Vanguard: The Psionicist

The Pisonist

The Psionicist is a class that is a bit different from your general high fantasy fair. They are spell casters who do not use an unseen force to work their magic, but instead they use the very power of their mind to perform wondrous deeds and to destroy their enemies. Considering their placement in the world of Telon-that is, Kojan and Qalia-they will likely bring in more Eastern flavor with them as well.

While at E3 this year, I was able to get some information on this more unusual class from David Forrest, one of the main gameplay programmers at Sigil Games Online, who was also able to provide information on a few other classes as well. He was able to give some insight into the abilities that the Psionicist possesses, outside of the straight forward damage spells.

The Psionicist has a number of crowd control spells, which many in the community having taken an interest in. Vanguard seems to lack a 'true' crowd-control based class, but from the sound of it, the Psionicist will be able to provide plenty of crowd control options for groups.

The Psionicist has a spell that can be used to take a target into a different 'time slice'-essentially, it is a mez. The interesting feature of this spell is that, if it is broken, the enemy does not fully return immediately and they suffer a snare effect. According to David Forrest, sometimes you may want it to break, just to gain that effect.

Along with this, there is a line of spells which are essentially clone spells. That is, it creates a copy of the target (likely within their mind), which then begins to attack the creature, trapping it in an epic battle and distracting it while the group attacks other targets. As a bonus to this ability, the Psionicist has a Mind Wipe spell, which was mentioned to be different than EverQuest's version, which lowers their aggro with the creature stuck in this battle.

The Psionicist also has a unique ability to enter into a global chat channel with other members of the class. While that is not new information, when discussing this, it seems that it is activated by using a mana-regen buff. In fact, the Psionicist is the main class for mind-regeneration. The Psionicist even has a concentration (like a stance) called Thought Thief that allows them to, instead of doing physical damage, damage the mana of opponents and regenerate their own. The class also has an endurance heal that can be cast on the party, but when in this concentration, it allows them to cast a mana heal instead. This means that when a Psionicist is in combat, they can be doing damage, but they can also be stealing mana from the opponents and regenerating the mana (or endurance) for themselves and party members.

As many MMOs show, when pulling a mob, sometimes you can't be sure how many you will grab. Sometimes you might end up with quite a few mobs chasing after you-and your party isn't likely going to be fond of that. The Psionicist, however, can read minds. While they may not be able to extract everything from a mob, they can find out information such as how to pull, how many will come, and potentially more. Also, the Psionicist can reduce the chance for other creatures to come along with the pulled mob by reducing their awareness-although this is not on an instant recast timer.

It should be remembered that this is an Arcane Caster class. This means that they are damage dealers. However, for anyone who is interested in having a lot of solid and useful utilities to help a group, or someone who longs for a crowd control class, the Psionicist sounds like it will deliver just what you need.

They may be damage dealers, but the Psionicist will be able to perform crowd control, gain information that would be otherwise inaccessible from mobs, help with pulling, buff, and regenerate both endurance and mana. The class sounds like it has a lot of versatility and usefulness to it, and over all, I imagine quite a few groups who would be happy to have a Psionicist aboard.