Psion

Briefing
The psion is a being with immense power. It may use spells to either bring havoc and destruction, or to save the day and bring harmony for the humans. The psion may be used in a deceptive way, lurking around and hiding its identity, killing unsuspecting foes. The usage of politics may sometimes indeed be stronger than its spells: ”Doctor is evil, tag him!” and poof you kill him. However, cases where psion completely avoids deceptive play is common as well, for good or worse.

Alignment
One may choose to help humans (good psion), stray away from the light and kill humans (evil psion) or linger in between (neutral psion).

Good Psion
The good psion is meant to aid the humans in their fight vs all evil threats. Killing an alien/syndicate grants a lot of positive alignment and 2 psi points. Thus, if possible, try to be the one that does the killing blow to these targets as thats the only way to receive these bonuses. If a good psion gets 1-2 early alien kills, he will most likely receive battle meditation and from then on be very strong. Killing android grants no psi point.

Psi Pens: Researching psi pens is often required by the crew since releasing it often is an indication of you wanting to go evil. Researching psi pens allows you to gain a minor energy regeneration boost, 25 extra energy and spell power increase vs evils. It also allows for the psi gen to be researched at GMD, allowing you to gain one additional psi point and faster out of combat energy regeneration. However, researching psi and buying the gen costs 3100 minerals, a huge investment early game. If the evils onboard are amassing early, it may be wise to delete the psi pens in order to get 2 additional psi points, for free. This way, you may spend your minerals on upgrades so that you will be more prepared for an early game fight.

Spells:

The higher the tier your spell has, the higher the alignment gain. For example, “battle meditation” grants you more alignment than “restoration”. If you are trying to reach a high alignment, then pick the highest tier spell available.

Restoration: This spell heals you and your allies. Furthermore, it grants you armor. It also cures debuffs such as radiation and infestations (head crab). Once maxed, this spell grants tons of armor and healing, making you hard to kill due to the defensive stats.

Galacta Beam: Magical AOE spell that hits all targets in range and leaves a trail of starfire which damages anyone who walks on it but the psion. This spell deals surprisingly much damage and is very effective at clearing alien minions. It has a short cd as well, so it can be used often in order to leave trails of starfire on multiple locations.

Battle Meditation: When cast, this spell grants the psion and nearby friendly targets a strong buff, increasing hp, shields, atk power, atk speed and run speed. The spell has a few drawbacks: it removes the human “sprint spell” and it also has a rather long channeling cast speed. Keep in mind that the psion is stunned during the channeling period, make sure that you cannot be killed during this process.

Spirit bomb: This spell deals tons of damage, but due its casting speed and the very obvious casting animation, skilled players can easily dodge it. If not dodged, however, it deals massive damage. Perfect to be used against burrowed aliens. It gives tons of alignment, and is often picked just for that.

Hero of Humanity: If enough alignment is reached, the psion receives this buff. This is not a spell that one uses, but a passive buff. It increases all stats, it is much like the “lone survivor” buff. Players usually just say “HoH”, short for “hero of humanity”. Combine HoH with IBA, morphine, restoration, kinetic bones gen, battle meditation and become next to immortal. One can reach over 18 armor and massive amounts of damage reduction this way.

Killing a good psion as human is a violation of the rules, unless the psion tries to go evil by doing evil actions. It has indeed happened that a HoH psion decides to spirit bomb his fellow humans, so do keep an eye open.

Evil Psion
The evil psion strays away from humanity, his task is to murder crew and all other beings in the sector. The evil psion is extremely dangerous with destructive spells. Killing a human grants the psion one psi point and negative alignment. Killing host/syndicate grants one psi point and negative alignment if the psion already is -10 alignment. If the psion is still neutral and accidentally kill an alien/syndicate, he might gain positive alignment. It can be hard to go evil once this has happened, but possible. Killing android grants no psi point.

Psi pens: Releasing psi pens is common as an evil psion. Picking lightning, killing a human, then pick lightning again and then use the two psi points that you get from releasing psi pens will allow you to get “soul sap”, a very strong spell.

There are perks with buying psi, thought. If one plays deceptive and wish to go evil without killing people at start, buying psi pens could be a great way to go. Also, energy regen and increased spell power is very strong late game. For instance, if all humans are dead and you are fighting a bunch of aliens, being able to constantly cast “dissolution wave” without worrying about energy, is neat.

Spells:

All psion’s spells may be used while stealthed.

Lightning: Very strong spell. Deals dmg to target and briefly stun them (very short stun). If you 1v1 somebody early game, use lightning as a finishing move, this way they may not understand that you are psi and believe they can win, until it is too late.

This spell chains to nearby targets, jumping back and forth to the target, dealing massive damage. If enough targets are nearby, it may one shot a human/alien, due to it jumping back and forth. The higher level of this spell, the higher damage and higher amount of maximum times the spell can hit the same target. Keep in mind, if you have too many targets next to your main target, it might not kill everything, because of the max amount of times it can jump to another target. The cows on level 3 in the botany area, is perfect for one shotting people. However, the zoo, can sometimes have too many minions to one shot somebody. Usually thought, it works anyway. If you find a human next to a bunch of alien minions, this spell can easily one shot the human. Lightning is plain amazing vs queen, due to all the minions stacking with the queen. It almost one shots the entire queen armory and heavily damages the queen.



Soul sap: This spell has a short cast time. Make sure that it finishes casting! Sometimes the cast is interrupted and must be re-cast. The spell steals some health from the target, and grants you the health as a buff. Any human killed during the buff¨s period will grant you a soul. Each soul grants you bonuses such as health, speed and attack speed. You may get several souls during the period of the buff. Example: soul sap officer, kill officer and sgt, get two souls. Being evil psion is expensive since one spend a lot of money on items such as oxygen shots and stealth kits. Therefore, one does not afford health upgrades and such. This is solved by the soul sap spell, where you are given stat upgrades “for free”, you only have to pay a human’s life as a price… heh.. hehehe…

Dissolution wave: '''A spell that last during a period of time, working as an aura. It deals damage to nearby targets, dealing more damage to biological units. It also slows targets down and reduces their armor. It is very effective when chasing humans, due to the slow. Very strong in combination with stealth. Soul sap + dis wave, use energy kit, then lightning for deadly under-cover kill.

Dissolution wave is very good against alien minons. It allows you to use a none-aoe weapon since it will kill minions for you.

Hellblaze: The mother of all spells. This spell completely destroys everything in its path. It has a cast time (keep in mind that the hellblaze’s cast time is casted twice) that is rather short. A good thing about the cast time is that it is discrete, people rarely realize that you are actually casting the spell, making it hard for them to avoid it until it’s too late.

The spell launches a ball of destruction towards selected location. It hits everything on its path and creates a massive explosion upon impact, leaving debris and hellfire over a large area. It has a huge hitbox, so one does not even have to aim that well to hit its target. It one shots most foes, it can even kill a T-800 droid if hit properly. Very strong vs droid in combination with pulse grenade. Stun the android and use the hellblaze.

If humans are chasing you, use an oxygen shot and run away, then use the hellblaze towards their direction. Their characters will run to atk you and run straight into the hellblaze.

Always use a thermal shield when using this spell, or else you might die yourself if a target is in melee range, because the ball will aoe damage yourself. Thermal shield will protect you from this event.

Genocidal Ambitions: If enough alignment is reached, the psion receives this buff. This is not a spell that one uses, but a passive buff. It increases all stats, it is much like the “lone survivor” buff. Players usually just say “GA”. Keep in mind that if you have managed to use deceptive play and keep your identity as psion unknown, this buff will reveal your true identity to all players with a message. Genocidal Ambitions must be achieved by playing with intelligence, not simply brute force. You must get every soul that you can (usually 6+ works), so timing soul sap correctly is a must.

Rushing
A strategy used commonly by experienced evil psion players is rushing. One picks lightning as first spell and then proceeds to kill somebody as soon as possible. A great first target is DSM, Lt, Maj or Engineer. These crewmembers are rather weak early game and you should have no problem 1v1 them. If they are smart, they will try to run away. Therefore, you must be ready to chase them and finish the kill. Grab a micro-friendly weapon, such as plasma-cutter, laser rifle or shotgun. Use oxygen shot and sprint and chase them while hitting them whenever weapon auto-fire is off cooldown. If they are getting a bit further away, use lightning to shortly stun them, allowing you to gain some distance.

The best floors to kill people is 1 and 6, due to the floors being big with many spots out of turret/cam range. Usually first kill takes place on floor 1. The Network Mainframe console on level 6 is also a great kill spot due to it being a one-way hallway.

Once you have killed your first victim, you should up lightning again. If you are lucky, you may have gained soul sap. If not, you must either kill another human or release psi pens. Releasing psi pens is best done by thermiting the psi pens door (if locked) and then use stealth kit to run in and out and release it.

Once you have soul sap, killing sgs will be easier. Major is a good second kill, he usually hangs at 6. Killing him early is great, because mechs can be annoying early game for a psion. Killing cap before firm 3 is an amazing accomplishment, because gas is indeed dangerous for a psion. As a psion, you will mostly roam the vents due to being tagged. Use deception if you wish and deny your murders, and try to get cap to tag others.

Ideal Inventories: 

- medkit + oxygen shot + regen kit + energy kit + stealth kit + weapon

- oxygen shot + regen kit + thermal shield + energy kit + stealth kit + weapon

Stealth kits are an absolute necessity as an evil psion due to the high-risk situations that you are involved in, and a stealth kit allows you to run away if needed. Ideal Genetic Sets:

- rapid regen + augmented walker

- rapid regen + psionic potency

- augmented walker + psionic potency

- augmented walker + occular sights

Adaptation: The key to a great psion player is the ability to adapt. Games are not often similar, one must master the different scenarios that one encounters. You will die more than you win, so keep grinding.