Btw, I never got around to asking. I'm assuming the reason you crafted the skin of proteus is because you wanted the item to have a high enough manifester lvl to actually be useful in combat. The actual item itself actually has a manifester level of either 5 or 7 so it is almost a glorified had of disguises.
I crafted the skin because Metamorphosis is AWESOME, even at level 7. That, and I wanted a 2/3 discount. And I wanted infinite shape-changing at will, for offense, defense, healing, and utility.
You would be amazed at how powerful low-level forms are when they're tacked on to a high-level full-manifester, and hand-picked for the task at hand. Even with just ML 7, that skin can grant you a 7-headed hydra, which, with Claws of the Beast and a 1 pp Hammer manifestation, can potentially deal 7d10+17d8+57 damage, just by himself. Considering that he can share the form, Claws of the Beast, and Hammer with his psicrystal (since he's targeting himself with a power via the skin), that's 18 attacks for a total of 14d10+34d8+114 damage. All for 12 power points (11 of which are reusable for 11 hours).
Yes, a pair of 11-headed hydras would do more, but an average of ~344 damage (if they hit) should be enough to be getting on with, for now.
Then there's the rust monster, manticore, cloaker, pixie, and shimmerling.
And that doesn't even include all the potential objects he can turn into, or the mimic forms he can turn his psicrystal into. Even at ML 7, this is a HUGE power boost, to the point where I'd say the psychoactive skin is probably one of the most powerful non-artifact items in the game (and it's more powerful than some artifacts, even).
