What is Your Favorite Psyschic Class?

[Dragon78]

So what is your favorite psychic class?

My favorite is the kineticist.

[avr]

I want to like the kineticist and the medium...nice concepts, awkward to outright bad execution. The occultist is awkwardly made too. The mesmerist isn't such a great concept, but it's simple to use and understand. It also leads to amusing megalomania.

[pad300]

I like most of them (the spiritualist is a bit not my cup of tea), but as AVR indicated, there are mechanical challenges.

Psychics are just improved sorcerers (which may be a bit much).

I've never played a mesmerist, but it looks fine.

Kineticists and Occultists are fun, but mechanically clunky in the corners.

Mediums can be interesting, but they really need some sort of feat flexibility mechanism to support their changing spirits. The intent was flexiblity, but without being able to re-orientate your feat build, the class becomes either 3ed rate at everything or focused on a single spirit...

[Melkiador]

Spiritualist suffers from mostly being a severely nerfed summoner. It does have a handful of unique abilities though. And it can make a pretty good off-healer/status-remover.

[glass]

The only one I have played so far is the Kineticist, but one of the players in my Rise of the Runeords campaign is playing a Psychic and they look like fun.

Like AVR, I love the idea of the Medium, but the implementation does not work for me. My issue with it is that, at low levels at least, the bonuses are not enough to make you actually good at anything.

_
glass.

[deuxhero]

Kineticist needed more support, but it was the clearest vision of any of them. Mesmerist was a distant second.

[Egil Firehair]

Kineticist, obviously. I have never played one of the other five... when I looked at them I didn't develop any interest.

[Darigaaz the Igniter]

Kineticist, as it's the only one that didn't disappoint me by being a vancian caster.

[Egil Firehair]

As a wielder of SPAs, would you say that a Kineticist is an adVancian caster?

[MrCharisma]

I love the Occultist.

It's a bit weird to get into, there are a lot of new mechanics to learn, but once you get into it it's an incredibly versatile class. I would not recommend it for someone who's new to the game, but for someone willing to read up and handle a little paperwork it's amazingly flavourful and fun.

(Maybe I should recommend it for newer players? They don't have as much to unlearn, so it might be easier ... I'll think on it)

[baggageboy]

Phantom blade spiritualist (it's really a class of it's own)
Psychic Detective Investigator
Blooded Arcanist, psychic bloodline

[The Dandy Lion]

I love these classes - Occultist is my favourite, though.

There's a few gaps in its spell list and focus powers, but the spell progression is more satisfying than normal spontaneous casters, and the implement system is really fun to manage.

Super flexible class, that!

[glass]

Darigaaz the Igniter wrote:

Kineticist, as it's the only one that didn't disappoint me by being a vancian caster.

None of them are vancian casters.

_
glass.

[Cellion]

The most interesting thematically are the medium, occultist and kineticist. All three are weirdly clunky mechanically though, with aspects that are either unintuitive to learn (burn and burn management techniques, or mental focus and distributing it into implements) or are restrictive in play (will your GM give you places to channel your spirits).

Still, all three are lovely once you understand them and get them working.

[DM_aka_Dudemeister]

I love all my babies with their complex rules and all.

[MidsouthGuy]

In all honesty? The Psychic. Plus if I make a Grippli Psychic I can literally be Hypno-Toad.

[Scavion]

Medium is rad. Especially the Fiend Keeper.

[Slyme]

I think Mesmerist would be much more appropriate for Hypno Toad, I mean the whole class is based around stares and mental domination.

All glory to the Hypno Toad!

[Slyme]

My favorite to play is the Kineticist...they are a bit clunky at first, but once you get the feel for their mechanics, they play pretty smooth, and can be a lot of fun.

One I really like the way it looks, but have not actually played is the Mesmerist. They are like the Nega-Bards...they debuff enemies instead of buffing allies. So much room for crazy shenanigans with a class that can use mind affecting spells on things that are normally mindless or immune to such effects. Why fight that gelatinous cube when you can just tell it to go away...or better yet, dominate it and make it your pet. If you focus on illusion and mind affecting spells, and know how to use them, you could take over the world quite easily with a Mesmerist...which honestly, is why I have never played one. I plotted one out for play in PFS, but decided not to play it when I realized how easy it would be to completely ruin games with minimal effort...especially once you get up to higher levels.

[MidsouthGuy]

Slyme wrote:

One I really like the way it looks, but have not actually played is the Mesmerist. They are like the Nega-Bards...they debuff enemies instead of buffing allies. So much room for crazy shenanigans with a class that can use mind affecting spells on things that are normally mindless or immune to such effects. Why fight that gelatinous cube when you can just tell it to go away...or better yet, dominate it and make it your pet. If you focus on illusion and mind affecting spells, and know how to use them, you could take over the world quite easily with a Mesmerist...which honestly, is why I have never played one. I plotted one out for play in PFS, but decided not to play it when I realized how easy it would be to completely ruin games with minimal effort...especially once you get up to higher levels.

Now I want to play a Mesmerist/Bard multiclass character.

[Slyme]

MidsouthGuy wrote:

Now I want to play a Mesmerist/Bard multiclass character.

Probably better off going straight one or the other, you would lose a ton of power by multi-classing a 2/3 caster, especially with another 2/3 caster.

Now a Gestalt Bard/Mesmerist...that would be nightmare level insane to GM for.

[ShroudedInLight]

Slyme wrote:

MidsouthGuy wrote:

Now I want to play a Mesmerist/Bard multiclass character.

Probably better off going straight one or the other, you would lose a ton of power by multi-classing a 2/3 caster, especially with another 2/3 caster.

Now a Gestalt Bard/Mesmerist...that would be nightmare level insane to GM for.

They make excellent BBEGs, well mine was a gestalt Mesmersist/Seducer Witch. Ever seen what -7 to Will Saves lets you pull off?

[Slyme]

ShroudedInLight wrote:

Ever seen what -7 to Will Saves lets you pull off?

Whatever you want :P

[The Dandy Lion]

Slyme wrote:

One I really like the way it looks, but have not actually played is the Mesmerist. They are like the Nega-Bards...they debuff enemies instead of buffing allies. So much room for crazy shenanigans with a class that can use mind affecting spells on things that are normally mindless or immune to such effects.

My lass played a Mindwyrm Mesmer with Signature Skill (Intimidate) and used Blistering Invective to comical effect. Mesmerist is an absolute blast.

Scavion wrote:

Medium is rad. Especially the Fiend Keeper.

Fiend Keeper is on my shortlist of classes I really want to play! The fluff for this one is so juicy.

[Artofregicide]

ShroudedInLight wrote:

They make excellent BBEGs, well mine was a gestalt Mesmersist/Seducer Witch. Ever seen what -7 to Will Saves lets you pull off?

Not sure if you're stacking evil eye and mesmerist's stare, but I'm pretty sure they don't stack.

My favorite class is probably Mesmerist. It's flavorful and mostly functional, though has an extremely weak spell list meaning either you pick very niche and weak spells or every Mesmerist basically has the same repertoire.

Kineticist feels like it's more complex than it needs to be. Or written that way at least?

[MrCharisma]

Artofregicide wrote:

ShroudedInLight wrote:

They make excellent BBEGs, well mine was a gestalt Mesmersist/Seducer Witch. Ever seen what -7 to Will Saves lets you pull off?

Not sure if you're stacking evil eye and mesmerist's stare, but I'm pretty sure they don't stack.

Why would they not stack?

As a general rule penalties always stack (unless they're from the same source), so unless there's a specific reason these two abilities don't stack it should work.

[Slyme]

Artofregicide wrote:

Kineticist feels like it's more complex than it needs to be. Or written that way at least?

I think it is just so mechanically different that it takes a while to wrap your head around the interactions between burn and infusions.

I made myself a little cheat sheet for when I play my Geokineticist, it has a column for form infusions, a column for substance infusions, and a column for metakenisis. I broke then all down by burn cost, then I put my Infusion Specialization (the one that reduces the burn cost of infusions) in, and I know I can use up to that amount of burn for free, if I want to go higher I need to gather power, or just eat some damage to do so...or both if I want to go full on nova.

Once you hit level 11+, with Infusion Specialization 3 and Supercharge...watch out, that is when you can start throwing around composite blasts pretty freely. Move action to gather 2 Burn worth of power (thanks to Supercharge) to pay the cost of the Composite blast, then you can tack on 3 burn worth of infusions for free thanks to Infusion Specialization. I tend to use Extended Range + Rare Metal a lot. I've also dropped down to a standard blast and used Pushing Infusion to do 25' push shots to blast people off cliffs, buildings, etc. Once you know what infusions you have, what they cost, and what you get for free or via gather power, you can choose blasts on the fly quite quickly.