Well, I tried a variety of tactics and combinations with the hybrid build, and I have to admit I was wrong about Yosuke - mostly. First off, you're right about Shock Coma, vesperbot. In this fight, you really need its two extra turns of stun. Second, the Wraith Form -> Insecurity -> Dark Echoes -> Nightmare -> Shock Therapy combo does blast him pretty good. The last two combine for about 12-13k of damage. The problem is that since it's not enough to kill him outright, he will start to heal that back, and if you use Shock Coma to keep him down, he heals most of it back as soon as Confinement wears off. The other main problem is that Wraith Form really screws up the timing. It gives you an extra turn when you first use it, but then he gets an extra turn when it wears off. I'm fairly certain I could work out the timing and come up with a combination that would do the trick.

But I'm not going to do that, because after sleeping on it, I decided to try out Epiphany on him. You're right about the DoT not being affected by his buff, spartandestroyer. It's weird, because the pop up text says _all_ damage is reduced by 4000 (I must have confused the 10k with Nostalgia in my earlier post). Anyway, I very quickly came up with a combination that seems to work every time. It's doesn't feel cheap like the High Voltage, Shock Coma, Retrograde gimmick. Better yet, it's simpler and quicker. Only five moves: Shock Coma -> Psychopath Form -> Epiphany -> Confinement -> Insecurity. The Shock Coma keeps him down right up until you cast Insecurity. Then he kills you. But Epiphany keeps ravaging him until he's dead. I had Roald in all Guardian gear, which is probably important, as it allows him to take two hits from Yosuke in case he doesn't stun or silence him after the Shock Coma wears off.

I don't have an account at Kongregate, but maybe someone could mention this on Einfach's outstanding Psychological walkthrough/guide over there.

Stuns or no stuns, nothing can consistently beat a speed bio in PvP, spartandestroyer. Nothing. If you want to test your Ice Hydro against my Psycho, post your code and tell me the strategy and ground rules you want.

face it. there isnt much anything can do without use of focus. hydro doesnt have that problem. mind freeze at max level is crazy with high instinct and it costs nothing. it even comes with 2 free turns to plot your next move! flash freeze isnt so powerful in the terms of effect but it lasts for 3 turns.

about the only builds that can compete with the ice mage hydro are...

crystaliser spam bio.
ice mage hydro. wtf.
psychos dont have many ways to win. ultimatium wont help cause i can stunlock you till you die. overdrive will kill you.

there isnt much anything can do without use of focus

Actually, yes there is. For a bio, neither Shadow Blend nor Withdrawal (among others) require focus. For a Psycho, Wraith Form, Electrical Storm, Shock Coma, and Sacrifice (among others) are all focus free. But none of that matters. What you don't seem to understand or accept is that the Hydraulic class is the slowest of all three. Both Biological and Psychological can be spec'ed and equipped to always be faster than any Hydraulic can ever be, meaning that both classes can be _guaranteed_ to get first move against _any_ possible Hydraulic. All three classes have the ability to stun lock, so if you guarantee first move, the opponent never has a chance. Here are the raw ability scores for each class at level 30, no gear and no attribute points assigned:

Bi Hy Ps
34 73 34 Vitality
68 49 15 Strength
20 39 97 Instinct
73 34 49 Speed

As you can see, the Hydraulic is the slowest, thus guaranteed to never get first move, thus no stun locking with Flash Freeze and no way to stop the first two or three attacks of a Bio or Psycho. If I knew how to post the export code here, I'd show you what I mean.

psychos dont have many ways to win. ultimatium wont help cause i can stunlock you till you die. overdrive will kill you.

As I mentioned earlier, my standard Psycho build doesn't have Overdrive. I respec'ed for the fight with Yosuke to get Epiphany, but that's certainly not the specs I would use in a PvP fight. Which brings me at last to my on-topic reason for this comment.

I'm hard-headed and was determined to figure out a solid strategy for beating Yosuke with my hybrid Psycho build. It became apparent that trying to solve the timing problems with Shock Coma and Wraith Form wasn't going to work. So with one of the two ability points left over from the build I mentioned yesterday, I took Ultimatum and also moved points from Tenacity to Terrify. I set up the ability wheel with the following: Ultimatum, Wraith Form, Terrify, Insecurity, Dark Echoes, Nightmare, and Shock Therapy x2. Sonny has the highest possible Instinct gear with WotC. Roald has all Guardian gear plus any weapon with good speed and vitality (Death Sentence or Platinum Baton are fine). And Veradux has all Dr. Kilma's gear with Supremacy. Both teammates are set to Defense. The first move is naturally Ultimatum, then Terrify to help offset the 10% health loss. Yosuke attacks and does 1139 in damage. Nasty, but not fatal. At this point, Roald should cast Greater Purpose, which reduces all of Yosuke's attacks to 1 point (and reduces Ultimatum's DoT). Next moves are Insecurity, Wraith Form, Dark Echoes, Nightmare, and Shock Therapy twice. It's not quite enough to kill him, but he should be down to around 3000 health. Another round of Insecurity, Dark Echoes, Nightmare and if needed Shock Therapy will finish him off. This strategy generally works, but can fail if you get unlucky. Roald sometimes gets lazy with his Greater Purpose and sometimes none of the Shock Therapy attacks crit and do any damage, but that's pretty rare. Even when the Shock Therapy attacks fail to dispel the Nightmare's Over buff, I've still managed to win by going into a third round of the Nightmare combo again with Wraith Form.

It's a tougher, longer and more complex fight, but I like that and that it's not a guaranteed win. Makes it feel more like you really worked for it.

hydraulic has about both of the other classes vitality put together and therefore it takes ages to kill him. in that ages all the hydraulics various powers (overuse of retrograde if your enemy is going to use withdrawl) (the absorby thing if you fight a psycho) can definitely kick in.

about Roald being lazy with GP: first, make him go relentless (he will likely place an Impale debuff over Yosuke, making all attacks deal 10% more damage, which will make your quest easier), and when you start needing GP, shift Roald to defensive for one turn - he will 100% cast GP (unless it's on the cooldown, it has either 4 or 5 CD). Also, IIRC Nightmare's Over is not resistant to dispel, so if your ST is level 2 or higher, it will get dispelled because then ST dispels more than one buff (equals to ST level).

About Epiphany killing Yosuke: Wow, a rare move of self-sacrifice :) And, I don't remember does Yosuke heal for a lot? If not, you can shift Confinement with Epiphany in the order (to have Shock Coma offset one less turn of Epiphany's damage) and then spam Dark Echoes until you die. Or first raise FW over self, then spam Dark Echoes. I expect they will go over 4k with Psychopath form on, and even if not, they will stack to make Epiphany do more DoT.

About hydraulic having more vitality than others: So what, all you are having there is a punchbag. I said, AE+SB+Withdrawal are 30k on a speed bio, focus or no. You waste 1 turn for MF, you have 1 turn to do something about impending DOOM. Heal self, or what? Even if not, this attack can be directed not against your Sonny but your Roald or Felicity, just for the lulz. Also, Leading Strike is one heck of a damage on a bio, it has a good chance to crit, and physical piercing is still there within some of the skills. And bios have Adrenaline to amp self. Well anyway, speed bio defeats a cold mage hydro any day of the week.

About other builds vs hydro - first taking lightning psycho. Shock Coma lasts 4 turns, which your hydro happily slumbers through, by this time you lose your allies. If no stuns, well, there's still Electric Storm 3/3, equipped twice (can do better) that does comparable damage to your MF/FF/other ice skills. No Overdrive in PVP of course :) Second build - poison bio. Well, not much I daresay, but LS does a hefty punch, since poison bios amp strength, and even without Shadow Blend and lotsa speed, Withrawal 4/4 is a greater damage dealer along with self-healing aftereffect (~20%HP/turn combined with Integrity). Also, Break does 220%str and takes no focus. Third - hot build hydro. Demolish-Demolish-Decimate-Decimate, and you suffer 4 attacks for 3k-4k each and 2k/turn DOT. No focus requirement, note that. And Vapour Cannon, yeeees.

Yes, by the way, if no stuns as homerule, cold mage hydro has only 6/8 turns of focus lock, as he's forbidden to use Flash Freeze. So, any char surviving 6 turns has 2 turns of ROCKING your hydro down. Unfortunately, cold hydro is not a PVP build, but a PVE build.

Retrograde (subversion), you say? Over yourself, it lasts 1 turn, which can be used by your enemy to whack someone else. Or skip it, or heal self up. I have however heard about a build, that uses Icewall self-attack-Icewall self-attack-Subversion self-repeat, but in PVP it's countered with Disrupt or Regulate, and a psycho could just FW self in midtime, making the battle a stalemate.

About posting codes - well, you copy it from the game, leave an empty line (Enter, Enter) before, paste, leave an empty line after. Or make a post containing only code. Copying it from the forum is to use triple click to select the entire set of symbols.

ok so imagine this situation. veradux has just healed while under the effect of retrogate and is down to 1 HP while sonny has got an icewall and other very strong effects that reduce your DMG to 1. who do you go for?

imagine that, I can order Veradux NOT to heal if he's hurt the most and retrograded, and as a psycho I can dispel retrograde :) In case Dux is down to 1HP and under a retrograde, and I'm a bio, I disrupt Veradux to dispel Retrograde so my allies will most likely wreck Dux apart.

derp... thats actually a bad idea. if dusrupt doesnt work/you dont have it then how else can you bypass that situation?

what? disrupt is auto-hit, and dispels 2 buffs of non-earth element, subversion is shadow and dispellable 100%.

derp... i have missed an enemy when i used disrupt before...

and also disrupt needs to be LVL 2 to dispell 2 buffs. it only dispells 1 buff otherwise.