Myrten

Looks like I'll have to either mod them or play with custom ones.

The most powerful ranged weapon type in the game is likely to do a bit better than an implement, so it's hardly that interesting a comparison. Try building your Cipher with some other weapon aside from the Blunderbuss and Arquebus and you'll find it's much closer and sometimes in the Wizards favour. Oh and Arquebus have a damage and range reduction coming in the Zero day patch so your can probably say good bye to those 120dmg hits. Also did you give the BB wizard or custom wizard the Penetrating Blast talent and micro them so they targeted the biggest group each time? Is there any list of changes coming in Zero day patch?

I think it's more of a design goal, but I'm afrait it doesn't work in practice - I've just completed BB with Cipher, and party wizard simply couldn't compare his blast damage to 80-120 dmg per shot I got from my arquebus.

Basically this. A cipher can open the fight with a quick succession of two or three powers, hit once, and snag enough focus to use a few more powers. Druids have the best AoE spells, in addition to healing and a few buffs. With respect to actual spellcasting, they're probably the strongest class and the most interesting. There are good reasons to use one over a wizard. Thanks for the info, I'm planing to go with party more or less looking like this: 1) Main char - Arquebus Cipher or Wizard (based on your comments I'd rather go with Cipher ) 2)Tank - Warrior with shield 3)Melee DPS - Barbarian with 2h great sword 4)Stealth DPS - Rogue - not sure if I should go with melee weapons or ranged (guns too?) It would stack nicely with Cipher's spell making all attacks against a target flanked 5)Healer - Priest 6)AoE focused ranged DPS - Wizard I'm thinking about replacing either Priest or Wizard with Druid. Can Druid be the only healer?

What's so good about blast? It's damage seems really low and it's not raw damage. What's so great about druids?

I agree it's not very relevant but to be honest I couldn't find any other advantage of taking wizard over cipher...

I'm thinking about my first character and from the RP point of view I like both Wizards and Ciphers, but can't decide between them, so can anyone help me decide ? For Cipher I'd go with guns and as far as I know Arquebus is the best option right now, for wizard I guess I should go with staff and rely on spells/blast. Arguments for taking Cipher over Wizard: almost unlimited spells when compared to Wizard's per rest spells better accuracy damage bonuses and very good weapon damage unique dialogue options Arguments for taking Wizard over Cipher: spells seems to be stronger than Cipher's powers lore bonus Which one do you find to be a better ranged DPS/crowd control class? Also, it would be great if anyone could suggest a good builds for these classes.

Intelligence actually does increase duration of this ability but it's not displayed in description, my cipher with 19 I and 21 M did 980 damage over 22 seconds...