

Unfortunately, Combat Intelligence isn't displayed in the general soldier summary screen you see when picking who to turn into a Psi Operative so it's a bit of a pain to actually hold to this idea without the help of mods. Anyone with a better Combat Intelligence is wasting their potential by becoming a Psi Operative, since Psi Operatives can't spend Ability Points. One implication of all this is that in War of the Chosen you'd optimally only have troops with an Average Combat Intelligence become Psi Operatives. So their abilities are extra-mutually exclusive compared to the core four classes.

In fact, Psi Operatives are completely excluded from the Advanced Warfare Center, as well as the Training Center in War of the Chosen they can't get bonus skills, their skills can't be passed out to other classes (With the caveat that Templar include a few Psi Operative skills as possible X-COM skills, but Resistance classes don't follow normal rules in this regard), they can't accrue or spend Ability Points, and they can't be retrained either. Which for one thing means that psi powers are actually mutually exclusive with eg Ranger abilities. I labeled psionics as a 'class analysis' in the prior game.
