll assume you have it. Take the hits, build up that crit, pop morphine if you need to, then hit all your powers at once.

It sounds like a recipe for disaster but as long as you keep a finger over the Enter key so you can manually start combat when you see something headed your way, you really can just facetank through the game on any difficulty setting, even with the doubly-reduced health pool from Advanced Psi Empathy. For areas you expect to be dangerous, don't overlook your mirror images or your cryoshield.

AFAIK there is only one map in the entire game that is unreliable to facetank with mirror images and cryoshield up, and that's the Protectorate Docks in Core City back behind the warehouse. Everywhere else, with a good crafted tac vest and high CON, you can just take the hits and then unleash hell.

I dont have survival instincts curretly but at some point i definatly will. Whats more important- neural overclocking, locust of control or survival instincts? On the next level up to 12 i can get endurance to 9 and get survival instincts. Or i can get it at level 14 instead of locust.

[Ichthyic]

you can also reduce crits significantly by adding a nano-composite plate to your armor when constructing it. high quality will reduce crit damage by 50% or more.

[Karina]

Originally posted by Ichthyic:

you can also reduce crits significantly by adding a nano-composite plate to your armor when constructing it. high quality will reduce crit damage by 50% or more.

Isnt it uses psi beetle carapace slot?

[dergefata]

Originally posted by Esteban Failsmore:

Whats more important- neural overclocking, locust of control or survival instincts? On the next level up to 12 i can get endurance to 9 and get survival instincts. Or i can get it at level 14 instead of locust.

Locus of Control and Premeditation are, by a wide margin, the two most important psi abilities. Get them as soon as you can, always. So LoC is the most important of those three. Then, for a Psychosis build, I'd say Survival Instincts beats out Neural Overclocking simply because your crit bonus is already going to be fairly high, so what you need is reliable crits to make the Psychosis build really shine. Neural Overclocking just takes those reliable crits and makes them huge. But every ability you fire that isn't a crit wastes Neural Overclocking, so I believe that both the math and the logic support taking SI first if you're willing to make use of that play style.

EDIT: Unless you're playing on Normal or Easy. If you are, then the enemies will pretty much die from a single premed+psionic mania Cryo Orb. In that case, you're really only firing one meaningful ability, and it's a guaranteed crit, so Neural Overclocking makes more sense then. SI is for when you expect to need three or four or five abilities to clear a fight. If you can do it in one, NO > SI

[Ichthyic]

Originally posted by Esteban Failsmore:

Originally posted by Ichthyic:

you can also reduce crits significantly by adding a nano-composite plate to your armor when constructing it. high quality will reduce crit damage by 50% or more.

Isnt it uses psi beetle carapace slot?

ah, true dat. this game is all about deciding whether to go offensive or defensive.

I tend to embrace the old adage: "The best defense is a good offense", so you might be right there about preferring the psi beetle carapace instead.

[Karina]

Originally posted by Ichthyic:

Originally posted by Esteban Failsmore:

Isnt it uses psi beetle carapace slot?

ah, true dat. this game is all about deciding whether to go offensive or defensive.

I tend to embrace the old adage: "The best defense is a good offense", so you might be right there about preferring the psi beetle carapace instead.

I dont have a choice. 20% more psi consuption from psychosis is cripling.