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Assuming a 3 round average, I'd normally be reluctant to use Unleashed on my first turn. But sometimes the alpha strike early is important.
You cannot Unleash on your first turn, because you're required to have Cast A Spell on your previous turn in order to activate it.
The class definitely lends itself to short, decisive skirmishes more than protracted battle though.
There are multiple ways of handling when your Unleashed Psyche subsides. Removing the condition, using abilities that are not much impacted by it, or just using less important spells. You have to cycle between the 3 states if you want to get the most out of the Psychic.
So, looking at it... the thing that amped TKR gets in exchange for being a bit weak on damage is... continually increasing size. At level 1 you have two target areas. At level 5 you have 3. At level 9 you have 4, at level 13 you have 5, and at level 17 you have 6. The per-target damage might not be great compared to other focus spells, but Dragon Breath starts as a 30 foot con/60 foot line/10 foot burst (within 30), and stays there the entire way. If you want to beat down a single target, or a cluster of targets in fireball formation, then it is perhaps not the best use of a focus spell. If you want to drop hell on foes sprinkled throughout the room, though, it has some advantages.
...and for those times where that's not the target profile... well, this is why the psychic likes picking up lots of different cantrips, yes?
Oh for sure. Tbh, I wouldn't have a beef with it at all if the average damage was just a little bit higher, like 1d8/level. That would put it in similar range to other flexible blasts like a wizard's weapon storm or shadow blast, and in unleash, the average damage would be right at an unamped maxed out fireball.
Funnily enough, unlike many, I actually feel as an unamped cantrip, it's actually not half bad; as far as a zero resource cantrip goes; its essentially daze damage on two small bursts; this, plus the ability to poach electric arc, and pick up daze or Mind Blast, and TK projectile and you can hit every form of defense, which is really nice weakness targeting
Assuming a 3 round average, I'd normally be reluctant to use Unleashed on my first turn. But sometimes the alpha strike early is important.You cannot Unleash on your first turn, because you're required to have Cast A Spell on your previous turn in order to activate it.
You're correct. Deleted my post since it was mostly moot. But with that in mind... With the average combat only lasting 3 rounds, seems like you'll usually want to Unleash Psyche on round 2. Even if it stretches to a fourth round or beyond, dealing that damage early is probably worth it. Unless you're expecting a protracted multiwave fight, I think it is worth the risk.
I don't think it will usually matter if your Amp and Unleashed Psyches coincide. You'll deal the same total amount of bonus damage, right? Unless you try using below top spell slots to blast.
Assuming a 3 round average, I'd normally be reluctant to use Unleashed on my first turn. But sometimes the alpha strike early is important.You cannot Unleash on your first turn, because you're required to have Cast A Spell on your previous turn in order to activate it.You're correct. Deleted my post since it was mostly moot. But with that in mind... With the average combat only lasting 3 rounds, seems like you'll usually want to Unleash Psyche on round 2. Even if it stretches to a fourth round or beyond, dealing that damage early is probably worth it. Unless you're expecting a protracted multiwave fight, I think it is worth the risk.
I don't think it will usually matter if your Amp and Unleashed Psyches coincide. You'll deal the same total amount of bonus damage, right? Unless you try using below top spell slots to blast.
With strain mind you'll be amping all three rounds anyway.
I think the stunned condition is worth factoring into TKR's value. The more enemies you target the greater the odds of one critically failing, and it gets pretty sweet targeting.
I think the stunned condition is worth factoring into TKR's value. The more enemies you target the greater the odds of one critically failing, and it gets pretty sweet targeting.
Stunned is only on a crit fail, so you'll rarely be seeing it. It's nice when it happens, but it's not even remotely worth the low damage.
I don't think it will usually matter if your Amp and Unleashed Psyches coincide. You'll deal the same total amount of bonus damage, right?
You should not cast unamped offensive cantrips (outside Electric Arc) as their damage is just way to low.
If your damage rely on Amped offensive cantrips, then you should only cast them during the 2 rounds of Unleashed Psyche and do something else outside Unleashed Psyche. Either casting spell slot spells or not casting spells at all while you are Stupefied (skill and weapon actions don't suffer much from Stupefied).Of course, if you manage to Unleash your Psyche twice it becomes a bit different, but that should be a rarity before very high levels.
If you end up casting unamped non-Electric Arc offensive cantrips while your Psyche is Unleashed, you have done something wrong. If you really need your focus points to amp non offensive psy cantrips then you should grab Electric Arc. And if you want to focus on blasting then you should use spell slot spells alongside your amped offensive cantrips.
Not to beat a dead horse, but is we accept E Arc is too weak to be using in unleash (a correct statement imo), then does this not prove TKR is also too weak? Until spell level 5, EA does roughly the same avaerage damage of amped TKR due to EA adding casting modifier. EA actually hits slightly over TKR on off levels for TKR's heightening
Not to beat a dead horse, but is we accept E Arc is too weak to be using in unleash (a correct statement imo)
I assume you meant "if" and not "is".
Why would Electric Arc be too weak to be used while Unleashed? If you assume that then you consider that all Amped cantrips besides Shatter Mind are too weak to be used while Unleashed as they are all comparable to Electric Arc in terms of damage.In my opinion, you should spend some time on Citricking's tool to compare damage output. You'll be surprised of Electric Arc and Amped Telekinetic Rend damage while Unleashed. They are extremely close to single target cantrips like Amped Telekinetic Projectile with the advantage of hitting multiple targets.
Edit: Reading your post a second time, I feel you have misunderstood my previous post. Have you?
If I remember correctly, Unleash Psyche only works with psychic spells so no "unleashed" Electric Arc :-/
You can grab Unleashed Electric Arc either through the Human Ancestry feat Adopted Cantrip or through any Ancestry feat + the level 1 Psychic feat Ancestral Mind.
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For example, at lvl 13 (which is a good level for TKR as it just got one of it's +2 level bumps) You are doing 8d6. 28 damage on average on a failed save. 35 if you are in unleash. A -2 level enemy (a mook) with only moderate hp has about 200hp. You barely tickled it.
28 damage is Champion damage, 42 (and not 35) is Barbarian damage. What you are showing is a common issue at high level that makes combat (especially against tons of mooks) far longer than at low level and makes multi target damage much more important as single target damage takes forever to get rid of just one mook.
Also, unleash is a little tricky to use with TKR since you can't unleash on your first turn. And TKRs only arguable value is blasting enemies while they are spread out and scattered, that first turn. Once they mix with you flanking starts, bit trickier.
I strongly disagree with that. TKR is especially strong after the first round, when you can keep on blasting despite enemies and allies being mixed. At these levels, most enemies are large or bigger, so it's no big issue to put your 3 areas without hitting an ally.
I also disagree with your last sentence. Even if I fully agree that TKR has a strange progression, the turning point is level 5. Before that, the damage is low and you have just 2 areas, making it hardly better than Electric Arc. Once at level 5, it really starts shining against hordes of enemies and at the same time the damage begins to be competitive.
Anyway, the discussions about the Psychic makes me think the class is properly built. When some people are valuing one option that others disregard it means that personal preferences are the reasons of disagreement. So everything is certainly well balanced.