Draw Steel Null Guide

Introduction

The Null is an unarmed warrior who uses their physical and mental prowess to psionically beat their enemies to a pulp. The mastery the Null has over their being gives them a Tradition, which shapes many of the psionic abilities they can make use of.

For each choice I've assigned a star rating based on how powerful I think the option is and how often it will be useful, as well as a short explanation.

Base Features

One of the most unique features the Null gets is their "Null Field", which is an aura that the Null can keep permanently active around them until they are dying. This field by default makes it harder for enemies within it to affect you or your allies with debilitating effects.
The Null Field can be temporarily enhanced with other effects such as "Synaptic Break" making the enemy more easily affected by your conditions, which is an amazing benefit to make your whole team better at using their most impactful abilities.

The heroic resource Discipline fuels the Null's abilities, and it has a couple of relatively tricky ways to gain extra Discipline compared to other classes. Enemies won't always be in your Null Field to give you bonus Discipline from taking actions, and any ranged enemy explicitly wants to leave your field before taking their action. Using an extra "Null Field" ability to prevent enemies from shifting away will only be Discipline neutral at forcing this to happen until level 4.

The other way to get extra Discipline requires the director to spend Malice, which might not occur every round if they want to save up for a larger ability. Normally I wouldn't talk about complications as there are far too many to cover adequately, but you can use the "Feytouched" complication to grant the director extra Malice, which will help them give you your bonus Discipline every round.

The Null doesn't really get a maneuver, as the Null Field stays active at all times you won't have to use it in combat except for when you come back from dying. The Null is instead built to make use of the Knockback or Grab maneuver, which is a fine choice whenever you don't want to use your maneuver for a heroic ability.

Inertial Shield is a great triggered action that will always at least help you save some stamina and occasionally save you from a crippling condition by spending a Discipline on it. It makes up for the lower stamina and recoveries the Null gets compared to other melee classes.

Augmentation

Density Augmentation ★★★★★ This augmentation makes up for the Null not receiving a kit, and is really important to make sure you have the stamina to survive being an entirely melee-based class.

Force Augmentation ★★★☆☆ +1 damage is such a small bonus that it's hard to say it ever makes a significant difference. Missing out on the stamina from Density hurts a lot.

Speed Augmentation ★★☆☆☆ The Null should have enough speed already, and it's a pretty minor bonus. If you take any of the viable shift abilities it's even less relevant.

Ancestries

I'm not going to run through every Ancestry you can take, just point out any that are interesting for the Null for a specific reason.

There are so many viable ways to build your character that it's hard to give an objective star rating to these options, so most of these get a high rating for being any good at all.

Devil ★★★★☆ The Metakinetic Tradition can use its 2nd level feature and "Chronal Spike" to make a pretty effective fall damage build which you would need Wings for, as long as you don't mind skipping on "Stunning Blow".
I prefer the Devil for this purpose as it has a lot of relevant features for melee classes, while the Dragon Knight has some redundancy with the Null giving themselves damage immunity at 6th level.

Dwarf ★★★★★ Paired with the Density Augmentation this lets the Null have as much stamina as melee dedicated classes with even the hardiest of kits, which can be pretty important for staying on the front lines to make use of your Null Field.

Hakaan ★★★★★ The Null gets a lot of forced movement abilities and will be using the Knockback maneuver pretty often too. The size increase and Forceful will end up adding a good amount of damage whenever you're fighting the many 1M sized enemies in the game, though this is less important for Metakinetics who gain "Inertial Sink" to increase effective size at level 2.

Memonek ★★★★☆ Increasing your speed further isn't necessary most of the time, but starting with a surge paired with Discipline Mastery can let you afford potency increases for "Stunning Blow" faster. The Metakinetic's "Inertial Sink" offsets the downside of being "Lightweight" once they reach level 2.

Orc ★★★★☆ Spending multiple recoveries at once with Catch Breath frees up future maneuvers for all the other strong options you have, and the Chronokinetic can use "Passionate Artisan" twice as often with "Rapid Processing" to act as a dedicated crafter for the group.
If you take "Chronal Spike" it can be used with the Relentless feature, which is a good increase in damage and more likely to make Relentless useful with the shift.

Time Raider ★★★★★ Metakinetics specifically can get a lot of use from "Four-Armed Martial Arts" with how far their Knockback is by default, and gaining another Knockback maneuver whenever they use Inertial Shield.

Tradition

Each Tradition adds an extra activation effect to your Inertial Shield that you can use after the triggered action resolves. If the damage you took causes you to start dying, then using this extra effect can make you take bleeding damage which you should be careful of.

Accumulating Discipline gives each Tradition access to a different set of Discipline Mastery benefits which can adjust how valuable certain abilities are. Traditions also give features at 2nd, 5th, and 8th level, as well as your choice between two heroic abilities at 2nd, 6th, and 9th level.

Chronokinetic

Inertial Shield Upgrade ★★★☆☆ Null Speed makes your disengage always at least 3 squares, so this is a fine increase to mobility and avoiding enemy focus.

Discipline Mastery ★★☆☆☆ The surge gain is somewhat limiting to the kind of abilities you're encouraged to use, not really being worth it in many cases, and the knockback benefit is the weakest out of the Masteries.

2nd Level Feature - Rapid Processing ★★★★☆ At this level you're unlikely to have retainers, so adding an extra respite activity doubles your speed at completing important projects like Imbue Treasure to power you up. Other classes gain ways to add extra respite activities, but this is the earliest and most versatile of them.

2nd Level Heroic Ability - Blur ★★★★☆ Gaining an extra action is a meaningful damage increase for 5 Discipline, and if you have a lot of Discipline lying around then you can also have an easier time hitting an important tier 3 result on a heroic ability.

2nd Level Heroic Ability - Force Redirected ★★☆☆☆ This isn't much stronger than something like the signature ability "Magnetic Strike", and for raw damage output "Blur" will do a better job of it as long as you don't desperately need your maneuver for something else.

5th Level Feature - Instant Action ★★★★☆ The surge gain is already pretty welcome for being able to increase potencies immediately, and being able to buy back your triggered action if you're surprised is useful.

6th Level Heroic Ability - Interphase ★★★★☆ Really good damage anyway, and takes advantage of damage bonuses like from "Synapse Field" effectively. Funny with "Inertial Step" to speed around the battlefield quickly.

6th Level Heroic Ability - Phase Step ★★★★★ The Might potency can be hard to target, but the Null's high movement speed makes shifting around applying the dazed ability really effective at controlling the battlefield. It's a great thing to increase the potency of with the Null Field's "Synaptic Break" or the 7th level feature "Psi Boost".
For some reason the dazed condition isn't even "save ends" so any part of the encounter this affects will be far less effective permanently.

8th Level Feature - Shared Momentum ★★★☆☆ With all of the ways the Chronokinetic has to disengage this can add a lot of maneuvrability to your team, but practically this isn't important often enough to be a game changer.

9th Level Heroic Ability - Arrestor Cycle ★★★★★ Skipping an important enemy's turn is way more impactful than taking an extra one yourself, the risk is that this ability is awful if it doesn't hit its potency effect. Between surges and the Null Field's "Synaptic Break" it should be pretty easy to make sure it works, or with the Psi Boost "Magnified Power" if you have way too much Discipline lying around.

9th Level Heroic Ability - Time Loop ★★★☆☆ This ability gets a discount because you'll gain extra Discipline for starting your bonus turn, but most of the time the extra turn won't be very impactful because you've already spent most of your Discipline. It's fine in certain situations for moving across the battlefield quickly or gaining extra Catch Breath maneuvers, but it will be worse than "Interphase" or "Blur" pretty often.

Overall ★★★★☆ The Inertial Shield upgrade and the Discipline Mastery are the biggest flaws of this Tradition, which otherwise gets plenty of strong features and abilities. The Chronokinetic is really good at hit and run combat to keep themselves safe, which isn't always a great idea as it can make your teammates die faster, but it's also the best DPS build with things like "Blur" and "Interphase".

Cryokinetic

Inertial Shield Upgrade ★★★☆☆ Grabbed isn't a very impactful condition outside of a fall damage build, and sometimes it won't actually work unless you take some damage in return. It's still okay as it can trigger your surge gain off turn.

Discipline Mastery ★★★★★ Because the surge gain of this Mastery is each turn, it's possible to gain an absurd number of surges from it. An enemy moving within your Null Field happens every turn an enemy has to move into melee, or is force pushed into melee with you. This could theoretically be most turns in an encounter and is really strong in group combats.
Cold damage is one of the most irrelevant damage types to be able to deal, but targeting an extra creature with a knockback is fine for group combats.

2nd Level Feature - Entropic Adaptability ★★★☆☆ Cold immunity is one of the less useful types to have, but these features are useful for certain kinds of adventures.

2nd Level Heroic Ability - Entropic Field ★★★★☆ As an area ability I prefer "A Squad Unto Myself" for the larger area and ability to shift around, but this does most of the same job and can have useful applications to strand melee enemies without nearby targets.

2nd Level Heroic Ability - Heat Sink ★★☆☆☆ Concealment isn't enough of a benefit to make this ability any good, compares very poorly to "Psychic Pulse".

5th Level Feature - Chilling Readiness ★★★☆☆ I like the Chrono Mastery's version of this feature better as it's powerful at every number of victories, but this is fine to really solidify the Cryokinetic as the surge gain specialist.

6th Level Heroic Ability - Ice Pillars ★★★★☆ There are a couple of problems with this ability. The fall damage is reduced by both Stability and Agility making it quite inconsistent, and there's already a couple of area abilities you could have taken.
On the upside it's very versatile in its targeting, dropping enemies prone is a fine condition, and if there are enemies easily effected by fall damage then it's great to drop them on other enemies to get a high damage ability capable of hitting several distinct groups at once.

6th Level Heroic Ability - Wall of Ice ★★☆☆☆ Making walls can be pretty interesting for tactics, especially as your team can move through this wall's spaces. It's just a lot of Discipline to spend on some relatively unlikely to work conditions.

8th Level Feature - Synaptic Triage ★★★★☆ Free condition removal is always welcome, and this can work on things that aren't "save ends". The Null doesn't personally need help with removing conditions, but this is an amazing support ability, and the 1d6 stamina is barely a cost at this level.

9th Level Heroic Ability - Absolute Zero ★★★★★ The temporary stamina is a nice little bonus to something that already makes you extremely hard to kill if you can activate it early in an encounter. The bonus to potencies is also an amazing benefit to make any potency effect you use very unlikely to fail.

9th Level Heroic Ability - Heat Drain ★★☆☆☆ It's a pretty interesting maneuver attack, but the damage is nothing special and restrained isn't a very impactful ability sometimes. The potency reduction on enemy abilities isn't often enough to save your allies from being targeted on their weak attributes anyway, and this is up against one of the strongest abilities in the class.

Overall ★★★★☆ Most of the early features and abilities of this Tradition aren't particularly good, even "Entropic Field" is easily replaced by "A Squad Unto Myself" so isn't really a selling point. The main powerful part of this Tradition early is the surge gain having such a high potential to support the already strong base abilities of the Null, encouraging a control playstyle that can easily apply conditions like from "Stunning Blow" to important targets.

Metakinetic

Inertial Shield Upgrade ★★★★☆ Knockback is the easiest upgrade to get use out of, and the Discipline Mastery even boosts it to get some decent damage out of it.

Discipline Mastery ★★★★☆ Knockback is the default option to get value out of your maneuver, so getting better at it is a great benefit. It's most likely you'll be damaged every round for the surge gain, but it's only once per round so it's got nowhere near the potential value of the Cryo Tradition.

2nd Level Feature - Inertial Sink ★★★★☆ Taking less damage from fall damage and collisions is very useful against certain enemies. The effective size increase is good for your forced movement abilities, or dragging grabbed creatures around at full speed, potentially straight up into the air if you have a fly speed.
Using the Charge action into "Chronal Spike" you can carry any enemy you've grabbed quite far into the air, and this feature makes the Metakinetic the obvious choice if you want to go that build.

2nd Level Heroic Ability - Gravitic Strike ★★☆☆☆ Compared to "Magnetic Strike" this does an okay amount of extra damage, but not enough that I'm ever excited about spending Discipline on it.

2nd Level Heroic Ability - Kinetic Shield ★★★★★ This ability is helpful even just as a way to preserve recoveries, but it really shines when the Null is dying to act as a Catch Breath substitute and prevent taking bleed damage, which should be enough to keep them alive and fighting until they get some real healing.

5th Level Feature - Inertial Fulcrum ★★★☆☆ It's a fine upgrade to add a little damage every time you use "Inertial Shield", but nothing special. The 8th and 9th level abilities "Synaptic Anchor" or "Inertial Absorption" can trigger this feature extra times in a round, but it doesn't really change the evaluation of those abilities much.

6th Level Heroic Ability - Gravitic Charge ★★☆☆☆ With "Inertial Sink" you're going to take very little damage from sliding yourself into enemies, but regardless it's a pretty poor area ability for how expensive it is compared to something like "Psychic Pulse".
Theoretically if two enemies are standing right next to each other you could do pretty high damage by bouncing back and forth into their squares repeatedly, but this seems unintended.

6th Level Heroic Ability - Iron Body ★★☆☆☆ This isn't quite enough temporary stamina at this level, and the stability bonus isn't too relevant considering how much damage reduction you're getting out of "Inertial Sink" by now, even more so once you get the 8th level feature.

8th Level Feature - Inertial Dampener ★★★☆☆ The stability bonus isn't a great bonus for yourself because of how effective "Inertial Sink" is at this level, but your allies might be grateful for it. It's still pretty risky grouping up for enemy area abilities, and the retribution damage isn't anything impressive.

9th Level Heroic Ability - Inertial Absorption ★☆☆☆☆ Buying an extra use of your triggered action is a really poor use of Discipline, even with the surges added on. Negating the extra effects is also irrelevant in most circumstances with the extremely large amount of features the Null already has for avoiding conditions.

9th Level Heroic Ability - Realitas ★★★★★ Almost every enemy won't be able to end the dazed condition as it isn't "save ends", leaving them crippled and slowly dying for the rest of the combat. It's probably the best ability in the game for solo encounters, problematically so I would say as removing all maneuvers and triggered actions is a huge effect. The extra "benefit" of wiping the target from living memory is pretty hilarious overkill on most targets if it manages to happen.

Overall ★★★★☆ This Tradition doesn't give much interesting after 2nd level, but for those early features they get a lot of consistently powerful upgrades. "Inertial Sink" and "Kinetic Shield" makes this Tradition quite a sturdy bruiser who can easily stay on the front lines while dishing out their enhanced Knockback.

Ability Choices

Signature Abilities

Dance of Blows ★★★★☆ Having a burst area on a signature ability is interesting, and combined with the "Gravitic Disruption" effect of your Null Field it's a cheap way to deal with minions. Enemies shouldn't be grouping up enough for this combo to be too overpowered, and outside of the 1st echelon it's not always enough damage to take out the minions targeted by it.

Faster Than the Eye ★★☆☆☆ I think it's better to have the larger potential damage of hitting several targets with "Dance of Blows" rather than the minor increase in damage that this gives.

Inertial Step ★★★★☆ For Chronokinetics this is a nice easy way to trigger their surge gain, and it's also just a good ability for mobility or hit and run tactics.

Joint Lock ★★☆☆☆ Grabbed isn't a great condition, and even for the Cryo Tradition the surge you gain only barely makes up for the below average damage. Normally surge gain is better than a direct damage increase, but Cryokinetics should have plenty for increasing potency anyway.

Kinetic Strike ★☆☆☆☆ The damage of this ability is really bad. There are some interesting things you can do with your high movement speed to taunt an enemy and then run away, but it might not even work and isn't that much of a benefit.

Magnetic Strike ★★★★☆ This is the easiest way to deal damage with a signature ability. The vertical pull translates into extra damage if you can slam them into the ground or another enemy by being at range 2.

Phase Inversion Strike ★★★★☆ More potential upside than "Magnetic Strike" but less consistent. Flipping an enemy into position next to an obstacle can help your Knockback be better, and the large push is good for when lots of enemies are around to crash into each other.

Pressure Points ★★★★☆ It's cool to have a no cost method of making a powerful enemy slightly less scary, and the Null has relevant maneuvers they could spend their Discipline on while doing so, but "Stunning Blow" is very affordable and will be better in most situations.

3-Discipline Abilities

Chronal Spike ★★★☆☆ The extra damage over "Inertial Step" isn't worth the Discipline cost to use as your main action, but specifically for Chronokinetics it can trigger your surge gain an extra time when you use it off turn.
It's a better damage upgrade over a melee free strike such as from a Charge action, which can be used as part of a fall damage build to carry an enemy quite far into the air with the added shift.
I'd usually only consider taking this if there's a Tactician or Troubadour on the team that is extremely passionate about granting free strikes, as Stunning Blow is really powerful.

Psychic Pulse ★★★☆☆ For a maneuver this is a pretty good area ability to deal with most of a minion group, and for Cryokinetics the extra Null Field size helps them gain surges even easier.

Relentless Nemesis ★★☆☆☆ The Null should have plenty of mobility to keep up with enemies, "Inertial Step" gets you pretty far without using any Discipline. Technically this can work well to keep an important enemy in your Null Field, but "Stunning Blow" makes them not able to move far from you at all anyway and is a stronger ability.

Stunning Blow ★★★★★ Dazed is the best condition to apply to an enemy, and the slowed part is even a little helpful against Charge attack-based enemies.

5-Discipline Abilities

Arcane Disruptor ★★☆☆☆ Compared to "Pressure Points" this does an okay amount of extra damage, but if you're spending Discipline for a condition, it's probably better to just use "Stunning Blow".

Impart Force ★★☆☆☆ A glorified Knockback ability. Theoretically there's times where pushing a single target a long distance is helpful, but most of the time this works best to deal damage to two targets standing next to each other, at which point you should probably be using an area ability with your Discipline instead.

Phase Strike ★★★☆☆ Out of phase is an interesting debuff, "Stunning Blow" is normally better for preventing damage, but this can do some reasonable damage if your team is very forced movement focused.

A Squad Unto Myself ★★★★☆ This is a good amount of damage, the free disengage should make it easy to position yourself in the best place to make use of it, and it even triggers the Chrono Tradition's surge gain. Cryokinetics probably want to take "Entropic Field" at level 2 so could consider skipping this ability.

7-Discipline Abilities

If you can tell when you're about to be walking into a combat encounter, Null Field enhancing abilities can be activated for free up to five minutes in advance with the "Discipline Outside of Combat" rules.

Absorption Field ★★☆☆☆ A bane is unlikely to downgrade any given ability roll by much, and there's too many enemies that this won't be terribly effective against. "Molecular Rearrangement Field" can do a similar thing with preventing damage but is more consistently useful and with other added benefits.

Molecular Rearrangement Field ★★★★☆ The temporary stamina is pretty minor, but if you activate this early in combat it can add up to a decent amount over time. The better part is the near permanent bleeding you can keep up on any creature that can't pass the potency, which can deal a lot of damage over time.

Stabilizing Field ★★☆☆☆ Between the Null Field's default potency reduction and the Inertial Shield being able to reduce potency further, it's unlikely you need to reduce potency further from within your Null Field. The extra way to end effects is thus even more irrelevant, and you get "Reorder" this level to end any effects that manage to get through your defences anyway.
Difficult terrain can be annoying especially if it stops you shifting, but in most situations this isn't important enough to be worth the Discipline and might just be solved by jumping.

Synapse Field ★★★★★ Having extra damage on every instance of rolled damage in your party adds up to a huge amount of damage every round if you can manage to keep the enemy in your aura. Chrono Tradition Nulls in particular can gain this damage bonus more often with abilities such as "Blur" or "Interphase", or any Null has access to "Anticipating Strike".

9-Discipline Abilities

Anticipating Strike ★★★★☆ The damage isn't great and they'll get to save against the restrained condition as soon as their turn is finished, but it's nice that it doesn't cost any kind of action, and it can be really strong to make sure an enemy stays inside your Null Field in combination with "Synapse Field".

Iron Grip ★★☆☆☆ Theoretically this is meant to do something similar to "Anticipating Strike" where the enemy is forced to stay inside your Null Field. But this is an action instead, the condition it applies is worse, the damage isn't anything special, and they can always escape from the grab to make it not even work.

Phase Leap ★☆☆☆☆ An impressively large amount of Discipline to spend on doing nothing. If the 7 Discipline field ability is active, then this spreads your Null Field over more of the battlefield, but by the time you have that much Discipline there shouldn't be many enemies left, and there will always be something more useful to spend Discipline on.

Synaptic Reset ★★★★☆ The Null should have a pretty easy time keeping themselves clear of conditions, but your allies might not be as lucky. This can really turn certain situations around to be safer for your party, and it even works on effects that aren't "save ends".

11-Discipline Abilities

Arcane Purge ★★★★☆ For raw damage numbers this is pretty impressive as long as you can land the potency. Plenty of important targets will have supernatural abilities, so this should activate its extra damage a couple of times even if it's saved against immediately.

Phase Hurl ★★★★☆ This ability exists in a kind of weird in-between spot. It does more damage than "Stunning Blow" but it's a lot worse at keeping them dazed because of the high cost. "Arcane Purge" is a lot better for powering down an enemy, but this ability can definitely have its place to throw the main enemy far enough away that you can focus on dealing with their friends first.

Scalar Assault ★★★★☆ By this level minion health is starting to out scale the area damage options you have, so this can be nice to be able to one shot minion groups consistently. Other classes get larger area abilities with cooler effects, so depending on your team composition this might be unnecessary.

Synaptic Anchor ★☆☆☆☆ Dazing an enemy who is already mostly finished with their turn is an awful time to do so, and spending 11 Discipline for what is basically just another use of your triggered action is a pretty bad deal.