Psychic Hammer

Use the power of your mind to create a psychic blast to crush and knock back your enemies.

Psychic Hammer is the first cast of the Assassin's Shadow Disciplines (level 1, no prerequisites; it unlocks Cloak of Shadows). It is a single-target bolt of mental force that does a little damage and shoves the target away. The number that decides it is not the damage but the knockback chance: certain against an ordinary monster, a level-based roll against anything unique, a boss or a player.

The numbers

The damage comes in two equal halves. The physical half is MinDam/MaxDam and the magic half EMin/EMax, the same columns twice, halved by a HitShift of 7: 1–3 each at level 1. The minimum grows +1 a level to level 8, +1.5 to 16, +2 to 22, +2.5 to 28 and +3 past that (LevDam1–5 are 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, halved) and the maximum +1.5, +2, +2.5, +3 and +3.5 (3, 4, 5, 6, 7, halved), floored on display: 28–39 physical and 28–39 magic at level 20, 53–69 each at level 30. +skills count.

The knockback is three chances. Against an ordinary monster it is Param1, 100%, at every level (calc1), so it is not in the table. Against a champion or unique monster it runs from Param3 (50%) toward Param4 (100%) on the game's diminishing curve (calc2): 57% at level 1, 75% at 5, 84% at 10, 92% at level 20. Against a boss, and the row says against a player too, it runs from Param5 (25%) toward Param6 (99%) (calc3 and calc4 are the same dm56): 36% at level 1, 62% at 5, 75% at 10, 87% at level 20, 92% at 30. Mana is 4 at level 1 and +0.25 a level (lvlmana 1 on a mana shift of 6): 8.75 at level 20.

How it works

Psychic Hammer is a cast, so the Basin says it uses the cast rate: Faster Cast Rate is what makes it quicker. It needs a target: the Basin's page says that if none is selected the closest hostile within 5 1/3 yards of the cursor is taken, and that with no target in that circle it is not cast at all (unlike Mind Blast). The row's stsuccessonly flag means its effect is applied only on a successful hit.

The hit is half physical and half magic. The physical half goes through the target's physical damage reduction, the magic half through magic resistance, see Dealing Physical Damage and Magic Damage; there is no weapon in it, so nothing from the weapon rides on it. The push, the Basin says, always moves an eligible normal or minion monster away from the Assassin, not away from the cursor, and against players, champions, uniques, super uniques and bosses it is the roll above. See Knockback for what a knockback does to a monster.

Cast at the Assassin's own feet, the Basin notes, the closest target is hit and pushed, then the next closest becomes the closest: a bottleneck can be held with repeated casts.

Synergies and +skills

No synergies: nothing raises Psychic Hammer and it raises nothing. Every line reads lvl, so +skills from items and the Shadow Disciplines tab count in full, on the damage and on both knockback chances.

Against players

A player's hit on another player is cut to 17% of its value (difficultylevels.txt PlayerDamagePercentVSPlayer) before anything else, see Player versus Player; the 28–39 halves become about 5–7 each. The knockback against a player is the boss roll from the table's calc4 (Param5 25% to Param6 99%): 87% at level 20.

Build notes

• The damage is a footnote; the knockback is the skill, and against ordinary monsters one hard point already has it at 100%.
• Points buy the chance against uniques (57% to 92% from level 1 to 20) and bosses or players (36% to 87%); the curve front-loads, so +skills do most of that work.
• Mana stays under 9 at level 20, so it can be spammed.
• It is cast-rate driven, so Faster Cast Rate is what shortens the time between pushes.