Pariah or Psion?

Darzo

As far as I know, these are the two newest classes within the game. How do these two stack up against each other? Flavor wise, they both seem very interesting but has anyone gathered enough information to give a rough outline of the two? Is one better at bashing or PK? Does one require a lot of investment in regards to artifacts, lessons, learning curve?

Gallida

Having only messed with Pariah, here's my uneducated takes.

Bashing: Pariah wins and it's not really a contest. Pariah's damage output and defenses both scale with intelligence, the passive curing/bind clear are super useful. Psion is slower, doesn't scale as well, and really only gets Rally and free plane-razing crits as a bashing utility thing. Both classes can use a Shield of Absorption in PVE, though Pariah has to give it up for PVP.

Dueling: I'd give the edge to Psion for being able to consistently hinder an opponent, both through paralysis on demand and Muddle. Pariah struggles more with hinder because it can't give afflictions on command, it has to cycle through them. Pariah also takes a little bit longer than Psion to reach critical mass. Both classes are good at ganking due to room hinder and the potential for fast kills.

Groups: Kind of a wash. I'd say Psion has more group utility with a ranged attack and passive cleave from Miriad, but Pariah can get absolutely stupid output if left unchecked, and the plague afflictions (Sandfever and Mycalium specifically) are nasty to deal with in group situations. Pariah also gets some room effects that are hard to duplicate. They're both decent in groups.

Lesson Investment: Both classes need two trans skills (Weaving/Psionics for Psion, Memorium/Pestilence for Pariah) to be effective. The third skill (Emulation/Charnel) is mostly utility. Again, kind of a wash.

Arties: Both classes are on the squishier side, so you'll want to build tankiness first. Increasing the damage output for both classes should be your last priority since neither class really needs damage to kill: Psion can do any of its routes unartied and Pariah's PVP damage output neither scales with stats nor is the focus of the class. Pariah doesn't have specific arties yet and I don't see them releasing anything that would be crucial to the class.

Ultimately, I think they're about even. Play what you want.

Shecks

Other people feel differently but as someone who has played almost every class, I'd say Pariah requires scripting to play optimally, and not simple scripting either - it's some of the most complex code I've ever made for Achaea. Psion isn't simple either but it's well within the range of being fine 100% manual or very simple scripts to help you out here and there which definitely aren't "needed" while IMO reaching the top of Pariah potential without scripting is effectively impossible unless you are Faker. So for dueling: easy choice for Psion

Also the combat theory on Pariah is inherently more complex, and IMO it doesn't my really make you any stronger - so in that sense Psion has a lot better ratio of learning curve to results.

I've got this reputation for hating on Pariah but it's not true. It's an awesome class with a lot of potential, but it's only real strength is that people haven't figured out how to best it yet. At the same time, we can probably expect the class to change a lot in the coming year or so.

One other thing to keep in mind is that Serpent is one of the strongest classes in the game and consistently leads the kill leaderboard (primarily because of snipe), and Psion is a direct counter class to serpent.

Regarding raids I think Pariah might be the most useless class in the game. It is not useless in general of course, it's just less useful than all other option, definitely including Psion. Anyone who says Psion isn't good hasn't played Psion.

For bashing - the other reply is a bit misleading. It's not bad of you have L3 Int, L3 collar, L3 con belt, and all the sip/regen arties. Without that you'd be far better off on a class that doesn't require a college degree worth of credits to make it able to kill things and not die rapidly - and even with all that it just comes out as mediocre. Doesn't come close to top 5. You'll also have to accept that anything other than Horkval right now is objectively silly.

Lastly there are a lot of general problems with Pariah. It's a work in progress, not a fully fleshed out class. If you want to be a part of that, then you can give it a shot, but it's a lot like playing an early release game. We still don't know what a few class abilities do because nobody has found them yet. Oh also you'll not have access to any of the artefact weapons or Weaponry skills that you've purchased.

Again other people feel differently but it's a fun side gig but I would generally not recommend Pariah to anyone with only one or two class slots. It's just way too niche to be your daily driver, and there are way too many fights you simply cannot win no matter how well you play.

(Disclaimer: I tried to make this clear but this is all subjective. If you like Pariah, then play it. It's just one guy's take. As an actual *experience* it's quite awesome as a class!)

Eryl

You don’t need to code a lot for pariah. You can manual it, just like any class, but it’s a class with a lot of moving parts.

If we’re speaking anecdotally, I have about twice the amount of code for psion than I do for pariah.

Dochitha

I find pariah super simple to code, and also think it's not hard to manual with cos epitaph advance. However, personally I feel it's harder to defend/fight against a Psion than a Pariah, whether coming from a prep or momentum class. I have fought as Psion and Pariah too, and the same people always find psion to be more oppressive than pariah. If you put Psion vs Pariah, I think it's obvious, a class that puts out tremendous hinder vs a class that gets disturbed easily by hinder. Just my take. Would be interesting to see different experiences!

Archaeon

Pariah can kill experienced people faster than psion can kill experienced people.

Amranu

Pariah lacks defensive options - if you fall behind, you have very few ways to regain the initiative besides trying to run to reset the fight. In comparison, Psion has multiple ways of resetting a fight including: limb breaks, entangles, that multi room evade thing.

Pariah's offense is fun and fleshed out quite nicely (although some changes could be made to make extract useful in forking without the cheese it was nerfed to avoid), but the lack of any defensive options whatsoever make it feel somewhat like a half finished class.

Novaki

Psion has forking kills with high priority affs that must be cured, turtled against, or run from.

Pariah has a lingering threat of a monster affliction burst, where the individual plagues are (arguably) less important in curing but is significantly more susceptible to turtling, or a highly telegraphed kill that must be run from / turtled against.

I loved Psion for the oppressive affing, muddle, stupidity, options with limb breaks, defensive curing options, and superior movement hinder.

I like Pariah for the immense affliction burst (going from 4 affs to 11 in a single balance, while 4 of those 7 affs are relevant to locking is simply insane) but it severely lacks in momentum hindering options and good fighters aren't generally going to let you get to that point.

As for bashing, Pariah blows Psion out of the water, this was before they fixed Psion scaling, though.

As mentioned, bear in mind that Pariah is the most likely, if not guaranteed, to change over the next year.