TT99 or straight to R8?

The G12 morai gear set is actually decent, not great, but pretty nice as freebie gear. Tested it shortly on some melee snake south of 1k (they were close). Self buffed only, in white voodoo, was taking slightly less melee hit than my R8 armor(well, around 20 less). True, my necklace is well refined and the belt is decent, so the pve def lv might had given a good boost there(combined with white voodoo). Probably lesser reduction, homever, once buff come in.

Hum, should had tested more... I truly left way too much stuff untouched.

Weapon wise, vanilla G12 orb(no refine, no shard) was dealing about 2-4k lesser damage that my R8+5 on the oht daily mob. Considering I tend to hit those for 22-25k, pretty good stuff outside of pvp. As such, I believe those people who quickly said after expansion that the G12 was outdoing lunar of higher refining. More recently, I had a friend saying her wizzy's pve G13 wheel was on par with her R8 sword with same refine of +5 damage wise. The only other flaw to this gear outside of pvp uselessness is when it come to healing with them, the slaying level does nothing. Not really important for a psychic anyways, but watch out for cleric/mystic healing if it's strong enough.

But yeah, you said yourself you were doing TW with your faction. The morai gears would be a waste to invest in, except the weapon. I know I myself did ok with a mold 80+5 until lv97 for the harpy mold(soulsphere made from it is same add as lunar orb, just lesser damage), which on my server has gotten cheaper than back when I brought and resold my own already. If you cannot get yet R8, then the harpy mold(Dragonling essence, look like a green full circle) or a green TT90/TT99 should be able to hold until then. Any TT gold weapon are kinda a waste, with only the TT99 gold being alright if you planning on going nirvana. Speaking of which, good thing you're leveling slowly, this will give time for the 3rd nirv cast to come out in china (or here), before you reach lv100, allowing you to choose your gear path with real info on it.

weapon-wise:

tt99 gold -> nirvy g13-15-16 is good only if you are going to get g16 (in a relative short time)

also note that tt99 gold will bound so you will have to make it yourself (I havent leveled my blacksmith skill so i went straight to g13 nirv)

I used a tt99 green (i think the attack lvl one) till i got the nirvy; does more damage than the fcc 85 sphere. other nice/cheap options is the harpy sphere (97). lunar sphere may be a bit expensive but would be a nice sphere if you plan to stay for a loong time without r8 (i dont really suggest it but you might find one nicely refined cheap from some psy that used it got end-game before r8 was so cheap)

when you hit 100 the best option is ofc r8 (after r9/r8r/r9r); nirvy g13/15 do less damage.
all in all, I would get a tt99 green and stick with it till r8

armor:

dont get the pants; tt90 pants > tt99 pants.
generally r8 armor is rather offensive; mag, attack levels (wrists/boots), with a bit of vit.
note that you have to pay ~20mil (not sure) to unlock boots/wrists.
i would say keep tt90 pants, perhaps get r8 chest (-chan is useless though) and get some oht wrists+boots. boots are kinda hard to find (you could use the morai boots till you get some).

now, if you dont plan on getting r9 armor, nirvy is a nice alternative that might be really good at g16 (havent checked the re-recast stats)