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The Purist Tree Breakdown


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#1 Demis

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Posted 25 February 2010 - 19:55

After the latest changes to the game, i thought something should be said about the purist, So here is it , a complete breakdown of the Purist class.


Posted ImagePsionic Sensitivity
[quote]Opens Purist class skills. Locks all other classes apart from Core. Allows Psi items to be used by your character (Higher level items will require more points allocated to this skill). Allocates Psi skill bar.[/quote]

Default starting skill that unlocks your class and allow you to use your set items. Nothing much to be said here.

Posted Image Telekinetic Shield
[quote]+0.15% per point Armor to Psi class armor..[/quote]

Lets see the the first out the a total of two skills in the purist tree that actually gives solid increment to stats, However it gives armor bonus, which is basically the least needed stat for a Purist.
A purist that will want to utilize the class effectively (use Mental Strength) would have been building on his defense stat, making this skill pretty much useless.

Suggestion:
If instead of armor it would give defense it would make this a much more appealing choice and probably also justify its place in the purist tree.

Posted Image Mind Shard
[quote]50% (+0.25% per point) chance to charge an empty 'Mind Shard', allowing it to be used as ammo.[/quote]

One of the fundamental skills for purists, it will allow you to create shards (more points into it will improve your chance to charge empty mind shards).
Requires 50 points to be able to unlock Mind Stone.

Suggestion:
I am pretty fine with this one as it unlocks your ammo type and the mind shards can be used for any Psi weapon.

Posted Image Psionic Dart
[quote]Allows use of 'Psi Dart' items. Increases non-Psi pistol and rifle weapon damage by 0.05% per point. Increases Psi weapon damage by 0.1% per point.[/quote]

Solid skill for those that wish to use spear type Psi weapons. Keep in mind though you can still use Psi weapons that require Psionic Sensitivity (set weapons) or Sword of Psi skills. The added bonus to damage is nice so no complains here.
Requires 50 points to be able to unlock Psionic Dart.

Suggestion:
Since MS is now linked with Psi weapons, you will want to invent to this skill to have access to more PSI weapons. Pretty logical so far but we will get back on this later.

Posted Image Regain
[quote]Heals 10 HP (+ 0.2% of your total HP per point) upon use.[/quote]

Default healing skill identical to all classes, so nothing to comment on it.

Posted Image Attunement
[quote]Consume all Psi ammo on next round of combat to increase Attack and Damage by +0.2% per point[/quote]

Never liked it. and too situation to use against Champion or Elite creatures mainly because of the "all ammo" part. use this with a full ammo and its a complete waste and controlling the ammo before you use it, its just too impractical.

Suggestion:
Pretty solid suggestion here, since it will spend all the remaining ammo in a weapon it the bonus should be scaled. We have a working example in the other game and that is Death Dealer.

Consumes all ammo on next round, for every 5 ammo consumed, you gain +0.1% extra damage per point (Max 40% and vs. creatures only). Which translates into this: if you have 100 points in this skills, you will get 10% more damage for every 5 ammo charges in the weapon capping at 40% allowing for greater bonuses if you have lots of ammo in the weapon.

Posted Image Phase
[quote]+0.25% chance to double your defense when your health drops below 20%.[/quote]

Another chance based skill which involves a high risk to get the admittedly high bonus, Risking death on a chance to get the bonus makes this skill redundant. And in the case of purist you have no luxury to through skills all over the place.

Suggestion:
If Telekinesis shield would give defense bonus i could use a nice synergy with this one and maybe make this skill more appealing, though i doubt it.

Posted Image Echo
[quote]+0.1% chance to respawn at your current location with full health. (Only works when killed by an entity).[/quote]

Umm i would never put points in this one. Just bad

Suggestion:
I am not sure if anything done to this skill would make me spend point to it but i will throw a suggestion in any case.
+0.1% chance to respawn at your current location with full health reducing credits lost and xp lost by 0.5% per point.

Posted Image Mental Strength
[quote]Create a Psi Shield which can absorb 1 hit + an additional hit for each 50 points. When the Shield is destroyed there is a 0.10% chance per point that an additional 1 - 2 points of Psi Energy is harvested from the Entity. (Note: Can only absorb maximum of 1 hit and 10% damage from Elites and Hunter-Killers. Will only activate when using a Psi Weapon. Does not work in PvP)[/quote]

The route of problems. It was so powerful that it could balance the pretty weak purist tree. nerfed little by little every time uncovering this very weak purist tree.

Suggestion:
I am at a loss of what to suggest anymore here, other than improving the rest of the purist tree.
Radical Suggestion:
Just dump this damn skill and put it into core skills. A lot of problems would be solved and you could just create Elites and HKs much more easily since everyone could cast it. I just cant stand the fact that a whole class is defined by single skill anymore.

Posted Image Mind Stone
[quote]50% (+0.25% per point) chance to charge an empty 'Mind Stone', allowing it to be used as ammo.[/quote]

And here we are to my "favourite" one. This skill is plainly poorly thought out and bad. You get no real benefit from it to (shard costs 10 psi and gives you 30 ammo, stone costs 20 psi and gives you 60 ammo) and it just makes your life a whole lot harder, you need two empty minds shards (yes the non-stackable shards) hence you have to walk to the store, you need to walk to an invention plan to make those, assuming you found out where the blueprints are, and you have the same chance to fail when charging it. And the worst part you need 100 points to unlock sword of psi. This skill wins the title of the worst skill of in the game.

Suggestion:
Lots. Firstly its a higher tier skill yet it is worst than the lower one, for a small convenience to carry a bit more ammo on you without needed to waste more backpack space and the only reason people take is to get to sword of psi. so its a full and total waste of 100 points, no refunds.
So lets see if we can do anything about this. If it will still stay linked to sword of psi than it has to be changed and changed a lot. First reduce the cost from 20 psi to 10 (i could live with 15 too) and just throw the blueprints out of the window, it should work like this, you have 2 shards in the bag, you can either use mind shard and charge 1 or, use mind stone and charge a mind stone consuming 2 mind shards and reduce the points needed to get sword of psi to 50.
Or you can live it like it is now, and just unlink it from sword of psi so it can become the skill that is should have been, the skill that no-one uses.
I am sorry for the my tune about this skill but there is only so many stones i can create before i am fed up with it.

Posted Image Crystal Thought
[quote]+0.1% per point chance that attacks using Psi weapons will not use any Psi Ammo.[/quote]

Next skill please, i am already spending tons of wasted skill points to unlock the limited skills in my tree that actually help me.

Suggestion:
For the sake of providing suggestion a higher bonus maybe 0.25% per skill point could trick some into spending point to this but do not have high hopes.

Posted Image Psionic Bolt
[quote]Allows use of 'Psi Bolt' items. +0.3% chance per point that your current Skill Power will be added to your damage stat.[/quote]

Before the overhaul it would only unlock new PSI weapons so i guess now its a bit better, but linked to skill power? Come again? so its already a doomed skill, providing a max 75 points to damage on a chance!! for all levels. Ok doesn't sound that much better now eh?

EDIT: Corrected some numbers

Suggestion:
Psionic Dart should have been the model of what a good skill is. Solid suggestion here again.
Allows use of 'Psi Bolt' items. Increases Psi weapon attack by 0.1% per point. would be much more nice. and would provide a closure with Psionic Missiles giving a lesser bonus to both attack and damage but stack-able with Dark and Bolt, making all those 3-linked skills a very nice investment. as the more you dump into them the more bonuses you get.

Posted Image Sword of Psi
[quote]Allows the use of 'Psi Sword' items.[/quote]

Same as before the overhaul. Highly sought out for those great weapons yet it just unlocks some items to use. Since most of the skills of this type had got a side bonus was this overlooked? I would still get this skill though just for the awesomeness of those weapons but for how long?

Suggestion:
The biggest bonus you could give to this skill is to unlink it from Mind stone. Why is it under that chain of skills anyway? It should have been under Psionic bolt along with Psionic Missiles. Or under Imbue.

Posted Image Mind Orb
[quote]50% (+0.25% per point) chance to charge an empty 'Mind Orb', allowing it to be used as ammo.[/quote]

I do not even want to think about this skill after Mind stone. Maybe when the blueprints for mind orbs are in the game, Mind Stone will have a skill to fight for the worst-skill title.

Suggestion:
See Mind Stone

Posted Image Psionic Missile
[quote]Allows use of 'Psi Missile' items. Psi Spears also gain a 0.20% per point chance that +0.1% additional attack per point in Psionic Dart and +0.1% additional damage per point in Psionic Bolt.[/quote]

Apart from the highly confusing and complicated description, i assume this skill has a chance to give me some attack and damage bonus depending on skill power? Again?
Well see Psionic Bolt.

Suggestion:
As i said on Psionic Bolt, These three skills Psionic Dart, Bolt and Missiles should give a fixed amount of stats. 0.1% per point to damage for dart, 0.1% per point to attack per point to Bolt and 0.1% to both attack and damage per point to Missiles. it would make for a very nice chain of skills that someone would get some bonuses from heavily investing in it.

Posted Image Revive
[quote]Heals 25 HP (+ 0.5% of your total HP per point) upon use.[/quote]

Similar to Revive. i very much doubt that it worth the investment but since its a default higher tier healing skill i can live with that

Suggestion:
No suggestions here.

Posted Image Imbue
[quote]After a Critical when using a melee Weapon, there is a 0.2% chance per point that the weapons Attack is increased by 10% for the rest of the Combat. This effect can only happen once in a combat.[/quote]

After a critical .. there is chance .. hmm do you really want to read to the end? The skill lost me at the start of the description. Good thing nothing is linked to this.

Suggestion:
Solid suggestion here though. 0.25% per point reduction of Psionic Resistance to the target during combat (works only against creatures) and 0.1% increase to all types of resistances. A small bonus to the purist resistance and an indirect bonus to the purist damage as it will lower the psionic resistance of the creature. Much more appealing.

Posted Image Telepathic Field
[quote]Increase Defence by +0.1% per point for each Purist in the squad. (Squad Leader only)[/quote]

I guess it can have its uses, but still i would see only retired members using this that sit on a relic.

Suggestion:
Maybe if it wasn't required to be a squad leader with the possibility though to make a bit of overpowering, not for purist or the game but certain aspects of the game like relic defense.


Conclusions:
So here we have a breakdown of the whole purist tree. As you can see apart from a very limited number of nice skills, the purist tree is evolved around wasting points to unlock those mentioned good skills. And after the MS nerf this wasting of points is augmented to higher heights with really no substantial bonus to make the class enjoyable to play. I will give my personal example. right now i have 416 skills into the purist skill (Sensibility 115 / mind shard 50 / mind stone 100 / mental strength 100 / augmentation 50 / sword of psi 1) and i get to use sword of psi items, make shards and stones, use my class sets and umm thats about it. If i need to keep using MS looks like i am going to need to invest into Psionic Dart and Bolt to have more access to psi weapons and be able to utilize my shield. So lets say another 100 points there. So i will end up with 500+ points into my class to get a 10% more weapon damage and a bubble that brands me as overpowered that is now activated only if i use psi weapons.

I hope i presented to current state of Purists with a nice way and sorry for the huge wall of text.

EDIT: Corrected some typos

#2 centurion

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Posted 25 February 2010 - 20:10

phase is usable. if you have suicide set, just keep your hp at 25% or less andf it will have a chance everytime.


does the psi bolt drain your psi skill and put it into damage? curious hmm

#3 ss_sirona

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Posted 25 February 2010 - 22:40

skill power refers to your psi points i believe so a maximum of 75 points added to your damage stat (instead of the 150 you were complaining about :o )
sorry to disappoint..

#4 centurion

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Posted 25 February 2010 - 22:45

I was not complaining. I am curious if it drains it into dmg. that would make chargin new stones or casting MS too tough. not worth activating it in most cases.

#5 ss_darkscream

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Posted 25 February 2010 - 23:30

To be perfectly honest, I think people should put thier resets to good use if they are unhappy with the changes to purist.

Mind you, I said in a different thread that you should play the game the way you want to play it and if you're not happy, then either make do or reset and change.

I don't see the point in going on about how unbalanced purist is or whatever, cause whining about it ain't gonna make it change right away. :roll:

Who knows? maybe it'll change again and all other classes will be unbalanced?

and before I end up with hate msgs, i'm gonna leave that at that.

#6 duktayp

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Posted 26 February 2010 - 00:27

the problem is not the reset - we've had forced resets before

everything i've learned, and everything i'm wearing is now wrong

re-learning and/or re-training just takes time

my whine is who's going to pay for my new gear

#7 ss_onyxia

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Posted 26 February 2010 - 00:27

I totally agree with the op,the nerf was too frustrated.for mutants,soliders and cyborgs,if you invest heavily into class skills you become stronger,but for purists you invest heavily into class skills an what you get?bunch of mediocre skills,the annoying buying,charging and refilling mind shard/stone mess,and a MS that is inferior than before.yea I can live with it I'll just change into other races if HCS really tends to create a race that no one wants to play on purpose,just come out and say"yes we are meant to eliminate all the purists in the game"and I'll be happy to shut my mouth. :roll:

#8 Demis

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Posted 26 February 2010 - 08:09

skill power refers to your psi points i believe so a maximum of 75 points added to your damage stat (instead of the 150 you were complaining about :o )
sorry to disappoint..


Then it is even worst, you have to understand though i was compaining about how the skill works. A skill that is linked to a fixed ammount of bonus, even though now 150 or 75 points might sound good, is doomed to fail. What happens on level 300 or 400, XX points just wont cut it.
I will edit my original post with the correct values as i was under the impresion that skill power meant how much points you have on the skill at the time of cast (and 150 was a number assuming that skill points would be go up and capped to 150 points.)

#9 Zaelin

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Posted 26 February 2010 - 09:47

Well... at least the skill icons themselves are pretty :D Thats all I have to say about that....

#10 Demis

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Posted 26 February 2010 - 11:02

Well... at least the skill icons themselves are pretty :D Thats all I have to say about that....


Artwork is one of the main reasons as well that people choose Purists, and on that you are doing an amazing Job Zaelin. but as you can see, the tree is just bad ... :(

#11 BigGrim

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Posted 26 February 2010 - 11:18

As you can see, the tree is just bad ... :(


Actually, there is nothing wrong with the tree. Our own Purist player has no problem with it. As for Telekinetic Shield, it'll be staying armor. You need armor in this game. Minimaxing your stats will not work like it does in Sword.

#12 MaximusGR

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Posted 26 February 2010 - 11:22

Well... at least the skill icons themselves are pretty :D Thats all I have to say about that....


Pretty?? Nahh, they are more than pretty :)

Art-work is one of the reasons this game keeps me as interested as Sword does

#13 Crosspatch

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Posted 27 February 2010 - 10:44

For the record, where can you buy the Mind Stone blueprint now, it's not where it used to be

#14 PointyHair

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Posted 27 February 2010 - 12:58

I tried to use attunement last night for the first time. I think it's broken. It didn't use my ammo and didn't give me any attack or damage. i have submitted a ticket.


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