I think training times are fine. It's only when high level abilities show early that they might be an issue.johnnylump wrote:1) Reduce training times further
This is really the core of the issue. As i said already i don't think Psi Troopers "suck" but i must admit they don't "rock" either. Most of their abilities are better done by other classes and while having plenty of tricks on a single soldier is intersting, the fact that they are often slightly weaker than other classes at what they do brings issues. In large squads you probably already have all your needs covered (crowd control, auto-hit, support) so do you really need a second but slightly worse ability that does the same thing. In small squads OTOH, it can be useful to have all sorts of abilities on a single soldier but can you really afford to take a soldier that doesn't contribute much to the overall power (Psi Ops aim really suck).2) Improve specific abilities
I think the worst part is the scaling. If you can get a psi op early (by laser) their abilities aren't bad at all, but later in the game they loose their punch compared to other classes. Unlike techs they can't really carry you early thought as they are not available from the start and require a sizeable investment (not a huge one, but an important one especially if you want to have them early when they feel actually useful)
More specifically what i think of their abilities after playing with them at different parts of the campaign (suggestions are free, ignore as you see fit )
- Soulfire It's OKis but suffers from the comparison with Hail of Bullets. Early on when you have laser the damage is good, slightly lower than a gunner but you ignore armor while the gunner needs AP ammo to ignore it so it's OK. Later thought the gunner will always do more damage with HoB and since you have one or two in any serious fighting squad it just feels like a poor addition, especially given that the gunner does plenty of damage even while HoB is on cooldown. Only affecting organic enemies is hardly an issue as mecas are usually not the hard to hit enemies.
Suggestion : improve scaling with high Psi Offense.- Soul Steal Doh. Soulfire itself is OK but Soulsteal is meh when it takes a valuable perk slot (it was OK when you could have all perks). It will provide some smallish healing, requires the Psi to be wounded and won't reduce wound timer AFAIK. Certainly feels like a wasted slot.
Suggestion : Allow it to heal allies if the psi OP is not wounded and reduce wound timer (after all, it's "magical" healing). In addition reduce SF cooldown so it's not a perk than only works if you have been wounded.
- Soul Steal Doh. Soulfire itself is OK but Soulsteal is meh when it takes a valuable perk slot (it was OK when you could have all perks). It will provide some smallish healing, requires the Psi to be wounded and won't reduce wound timer AFAIK. Certainly feels like a wasted slot.
- Fortress. I think it's OK. A valuable survival skill for the Psi Trooper. The only issue is that it only protects the Psi itself and you might consider it weakens the squad since Psi aren't really tanks anyway, but maybe if you roll it on a high health Psi, give him WAR suit and go shieldwall in the open this could be interesting. It really shines once you get ...
- Bastion Good improvement on Fortress to help the squad. Smallish radius unfortunately.
Suggestion : maybe increase the radius with Psi Offense so you gain a few tiles at high level much like officers gain improved command range.
- Bastion Good improvement on Fortress to help the squad. Smallish radius unfortunately.
- Insanity Ahem ... a really poor CC ability with low chance to succeed on a single enemy. An assault only needs one perk to be better at CC (chance to stun and guaranteed disorient and lower cooldown), let's not compare with a sting grenade please (even thought those are consumables and it's perfectly fine that a specialized crowd control grenadier is the best option for crowd control)
Suggestion : Insanity should at least disorient for one turn on a "miss", this way you never totally loose your action. I know shots can miss, but other CC abilities are guaranteed, that's the reason you use CC rather than chance out a low % shot for a kill.- Schism Would probably be OK if Insanity was better. I don't know how (if) it's damages scale with high Psi Offense, might be something to tweak for late game : LW enemies are stronger than vanilla and Psi damages mostly stayed at their vanilla values.
- Mind Merge What can i say about mind merge while trying to stay positive? Aid Protocol is almost always better if you want to protect someone. The will bonus is almost useless as unlike LW1 you don't use will for psi attack (so 2 Psis can't combine their power to mind control a powerful enemy). I can see some corner cases where those ablative Hit Points can help a tank with armor stacking standing in the open but it's rather limited in utility (i can't even use it one the SPARK when he uses Sacrifice)
Suggestion : Remove the turn ending part or make it last several turns (until you use it again?). Bring back LW1 + to crit chance. Increase Psi Offense in addition to will. Allow will check to remove panic/disorient/mind control if used on a soldiers affected by those. Maybe not all of them but these are all options.- Soul Merge Please stop it! Soul Merge will on average add a single ablative HP on top of what Mind Merge did, add more somewhat useless will and reduce the cooldown on the ability you probably don't want to use anyway and it takes a perk slot.
Suggestion : remove it or improve the HP gain. If Mind Merge is improved Soul Merge won't be as bad thought.
- Soul Merge Please stop it! Soul Merge will on average add a single ablative HP on top of what Mind Merge did, add more somewhat useless will and reduce the cooldown on the ability you probably don't want to use anyway and it takes a perk slot.
- Solace Is it buggy or not? I'm still not sure it works as intended. A good ability but the lags reported are certainly concerning.
Suggestion : Maybe increase the radius with high psi offense similar to the Bastion suggestion. It doesn't need to cover a huge area but a tile or two when you reach the 100is psi offense would be nice. - Stasis OK. A good guaranteed CC ability that reliably removes a big threat for 1 round so you can concentrate on all the lesser threads.
Suggestion : Not even sure it need an improvement. If anything have a chance (based on Psi Offense vs Will) to loose an action when the effect ends since by the end of the game assaults will usually stun for 1.5 or even 2 turns every other turn with the stungun (provided they do hit of course)- Stasis Shield I actually like this one. It allows you to be reckless with an assault or tech and go in the open to AoE as many enemies as possible and survive. Of course you could also just armor stack and use Aid Protocol and probably survive but this one is a guaranteed life saver.
Suggestion : if Stasis itself can remove an action point, don't do it on allies of course
- Stasis Shield I actually like this one. It allows you to be reckless with an assault or tech and go in the open to AoE as many enemies as possible and survive. Of course you could also just armor stack and use Aid Protocol and probably survive but this one is a guaranteed life saver.
- Sustain Bah, this once wasn't bad on vanilla where you could have all perks but now ... First it requires you to be shot to death, then it might not even save you after you emerge with 1 hit point.
Suggestion : If you keep it (it will probably always be viewed as a "loosers" perk until it saves a life) add a regenerative effect (you regain HP while in the shield and some turns after) - Fuse I like it. It's always fun to blow the enemies grenades so they can't blow you and they take damage. No cooldown with so many enemies running around with grenades allows Psi to do something useful every turn. Probably one of the best perks a psi can learn.
- Null Lance It's really not that bad. Decent damage with auto hit and no armor and the ability to hit several target (i managed to hit 3). I'm not sure why players consider it bad.
Suggestion : Possibly improve damage scaling so it stays ahead of SoulFire in the late game. If you want to improve it further increase it's range with Psi Offense possibly hitting slightly behind visual range with very high psi offense. - Void Rift Damage is really low so it's more of a CC ability really.
Suggestion : well if Insanity is guaranteed to at least disorient for 1 turn, this ability a good mass disorient that does some damage and has a chance for a better effect, no need to add anything else. - Domination The big toy everyone wants to see on their Psi
I don't think the randomization is a real issue but given you gain randomized initiate perks it could make sense to have the later progression fixed. This would also allow players to know if a psi will be able to learn the "big toy" early from their starting perks and whether or not they want to invest heavily in leveling that particular psi.3) Remove any randomization in the order in which perks show up on the list.