There's a ton of issues with TK, so I'm going to try and group them together into overarching categories.


First off, Id Blades.

The dual-blade attacks are fantastic looking, and one of the coolest effects in the game, and is really character-defining. However, the single-blade attacks range from kinda cool (Weaponry) to abysmal (Frenzy). There are a few other sources, but the only one with 100% uptime is Ego Form, which chains the set to a single passive choice, something no other Framework suffers from.

Additionally, Ego Form and Ego Surge, because a portion of their budget seems to be tied to activating Id Blades, have extremely narrow appeal, not even being a good choice for Telepathy, making Tier 4 harder to qualify for.

As if that wasn't enough wrong with it the only thing Id Blades actually does mechanically is give Ego Blades the same 20% damage increase that all other melee powers receive from Strength for free, only from Ego instead.

Clearly, that's a huge problem. Fortunately, in the time since launch there's been a concept developed that can easily solve it. Aspect-toggles.

Mechanically, the boost from Ego should be rolled in with the blade powers themselves, or removed from "balance" equations of the activation powers so they aren't so niche. It's simply unreasonable that TK-Blades is the only Melee set that has to give up a power slot to get the 20% damage boost they're balanced around, and it's stupid to gimp those powers for everyone else because of the small benefit it provides to a very narrow spec.

As for the set-defining dual-blade attacks, the activation trigger for them should be moved to a Toggle Power, similar to the Martial Arts Forms, and it should provide actual benefits, not just a cosmetic change and the addition of the Melee scaling. Whether a new debuff, a modified Ego Leech, or something else, it should provide a core synergy that the rest of the set revolves around, unlike Aspect of the Infernal. Bonus points for being able to just name it "Id Blades".

By making the Id Blades a Toggle, it provides focus to the set, and also allows TK-Blades characters the freedom to choose different passives like every other Framework can, without sacrificing the flavor of the set like they have to now.

Whew. That was longer than I thought.

The other big problem with Ego Blades is the incredibly sparse power selection.

Since it's shoehorned into being half of a set, much like Bestial and Infernal were, Blades has a tiny number of powers to choose from:

1. Ego Blade, the new alternate Energy Builder.
2. Ego Weaponry, the Tier 0 Combo Attack.
3. Ego Blade Frenzy, a Tier 1 Melee Cone Maintain.
4. Ego Blade Breach, a Tier 3 Charge.
5. Ego Blade Annihilation, a Tier 3 Click.

Five powers. Less than Archery had at launch.

Unfortunately, it gets worse. Not only are there very few powers, the powers that exist have nearly no synergy, and several of them are just not very good. Only Breach's Ego resistance debuff provides any synergy at all, but that causes problems of its own.

• Weaponry's damage is outclassed by Breach, and its custom advantage is useless in PvE (Please correct me if I'm wrong, but NPC's don't seem to use energy)
• Breach's debuff promotes spam-tapping, which looks awful since it's a charge, and completely outclasses Weaponry.
• Annihilation's "Execute" mechanic is mostly meaningless in Champions, and it's far too niche to spend a power on most days.

Though it's not truly a Blades power, TK Eruption does synergize well with blades by being a non-targeting AoE, and providing an extremely cool-looking damage buff. I'd say it's a keeper at Tier 2.

So what to do about the rest? First, add more Powers. Right now, TK has two different holds and some dross at Tier 2, making it fairly restrictive to climb higher.

As for the existing powers, there's a lot that can be done. Weaponry needs a new custom advantage, Breach's debuff needs reworking, and Annihilation needs some real work too. Remember how I said the Toggle should be something different? Here's my idea for how to work it in.

• Weaponry applies the debuff, either through the advantage or innately, leaving the advantage for something else.
• If possible, Breach applies it in escalating amounts as it's charged, so 50% gets you 2 stacks and a full charge gets you 3.
• And Annihilation's extra damage changes to trigger off the debuff, either the binary way it does now, or in a manner similar to rupturing bleeds.
• Other powers can tie into the system by having additional effects on targets that are debuffed.
• Then you have your energy unlock which triggers off of dealing Ego damage to a debuffed target.

And there you have it. BAM!

That leaves the miscellaneous other powers in TK, Choke, Hold, Wave, and Maelstrom. Not really enough to make a new framework out of, too much to keep in one place. One of the holds should migrate to Telepathy, since they don't actually have a Paralyze. Wave gets brought on board the synergy train, exported to Telepathy as well, or even made Framework-wide like in Martial Arts or Brick.

Maelstrom is just a mess. It looks amazing, but it still does Crushing Damage, making it synergize not at all, unlike every other power in the Mentalist Framework. Since the other Crushing holdouts were switched to Ego damage, Maelstrom should follow suit, at least partially.

And that leaves the big elephant in the room. Telekinesis. The single worst power in the entire game. It doesn't work, it never has, and a lot of people have given up on whether it ever will. It's such a dead-horse issue that I'm not even going to touch it. Either the developers have an idea for it, or they've found one of the many player ideas to use, but there's nothing to say about it that hasn't already been said.