To start off the silly mental mutation list, we have Beguiling.

Beguiling can be an effective panic button if you have been closed in and are about to die by an enemy you can't kill in one turn (that is if they are not robots or oozes).

But this mutation isn't just a panic button, it allows you to do something no C.O.Q player (including me) has ever done before, make friends!

Having companions can be really nice both as a way to distract stronger enemies, or to have a buddy to bash someone's skull in with. Plus, you can have two friends at once when you get proselytize! (even more if you get the pointed asterisk).

However, the synergy this mutation once had with Confusion has been removed (why) making Beguiling a lot harder to use in the early game. It still isn't bad though, just not really that useful all things considered.

In most cases, Burgeoning can be treated as Beguiling but instead of making permanent friends, you summon temporary plant friends to blow the ♥♥♥♥ out of your enemies.

This is one of the more risk/reward mutations, since your plant minions have the IQ of a wet sock and will often blow you up in the process of attempting to kill a snapjaw forty miles away.

At the same time however, when your plant friends decide to actually be useful for once, they will shred through just about anything without you having to lift a finger.

This is a pretty popular mutation, as having like thirty gorged growths on screen at once is very fun, just keep in mind that a feral lah can blow you up to hell and back at any moment if you aren't careful.

Overall, one of the only truly good offensive mental mutations.

The ULTIMATE utility tool.

For a measly two points, you can see pretty much any and all dangers up ahead and plan accordingly instead of being slapped in the face by a pissed off galgal that you would not have spotted otherwise.

Plus, it allows for the use of PSIONIC SNIPING™ when paired in conjunction with Sunder Mind. It also allows for the slightly less cool but still very useful OH ♥♥♥♥ GET ME OUT™ tactic when combined with teleportation.

If you are planning on taking either Sunder Mind or Teleportation, you pretty much have to take this one.

Huge recommend from me, try it out if you haven't.

Confusion used to have amazing synergies with other mutations that benefited from beating the ♥♥♥♥ out of low MA targets, but now it only combos well with Sunder Mind and has little to no other uses.

Confusion pretty much acts as a wide range stun/debuff to a group of enemies, which is good! However, enemies will still waddle around while confused, making it a lot harder to hit or catch up with them.

The sad truth is, the real reason anybody would use Confusion nowadays is just as a method to do crazy damage with Sunder Mind. Don't get me wrong, this combo is really fun and can melt through just about anything with a brain. But much like a lot of the other mental mutations; it only serves to benefit already powerful mutations instead of being strong or useful on it's own, a pretty annoying and recurring design flaw with mental mutations.

Not to say that Confusion cant be used on it's own, there's just little incentive to do so.

I'd pass, unless I'm taking Sunder Mind, but even then it's not always worth it.

Also, I remembered that Confusion does still work with Domination, so that's another plus I guess, but Domination has it's own issues I'll get to.

After some discussions, and some more in-game testing, I have found that Cryo and Pyro aren't nearly as bad as I once thought.

Pyro can be a great tool on more intelligent enemies, since you can stunlock them as they attempt to put themselves out over and over again. Though keep in mind that this doesn't work on dumb creatures. Pyro can also be used to evaporate dangerous liquids, either for safety or combat purposes.

Cryo is an amazing CC option, letting you lock any enemy in place for as long as you please (in most cases). It also has amazing utility, working well with melee weapons and other tools that take advantage of stunned targets.

Are they the WORST mutations in the game? No, that was an overstatement.

But they still aren't quite as good as other damage dealing mental mutations. Unlike Light Manipulation or Sunder mind, you can't completely rely on them for their damage alone.

They also should cost four points, not fi- what? They cost four points now? Oh!

1.0 dropped, and brought with it a buff to our favorite cryogenic and uh, pyrogenic mutations! Now that you can reasonably take either Cryo or Pyro with other more expensive mutations, there's a lot more wiggle room for what you can do! Freeze an enemy and shoot 'em with lasers? Go for it! Burn an enemy and keep them on fire with Flaming Ray without sacrificing other mutations? Sure!

Keep in mind, Cryo and Pyro are still pretty weak, but now, they don't bite into your point reserve as hard! Thanks Mr. Qud!

If an enemy has this mutation, you are going to die, and you will have no say in the matter. Enemies with Disintegration are forces of evil to be feared, chunking over half your health at once with ease.

On players though, it's just ok.

Stunning yourself is a very big risk, especially if you decide to use Disintegration as a last resort. This creates scenarios where either the enemy dies, or you DEFINITELY die.

Disintegration can also be useful for exploration too, as breaking through walls is nice.

Plus, it has a fairly large radius that certain OTHER mutations would greatly benefit from wink wink nudge nudge help me.

It's not bad, just not that great, like most mental mutations sadly.

BONUS INFORMATION: The "Exhausted" debuff can be removed via Two-Headed... THIS IS COOL!

I'm gonna be honest, I really don't know what you are even supposed to do with this mutation to begin with.

It allows you to mind control enemies (cool) but you don't get any exp for the kills you get in your new body (lame). You can get exp for your original character if you dominated a beguiled or proselytized enemy, but that process just takes a whole lot of time.

This leaves only two real uses for this mutation, which I'm not even sure if these uses are what the devs intended Domination would be primarily used for but here we go.

STEALING:

Domination allows you to enter the mind of a shopkeeper and make them drop all their stuff on the ground for you to snatch. Though take this strategy with a grain of salt, as you need to be at a high enough level to pull this off without making them pissed.

DETROIT BECOME SNAPJAW:

Domination has a really janky and odd feature that allows you to permanently become the thing you are dominating if your original body dies in one hit. This ability will become completely useless once Metamorphosis comes out though, so that stinks. You can also use this feature to get grafted by a graftek, although sadly the Trembling Dunes have been banished to the realm of unused content, at least for now.

If this mutation were like, three or even four points, it would be fine but a little underwhelming.

But it's five.

Would not recommend simply because of how expensive it is for such mediocre abilities.

The ability to boost agility and strength is almost completely useless for full-time Espers, but boosting toughness can actually save you once in a while.

The toughness boost is significant enough to ward off many attackers, and allows you to survive hits that would normally kill you, free of charge.

However, it has a ridiculously long cooldown paired with a tiny duration, making it pretty situational. But it can still prove to be useful when used not as a last resort, but as something to make combat generally less risky for your fragile Esper body.

The problem with this though, is why are you getting into melee combat as an Esper to begin with? It contradicts itself a little bit.

It's still not bad though, it's a pretty ok pick.

The "get the ♥♥♥♥ away from me" mutations, Force Bubble and Force Wall, have a variety of uses that can save you in a pinch.

Force Bubble is for lazier people (no judgement) who just want to not take damage for a bit without having to think of silly things like wall placement or predicting enemy movement. It's generally worse than wall, due to being more expensive and less flexible, but its still a very good defensive option.

Force Wall on the other hand, is a much more useful choice due to it's ability to not only prevent you from dying, but also allowing you to seal enemies in stupid idiot prison for however long you please, letting you escape or laugh at them. Plus, it's cheaper.

Both are good, it mostly just depends on how you play that decides which one is better for you.

Kindle is by far, the most powerful mutation in the whole game, allowing you t- haha just joking it's complete garbage, avoid at all costs.

I guess you can light mushrooms on fire slowly?

Light Manipulation is one of the only other strong damage dealing mental mutations, having infinite range, perfect accuracy, and decent damage output to boot.

Armored targets are problematic though, as the penetration on each lase beam is pretty subpar, but it does get better with level.

However the one real thing holding this mutation back is that charge speed is not affected by willpower, making it take forever to get all your charges back while you are moving.

Other than this, Light Manipulation is a very solid option that can carry you throughout most of the game.

One of the "downsides" for this mutation is the only real reason to use it in the first place imo.

Generating glimmer is an amazing tool for ego farming, allowing your other mental mutations to grow to huge levels as you level up. Plus, beating the hell out of that nerd Ptoh's goons is pretty damn fun.

However... the intended use for Mass Mind kinda sucks.

Resetting mental ability cooldowns is decent both offensively and defensively, but in most cases it doesn't have much impact unless you are at the brink of death.

Also, other Espers can steal your cooldowns at any moment, potentially killing you if you get super unlucky.

Other than ego farming, I would not recommend this one.

Unless you have really, really low willpower (you really shouldn't) this mutation has little to no real use case.

However If you DO have low willpower for some reason, this thing is your best friend, being the one thing protecting you from getting mentally obliterated at any second.

Even then though, if the mirror shatters, you are probably dead.

It has some uses, just not enough to warrant taking it over other utility options.

You can't really save yourself with Precognition, as you never know exactly when you are going to encounter something that can kill you, and trying to just spam this mutation all the time gets annoying fast.

For some reason though, cooking with Neutron Flux can be done safely with Precognition. This essentially grants you infinite AV as long as you have a liquid vendor on hand, plus a lot of water and time to spare.

But, what else can you do?

Well... you can check to see if preserving an eater-tonic will give you a whole bunch of stats, or absolutely nothing.

You can keep rolling dreamcrungle dreams until you get one that you can win.

I guess you can... uh... equip the prism without it killing you?

There's probably some other advanced tech you can perform with Precognition that I'm just too dumb to remember, but if you like doing any of the things I just mentioned, Precognition might be for you!

After the nerf to cooking with bananas, a pretty poor balance change to get more people to use this garbage, people started to realize just how bad this mutation really is.

It's tinkering, but it costs mutation points and- wait hold on haha you CANT tinker things with this mutation unless you have the appropriate tinkering skills.

So what the hell is the point of this thing? To identify artifacts? Something that can be easily done through just leveling up normally or even by paying smart people to do it for you?

And why does it allow you to open security doors? This does absolutely nothing unless you are inside the Rusted Archways or Grit Gate.

This mutation is hot garbage, and is easily outclassed by not just other mutations, but by simply leveling up.

Even with the 1.0 change that lowered it's point cost, it's still pretty damn worthless.

Don't bother, just eat a banana.

Wow there are a lot of pretty mediocre mental mutatio- wait, hold on hold on!

After some testing, I was shocked to realize that Sense Psychic is actually not dookie dog piss! This is because the definition for "psychic" is very loose in qud, you aren't going to just see esper-hunters through walls! All an enemy needs to have in order to qualify as a psychic is one mental mutation, which is nuts. You can see a ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ equimax through a wall; a ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ horse.

I will now list some other things you can see (and potentially snipe with Sunder Mind) through walls:

-Sludges
-Enigma snails
-Svardym elds
-Cragmensch luminaries
-Goatfolk qlippoths
-Leeches
-Voiders
-CHROME PYRAMIDS
-Cyclopean gibbons
-Asphodelytes

...And many more!

Granted, Sense Psychic can't go past level one since it's a one-pointer, but I'll be damned! It's actually pretty good!

Garbage, except for one itty bitty thing.

You can "kill" any enemy with a vortex. This includes Cherubim, allowing you to get an easy sultan mask if you get lucky enough.

Other than that one thing though... why?

It can also get you out of a dangerous situation... sometimes? Or, it can take you all the way down to strata 30, and get you instantly killed by an ickslug.

Hard pass, again.

STUNNING FORCE HAS BEEN FIXED!!!!!! THE WORLD IS SAVED!!!!!!! IT'S A QUDMAS MIRACLE!!!!!

This has been a LOOOONG time coming! Now you can hit the guys with Stunning Force, and get this, they actually DIE. Picking Stunning Force is no longer just a waste of points, you can actually deal a sizable chunk of damage to enemies that would normally be a pain to fight as an esper. Granted, it's not crazy high damage, but still.

And... It's a three point mutation now! Hallelujah!

I mean, cmon, it's Sunder Mind.

It's reliable, it's fun, has infinite range when paired with Clairvoyance, and best of all: it does good damage.

Granted, you do have to stand completely still and waste turns to deal any significant amount of damage, but if you are halfway across the whole map, that's not a very big deal.

Robots and oozes still remain big issues though, and with no good option for Espers to deal with them, it can get frustrating watching your character get continuously slapped silly by a waydroid in the early game and not being able to fight back with anything substantial.

Still, it's the most iconic damage dealing mental mutation, and it's never a bad option for the aspiring Esper.

Back to the mediocre mutations!

Syphon Vim has all the same issues Sunder Mind has, except unlike Sunder Mind, it sucks.

Ok maybe "sucks" is a bit harsh, but getting into melee range as a full Esper is practically suicidal, and with the only real upside Syphon Vim having over Sunder Mind being the healing effect, a pretty meaningless thing when urberries and tonics exist, it's clear to see why this mutation isn't so good.

It does have some synergy with Phasing though, as mentioned in my physical mutation list. Plus, pretending to be Dracula is pretty ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ cool.

On the fun scale, Syphon Vim is pretty high. But for serious play, it is just not a good damage dealing option when compared to things like Sunder Mind or even Light Manipulation.

It's a little underpowered as it is right now, but is nowhere near as bad as ♥♥♥♥ like Kindle.

This one just sucks and you probably know that, so instead lets just talk about what I feel Esper kinda needs right now in terms of balance changes.

Esper really needs more or better ways to deal with robots and oozes, since playing as a pure esper (no physical mutations) gets pretty annoying quick.

Combined with the low health Espers naturally have, it seems as though the devs were going with a sort of "glass cannon" approach design wise, but there just isn't enough reward to warrant the risk of having generally lower stats for melee combat.

New mutations is a huge ask, and most likely won't happen. So buffing some of the garbage or mediocre mutations, (Psychometry, Syphon Vim, Space-time Vortex, Disintegration, etc.) would make it so that you don't feel like you HAVE to run Sunder Mind and Clairvoyance each time you decide to play Esper.

That's my little rant on Esper, and if you think I'm wrong on this, that's fine. Let me know in the comments what your thoughts are on Esper as it is right now, as I'm always interested to see.

Oh and don't take Telepathy it sucks.

It's alright I guess, but it's not as good or reliable as normal Teleportation. Although, if you find yourself low on points to spend, and have no other defensive options you can choose from, taking this and banishing a dangerous enemy to the shadow realm can be good enough. It's really cheap too, just two points for a slightly worse variation of Teleportation.

Not a bad option in emergencies, just not the best.

In terms of offensive utility though? It's actually got a pretty neat synergy with Syphon Vim of all things! Start slurping an enemy down with vim, then send them halfway across the map! That enemy is now your personal healer, slowly dying away as you fight off whatever else was near him. Give this strategy a shot, it's fun!

The cost on this mutation is a pretty hard pill to swallow, as it really limits the amount of other more offensive mental mutations you can get. But by god, it is the perfect tool for escaping deadly situations, even more than mutations like Multiple Legs or Phasing.

It combos well with all of the other currently powerful mental mutation options, allowing you to run away if an enemy gets too close, or if you are feeling ballsy, gets you closer to a retreating enemy.

Good pick, if you are going full Esper this feels like one of the mutations you are REQUIRED to have in most cases.

This mutation CAN and WILL kill you. At some point that is.

It's all fun and games, steamrolling enemies with eight clones all firing lase beams and throwing grenades. That is until three of them decide to indulge in some shade oil you forgot to sell, and you took Tonic Allergy (like everybody does). Now you are fighting around twelve evil clones and you can't tell where the hell you even are on the screen.

This mutation either wins you the game, or kills you in five seconds. Usually both in a single run.

It's really fun and ridiculously powerful, but extremely risky if you don't micromanage often. So I would only really recommend this one once you have a baseline understanding of the game's mechanics.

Hey, hey you, come over here.

Remember all that ♥♥♥♥ I said about mental mutations being bad? And mental mutations needing some reworks?

♥♥♥♥ all that, you ever heard of Time Dilation?

Its crazy broken right now. The quickness penalty is enormous and it has a giant radius.

Whats really shocking is I never really see anybody talking about how ridiculous this mutation is. So if mental mutations ever do get some changes, make sure to enjoy this one for as long as possible, because there's no way it's gonna stay like this forever.

Ok now get away from me, you make me uncomfortable.