Is Skip overpowered?

[Mr_Fission]

Simple question, do you think the psycast Skip is gamebreaking?

I ask this question, openly stating that Skip is my favorite psycast by far because of how flexible it is.  But it's flexibility, utility, and low cost make me wonder if it's overpowered.  Here's all the stuff that Skip can do (list not all-inclusive):

* Warp distant enemies into point blank range to be shotgunned down
* Warp caster out of insanely dangerous positions, allowing devastating zero-risk commando-style raids without support
* Trivialize Broadshield-wearing enemies by skipping them into point blank range, shooting him, and now his shield now protects you and lets you fire out from it
* Trivialize Inferno cannon centipedes by perpetually warping them outside of their max firing range
* Trivialize Doomsday and Triple rocket launcher users by warping them in to die, or away to reset targeting
* Trivialize Thrumbo encounters by preventing them from ever reaching melee
* Trivialize mass Centipedes by warping them into frag and EMP grenade spam
* Trivialize Pikemen / Lancers by using a corner to block LOS and warping them into frag and EMP spam
* Warp individual HE mortar rounds next to inactive mech buildings to later detonate with fire from afar
* Warp boomalopes into enemy crowds with pinpoint accuracy
* Instantly claim enemies downed with shock lances for rapid capture
* Instantly gather multiple enemy casualties onto the same square, followed by 4x Wallraises to allow for rapid, indoor battlefield medical treatment
* Warp manhunter animals (looking at you, Thrumbos) into enemy groups to cause chaos
* Warp damaged friendly troops into safer positions, allowing reckless positioning that's never punished
* Warp supplies of sieging enemies into friendly lines for capture (not sure if this breaks sieges or not)
* Pull back fleeing enemies for kill or capture

Here are some characteristics of Skip that I think are overpowered:

* Caster does not need line of sight on Skip's destination (probably the most broken aspect of this cast)
* Low heat cost is irrelevant with disabled heat limiter plus Neural Heat Dump
* Low tier allows you to cast it down to 25% psyfocus, allowing 37 consecutive casts *per caster* at full psyfocus
* No significant cast time (0.25 seconds means nothing)
* Zero cooldown time
* No scatter on the destination - the target goes where you want them, 100% of the time
* Low psycast purchase cost

All of this taken together gives you an ability that casts essentially instantly, at awesome range, with a low cost, has zero chance of misfiring in any way, and which can trivialize numerous high-threat combat scenarios such as centipede spam.

From my perspective, the single most damning aspect of Skip is that if the enemy had access to it, they could instantly ruin any player defense, without any counterplay options.  Imagine having your carefully-entrenched 20-man firing squad flung apart in the first five seconds of an engagement, torn out of cover and eaten alive by hordes of spearmen.  It almost makes me want to see it happen, haha.

What do you guys think?  Agree?  Disagree?

[Feyda]

Skip is quite nice, not gonna disagree with ya there.  I wouldn't say it is broken per se.  You can argue that quite a few of the pyscasts are "OP" in some way.  Vertigo Pulse absolutely wrecks enemies when used properly.  You know how annoying it is when that damn centipede lights 4 guys on fire and they wander around trying to put out the flames?  Vertigo pulse basically does the same thing in a big square AND makes them puke their guts out occasionally.  Berserk Pulse turns the enemies on each other creating a free front line of "tanks" while your ranged has a field day.  This usually causes enemies to doomsday their own team if they have rockets.  At low levels, Burden is my favorite cause it lets even tiny colonies with only one or two hunters kill Thrumbos with easy kiting.

[Canute]

Same discussion basicly appear A17/B18 with the mod Rim of Magic.
We all know the AI is dumb, and even with new skills they can play with it don't made it better.
And the player allways could better use of the skills then any AI.
That why the storyteller confront the player with alot of enemies, so be happy you have some new toys you could play with and don't be surprised when got skiped into the crowed of enemies ! :-)

[Mr_Fission]

Just found a new ridiculous use for skip that trivializes another game mechanic:

* Broadshield-wearing enemies: Skip the broadshield wearer into point blank range, shoot him, his shield now protects you and lets you fire out from it.

Yeah I agree that Vertigo Pulse absolutely wrecks face.  Invisibility is terribly broken as well - especially when you use it with a doomsday rocket launcher on a large group of stationary enemies.  Or invisibility plus frag grenades, which lets you trivialize mech mortars within about 30 seconds of them hitting the dirt.

With Skip, don't get me wrong.  I love abusing it.  I was wearing a grin the whole time I judo-flipped three broadshield wearers one after another just now.  But I really think it's so strong it's boring.  Good game design imposes some key restrictions on powers, and the fun part is finding ways to mitigate those restrictions.  Skip has no restrictions at all.

Honestly it wouldn't be so bad if there was a psychic pariah trait (to steal a WH40k term) that projected a sphere around said pawns, which prevented psycasts from landing or being cast by any pawns in the area of effect (including insanity and shock spears).

It would give enemy raids some protection against these overpowered psycast abilities, without giving players a gamebreaking new toy.  Mainly because players would never want to recruit pariahs because right now hostiles never use psycasts. 

[Mr_Fission]

I lied - one reason to recruit pariahs.  You could use them as a shield to protect your colonists from psychic drone events.  Which I think is good because right now there's not much counterplay against those events anyways (other than foil helmets or opposite-gender colonists with harmonizers).