Occultist Mental Focus Distribution?

[Flamephoenix182]

I'm curious to hear other peoples play experience about distributing mental focus. The better Resonance powers require a lot of Focus to scale to your max potential, but you dont have enough to power all of them.

So I'm curious what people do?

1) Try to scout out as much info as possible as to what powers will be most useful and focus for the session. So maybe putting a lot into 1 or 2 implements then just leaving the ones you don't think you will use empty?

2) Adopt a more generalist approach across all your implements, so you have the most variety of answers in case of the unexpected, and just accept that your passive bonuses from the resonance wont be very high?

3) Some third option?

[Johnnycat93]

Keep taking Extra Mental Focus until you have all the focus you need.

[Flamephoenix182]

You can only take that feat once, so that doesn't work, unless I missed and Errata?

[captain yesterday]

Extra Mental Focus.

Prerequisite: mental focus class feature.
Benefit: You gain 2 extra points of mental focus.

Nothing else is said, so it would appear you can take it all you want. :-)

[RainyDayNinja]

By default, you can't take feats more than once. It has to specify that it's allowed.

I think it's just a matter of prioritizing. My Occultist is casting-focused, so he only has enough transmutation focus for +2 to a stat, even though he could afford more. A bonus to Perception from the divination implement is nice, but I can make that up in other areas (including the extra senses, with the Darkvision spell). Instead, he almost maxes out the evocation implement. But for a martial-focused occultist, you'd prioritize the stat boost over blasting, no matter how juicy it is.

[captain yesterday]

D'oh!

My brain thingy mixed that up.

Thanks! :-)

[Flamephoenix182]

captain yesterday wrote:

D'oh!

My brain thingy mixed that up.

Thanks! :-)

Ya... that can be forgiven thought... all the other feats like extra grit, extra performance say you can take it multiple times... so this feat is some weird exception

Ya I am more Martial Focused with
Transmutation, Abjuration, Divination, Illusion.

I'm level 6 with 13 mental focus (6 Class, 4 int, 3 elf favoured class)

I'm finding if I put a bit in everything it really cuts into my passives:

I'm wondering for Illusion if I should juts leave it empty (just picked it up at level 6 so no extra powers in it) since the miss chance isn't that great unless you invest heavy, and the illusion is situational...
and just use shift focus in a pinch if I really need an illusion.

Same with Divination might be better to just put say 2 point in it to activate mind eye or sudden insight if needed...
The issue I'm running into is I want 6 points in transmutation but I have more powers in Abjuration at this state and I'm not sure how to balance it (ie the +4 stat all day is great but I wont be activating legacy weapon 6 times a day, where as abjurations passive caps at 4, but I could see myself using mind barrier, Aegis and energy shield more than 4 times a day.

Maybe I need to replace one of those abjuration powers with a transmutation power at this point in the build?