A couple of nights ago I made a Psionicist in Allods. I have heard that they are, without a doubt, the least played class in the game. I am a curious guy, so I decided to find out why. Thus was born Vyshinsky.
Vyshinsky, named after Andrey Vyshinsky, a diplomat and propagandist of the Soviet Union. Appropriate, no?
Now, I am not one for cloth-type casters. Matter of fact, I have never played one as a main. I prefer a more “in-your-face” style and/or physical DPS. I have played a couple of healers but that is as close as I get to the standard “mage” archetype.
The Psionicist is no standard “mage”.
They are unlike anything I have ever played in a MMO before. They can put out a decent amount of DPS, though no match for a mage or scout in Allods. But, DPS is not what they are there for, they are there to, simply put, give a mass headache to the opposing force.
Psionicists provide a metric ton of CC. Stuns, paralyze, Pulls, roots….it’s all there. At level cap and if specced for it, a Psionicists CC abilities outnumber their DPS abilities by nearly two to one!
Let’s go over an early fight with a Psionicist in PvE.
The first cast a Psion will use is “Mental-Link”. This is a six second cast and establishes a mental-link with the target, opening up more abilities to be used and causing spells that are cast against this target to regenerate mana. Once the target is mental-linked, there are three abilities that open up for use. One is a paralyze effect, which is a ten second stun, the next is a DoT and the last is a large direct damage spell. These abilities can be used once on the target, they go away after the first use of any of them.
After the mental-link is in place, you can start to DPS the target using Mental Shock, which is a channeled ability that does a small amount of damage with each pulse. Now, of course, by this time the mob is very angry and heading straight for you. Considering the fact you are wearing cloth, this is not a good thing, so what to do?
How about a bit of Mental-Twin?
This is an instant cast that allows you to place a “twin” of yourself down anywhere close by. This does two things. First, it makes you invisible to your target, though other targets can see you just fine. Second, it causes the mob to aggro your twin and beat on him. All the while you are DPS’ing to your heart’s content.
At low-level, it does not take long to get the target near death, at which point you can break your mental-link, which causes massive amounts of damage and finishes your opponent off.
Normally, during the fight or on the killing blow, you will get a buff that makes your next mental-link an instant cast. This makes grinding mobs and killing stuff quickly an easier task to carry out.
I made a quick video showing the Psion at low levels. Take a look:
All of this is low-level, so what do you get at higher levels? Take a look at these abilities:
- Hypnotize: hypnotize the target and makes them incapable of action for up to one minute.
- Mental Pulse: AoE that throws back all enemies in range and stuns them for two seconds.
- Cloud Vision: Blinds target for one minute if out of combat and ten seconds if in combat.
- Telekinetic Pull: Draws all enemies in a twenty yard radius, knocks them down and has a 10% chance to stun them for three seconds.
- Wall of Blades: Creates a magnetic field which disarms all opponents, places a DoT on them and makes you immune to physical damage for the duration of the ability.
- Spectral Assassin: Creates a mirror image of the target, which then attacks the target. Can only be damaged by the target and the assassin gets stronger every second it remains alive.
- Loop of Time: Sends you back in time ten seconds and puts you in the state you were in at that time.
Those abilities make for a pretty unique class. It also make the Psion, potentially, one of the most irritating classes to fight in a PvP situation. They really remind me of the early DAoC days, when a well-timed CC could decide the victor of many PvP group fights.
I really look forward to going further with this class and seeing how they mature. Just another on my list of “possible mains” in Allods Online.
Yeah, i started this class (also because it was reportedly the least popular, i’m a rebel) And i’m liking it more than the warden, brawler, magus, or shaman.. at least for the first few levels i’ve played so far.
The instant-cast for Mental link is huge, because it’s one of the few(?) spells that gets pushed back when you are hit. So i pretty much (at this level) spam Psionic Blast or whatever it’s called, until i proc the instant, then ML and erase memory (massive nuke).
another reason i picked it was because of the gibberling character hovering and pointing at his googly eyes. too cute.
oh. and one thing i didn’t get at all was when you establish a mental link you open up a secondary toolbar in the middle with three abilities: a stun, a nuke and a dot. there are no useful tooltips … and these abilites don’t exist in your spellbook. what are they? are they always the same? can you train them better?
Just a few clarifications:
1) The stun from astral echo (the proc when mind link) lasts for 3-4 secs and it is a real paralyze effect that the mob cannot attack and does not break on damage.
2) Using psychic shock (channeled DD skill) has a chance to proc heightened perception buff which makes your next mental link insta cast. Also if the target dies while it is mind linked you also get the buff, however, if the target dies through “Erase conciousness”, which breaks the link, you will not get the buff.
3) another major role of the pscionist is BUFFING. They have 2 awesome group buffs in their ruby-trees. One buffs run speed and melee stats, the other buffs caster stats.
Also, psionists have a bit higher survivability than mages since they get to wear leather armor at level 20.
I started a Psionicist as an alt (most likely my main alt come OB/live) and am really enjoying it as well. I’m planning on spec’in for CC to be the pinnacle of annoyance in pvp.
From the Psion’s I’ve ran into the in the holy lands with my Paladin a 1v1 fight is pretty dull, I can’t get at them to hurt thwm and they don’t really damage me enough to make a difference. I had a 1v1 the other day that webnt on for about 7 minutes with neither of us doing anything significant to the other, I eventually just left because it was literally going nowhere. Having a decent Psion in you’re party will be a huge advantage in group pvp.
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Spectral Assassin: Creates a mirror image of the target, which then attacks the target. Can only be damaged by the target and the assassin gets stronger every second it remains alive.
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I don’t remember getting this on my Empire Pscionist. Is this League only?
Not that I know of, it is high up in the spec tree though.
Ever since I got the Mental Twin, with careful pulls, I’ve been able to cruise through bad guys untouched. I only really have problems with multiple mobs or if I’m way outgunned. Normal critters one level higher than me are no problem. Elites are still dangerous to solo, but I can handle ones the same level as me… unless they are in a “raid” instance like the Orhzak fort… or whatever that’s called. For some reason, those guys hit *really* hard.
I’m really loving the Psionicist for soloing. I’m not sure how I’ll do with it in groups, but I can see the tools for some great DPS/CC play there.
Aye… I spotted this class early on and thought “oooooooh, this is unique” … its challenging and that makes it unlikely to be a “all the dorks play this” class (you know… the ones who ask “which is the best class” and play a paladin when they no clue on how one actually might act).
Hard, different, and shoos idiots off — looks like a win.
We’ll see if they screw it up.
Sounds very similar to the Psionicist class in Vanguard SoH. This was my wife’s favorite class in any MMO. Glad to see someone else pickedup on this type of class.