Forums → Game Walkthroughs → GUIDE: Psychological
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This guide is intended to assist in making character development decisions. This is my opinion, and I don't claim that this is the only viable build. However, I do claim that this build is extremely effective and can easily defeat every enemy in the game.
Before I begin reviewing skills individually, a statement of design philosophy and some perspective.
My goal is to beat the game efficiently. This build is designed to win fights quickly and easily, not to do so with any particular style in mind. The things I value are power and consistency. Power means big numbers. Consistency means there's nothing your enemy can do to prevent you from using your strategy.
With that in mind, I will make the case that the Electric path is by far the best approach to building this character. Specifically that Shock Therapy is the best attack available to this character.
Finally, keep in mind the role of your team-mates. Roald is useless and the best job he can do is distract the enemy. Sometimes he grows a brain and uses a well timed stun or silence, and these are wonderful abilities if only he would use them at the right time more reliably. His damage will never be better than mediocre. Veradux on the other hand is a key player. His healing is the main thing that keeps you alive and you should keep him on defensive or phalanx stance at all times and work primarily on boosting his healing powers (it seems to scale primarily with Strength).
Here is the detailed review of each skill:
Starting Skills
Dark Infusion - This is extremely bad. You may need to use it at the beginning of the came to regen some focus (before you have access to Electric Storm). The damage is totally mediocre and having to deal with giving your enemy free focus is annoying. Using it on yourself is unacceptable except when you have no choice.
Corruption - this actually does very good damage during the early game, before you've developed a better attack. Its not unreasonable to set it up with a Dark Echoes or something. It does however, eat up Focus very quickly and should be dropped when better alternatives are available.
Dark Echoes - This is a reasonable attack but its damage never gets to be particularly good. The best thing about it is the low focus cost and the low cooldown, its a good set-up for stronger Shadow damage abilities. Ultimately you'll stop using this at some point in zone 2 when you switch to full electric and no longer use Shadow attacks.
Placebo - useless. low damage, weak debuff, nothing to see here.
Nerve Shock - same as Placebo. skip it.
Terrify - the damage is mediocre but the heal-over-time is moderately useful. However...Veradux is your healer, you shouldn't need any other healing if you're doing it right.
Free Will - One of the best abilities for the class. Recommend maxing this one. The dispelling abilities are critically useful and the damage shield will bail you out on a regular basis since sometimes Veradux falls a little bit behind. The heal-over-time is just bonus, it isn't the real reason you use this ability but its still nice.
Traumatize- Another extremely good ability and a low point commitment to max it as well, so its quite good. This is good for stalling for time to put hard hitting enemies out of the fight while Veradux catches up on healing. This is also very useful for managing cooldowns and ability durations. For example, you can stun enemies with short duration buffs on them so they miss their window of opportunity. The focus drain component is just gravy, though it is critically useful in the Baron fight.
Destruction - this can only be used on allies, not yourself. neither of your allies has good damage, not even Roald wearing full Strength gear. you're the damage dealer of the party. skip this one.
Betrayal - pure garbage. This only works when its set up ahead of time with Retrograde. If something goes wrong you either wasted two turns or perhaps you even just nailed one of your allies for a large amount. Way too tricky. Way too inconsistent. Leave it alone.
Retrograde - also garbage. way too inconsistent. yes i know this has funny combos with Nightmare and Betrayal and whatever else you can think of. Thats all tricky non-sense and you don't need to waste your time doing that. at 2 points you can also use this on enemies. there are no fights in the game that require you to do so though so you can safely ignore that tactic.
Confinement - this is actually quite useful against enemies that heal alot. however...you can view healing prevented as some form of damage dealt, in the end they're totally equivalent. if you can use the skill points (and slots on your ability wheel) to do more damage than the equivalent healing prevented than you should. i was always able to find a more effective damage increase compared to the healing decrease. damage increase is also generically useful against all enemies, even one that don't heal.
Shock Therapy - This is the best attack the class has. Max this, put 3 copies of it on your ability wheel, zap the crap out of every enemy you see. the 330% instinct co-efficient is superb, basically unmatched. the fact that this is ALSO a buff dispelling ability makes this unparalleled in its level of utility. Simply the best thing going and the focal point of this build.
Salvation - this is an extremely worthwhile buff. once you max this, you should find that Veradux no longer has any problems keeping pace with incoming damage. It also keeps him alive longer and boosts his focus regen. Really you couldn't ask for anything better. This is mandatory and the reason why you can trust Veradux to do all of your healing.
Insecurity - this would be an important skill if we were attempting to use Shadow damage. We're not though, so you can ignore it completely.
Overdrive - this is broken and bugged and totally malfunctioning. don't waste your time. even if it worked as advertise, you simply don't need to accept a life-loss penalty to get good damage. this is never a good trade-off. the risk/reward calculus fails on this one.
High Voltage - less damage than Shock Therapy without the dispel, and in fact it buffs your enemy. Super Awful. 1 point for pre-requisite advancement but never use this.
Tenacity - its very powerful but its usefulness is totally related to whether or not you're actually dying. You can use this as a place to dump extra skill points but if you're doing things correctly you'll kill so fast that the extra survivability of this ability isn't especially important. I usually just put 1 point in here.
Epiphany - this is an actually good Shadow damage ability but its so far down the tree and requires so many points wasted in other garbage abilities that I can't justify building around this.
Electron Charge - same as High Voltage. less damage and overall just worse than Shock Therapy. don't bother.
Electrical Storm - another core ability of this build. it does respectable damage (though noticeably less than Shock Therapy) but ITS TOTALLY FREE and it regens 40 focus. Max it, love it, lean on it, it drives the build.
Charged Blood - the damage passive that makes this build truly deadly. max it, no explanation should be necessary. this is what makes your crits gigantic.
Wraith Form - this is a very powerful ability but strictly speaking you don't need it. I use it because the Speed increase is gigantic and usually gives you 4 turns in a row of guaranteed massive crits. that kind of burst damage is devastating and most opponents can't withstand it. the focus regen from this is convenient but not that important since you've got Electrical Storm.
Nightmare - more tricky garbage. you can try to use this as a finisher or you can try to combine this with Retrograde and hit yourself with it, but in either case thats an inconsistent situation and you don't ever need this. Skip it.
Haunt - re-spec and get this 2/2 for the Baron fight. thats the only time in the whole game you need this. skip it otherwise.
Psychopath Form - this is exceptionally powerful but requires you to be invested in garbage like Betrayal, Retrograde, and Overdrive. If you could get this without having to take Garbage it would be ridiculously awesome. As is this is like the consolation prize for playing a bad build. It doesn't make up for the weakness of the rest of the Shadow Damage stuff.
Shock Coma - this is cute and mildly useful. Its versatile, as you can use it to crowd control an enemy for a long time or to recover your own stuff. However...you have better options for both crowd control and recover so really this is second rate at either task and thus should not be used.
Ultimatum - pure trash.
Sacrifice - this is funny. sometimes you might REALLY want to just eat Roald. ultimately though you may as well keep him around to absorb hits and save yourself the wasted skill points and ability wheel slot.
Implosion - i've yet to find a situation where this would matter. waste of points/slots. another one of those tricky Shadow abilities that requires way too much set up.
So if you've stayed with me this whole time, thanks for reading. I hope you found this useful. Before I finish I'll leave you with my most typical equipment choices and ability load-outs.
Ability Wheel Load-Out
1. Shock Therapy
2. Shock Therapy
3. Shock Therapy
4. Electric Storm
5. Traumatize
6. Free Will
7. Salvation
8. Wraith Form
Equipment Choices
Primary Stats: Instinct and Lightning Piercing
Secondary Stats: Vitality and Speed
Tertiary Stats: whatever miscellaneous defense you can find
the Electric Armor set from Zone 4 (the Tunnel) is actually extremely useful. You can equip it starting at level 18 and is good enough to last through the end-game. If you're especially lucky you'll find a really good weapon with high Lightning Piercing like Poseidon's Trident (or whatever its called).
With this build its typical to crit for 3500+ with your Shock Therapy. More or less depending on buffs/debuffs and the Lightning Defense level of your opponent.
In Wraith Form you can go on Offensive kill streaks where you unload 4 attacks in a row for a total of about 14,000 damage in 4 turns (3 Shock Therapy crits, and 1 Electric Storm crit). This is enough damage to blow away any regular enemy in the game. Only bosses can survive a round of this. Bosses usually die in the 2nd round of Wraith Form though.
- 525 Replies
use Shock Coma as a crowd control move, especially if it was spec+hounds what you couldn't beat. Anything is beatable if you can a) disable someone too nasty to have around, or just someone; b) heal or otherwise patch yourself up against the damage received; c) do some damage overhead against their heals (and d) have enough patience to last a battle so that they will fall).
To Kingtrombone:
Now, you had me really interested in a Shadow Build for a Psychological class in the first few lines . . . but, then, I read that you only do 1,200 damage? And at level 25 with FOUR-HUNDRED-AND-THIRTY Instinct?!
Dude, I'm a level 17 Lightning Psychological build, exactly like Transitive described, and I'm already hitting 1,500-1,800 per Shock Therapy, and about 1,200-1,400 with Electrical Storm. I only have 159 Instinct and just 397 (x2 with 5/5 Charged Blood) Lightning Piercing. My equipment is pretty pathetic right now, and the only thing that gives me Lightning Piercing at the moment is my Wrath secondary arm (+42 Lightning Piercing). I'm only roughly 2/3 your level 25 Shadow Psychological build with really crappy equipment and I'm already doing more damage than you?
Well, I, for one, think you're not telling us the whole deal . . . or are you? If you are, Shadow Builds blow ***, and Lightning is the only way to go, but there just HAS to be more to the Shadow Build than that crappy 1.2k damage over time. Hell, I'm doing 5,700 to 6,800 in one use of my Wraith Form (5 turns total. One turn for Wraith Form, with 4 Damaging turns, all with direct damage.) Now, I remember when I had a level 30 Lightning Build . . . I was doing 12k-14(or 16, I can't really remember the maximum)k damage with one Shock Therapy (in Wraith Form and with the always constant Critical Hit that never fails to happen, obviously). Now, this may not be as much as the humungous damage a Biological Speed or Strength Build can do in one hit, but you have to remember that you can do it 3 times in a row, and then one slightly weaker hit, causing way more than whatever damage any other classes can do after the four turns. (I guess, if you had to name what this would be, I'd call it "'Direct' Damage Over Time" (DDOT).)
Anyway, the fact that you think a Shadow Build does better damage than a Lightning Build boggles my mind.
So . . . I've decided to make the Shadow Build you've described and see the damage output for myself. I'm not sure if anyone else has done this and told everyone about it in posts prior to page 5, since I noticed there were 49 pages in total and said "Screw that!", so I'm going to do it, anyway. I may or may not report back my findings. We'll all see in due time. I'm only in Zone 2's Boss right now, since I had to restart because my laptop broke and I have to use my Home Desktop computer now, where my save files are non-existent. But this makes me want to play even more now, so I'm quite eager to try out your Shadow Build. Hopefully, it's worth the re-spec cost. From what you described, though, I'm kind of doubting it. Heh.
(P.S. - I am replying to Kingtrombone's original Post on the first page. Now, I know it's been almost three long years since that Post of his, so I'm not expecting him to reply at all. Hopefully, someone else can fill me in on the best way to do a Shadow Build so I'm not doing 1.2k's at level 25 like Kingtrombone supposedly does. If someone could do that before I find out how terrible his build might be, I'd greatly appreciate it. Thank you.)
How to beat baron easily on heroic as psycho with no partners and no training
Turn 1 ultima maxed
turn 2 free will maxed
turn 3 start spamming shock therapy maxed
then every time you use 3 shock therapys use electrical storm maxed
put all points into instinct.
also when I used this he started casting tick tock on himself, don't know why
I really think you need to rethink your statement that shadow abilities are not good. I successfully defeated the corrupter with no training with this build:
Psychopath Form
Epiphany
Insecurity
Implosion
Terrify
Free Will
Dark Infusion
Ultimatum
Overdrive (passive)
Tenacity (passive)
Sometimes I will substitute Traumatize in here instead of implosion if the enemy has a superbuff
What I do is I first use psychopath form, or if the enemy has a superbuff, traumatize. After that, I will use epiphany to deal MASSIVE DoT. Next, if I have low health, I will use free will, or if not, insecurity. I then follow the insecurity up with an implosion. This alone is usually enough to kill enemies instantly. If they are still alive, I will use terrify to negate overdrive after psychopath form runs out, then spam dark infusions on the enemy. If I am ever in danger of dying, I will use free will. If, by some lucky critical, Veradux dies, I have ultimatum to negate all damage, and by casting free will in conjunction with it, I am basically invincible (for example, an electro bolt from a twin guardian will do about 700 damage). I then repeat the combo with epiphany once it recharges, and use psychopath form again when it finally recharges. You should have no problems with focus either, as the moves cost so little and psychopath form recharges it. No battle, not even the twin guardians, will last long enough for you to run out.e
As I stated, I have passed legend with this build, and successfully beaten the corrupter with no training. I recommend you give it a try, and you will see the true power of the shadow psycho: able to play defense without sacrificing offense. With this build, I only lost twice: once to the Riot Police x2 + Android Guard fight, and the other time to the Twin Guardians.
I never met anyone before who claims to have done a successful legend run with a shadow build. I can't seem to get past the 2x Frost Zombies, Frost Terror match in Zone 2 with a shadow build.
hmmm I've never really tried the shadow build, only really shocker on psycho
Attribute points: First 10 attribute points in Vitality, everything else to instinct
My ability progression:
Level 1: Traumatize 1/2, Terrify 1/4, Free Will 1/4, Betrayal 1/4 (Prerequisite), Retrograde 1/2 (Prerequisite)
Level 2: Free Will 2/4
Level 3: Free Will 3/4
Level 4: Free Will 4/4
Level 5: Nothing
Level 6: Overdrive 1/1, Epiphany 1/4
Level 7: Terrify 2/4
Level 8: Psychopath form 1/1
Level 9: Terrify 3/4
Level 10: Terrify 4/4
Level 11: Traumatize 2/2 (for Baron)
Level 12: Insecurity 1/3
Level 13: Insecurity 2/3
Level 14: Insecurity 3/3
Level 15: Epiphany 2/4
Level 16: Epiphany 3/4
Level 17: Epiphany 4/4
Level 18: Nightmare 1/4 (Prerequisite)
Level 19: Ultimatum 1/1
Level 20: Implosion 1/2
Level 21: Implosion 2/2
Level 22: Retrograde 2/2 (for Dr. Klima)
Level 23: Dark Echoes 1/4 (Prerequisite)
Level 24: Destruction 1/4 (Prerequisite)
Level 25: Salvation 1/4 (Prerequisite)
Levels 26-30: Tenacity
What? You play with next to NO controling moves? Not even 2/2 Traumatize to keep Felicity down and unfocused? At the very latest, the icy trio on level 8 would kill me. How do you do it?
After your explanations, though, I was able to do 2 successful shadow legend runs. Thumbs up to you.
My strategy was heavy on defense. Like some "doc weird", most of my job was shielding and healing. In the first 4 levels, I get up to 3/3 terrify and 3/3 free will, as well as 2/2 traumatize. As you can compute, this way, overdrive can't kick in before level 7.
After that, it's epiphany, implosion, and shock coma as soon as I can get it. Ah, I save a point at level 9, because I want both. Implosion helps to kill the Baron faster.
The 3 vs 3 matches are played with 2 shock coma and 2 traumatize on the wheel, accompanied by 1 terrify, 2 free will and the trusty dark infusion. Single enemies and some pairs can (must) be played without shock coma, replaced by epiphany and implosion.
So - there is no free space on my ability bar for insecurity or psychopath form. With new levels, I simply up what's there. Took me to the mayor.
I'm trying it right now, with just one question? Is Dark Infusion gonna be my only consistant way of regaining focus?
Yes, it is. Actually, for a long time, it is your only way. It's weird. :-D
Don't fear, you are a great healer with terrify and free will. This is also where I misjudged overdrive all the time before. It looks like a sucker's bet, damaging you by 10% each turn just to boost epiphany? Wrong! It also boosts your healing moves a lot. Free will shields and heals you and your allies, and for only 5 focus to boot. Terrify keeps yourself happy.
When you need to refocus, try to shield yourself first (it's useful anyway), and then drink that dark infusion. With hard opponents, I often stun one of them, too. It comes with the game anyway.
But I seem to be Mr. Defense. Zekrom1 might just infuse himself.
What? You play with next to NO controling moves? Not even 2/2 Traumatize to keep Felicity down and unfocused? At the very latest, the icy trio on level 8 would kill me. How do you do it?
Felicity is hard with this build at that level, but there is a nice strategy that worked great. If she attacked you the first turn, just restart. If she attacks Veradux or puts up a shield instead, use Free Will on yourself, NOT Veradux even if he was attacked. This way, she will only attack Veradux. After that, just attack, shielding when necessary, and she will cast Serious Business in no time and stop using Black Metal. Then just play normally with these abilities
For the icy trio, I actually found it quite easy. I killed the top Frost Zombie first. Note that Greater Purpose has great synergy with Free Will, and can stop a lot of damage. I may have gotten lucky here, but I had no problems.
So - there is no free space on my ability bar for insecurity or psychopath form.
My ability wheel went like this (only listing levels with changes for sake of convenience, and abilities are in no particular order):
Level 1: Traumatize x1, Terrify x2, Free Will x3, Dark Infusion x1, Corruption x1.
Level 6: Traumatize x1, Terrify x2, Free Will x2, Epiphany x1, Dark Infusion x1, Corruption x1.
Level 8: Traumatize x1, Terrify x1, Free Will x3, Epiphany x1, Psychopath Form x1, Dark Infusion x1.
Baron Fight: Traumatize x2, Terrify x1, Free Will x3, Epiphany x1, Dark Infusion x1 (change back after this fight).
Level 12: Traumatize x1, Terrify x1, Free Will x2, Epiphany x1, Psychopath Form x1, Insecurity x1, Dark Infusion x1.
Level 19: Traumatize x1, Terrify x1, Free Will x1, Epiphany x1, Psychopath Form x1, Insecurity x1, Dark Infusion x1, Ultimatum x1.
Level 21: Terrify x1, Free Will x1, Epiphany x1, Psychopath Form x1, Insecurity x1, Dark Infusion x1, Ultimatum x1 (Yes, I have no stuns here, but no fights after the council require them! This also just BARELY defeated the Bomb in Z6; you may need to get lucky with drops to beat it without training. Yosuke is very weak to DoT, so it IS possible with Ultimatum, as are the Twin Guardians with Electro Bolt)
Dr. Klima: Traumatize x2, Terrify x1, Retrograde x1 (That's all you need this fight!)
When you need to refocus, try to shield yourself first (it's useful anyway), and then drink that dark infusion.
Exactly what I did, and it worked surprisingly well.
Hope this alleviates some confusion!
Sorry for the double post, but I am working on a full legend run guide, but since thanksgiving vacation is over soon, I will be busy and may not have much time. I will try to get it done in a week, though.
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