Monster Mash IX: Blazing (Mon)Stars

[Inevitability]

Spoiler: Bonesmasher (11.75 -> 12.00)

Show

Originality (3):
Elemental Warrior counts as surprising (even in this round), and while lion totem barbarian is a pretty common class, few take it all the way to level 11. 0.75/1

Every round has a vow of poverty build and every round I fail to be surprised. Martial study and power attack are mainstays on melee, improved bull rush is commonly seen as prerequisite (as it is here), I guess iron will is a surprise. Your investment in sense motive, balance, and knowledge is also a bit unexpected. 0.5/1

No points for tactics. You rage, you charge, you smash. 0/1

Ogre barbarian and vow of poverty are not things I expect together. 0.5/0.5

Ogre who deliberately tries to invert ogre-ness is fine. It's a bit limited, as far as backstories go, but there's something here. 0.25/0.5

Power (3):
Unfortunately, I think it can't be denied you leave power on the table. Your first few barbarian levels seem justified, but why return to the class? With your enormous number of bonus exalted feats you're perfectly set to walk into something like Champion of Gwynharwyf and get 4th-level spells, the exact same rage progression, the same DR, and cool side abilities like Fearsome Fury, at-will Detect Evil, and Smite Evil. You'd only be missing out on Blazing Berserker and some Wasteland Trap sense, which you don't particularly seem to need (and if you really wanted blazing berserker, you could stay in barbarian for one more level and then PrC out).

Your choice to go Vow of Poverty is also somewhat baffling to me. Yes, you have slightly bigger numbers to put on the sheet, but VoP is generally held to be inferior to the power and versatility afforded by items. Now, if you're a nonhumanoid who cannot easily use most weapons and armor, I'm willing to grant its niche, but you're an ogre. Yes, you put your exalted feats to use, but you are ultimately still spending two potentially good feats to get a bunch of poor ones.

Still, you reach a respectable level of damage and should generally perform as a barbarian is expected to. Let's call it a wash. 0.5/1

Credit where credit's due: you avoid the dreaded 5-will martial syndrome. Unfortunately, Bonesmasher's disavowal of magic items leaves him lacking in offensive utility. Tactical flight (or at least a means to obtain it) is the most obvious thing I'm missing here, but you also seem to lack an obvious out against incorporeality, highly mobile foes, and, pelor forbid, hordes of fodder. The best thing you can do against a small horde of skeletons with longspears seems to be killing them one by one; a time-consuming and annoying process. Defensively you're mostly fine; your reflex is mediocre but not outright bad and you have the HP to make up for it. 0.25/1

So you have some random skill ranks, a highly situational Plane Shift ability, and... nothing else. You're not completely useless, but you better hope the City of Brass features prominently in your campaign. 0.5/1

The build comes online pretty early and never needs to catch up to its class features. 0.5/0.5

You have two rages a day until level 17, when you get your third. Realistically, you start running out of steam halfway through the day. You're not useless after that point, but your combat prowess is notably diminished, and I'd have liked to see Extra Rage in here somewhere. 0.25/0.5

Elegance (3.75):
No multiclass XP penalties. 0.5/0.5

There are some parts to your entry that get a bit confusing. The class skill granted by primordial giant doesn't seem to be listed anywhere, and while I eventually figured out where you were getting your knowledge ranks from, it confused me a bit at first. "Cannot use or borrow magic items except healing potions" is also a bit of a misreading of VoP. Other than that, everything is perfect. 1.75/2 Overlooked some things here, build is mechanically perfect. 2/2

I always think Large-sized PCs without an obvious way to fix that are a bit iffy: a single narrow crevice can leave the party stumped with how to get you through. Worse is your need to get to another plane before taking your 9th level, without using items of your own. That's actually quite tricky: the party cleric can't help you out until level 9, so you need to get lucky with campaign elements or hope an ally somehow has access to the spell early. This is actually a pretty big issue, made all the more painful by the fact that I'd be willing to handwave it if you just moved the fifth barbarian level ahead a little. 0.25/1

The build feels awkwardly integrated. Your blazing berserker fire immunity clashes with the fire resistance you already have, you're forced to downgrade your primary weapon because of VoP, and elemental weapon has an annoying move action requirement that's all the more painful because you went and got spiritual lion totem. Using Primordial Giant to get a class skill that helps with Elemental Warrior is cute, but it feels like it's only here for that, so ultimately the only part of your build doing double duty is Martial Study (which helps you qualify for your skill tricks even if it's not strictly necessary for that). Worse, especially at higher levels a lot of your feats begin to swerve towards the sort of filler I don't care much for. 0/0.5

Monstrosity (2.25):

Okay, you're an ogre, which seems to chiefly help with qualifying for Knockback and for Primordial Giant (which in turn gets you knowledge the planes, so props for creativity there). But outside of that class skill (which was unnecessary: cross-class ranks would've worked fine too), the template does not seem to be doing much for you. You took by far the least impactful of the three possible SLAs, you don't really have other SLAs that need the CL boost, and you are taking -4 to strength. I hate to say it, but not adding this template would have made your character better overall.

Like, a goliath barbarian (my to-go point of comparison for large races) has the same stats and size while raging and would have three more class levels to play with, and in return you'd only be giving up a few skill points and a very situational SLA. I'm just unconvinced that primordial ogre was the way to go here when such a simple PC build seems just as strong before considering the impact of additional class features.

I understand the choice of ogre, I can see it as a sort of first-thing-that-came-to-mind, but the awkward truth is simply that your build [I]does not need the monstrous component, and a second round of optimizations would probably drop it entirely. 0/1

Use of the four contest requirements as follows:
Fire: Tanky frontline melee with a 1d6 always-on heat ability; that seems about baseline. Something hits you, it gets burned; I'm neither impressed nor underwhelmed. 0.5/1
Gravity: You can push people, first with Charging Minotaur and later with Knockback, and you can do so pretty easily and reliably. I do wonder: do you want to? You don't have dungeoncrasher or any other reward for forcing movement, and you're strong enough to bull rush people out of your reach entirely (this is actually a major issue with using knockback on anything but your last attack each round). You suggest that foes will provoke an AoO next round, but that presumes they actually want to re-engage you in melee; at higher levels, beatsticks increasingly become Large or Larger, while medium-sized creatures are sneaky types, casters, and so on; those you ideally want to keep pinned down in melee if you want any shot at making AoOs against them. Still, you're genuinely threatening when the terrain favors forced movement, so have half a point. 0.5/1
Sunburst: I can't seem to find an ability that hurts everyone around you. 0/1
Light: You've got Nimbus of Light, but you don't really need it yourself and you don't do much with it. 0.25/1

Final verdict:
You dutifully fit in all the elements, but do they form a coherent whole? Not really. There's a few feats to get knockback, there's a detour into Elemental Warrior for fire abilities, there's the exalted feats for Nimbus of Light, but unfortunately there's just nothing here that impresses me.

The build could've been more interesting, could've prestiged out of barbarian, could've used a more impactful race than ogre, maybe sought out some way to synergize the mandatory elements, but... nothing. I feel disappointed more than anything, because I feel like the final product here could have been greatly improved with a few attempts to get it more tightly coupled.

Spoiler: Renegade (15.75)

Show

Originality (3.25):
Monk 2, warlock 1, warblade 1? Sorry, but that's three incredibly common dips, even if one is in a slightly uncommon class. The ToB PrCs shake things up a little, but they're well-known as solid options. 0.25/1

Lots of prereq feats, blend into shadows + cunning evasion, and stunning fist + snap kick. It's solidly above baseline expectation, but I'm not truly amazed. 0.75/1

Some semi-standard maneuvers and stealth tactics, but I like the trick where you use your own AoOs to activate Cunning Evasion and play off of that. It shows a good degree of creativity in building while also being amusing on a practical level. 0.75/1

On the one hand, I don't typically expect monk warblades or warlock Mo9s. On the other, your feats get a lot less original in the context of your classes; blend into shadows + warlock is well-known as a quick and easy source of HiPS. 0.25/0.5

Your backstory is fine; 'man turned monster turned wandering hero' isn't exceptional prose, but it gives me a little window into Renegade's past and ambitions. 0.25/0.5

Power (3.5):
ToB is known for producing solid, well-rounded characters, and that's exactly what I'm seeing here. You have White Raven Tactics for initiative shenanigans, throws, fiery AoEs, plentiful stuns, mobility-enhancing maneuvers, and if that's not enough you can also debuff passively, walk on air, or disappear and flashbang the battlefield. Master of Nine makes you even better at what you want to be doing. Full marks. 1/1

At higher levels, fire damage comes to make up more and more of your overall build. Unfortunately, that's also when fire-immune foes are getting stronger. Against a devil or red dragon, I suspect you'll find yourself underperforming. Your stealth tricks hurt from lack of Darkstalker, and your throws get a bit iffy against the bigger, stronger foes you'll be facing at higher levels. You heavily invested in two of the schools that're the easiest to shut down, and you pay the price for it here. 0.5/1

Out of combat you bring some potent stealth to the table, but no darkstalker and meager sensory skills, so you'll be a middling scout at best. You have a little diplomacy, a little intimidate, a little spellcraft and UMD... but enough for at-level checks? I'm sceptical. You can Air Walk, which is a nice trick at level 5 but falls off as the casters get much better options. I'm just not seeing all that much utility here, but it's better than nothing. 0.25/1

I do think it's a pity that you don't get the higher-level maneuvers for your Cunning Evasion combo until quite late, given that it's such an iconic trick that you clearly invested much in. It seems to me you could've grabbed Death Mark much earlier and enjoyed the combo for twice as many levels as you do now (or even sooner, if you move Cunning Evasion ahead as well). 0.25/0.5

Your most limited resource on a daily basis are probably your Stunning Fists, but they're not essential to your functioning. You have a lot of maneuvers readied, no real limits on your main combat tricks, good saves, and solid bulk. 0.5/0.5

Elegance (4):

No multiclass XP penalties. 0.5/0.5

Unfortunately, while I like the use of the Lawful subtype to qualify for monk, I'm just not sure it works. The lawful subtype mentions 'effects that depend on alignment', but is 'being able to enter monk' truly an 'effect'? I don't think so, personally. It's not an insurmountable issue; you could start off Lawful and switch to your CG alignment after the monk levels, but either way it's worthy of an elegance penalty.

I also see a possible issue with your Inferno Blast trick. Cunning Evasion says it triggers when "you are caught within an area attack whose damage you avoid completely due to your evasion or improved evasion ability". But you, of course, are not avoiding the damage due to evasion, but due to being explicitly immune to this damage. Evasion is completely irrelevant, and can hardly be called the 'reason' you do not take damage. Minor penalty, but a penalty nonetheless.

There's also the ancient debate on whether a warlock's at-will darkness has 'uses' to give up for Blend into Shadows. I'm personally actually of the mind that it does, but I recognize that it's a contentious issue, so a minor penalty for ambiguity. 1/2

Any issue with playing this in a campaign? Can't think of any. 1/1

The use of desert wind dodge as a triple whammy qualification tool / lategame feat swap / usable tactical option is quite nice. Using Reth Dekala to fix your alignment issues and help out with maneuver qualifications is neat as well. IUS shows up as a prerequisite multiple times, and you even have some skill rank overlap between your PrCs. A few of your early class features end up neglected (Eldritch Blast is hard outclassed by Vilefire Blast), but the build is built well enough for that not to be a huge issue. 0.5/0.5

Monstrosity (5):
Reth Dekala is front and center here. You use its innate maneuvers to more easily qualify for one of the most notorious PrCs to enter, you tie its innate abilities into the contest, and you even make use of its subtype. Air Walk and your aura help to serve as a strong reminder of your monstrosity round-to-round. 1/1

Use of the four contest requirements as follows:
Fire: Holocaust Cloak is above-par defensive fire, but competes for use with your other stances; something like Shifting Defense or Assassin's Stance seems more useful generally. Vilefire Aura technically doesn't fit the contest criteria, but comes close enough. All things combined, I think you fit this requirement quite well. 0.75/1
Gravity: Again, there's some tension here; you can throw around people mighty well, but will often simply have a better maneuver to be using. 0.5/1
Sunburst: Inferno Blast is as good as it gets here, and you even work a cool combo in with Cunning Evasion. 1/1
Light: Light Within Darkness is one of the better light-based abilities and you shouldn't struggle to activate it. Your pumped wisdom is appreciated here. 0.75/1

Final Verdict:
I don't know if you picked up on it, but "Disappear in a burst of fiery red, then reappear with a burst of light" has amazing sunset/sunrise symbolism, and it's probably my favorite trick brought by anyone in this round. You've created a very exotic-looking and memorable character, with big flashy (hah!) abilities that still form a coherent whole. ToB is good at this, but you go above and beyond what it offers you.

Looking below the hood, I'm more conflicted. While I love the decision to go Master of Nine, and Shadow Sun Ninja is another of those classes I enjoy seeing people use, you need some very played-out dips to make it all work. Still, it works for you, so as much as I would've liked to see more innovation here, I can't fault your results. This kind of score is pretty rare for me to give, so enjoy it: the build more than earned it.

Spoiler: Aertha (12.75)

Show

Originality (2.75):
Adventurer rogue 2 is a really common breakpoint. Druid and bard get used with some regularity, and like half those bards end up dipping sublime chord, but very few people ever head into fochlucan lyrist. Let's assign half points and move on. 0.5/1

Words of Creation Dragonfire Inspiration? Not earth-shaking, if we're being honest. Dragontouched to grab the right subtype is to be expected, Dragonic Heritage isn't unexpected, but picking red dragon for it is, and draconic claw isn't something I've ever seen people take. Searing Spell isn't a mainstay but there's well-established reasons for picking it. Overall just not too surprised besides one or two oddballs. 0.5/1

Buffing and blasting, with some dragonfire inspiration that's kinda doing both; yawn. You can summon a bear and then buff it, I guess. 0.25/1

You're a fochlucan lyrist and this informs basically every part of your build, with only a few of the feats somewhat unexpected (not even, like, surprising, just unexpected). No points for new combinations. 0/0.5

Kind of a neat backstory that avoids the usual wackiness of D&D crossbreeds by typing the ancestries to greater roles in the story. That can get some points. 0.5/0.5

Power (3.25):
7th-level druid spells, 5th-level wizard/bard spells. Your bard side mostly wants to be a buffer; your druid side mixes that up with blasts and the odd summon. You add to the buffs with Dragonfire Inspiration, but your base Inspire Courage is only +1, making for somewhat mediocre damage. Unearthly Grace makes you insanely defensive, which is nice, and Stunning Glance is nice when you start to run out of steam, but even so, you're leveling in pretty powerful classes without too much to show for it. Like yeah, you're a caster, but if you show me a theurge build, I just expect more than this.

You also suggest going melee with Intuitive Attack which is just... baffling? You have 11 BAB and 8 strength, and your claws aren't even dealing as much as the best weapons available. Yes, you can load yourself up with buffs and hit kinda hard, but why not save those buffs for the people who can actually hack it in melee? I'm sceptical that 1d6-1 is a damage die worth buffing, and you don't exactly do much to convince me otherwise. To be clear: I'm separately dumbstruck that you want to attack in melee and that you sank a feat into getting a weak natural attack to do it with; even granting the first, the second still seems like a bad decision.

And I'm not done complaining about draconic feats yet; what's with Draconic Heritage? It doesn't change your energy type, you don't use the class skill it grants you (despite Intimidate being pretty nice for you to get), and you don't really need the save boost. Is it purely a prereq for Draconic Claw? Because that just makes that pick all the worse. I can't help but feel you're basically wasting two feats here. And speaking of wasted feats, what is Daunting Presence doing? At level 14, don't tell me that rendering foes Shaken with a standard action is worth your time (maybe if you'd invested in Intimidate, I could see an argument for fear-stacking strategies). 0.25/1

Defensively you shine, as I already stated. Buffing is a pretty robust strategy, and you'll almost always have something worth using. Fortitude is a bit low but Unearthly Grace makes up for a lot; HP is a bit more questionable but decent. Grapple-heavy strategies might be rough for you; you have no grapple check worth speaking off and few means of escape except 1/day Dimension Door. Other than that minor nitpick, no complaints. 0.75/1

Solid Diplomacy and Sense Motive, sky-high charisma, and the odd bit of magic should make you an amazing face. Druid spells and sanctified spells, plus stray investment in Knowledge, make me comfortable assigning you full marks for utility. 1/1

Right out of the box, you're a perfectly playable nymph, able to serve the role of the party's druid albeit a bit behind on spells and class features. Theurges usually struggle when accumulating their secondary casting, but you take it to an extreme: from a nymph/druid chassis that's already behind a spell level, you're forced to head into bard and rogue. At level 16, you're looking at 5th-level druid and 2nd-level bard spells, with very little to back all that up. You're a primary caster who's getting out-cast by bards; that's dire. Nymph really cuts down on the number of theurge levels you can actually fit in a build, and you worsen the issue by picking one of the most difficult theurge classes to qualify for. I'm sorry, but starting out with a tier 1 and falling so low around the build's midpoint is unacceptable. 0/0.5

Alright, so at the start of every encounter you spend a turn setting up bardic music (Harmonize still takes a standard action and is minutes/level; I'm unsure it's saving you on turns), and afterwards you start casting. At level 20, we're looking at something like one 5th-level druid spell, one 4th-level bard spell, and one higher-level spell from either list per battle (assuming 4-turn combats). That's not great! You'll be able to make do most of the time, but a slightly long adventuring day or a slightly draining fight will leave you with a noticeable power deficiency. 0.25/0.5

Elegance (4.5):
No multiclass XP penalties. 0.5/0.5

I see no mechanical errors, and I'm happy to see you take the conservative interpretation on inspire courage stacking. 2/2

No issues seem likely to come up with using this build in a campaign. 1/1

Not really seeing overlap in prerequisites. Like, I guess you grab multiple feats thanks to Dragontouched? I guess both of your PrCs need Perform? Your build is laser-focused on getting you into Lyrist, but the few parts that don't contribute to that goal feel like they're just kind of hanging on. 0/0.5

Monstrosity (2.25):
So... why are you a nymph? If you want to theurge, you want to get dual advancement on as many levels as possible; failing that you at least want to advance a single class to 8ths or 9ths. You do neither, and choosing to enter fochlucan lyrist as a nymph is a big part of that. This sole fact makes it very hard for me to see what your race gives you over being a normal boring human; Unearthly Grace is good but not 'five extra levels of sublime chord advancement' good. Maybe if you'd stayed straight druid (and still got 9ths that way) I could've seen the argument, but as things are now it seems you're just... holding back your build for no good reason. Being a normal druid would also have gotten you wild shape and an animal companion: two class features that create viable characters in their own right, and that both synergize amazingly with your love for buffs. 0/1

Use of the four contest requirements as follows:
Fire: You got some fire spells, and even grab a few that harm those that hit you. As a back-rows spellcaster, I'm a bit sceptical how often you'll find use for this, and the action and spell slot are definitely a problem compared to those that have continuous Heat, but at least you have something to show here. 0.25/1
Gravity: So your big example for forced movement is... Control Winds? Seriously? With a final CL of 13, you can't even reliably create storms severe enough to blow away medium creatures, let alone larger ones. And that's ignoring the obvious difficulty in using the spell, which after all is non-friendly and inherently more likely to affect allies than enemies. It just doesn't feel like a thought-out spell to present as your 'gravity' effect, particularly with how weak and unrewarding its effect is compared to what else you could be doing. 0.25/1
Sunburst: Unless I'm missing something, you don't seem to have an ability that damages everyone around you. 0/1
Light: The sanctified list provides you with quite a few light spells, they're good enough for you to want to use them, and you can burn Lesser Restorations to keep casting them. Not bad. 0.75/1


Final Verdict:
I like to think of this build as a sort of foil to Bonesmasher. Both are exalted fairytale creatures with evil ancestry and a striking appearance. But where Bonesmasher feels underspecified, to the point of being boring, your build feels overspecified: it wants some very specific levels and feats to make the concept of 'nymph fochlucan lyrist' work at all, and meeting the round's requirements is left as an afterthought, accomplished only via the vast array of spell lists you can pull from. (which, of course, raises the question of why you'd want these specific spells and not other ones, which you do not always answer to my satisfaction)

Like, no offense, but this build feels like it could've been made months ago, with you only having to pencil in a few spells before submitting. It doesn't feel like it was built and entered for this competition, but despite it. The bard sidetrack feels shoehorned in and not particularly fitting of this round (yeah, it gives you dragonfire inspiration, but is dragonfire inspiration needed for this theme? It's not, technically, one of the four things to include), and the race is obviously only there because this is a monster mash. Focusing more on the druid side would've fixed a lot of your problems, or alternatively going Gloura and sticking with bard/sublime chord; monsters simply struggle to make good theurges, and your build illustrates why.

Spoiler: Fenix (11.75)

Show

Originality (2.25):
Ardent was never particularly original, but in Monster Mash it might as well read 'grab me and turn 4 of your RHD into casting advancement'. 13 is perhaps the most expected breakpoint. 0/1

Defensive Shell I had to look up, but the metapsionic investment is to be expected on a dominant ideal ardent, and your other feats and skill points are as boring as can be. 0.25/1

Psionic blaster isn't extremely novel, though at least more original than Standard Caster Goodstuff. Blaster who nukes himself to heal up, though? I like that. 0.75/1

I feel like knowing a few parts of your build would let me puzzle out the other ones quite reliably: no points for unexpected combinations. 0/0.5

"Wanting to become the sun" is as good a heroic motivation as any, right? 0.25/0.5

Power (3.25):
You're frightfully good at firebombing the battlefield, can use Vigor + Share Pain to take hits like a champ, and even pack some repositioning and action economy shenanigans; psionics also offers you great nova potential. You're definitely hitting my benchmarks for an optimized blaster. 1/1

As you yourself note, fire immunity is a serious problem for you, and your suggested pivot to falchion melee does not convince me. +16 BAB and good strength are necessary for meaningfully fighting in melee, but far from sufficient. You're dealing what, 20-30 points of damage per round, at level 20? You're not completely useless, but it's still a very big weakness against a very common enemy type. 0.5/1

Out of combat, I'm not seeing much. Like, at all. For a primary caster type I'm actually shocked with how uniformly all this is focused on combat; not a single out-of-combat skill, not a single odd power? Telekinetic sphere is the only thing that I could possibly see helping here. 0/1

When you become playable at level 7, you have 8d6 Scorching Ray Spam, a psicrystal, Heat, and one weak PLA per day. Extensive self-heals help you pull your weight, as does your decent melee ability (two 2d4+1d6+7 hits a turn is pretty respectable at these levels). By level 15, you're three manifester levels behind a regular ardent, but getting to be a bit more indiscriminate in targeting Empowered Energy Barrages helps. 0.5/0.5

Okay, so you have 198 power points; that suggests that over a four-encounter day with four-round battles, you can spend about 12-13 pp each round, or one 17 pp power and three 11 pp ones. Your given examples for big blasty powers are a bit over that, and you'll need to spend a bit on Vigor and Share Pain, so I'm inclined to say that you are slightly more constrained in power use than you'd like to be. 0.25/0.5

Elegance (2.75):

No multiclass XP penalties. 0.5/0.5

I recently learned that Expanded Knowledge is better than I thought; I still don't think it works here. The first issue is that you do not actually have powers known to add to; and if you do have some kind of pre-ardent powers known list, that list would not merge with the ardent's upon taking levels in that class. More concerningly, your ML (from defensive shell) is only 3 at ECL 6, meaning that even by a liberal reading the 'highest-level power you can manifest' is 2nd, and so your expanded knowledge pick is restricted to 1st-level powers. Is it on some obscure list as a level 1 power? Because if so, you should definitely have mentioned that list in your build. You could've fixed this by moving Empower Power forwards, but it's still an annoying little error.

Your build table lists Twin Power as a feat, while your feat summary lists Maximize Power instead. It's a bit confusing; I assume you mean to use Twin?

Your powers seem to violate the rules for ardent progression. At ECL 11, you have one power from your primary Physical Power mantle (Vigor) but two from your then-secondary Fire mantle. At ECL 12 and 14, this problem worsens with Fiery Discorporation and Energy Barrage. It seems like you only considered primary/secondary mantles when taking first-level powers and when determining what could be your Dominant Ideal.

But let's talk about the elephant in the room: Substitute Powers. I'd hesitate to call it an ACF as you do; we're looking at something that's genuinely less concrete than the arcane swordsage or psionic anima mage, it's little more than a suggestion that maybe, sometimes, you could make homebrewed tweaks to power lists. You make use of it five times, in one case swapping in a power that's meant to be exclusive to a very specific religious order (Sardior's Wrath), and at times you make questionable assumptions with what fits where. Like, the claim that you're only doing this for flavor becomes somewhat of a stretch when you expect me to accept the Physical Power mantle should have the notoriously overpowered Fusion in it, and I'm not too convinced Dimensional Rift belongs in Force either. I'm sorry for coming down so harshly on this, but you are using powers that inherently require DM interference, and assume a very specific type of it to boot.

I was hoping that after judging ballisteer it'd be a while before I had to get into nitty-gritty elegance debates on psionics, but no such luck it seems. 0/2

After everything is cleared with the DM, you should have no issues actually playing this. 1/1

Using Defensive Shell to set up multiple psionic feats while you're still accumulating RHD is pretty elegant, but other than that I'm not seeing a lot of prerequisite synergies and overlaps. 0.25/0.5

Monstrosity (3.5):
At higher levels especially, the whole phoelarch thing is mostly relevant for giving you Healing Fire. And to be fair, that's a big power, it's what sets you apart from other blasters and it's a rather impressive inclusion in your overall strategy; but is it enough? A normal PC race could grab fire immunity rather easily (being a fire gnome is +1 LA and the easiest way that comes to mind, I am sure others exist) and get more manifester levels and a LOT of pp (plus another psionic mantle, plus a freed-up feat), at the cost of giving up the Heat and self-healing. But that self-healing won't be relevant as often as you hope: it requires quite specific positioning and only matters if you've already burned through all of your Vigor Share Pain'd temporary HP.

While I appreciate the very cool visuals and mechanics underlying your build, I'm just not sure if phoelarch helps more than it hurts, and I think a remarkable amount of the time you'll feel like a PP-constrained blaster more than a monster. 0.25/1

Use of the four contest requirements as follows:
Fire: You get the standard heat ability, and 'being in melee so energy barrages hit me as well' is a fine enough reason for it to see use. Vigor also helps here; the tankier you are, the more times Heat will trigger. 0.5/1
Gravity: You have Telekinetic Maneuver, I guess? Unconvinced you'll want to be using that often. 0.25/1
Sunburst: Your energy powers aren't, technically, what's being asked for here. You can shape them so they deal damage to everyone around you, though, and you're pretty good at that. This is also where you get points for your fire-healing. 1/1
Light: You've got at-will Light. You've also got darkvision, but your psicrystal doesn't, so at least you're guaranteed to get some use out of it. 0.5/1


Final verdict:
You've done something genuinely interesting in creating a blaster who heals from his own nukes, and then you went and smothered it in well-known build tricks. Practiced Manifester ardent, Vigor Share Pain Psicrystal shenanigans, Fusion, Substitute Power... Worse, you trip over yourself in trying to squeeze all this in one build, making notable errors with Expanded Knowledge and ardent mantle primacy. Cheese is one thing: poorly-implemented cheese is another altogether. It's not a bad build, but the bad parts drag it down more than the good parts lift it up.