DoT, JoSD, Cits, Garn

It depends on your gear, DoT psy is hands down most efficient way to go with endgame gear (r9r or r9rr and no, you won't be a glass cannon), but seriously for g16 nirvana?

You could go DoT and be a somewhat glass cannon, so it's an option.

JoSD are a complete waste to put in g16 because you simply aren't going to be a tank vs r9r++ geared players.

Full garnets - many people like to be oblivious to the fact psy is the only caster class with low phys. def and for a good reason, so don't try to play psy like a wizzie, play psy like a psy. Point being sure, garnets aren't entirely a bad choice but they won't help you vs casters and they aren't going to be the key to your survival vs physical classes either.

Full citrines - more efficient choice than garnets since it works against all attacks but it somewhat limits your potential, aka you won't hit as hard as DoT psy and you'll be somewhat lacking in defense.

If you want to play it neutral and cheap - you could go citrines with garnets in two armor pieces for a lil bit extra phys.def, or DoTs to boost your damage a bit because name of the game is to kill before you get killed, you aren't really going to play a tanking game vs archers and such.

One final note - keep in mind that even though it looks strange, vitality gems are actually better than g11 citrines/garnets. They give you close to same hp along with phys/mag defense. So it would actually take g12 gar/cit to make a viable comparison between the three. However, due to being pricey I wouldn't suggest going full vitality shards, but rather use them to shard one or two pieces of armor to tweak your psy if it suits your play style.

+10 vs +7 gives about 450 extra HPs and costs 75gold. This is more efficient than any of the shards i think. So i would first of all get to +10 before gettig any charts at all. (well, flawless citrines till then...)

+12 gives another 550 HPs per item. I dont know prices of vit stones or +12 refinements, dunno what is the better investment here.

Ugh if only HT prices were like that. 30-34 mil for a DoT and 50-60 mil for vit stones you guys have it lucky x.x

I wish the market as a whole would be worse in math. Wherever they miscalculate, there is money to be made.

T_i_m - Dreamweaver wrote: »

I think Asterelle's defense calculator is less effective for certain classes, particularly sins and psy's due to our long-lasting passive defense buffs and active phys immune buffs. Take it with a salt shaker.

How so? It just compares how different shard choice defend against magic/phys hits for your gear.. so if you were a psychic for example and decided you wanted to defend against physical hits while you were self buffed because you thought magic was not a threat and you never die when buffed, it would show you the best shard choice to accomplish that goal. You don't have to pick the highest average (although I usually do), and the buffs have nothing to do with how shard choice defends against certain kinds of damage.

Euthymius - Heavens Tear wrote: »

I'm actually quite curious about the DoT path, as I was considering it as an endgame plan to follow. Surely we could camp in White Voodoo with it and a R9.3 weapon giving us positive attack levels, but would it really be worth it?

no it would not.

In your case, I would shard with exclusive garnets or citrines.
Refine above the intended +7 to +10 before considering better shard alternatives.

I, personally, would also consider going rank 9 and working towards r9s3 before considering sharding alternatives.

People who advocate going DoT build to sit in White Voodoo with positive attack levels don't understand why go DoTs in the first place. The reason why you go DoT build is so that in B.Voodoo you maximize your attack to take out JoSD targets and when you need to defend, W.Voodoo will give you more than enough defense levels to survive in mass rpk.

The only benefit to JoSD build is that you can play brainless style in B.V. and make a lot of mistakes and at the same time have a bit easier time tanking in some situations in W.V. So if you are lazy to actually play the class or too bad to do it, go JoSD.

Ok, this is my experience.... I was a full DoT Psy for the longest time. This only worked for me because I have very good Pdef ornaments. I played in Black voodoo 99.9% of the time. I did have I think 52 or 58 attack lvls in white voodoo ( I can't remember ) , but in pvp... you can't really kill an equally geared person with it. Anyways! Keep in mind that getting debuffed full DoT will make you very squishy. I have however changed my shards to half DoT and half JOSD. I really like this balance. The extra Def levels do help alot when being attacked by multiple people and the extra Attk levels give you more of a sting. I like the balance!

xylonis wrote: »

Ok, this is my experience.... I was a full DoT Psy for the longest time. This only worked for me because I have very good Pdef ornaments. I played in Black voodoo 99.9% of the time. I did have I think 52 or 58 attack lvls in white voodoo ( I can't remember ) , but in pvp... you can't really kill an equally geared person with it.

I suggest you read post above, maybe then you'll realize why you never succeeded with a DoT build

Same for being squishy, if you get purged, debuffed and controlled, you will die. There are only a few situations in which JoSD build will have a noticeable difference in survivability in comparison to DoT build. In most situations you will be able to tank multiple opponents and kite away until they give up on chasing you - And with the addition of r9rr weapons, chances of you dying are even slimmer because it helps you avoid getting controlled even if you make a mistake.

If you can't time your skills and switch voodoos when needed, position yourself, etc., by all means sit in white voodoo+full josd and keep your fingers crossed you'll tank everybody and look pro. If you actually want to maximize class' efficiency and use it to its fullest potential, go DoT and cut through JoSD targets like butter while maintanining one of the highest survivabilities in the game - in mass rpk r9r++ psy is the last person on anybody's list to attack, you just don't ** with psys when you can kill in 2-3 shots easier yet similarly painful for you targets around you.