Psychic Ward

Creates a mental shield that absorbs damage from attacks and can stun melee attackers.

Psychic Ward is a Warlock buff (Eldritch Skills, level 18, requires Cleave, unlocks Eldritch Blast). It puts the psychicward state on you with a pool of damage it can absorb, and while the pool lasts a melee hit on you stuns the attacker. The two numbers that decide it are the pool, 205 damage at level 20 before synergies, and the stun, 3.08 seconds at the same level. It can be cast in town (InTown 1).

The numbers

• Mana is 20 at level 1 and rises 2 a level (mana 20, lvlmana 2, manashift 8) to 58 at level 20.
• Damage absorbed is ln34: Param3 (15, "Damage absorbed baseline") plus Param4 (10, "per level") a level, so 15 at level 1, 105 at level 10 and 205 at level 20, plus Param8 (15) per hard point in Cleave and in Levitation Mastery (the row calls it Levitate). The same expression, times 256, fills both psychicward and psychicwardmax (aurastat1 and aurastat2), so the pool and its maximum start equal.
• Stun length is calc1, dm12: a diminishing curve that starts at Param1 (37 frames) and climbs toward Param2 (85 frames): 1.76 seconds at level 1, 2.76 at level 10, 3.08 at level 20 and 3.2 at level 30, so each level past 20 adds less than the one before.

The absorb and the stun read lvl, so +skills from items count; the two synergy terms read blvl. Param9 ("Duration Synergy") is empty: the row has no auralencalc, so the state has no timed length in the table.

How it works

The buff is an aura state on you with two events. absorbdamage (auraeventfunc 40) takes a hit's damage out of the psychicward pool before it reaches your life, see Taking Damage; the pool is a fixed amount of damage, not a percentage, and the event does not name a damage type. damagedinmelee (auraeventfunc 37) fires when a melee attacker hits you and stuns that attacker for the stun length, see Hit Recovery and Stun. The row has no attack rating, damage or missile column: Psychic Ward never hits anything itself.

The pool is 205 at level 20 with no synergies, which one hard hit in Hell can empty. The two synergies are worth 15 per hard point each, so 20 points in Cleave and 20 in Levitation Mastery add 600, three times the row's own value.

Synergies and +skills

Two synergies, each +15 damage absorbed per hard point (Param8): Cleave and Levitation Mastery. Both read blvl. Psychic Ward in turn feeds Eldritch Blast, where each hard point adds 2 seconds to that skill's duration (its Param4, 50 frames). There is no mastery line on the row.

Against players

Psychic Ward is a shield on you. A player's hit on another player is cut to 17% of its value (difficultylevels.txt PlayerDamagePercentVSPlayer) before anything else, see Player versus Player, and the ward absorbs what is left, so the pool lasts about six times as many of the same hits in a duel. The stun on a melee attacker has no separate player value in the table.

Build notes

• Each level buys 10 absorb and a shrinking slice of stun; each hard point in Cleave or Levitation Mastery buys 15 absorb, which a +skill does not give.
• Mana is the steep line here: 2 a level, 58 at level 20, 78 at level 30 from +skills.
• The stun is on melee attackers only (damagedinmelee); missiles and spells drain the pool without stunning anyone.