Fun fact: Everlasting Stand does appear to be possible, after all.

[Tamiore]

I finally got to testing if you can refresh duration on the Last Stand[stygiansoftware.com] before it has expired.
You can.

Which means that for a fully specced Last Stand you can maintain it (via LTI and stasis) for, if my math is correct, 4 6-turn cycles, or 24 turns.

So not exactly "indefinitely", but pretty damn close to it in a practical sense (most fights don't last over 20 turns).

And do keep in mind that it's not just "24 turns before health drops to 1 HP", but rather every 6 turns the health will be reset to full.

(I'll add a bit more about practical implication later on. )

[Drago]

Very cool

[Tamiore]

Now for the implications:

1) Even without using stasis, you can maintain a fully specced Last Stand active for 3 turns out of every 4. Add stasis and we are looking at 6 turns for the first activation, plus an ability to refresh it to reset health back to full.

2) With hemopsychosis, health can be your primary offensive resource. With 9 CON (prerequisite for Last Stand), we are looking at about 300-ish HP by level 20. About 100 of those will be consumed by stasis and LTI (you need to use to keep Last Stand active), but you are absolutely free to use the remains 200 HP on offensive abilities (*cough* auto-crit plasma beams *cough*).

3) Even without speccing Last Stand at all you can keep it active for 3 turns (2 base duration + 1 from stasis), and you can also trivially keep hemopsychosis active for all 3 of those turns. With a half-decent build, are can clear most fights in 3 turns for 300 psi energy. And that's purely cooldowns-based, with no consumables used.

[Armagenesis]

This sounds like a fun time, but a few questions though:

Originally posted by Tamiore:

About 100 of those will be consumed by stasis and LTI (you need to use to keep Last Stand active)

Won't psi cost reduction effects like Premeditation affect the amount of HP needed to use the abilities?

but you are absolutely free to use the remains 200 HP on offensive abilities (*cough* auto-crit plasma beams *cough*).

Is this Psionic Mania shenanigans or is there any other ways to have autocrit psi?

[Tamiore]

Originally posted by Armagenesis:

Won't psi cost reduction effects like Premeditation affect the amount of HP needed to use the abilities?

It will. 100 HP is a very rough estimate. Premeditation specifically is usually better used for more offensive abilities.
One of the huge advantages of hemopsychosis in general that your energy pool is large enough that you can often ignore psi cost modifiers in favor of something else.

Originally posted by Armagenesis:

Is this Psionic Mania shenanigans or is there any other ways to have autocrit psi?

You can raise your base crit chance to 100%, but the trade-offs (including substatially reduced damage) are, in my opinion, not worth it. So, yes, Psionic Mania is what's implied here.

[Armagenesis]

Originally posted by Tamiore:

Originally posted by Armagenesis:

Won't psi cost reduction effects like Premeditation affect the amount of HP needed to use the abilities?

It will. 100 HP is a very rough estimate. Premeditation specifically is usually better used for more offensive abilities.
One of the huge advantages of hemopsychosis in general that your energy pool is large enough that you can often ignore psi cost modifiers in favor of something else.

Originally posted by Armagenesis:

Is this Psionic Mania shenanigans or is there any other ways to have autocrit psi?

You can raise your base crit chance to 100%, but the trade-offs (including substatially reduced damage) are, in my opinion, not worth it. So, yes, Psionic Mania is what's implied here.

I feel like there is some fun to be had with Psychosis and Survival Instinct at least.

[Tamiore]

Originally posted by Armagenesis:

Originally posted by Tamiore:

It will. 100 HP is a very rough estimate. Premeditation specifically is usually better used for more offensive abilities.
One of the huge advantages of hemopsychosis in general that your energy pool is large enough that you can often ignore psi cost modifiers in favor of something else.


You can raise your base crit chance to 100%, but the trade-offs (including substatially reduced damage) are, in my opinion, not worth it. So, yes, Psionic Mania is what's implied here.

I feel like there is some fun to be had with Psychosis and Survival Instinct at least.

Psychosis is a prerequisite for Psionic Mania, so you are stuck with it whether you like it or not. I, personally, don't like it, because the cost increase effects everything, while the crit chance is only relevant to a small fraction of abilities.
Survival Instinct is good for some builds, but it doesn't vibe with hemopsychosis.

[Armagenesis]

Huh. Here I thought Survival Instinct actually vibe well with Hemo. At least on the last psi before you use Last Stand.

[Tamiore]

Originally posted by Armagenesis:

Huh. Here I thought Survival Instinct actually vibe well with Hemo. At least on the last psi before you use Last Stand.

Primary use-case for Survival Instincts is something like "start the combat below 30% health, use multiple attacks". The "start the combat below 30% health" part is already a huge issue for hemopsychosis, because not only does it limit you pool to 30%, but it also makes using regenerative vest either impossible or extremely complicated. The "use multiple attacks" part also heavily implies you are not going to open with hemopsychosis.

The other way around, numerous things you use with hemopsychosis to replenish HP will pull you out of Survival Instincts zone.

Even tranquility and hemopsychosis interfere less with each other.

[Serendipitous]

Originally posted by Tamiore:

Even tranquility and hemopsychosis interfere less with each other.

At least with Tranquility you will have 1 (2 with Last Stand) guaranteed ability use with cost reduction per battle.

[Tamiore]

Originally posted by Serendipitous:

Originally posted by Tamiore:

Even tranquility and hemopsychosis interfere less with each other.

At least with Tranquility you will have 1 (2 with Last Stand) guaranteed ability use with cost reduction per battle.

This is certainly true, but not really what I would call the main difference.

The main difference is that with tranquility/hemopsychosis you have clear use case where they don't interfere: first you use your normal psi energy for a few turns with full benefit of tranquility. Then you switch to hemopsychosis, when your normal psi pool is depleted and you can't benefit from tranquility any more anyway.

With Survival Instincts//Hemopsychosis there is no similar use case: if you start below 30% HP, you always interfere with future use of Hemopsychosis. If you start with full health for Hemopsychosis, you always interfere with future use of Survival Instincts.