Psionicist 11-20 Guide

By Suul

Psionicists are some
of the best soloers in the game. While it is possible to fight red
2dots or even yellow 3 and 4 dots, I find it's more efficient to stick
with yellow and white 2 dot creatures or 3 dot blues when grinding.
When it comes to groups, we have 2 main roles: crowd control and damage
per second (DPS). I’ll try to touch on both solo and grouping
options/abilities in this guide.

1. Level 10
2. Levels 12-14
3. Levels 15-20
4. Charming
5. Charming When Solo
6. Concentrations
7. Summary

Level
10

Gratz on level 10! Now you start to really become a Psionicist.
You’ve gotten a taste of what a mind-bender is about and have
received some of the core abilities for the class. From here you will
add to your arsenal as well as upgrade those core skills. One thing
that is really nice about this class is that you always have something
to look forward to. At this point, you should start looking towards
spells like Mind Wipe and Enthrall, as well as more and nastier damage
over time spells (DoT’s) and Finishers.



So here we are, level 10. Get to your trainer ASAP and pick up a TON of
spells.



Notable Spells

Mirage. Our
invisibility spell. What a great little spell to have. Not only is it a
great thing to have when traveling, but it’s also nice to
sneak into places that you would normally have to fight through. You
now have the ability to corpse drag for your group if you wiped, or get
into those group dungeons solo for looting quests. Have this spell
hotkeyed for sure; you’ll be using it a lot.



Union of Thought II.
Now you have the ability to join /mind in game and talk among your
fellow Psi’s. This (along with Ten Ton Hammer, of course) is
a great place to ask questions and get invaluable information about
your class. Union of Thought also adds an energy regen, which scales
with furthering this line of spells. 



Nullifying Field.
Your 1st Counterspell. Now you have the ability to stop a caster from
getting off that big heal, snare, stun, or nuke. You need to recognize
the spell in order to get your counterspell to light up, and that
ability will get better with experience and attribute gains.



Suggestion I
is sort of your 1st charm spell. Once you get enthrall at level 18
(more about that later), you’ll realize that Suggestion is
more of an “oh crap” charm than a real pet spell.
It’s got a very quick cast time (so you can get a troublesome
mob under control quickly), but it’s also got a very short
duration (20 secs or so) that makes it fairly unreliable. One neat way
of using this, however, is if you are fighting a couple of mobs and
you’ve killed off the other(s) and have 1 more mob left.
Maybe you’re low on health and/or energy? You can cast
Suggestion and tell the pet to “stay”. While under
your control you will no longer be in combat, so you can sit down, eat,
and get your bars back up to full. Then release and kill. Note that
under your charm and out of combat a mob will very rapidly restore its
own reserves as well. This spell will also only work once per mob.



MindFire I.
This is your 1st Finisher. Any critical hit caused by a spell will
activate your finisher(s), so use it when it pops up! It’s a
free instant cast nuke that does well over 300 damage and also will do
an additional 100 or so damage every time the mob casts (Up to 5 casts
or 5 minutes).



Spatial Leap.
This is the Psionicist's evacuation spell. Casting this spell will take
you and anyone in your group who’s close to you to the
nearest alter. It’s got a bit of a cast time on it (6secs)
but can really save you and your party from wiping.



Also at level 10 are upgrades to your style="font-style: italic;">Temporal Shift and style="font-style: italic;">Compression Sphere
DoTs. From level 10-12 soloing will be much the same as at earlier
levels. One thing to notice is that mobs are starting to hit harder and
have more hit points than you, so standing still and fighting in close
quarters is not an option anymore. Hopefully you are comfortable href="http://vanguard.tentonhammer.com/index.php?module=ContentExpress&func=display&ceid=569">kiting
by now, but you still have the option of using your style="font-style: italic;">Simulacrum clone to
keep agro for a good duration of the fight. When you get adds, you
still have your Time
Trick mez, or you can do as I indicated above and
quick-charm them for a small rest



 During these next few levels, you should start looking to
group at least a little bit if you haven’t already. While it
may not be necessary, it’s important to start learning your
group roles, abilities, and what’s expected of you. To keep
it simple at this point, you will be mezzing and/or cloning adds when
your puller brings too many to the group. It’s best to keep
your puller as your defensive target so you can assist on him and
quickly see which mob he’s pulling. If at all possible, try
to mezz/clone the adds away from the group to keep confusion to a
minimum. If you are both cloning and mezzing adds on the same pull, I
find that the group is less likely to hit a mezzed mob than a cloned
one, so use the clone 1st to keep it away from the group, then mezz the
2nd one nearer or in your group. The animation on Time Trick is enough
that they should know not to hit it, while Simulacrum tends to freak
people out sometimes if they aren’t used to seeing it.

Levels
12 -14

Notable Spells



Acumen I. 
A great buff that increases the energy regen of your defensive target.



Dementia I. 
Another DoT, and a good one. This line you have to be a little careful
with though. Dementia spells are AoE (Area of Effect), which means they
hit every mob within 10 meters of the target. While we don’t
get great A0E abilities like a Sorcerer, we can help out in this
department after picking up a few more, including our AoE mez at level
22. For the most part, though, this is just another DoT to stack with
Compression Sphere and Temporal Shift. With all 3 of those DoTs
ticking, we can take things down without ever nuking if need be. They
should all be applied when grouping as well, but again, be careful with
this one if you have another mob mezzed in the area.



True Sight I. 
Through 30+ levels I still haven’t found anywhere this is
very useful, but it supposedly lets you or your defensive target see
through invisibility.



Mind Wipe I. 
This is a good spell. It will erase about 500 hate from your defensive
target for whatever mob you have targeted. It can be used to help out a
cleric or DPSer in a group, but the real joy in this line of spells is
to help out yourself. It can be used to help your Simulacrum hold up a
little longer while stacking your DoTs and really becomes a useful
spell once you start charming a lot.



Illusions. 
At level 12, we start getting some Illusions. At the moment these are
just for fun and have no bearing at all on faction or KOS (kill on
sight) standings. It’s kinda neat to turn into a gnome or
half giant once in awhile, but that’s about all they are
right now. No need to talk about them much at this point.



During these levels, we also pick up upgrades to style="font-style: italic;">Mental Blast, Simulacrum,
and Thought Pulse.
The upgrade to our clone is just to keep aggro better against the
higher-level mobs that we’re now facing. Thought Pulse is a
very nice instant cast nuke that I use often to finish off a mob. It
will get stronger with each cast as long as you cast it again within 6
seconds of the last one. The downfall to this line of spells is that it
also takes a % of your own HP to cast it. When soloing, it’s
best to just use it at the end of a fight and only chain it 2 or 3
times at the most. If you have a healer with you though, you can get
this spell to reach some very high numbers. Always be careful and watch
your health bar though, as many a Psi has killed himself with epic or
legendary crits.



Strategies during these levels stay pretty much the same, but once
again the mobs are getting stronger so it becomes more and more
important to keep distance and not get hit.

Levels
15-20

More upgrades to our spells including style="font-style: italic;">Expansive Mind II, Compression
Sphere III, Temporal Shift III, Mindfire II, Mental Blast IV, Union of
Thought III, and Thought
Pulse III.



Notable Spells



Strength of Will I.
This buff increases both Mental and Arcane resistance. As with our
other buffs, they should be up at all times. You should always have
Union of Thought, Expansive Mind, Acumen, Strength of Will, and one of
our concentrations up at all times. (more on those later). In a group,
you should buff your party members with whatever buffs help them. I
usually throw Strength of Will on everyone and our 2 caster buffs on
casters.



Psychic Schism I.
This is more of a debuff than a DoT. It will decrease a caster's damage
output by 100 for 20 seconds and then explode dealing 200 damage to the
mob. While this may seem like a no brainer to cast on casters, in
it’s current state it overwrites the Dementia line, so
it’s not used very often. This is most likely a bug (not
confirmed) and will hopefully be fixed.



Enthrall I. 
Yay!! This is our “real” line of charm spells. This
one lasts up to 3 minutes, although a mob has a chance of breaking
every 20 seconds. Enthrall can also be recast on the same mob an
unlimited amount of times, unlike Suggestion. 

Charming

Charming can be used in quite a few ways. In groups, I use it often as
another crowd control method. In combination with Time Trick and
Simulacrum, we’re able to lock up 4 mobs if done correctly,
and are lucky not to have too many resists. Remember though, that in 1
or 2 add situations, charming is the most dangerous as opposed to just
using mezz and/or clone.



Example: Charm a mob, sick him on a 2nd, clone a 3rd, and mezz the 4th.




It can be a daunting task to get these all done quickly and then
monitor the status of them all, but a well-played Psionicist can truly
be the king of CC this way. Don’t worry too much about your
DPS output during times like these. Your main concern is keeping these
mobs locked down so that your group can pick them off one at a time. If
your charm breaks, then you have a couple of quick choices to make.
Suggestion is one option since it’s such a quick cast. This
will get your pet back under control quickly, but remember that
it’s not going to last long. Recasting Enthrall is a better
option, but because of the longer cast time, try to let your healer
know to watch you until things are back under control. The other
problem with charm breaking is getting the mob your pet was fighting to
aggro your pet again. This is where Mind Wipe is your best friend. It
will sometimes take 2 or 3 or even up to 5 casts for it to do
it’s job, but you can relax once it does. Only for a second
though, because now your mezz is probably about to break; and maybe
your clone as well. If this all seems like a lot of micro-management,
well… It is!  If you can master the tempo of
micro-management, you will never have a problem finding a group and
your legend will spread throughout all of Telon.



Once you are down to nothing left except your pet, you have the choice
of releasing it for your group to kill (usually the safer play) or
deciding to keep it as an extra group member. If you choose the latter,
remember that one of your CC methods is now used up, and you will have
to deal with the frequent breaks as best you can. This can wipe your
whole group if not done well, so use at your own risk. Getting your pet
back under control becomes much easier after level 22 when you get your
instant cast AE mezz, Time-Stop.

Charming
When Solo

Again, you have some choices here on what fits your play style the
best. The basic option is charming a mob and sicking him on a 2nd mob.
Throw a few DoTs on the 2nd mob (a Mindwipe or 2 helps as well), and
after it’s dead, release your pet and kill what’s
left of him. I do this a lot as a way of breaking up camps of 2 or 3
linked mobs, using a mezz on a 3rd or 4th if necessary. Another option
is to find a pet you really like and keep it for as long as you wish.
I’ve heard of people keeping the same pet for 4-6 hours or an
entire play session. This is very doable, but along with the recharming
that will need to be done, you also need to understand the
“leashing” that vanguard uses. Once a mob is
outside of it’s “leashed” range, it will
try to run back to its spawn point when it breaks your charm. This can
be both a blessing and a curse. A blessing if you would otherwise die,
but a curse if you want to keep that pet around for a while longer. The
best advice I can give you is to try and snare the pet as soon as it
breaks so that you can catch up to it and recharm (Once again, AE mezz
will help a lot when you get it).



Whether you keep the same pet for 1 fight or 20, there are a couple of
ways to use it. The safest but slowest way is to have the pet tank for
you. You will only throw the occasional DoT and Mindwipe so as not to
steal aggro away from your pet. Using this method, you should almost
never run out of energy and can keep going for a very long time.
Another option is to charm kite. Using this method is basically like
using your pet as another DoT. You will sick the pet on a mob, load the
mob up with your DoT’s, and kite him around just like you
would in a normal kiting routine. This is a much faster way of taking
down mobs and gaining experience, but also opens itself up to the
possibility of adds, recharming problems, etc. You can also choose to
combine the 2 options. Throw your pet on 1 mob (with maybe one DoT from
you) while snaring and kiting a 2nd mob. If you choose to kill your pet
afterwards, you can take down 3 mobs in a very short time this way.
Again, the higher the reward, the higher the risks when things go wrong.

Concentrations

I have only mentioned our concentrations in passing up to this point.
At level 10, you get Astral Form. This form allows you to mitigate 20%
of most types of damage. Spiritual damage, however, will deal 20% more
damage. This form should always be up until level 15 when you get
Phrenic Rage (If you don’t like the spirit animation, casting
an illusion or invisibility and then canceling it will usually drop it).



At 15, I stopped using Astral Form altogether, but others still seem to
like it. My feeling is that you shouldn’t be getting hit too
often anyways. Phrenic Rage is our favorite form. It greatly increases
our damage output, but also increases our energy use per spell. From
level 15 to level 22 I left this form on 100% of the time. At 22 you
will get Thought Thief, which steals energy instead of doing a lot of
damage, so at that point it’s something you can switch back
and forth from.

Summary

I hope this gives you a good summary of what the Psionicist is capable
of throughout the 1st 20 levels or so. With the addition of Time-Stop
and Apathy (a lull spell), our CC abilities become second to none. We
can also hold our own in the DPS department as well, so we are always
welcome additions to any group. This combination of crowd control and
DPS also make us very capable soloers, so we can adapt well to any
situation. Good luck, and enjoy the minds of others.