Psychometry

[Gilgas]

How come Psychometry costs 4? It would be much fairer as a support skill for 2 since intelligence is mostly ignored for other stats. In my experience, my characters with high intelligence don't really make it that far in the game.

The reason I ask is because I find psychometry and artifacts in the game to be fascinating and would love to explore them more, but all my characters with psychometry keep dying because choosing it sacrifices too much offensive power or defensive power; compared to Light Manipulation and other 4 cost mutations it doesn't do nearly enough to give your character an advantage and in its current state seems more like a neat tidbit. Am I missing something here?

What's your experience and thoughts on this?

[I AM A MAGIC SALMON]

It helps you instantly learn crafting items, instead of hoping and praying you stumble across the right merchant at the right time. Even gets you past locked doors. It gives you heavy leg up on the lava trade.

[Gilgas]

What would you recommend for a build that utilizes Psychometry?

[Akninirith]

I've actually really enjoyed trying to shoehorn Psychometry into things; my go-to build here is an early-squishy person with Brittle Bones, Regeneration, Burgeoning, Light Manipulation, and Psychometry; 16 agility and toughness, 18 everything else, pick up Tinker specialization. Stipulation on my playstyle when running these kinds of builds: I usually hang around the immediate area of the starting region until hitting something around level 5 - burgeoning helps deal with distance foes, light manipulation with moderate close and situational combat (and freeing up your torch hand), and of course regeneration keeps the squishy bits inside. Unfortunately, despite the fact that concussive damage seems far less prevalent as the game progresses, the point at which one first feels confident enough to visit the goatfolk jungle often ends anticlimactically for this build. If you can last long enough, though, you have the ability to just pass on through any door in the game without cards or chopping down walls, and to find and immediately learn to build chainguns and spiral borers and the like, which makes it simple to compensate for late-game weaknesses with more gear than you can easily carry.

[EternalEllipsis]

Try a dual pistol user with phychometry and multiple legs.

Use phychometry to make ammo and use your speed and range to kite enemies.

[Gilgas]

I've been playing a character that uses Psychometry, Triple-Jointed and Force Wall now to good effect. I've only needed to use Force Wall once. Psychometry being used to make ammo was a pleasant surprise and so far I've survived up until level 11. Got my hands on a Booster Gun but no ammo for it. Hoping to find some.