The Mind Spike Is Better Than You May Have Been Told (Defender Discussion)

[Shatteredtower]

Simply put, as soon as you hit level 7, a Battlemind will essentially never again use Mind Spike because they'll have Lightning Rush and it's simply a better use of their immediate actions (and their power points).

An immediate interrupt that costs you a standard action is not better than one that costs you an immediate reaction. It's fine when you've got the power points to spare, but it's also a fine example of having too much of a good thing if you'd sooner invest all of your power points in making another power redundant.

To put it another way, overreliance on Lightning Rush is wasteful and inefficient. Instead of setting up two means of punishing an opponent, as you could with Ego Crush or Ghost in the Steel, you limit yourself to one.

At level 7, you can play the Lightning Rush interrupt three times without giving up your standard action, and you become the target of one attack. Great. Meanwhile, you're unlikely to do lethal damage and you are not shifting when the power lets you move. The unaugmented Ego Crush hinders a number of lurkers and skirmishers, as well as the sort of controller that supports them. A single point lets you use it as an opportunity attack instead, forcing an adversary to choice between it and the Mind Spike. Ghost in the Steel works best against brutes and other enemies that prefer melee, but even its basic form has deterent value. Artillery and lurkers can't afford the hp shaving delivered at the basic level, and a melee-focused enemy with limited control over who it attacks next is not in an enviable position either, whether you've marked it or not. Both work with Mind Spike (directly or alongside), rather than trying to win a competition with it.

Getting back to opportunity attacks, the battlemind can always find an at-will that can be augmented to provide that benefit. You can even fall back on daily options to cover you for an entire encounter if necessary. This works because it won't be necessary to every encounter, especially if you're supporting a striker built to exploit opportunity attacks. All you need then is positioning. Two are better, but enemies only have to see one brutal one before they prefer to take their chances with you.

The defender's goal is containment. Deterrent is merely one means of reaching that goal. Damage is merely one way by which deterrent is achieved, and the amount is less important than the reliability. Mind Spike provides a guaranteed rebuttal to a successful attack. The fighter doesn't have to wait for the enemy to hit, but has a harder time maintaining a mark to its full effect against certain creatures, especially in situations that leave a defender blind and prone.

Modest damage is not bad either, when you have a battlemind's means of keeping an enemy close. If the striker averages a quarter or more damage per round than the battlemind to a target, who does the target want taken down first? What if the striker still averages higher than the battlemind with Mind Spike factored into the totals? Leaving it to allies is a good option and a good argument for providing the battlemind with a good opportunity attack -- though again, it need not be constantly available.

People get a bit too hung up on More Is Better.