Leveling 11-20

Level 10
Gratz on level 10! Now you start to really become a Psionicist. You¡¯ve gotten a taste of what a mind-bender is about and have received some of the core abilities for the class. From here you will add to your arsenal as well as upgrade those core skills. One thing that is really nice about this class is that you always have something to look forward to. At this point, you should start looking towards spells like Mind Wipe and Enthrall, as well as more and nastier damage over time spells (DoT¡¯s) and Finishers.

So here we are, level 10. Get to your trainer ASAP and pick up a TON of spells.

Notable Spells
Mirage. Our invisibility spell. What a great little spell to have. Not only is it a great thing to have when traveling, but it¡¯s also nice to sneak into places that you would normally have to fight through. You now have the ability to corpse drag for your group if you wiped, or get into those group dungeons solo for looting quests. Have this spell hotkeyed for sure; you¡¯ll be using it a lot.

Union of Thought II. Now you have the ability to join /mind in game and talk among your fellow Psi¡¯s. This (along with Ten Ton Hammer, of course) is a great place to ask questions and get invaluable information about your class. Union of Thought also adds an energy regen, which scales with furthering this line of spells.

Nullifying Field. Your 1st Counterspell. Now you have the ability to stop a caster from getting off that big heal, snare, stun, or nuke. You need to recognize the spell in order to get your counterspell to light up, and that ability will get better with experience and attribute gains.

Suggestion I is sort of your 1st charm spell. Once you get enthrall at level 18 (more about that later), you¡¯ll realize that Suggestion is more of an ¡°oh crap¡± charm than a real pet spell. It¡¯s got a very quick cast time (so you can get a troublesome mob under control quickly), but it¡¯s also got a very short duration (20 secs or so) that makes it fairly unreliable. One neat way of using this, however, is if you are fighting a couple of mobs and you¡¯ve killed off the other(s) and have 1 more mob left. Maybe you¡¯re low on health and/or energy? You can cast Suggestion and tell the pet to ¡°stay¡±. While under your control you will no longer be in combat, so you can sit down, eat, and get your bars back up to full. Then release and kill. Note that under your charm and out of combat a mob will very rapidly restore its own reserves as well. This spell will also only work once per mob.

MindFire I. This is your 1st Finisher. Any critical hit caused by a spell will activate your finisher(s), so use it when it pops up! It¡¯s a free instant cast nuke that does well over 300 damage and also will do an additional 100 or so damage every time the mob casts (Up to 5 casts or 5 minutes).

Spatial Leap. This is the Psionicist?s evacuation spell. Casting this spell will take you and anyone in your group who¡¯s close to you to the nearest alter. It¡¯s got a bit of a cast time on it (6secs) but can really save you and your party from wiping.

Also at level 10 are upgrades to your Temporal Shift and Compression Sphere DoTs. From level 10-12 soloing will be much the same as at earlier levels. One thing to notice is that mobs are starting to hit harder and have more hit points than you, so standing still and fighting in close quarters is not an option anymore. Hopefully you are comfortable kiting by now, but you still have the option of using your Simulacrum clone to keep agro for a good duration of the fight. When you get adds, you still have your Time Trick mez, or you can do as I indicated above and quick-charm them for a small rest.

During these next few levels, you should start looking to group at least a little bit if you haven¡¯t already. While it may not be necessary, it¡¯s important to start learning your group roles, abilities, and what¡¯s expected of you. To keep it simple at this point, you will be mezzing and/or cloning adds when your puller brings too many to the group. It¡¯s best to keep your puller as your defensive target so you can assist on him and quickly see which mob he¡¯s pulling. If at all possible, try to mezz/clone the adds away from the group to keep confusion to a minimum. If you are both cloning and mezzing adds on the same pull, I find that the group is less likely to hit a mezzed mob than a cloned one, so use the clone 1st to keep it away from the group, then mezz the 2nd one nearer or in your group. The animation on Time Trick is enough that they should know not to hit it, while Simulacrum tends to freak people out sometimes if they aren¡¯t used to seeing it.

Levels 12 -14
Notable Spells

Acumen I. A great buff that increases the energy regen of your defensive target.

Dementia I. Another DoT, and a good one. This line you have to be a little careful with though. Dementia spells are AoE (Area of Effect), which means they hit every mob within 10 meters of the target. While we don¡¯t get great A0E abilities like a Sorcerer, we can help out in this department after picking up a few more, including our AoE mez at level 22. For the most part, though, this is just another DoT to stack with Compression Sphere and Temporal Shift. With all 3 of those DoTs ticking, we can take things down without ever nuking if need be. They should all be applied when grouping as well, but again, be careful with this one if you have another mob mezzed in the area.

True Sight I. Through 30+ levels I still haven¡¯t found anywhere this is very useful, but it supposedly lets you or your defensive target see through invisibility.

Mind Wipe I. This is a good spell. It will erase about 500 hate from your defensive target for whatever mob you have targeted. It can be used to help out a cleric or DPSer in a group, but the real joy in this line of spells is to help out yourself. It can be used to help your Simulacrum hold up a little longer while stacking your DoTs and really becomes a useful spell once you start charming a lot.

Illusions. At level 12, we start getting some Illusions. At the moment these are just for fun and have no bearing at all on faction or KOS (kill on sight) standings. It¡¯s kinda neat to turn into a gnome or half giant once in awhile, but that¡¯s about all they are right now. No need to talk about them much at this point.

During these levels, we also pick up upgrades to Mental Blast, Simulacrum, and Thought Pulse. The upgrade to our clone is just to keep aggro better against the higher-level mobs that we¡¯re now facing. Thought Pulse is a very nice instant cast nuke that I use often to finish off a mob. It will get stronger with each cast as long as you cast it again within 6 seconds of the last one. The downfall to this line of spells is that it also takes a % of your own HP to cast it. When soloing, it¡¯s best to just use it at the end of a fight and only chain it 2 or 3 times at the most. If you have a healer with you though, you can get this spell to reach some very high numbers. Always be careful and watch your health bar though, as many a Psi has killed himself with epic or legendary crits.

Strategies during these levels stay pretty much the same, but once again the mobs are getting stronger so it becomes more and more important to keep distance and not get hit.

Levels 15-20
More upgrades to our spells including Expansive Mind II, Compression Sphere III, Temporal Shift III, Mindfire II, Mental Blast IV, Union of Thought III, and Thought Pulse III.

Notable Spells

Strength of Will I. This buff increases both Mental and Arcane resistance. As with our other buffs, they should be up at all times. You should always have Union of Thought, Expansive Mind, Acumen, Strength of Will, and one of our concentrations up at all times. (more on those later). In a group, you should buff your party members with whatever buffs help them. I usually throw Strength of Will on everyone and our 2 caster buffs on casters.

Psychic Schism I. This is more of a debuff than a DoT. It will decrease a caster?s damage output by 100 for 20 seconds and then explode dealing 200 damage to the mob. While this may seem like a no brainer to cast on casters, in it¡¯s current state it overwrites the Dementia line, so it¡¯s not used very often. This is most likely a bug (not confirmed) and will hopefully be fixed.

Enthrall I. Yay!! This is our ¡°real¡± line of charm spells. This one lasts up to 3 minutes, although a mob has a chance of breaking every 20 seconds. Enthrall can also be recast on the same mob an unlimited amount of times, unlike Suggestion.

Charming
Charming can be used in quite a few ways. In groups, I use it often as another crowd control method. In combination with Time Trick and Simulacrum, we¡¯re able to lock up 4 mobs if done correctly, and are lucky not to have too many resists. Remember though, that in 1 or 2 add situations, charming is the most dangerous as opposed to just using mezz and/or clone.

Example: Charm a mob, sick him on a 2nd, clone a 3rd, and mezz the 4th.

It can be a daunting task to get these all done quickly and then monitor the status of them all, but a well-played Psionicist can truly be the king of CC this way. Don¡¯t worry too much about your DPS output during times like these. Your main concern is keeping these mobs locked down so that your group can pick them off one at a time. If your charm breaks, then you have a couple of quick choices to make. Suggestion is one option since it¡¯s such a quick cast. This will get your pet back under control quickly, but remember that it¡¯s not going to last long. Recasting Enthrall is a better option, but because of the longer cast time, try to let your healer know to watch you until things are back under control. The other problem with charm breaking is getting the mob your pet was fighting to aggro your pet again. This is where Mind Wipe is your best friend. It will sometimes take 2 or 3 or even up to 5 casts for it to do it¡¯s job, but you can relax once it does. Only for a second though, because now your mezz is probably about to break; and maybe your clone as well. If this all seems like a lot of micro-management, well¡­ It is! If you can master the tempo of micro-management, you will never have a problem finding a group and your legend will spread throughout all of Telon.

Once you are down to nothing left except your pet, you have the choice of releasing it for your group to kill (usually the safer play) or deciding to keep it as an extra group member. If you choose the latter, remember that one of your CC methods is now used up, and you will have to deal with the frequent breaks as best you can. This can wipe your whole group if not done well, so use at your own risk. Getting your pet back under control becomes much easier after level 22 when you get your instant cast AE mezz, Time-Stop.

Charming When Solo
Again, you have some choices here on what fits your play style the best. The basic option is charming a mob and sicking him on a 2nd mob. Throw a few DoTs on the 2nd mob (a Mindwipe or 2 helps as well), and after it¡¯s dead, release your pet and kill what¡¯s left of him. I do this a lot as a way of breaking up camps of 2 or 3 linked mobs, using a mezz on a 3rd or 4th if necessary. Another option is to find a pet you really like and keep it for as long as you wish. I¡¯ve heard of people keeping the same pet for 4-6 hours or an entire play session. This is very doable, but along with the recharming that will need to be done, you also need to understand the ¡°leashing¡± that vanguard uses. Once a mob is outside of it¡¯s ¡°leashed¡± range, it will try to run back to its spawn point when it breaks your charm. This can be both a blessing and a curse. A blessing if you would otherwise die, but a curse if you want to keep that pet around for a while longer. The best advice I can give you is to try and snare the pet as soon as it breaks so that you can catch up to it and recharm (Once again, AE mezz will help a lot when you get it).

Whether you keep the same pet for 1 fight or 20, there are a couple of ways to use it. The safest but slowest way is to have the pet tank for you. You will only throw the occasional DoT and Mindwipe so as not to steal aggro away from your pet. Using this method, you should almost never run out of energy and can keep going for a very long time. Another option is to charm kite. Using this method is basically like using your pet as another DoT. You will sick the pet on a mob, load the mob up with your DoT¡¯s, and kite him around just like you would in a normal kiting routine. This is a much faster way of taking down mobs and gaining experience, but also opens itself up to the possibility of adds, recharming problems, etc. You can also choose to combine the 2 options. Throw your pet on 1 mob (with maybe one DoT from you) while snaring and kiting a 2nd mob. If you choose to kill your pet afterwards, you can take down 3 mobs in a very short time this way. Again, the higher the reward, the higher the risks when things go wrong.