Psionics - which skills to pick in what order?

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Icarus
Posts: 151
Joined: Thu Apr 06, 2017 12:26 pm

Psionics - which skills to pick in what order?

Post by Icarus »

I want to give psionics a try in my current Commander playthrough. Currently, I'm trying to decide which skills to learn when.

I know that learning time is increased if you pick skills above the psionics rank. Which means it would be advantageous to pick the wanted skills in ascending order. On the other hand, the psionic probably needs some higher-level skills earlier in order to be able to pull his weight.

In short: which skills do you consider important, and in which order would you pick them, if they're offered?
Steelflame
Posts: 72
Joined: Thu Jul 27, 2017 10:35 pm

Re: Psionics - which skills to pick in what order?

Post by Steelflame »

I first try to decide what type of Psion I want. Low Psi offense psions get more damage focused perks, like Void Rift, Schism, Soul Steal, and Null Lance, while high Psi offense ones go the Domination route, as well as try for Void rift as well (Schism not really needed in this case, but a nice bonus), and perhaps Mind Merge if you can get it as well. Stasis is an obvious must for both.

I also always make sure to check their AWC offensive perks to the max, because good lord getting Run and Gun on a Psion is just insanely good.


A fun combo, if not a bit hard to set up, would be a high aim Psion with Void Rift + Schism grabbing Faceoff as well. Rift the pod, get a ton of schism procs, and then faceoff all of them for a large surge of AoE damage that can clear many pods by itself, so long as you have an Officer grant them an extra action.
gimrah
Long War 2 Crew
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Re: Psionics - which skills to pick in what order?

Post by gimrah »

It's a balancing act between training speed and getting your psi ops to learn something useful relatively early so they are easier to bring on missions.

Bear in mind you should have Trial by Fire officers by the time you get psi so you get 3 quick level ups and then you'll rank up much more slowly. I try and get stasis within the first 3 ranks, maybe even at CPL equiv (Adept?) but certainly by Disciple.

I think it's a reach to get a higher power than that by Disciple. I would hope for something good at the next level though.

As a how not to, I have a DSC with fortress, solace and schism because I've always wanted schism / void rift. But it's hard to bring him on missions without stasis.
artifixer
Posts: 21
Joined: Mon Aug 28, 2017 2:48 pm

Re: Psionics - which skills to pick in what order?

Post by artifixer »

Why everyone so positive about stasis? It have some uses but overall nothing special. You can't even put it on your soldier initially.
gimrah
Long War 2 Crew
Posts: 422
Joined: Fri Jul 15, 2016 12:25 pm

Re: Psionics - which skills to pick in what order?

Post by gimrah »

artifixer wrote:Why everyone so positive about stasis? It have some uses but overall nothing special. You can't even put it on your soldier initially.
Guaranteed way of completely negating any enemy for a turn? That's pretty huge. Especially late game when the more boss-y enemies appear. It's not even turn-ending...
Padishar
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Joined: Thu Oct 19, 2017 10:26 am

Re: Psionics - which skills to pick in what order?

Post by Padishar »

Yeah, Stasis has always been the most important Psionic ability in my opinion. A pod with Gatekeeper is much easier when you can first clear the helpers and then focus fire on the big ball on the following turn.

But as I understand in LW2 1.5 every Psi Operative starts with Soulfire, Insanity, and Mind Merge. (And Quick study but that's not a psionic ability.)

Then they can rank up 7 times, at which point they become Master. Assuming Ufopaedia's info is still correct (the psi unit's page says as of v1.3...), you might want to do some planning, because only 7 new abilities can be learned as opposed to vanilla's everything.

The tiers of abilites are the following. The further down the list the ability is, the longer it gets to train.
Schism | Solace
Soul Steal | Fortress
Stasis | Soul Merge
Fuse | Stasis Shield
Null Lance | Bastion
Void Rift | Domination

If you want to minimize tube time, consider this: If you ever want to learn Domination or Void Rift, you might as well get Solace as soon as you can. For Void rift you need Fortress as well, so you can take that if Solace is not available. The first two rows are pretty quick to learn after the first level-up, but taking Stasis first takes a lot more time (even though you always want Stasis).

My Psi Op perk choices would be the following, assuming they reach max level AND I get these options for training. Training would happen in roughly the listed order to minimize tube time and still have useful abilities (=Stasis) early:

1. Solace, Stasis, Fortress, Fuse, Null Lance, Void Rift, Domination (all good abilities)
2. Schism, Solace, Stasis, Fortress, Null Lance, Void Rift, Domination (replace Fuse with Schism)
3. Solace, Stasis, Soul Merge, Fortress, Null Lance, Void Rift, Domination (replace Fuse with Soul Merge)

I don't care much about Stasis Shield, Soul Steal or Bastion.

If you don't think you want to wait until max level to get all that, you should just select a desirable ability no matter the training time. I don't know how likely it is to get very late skills offered with early ranks, but I don't think it's likely to go Stasis into Null Lance even though that would be possible prerequisite-wise. Null Lance would take a very long time to learn in this case, and it'd probably not be worth it.
Icarus
Posts: 151
Joined: Thu Apr 06, 2017 12:26 pm

Re: Psionics - which skills to pick in what order?

Post by Icarus »

Thanks. Will see how to put the info to use once I hit Psionics on my current campaign.
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