MadDemiurg

If you want the best possible pure tank it's still 3 Int. However, in 1.06 paladin support options got much better so high int became more attractive for party play. Out of dex, might, con you can dump any. Dumping con and might hurts fort a lot, so overall dumping dex is a better option as it can be compensated for with a shield. Apart from saves, might mainly hurts dps (which isn't great anyway) and LoH. Dumping con is bad for earlygame when you still get hit a lot, but actually is one of the irrelevant (apart from fort save) stats lategame as you just don't get hit often. Dex overall only hurts dps and exhortation speed (but they are fast in 1.06 anyway), so yeah, it's probably the safest dump option.

Yeah, probably this is not a bad choice for lvl 12 talent. I wouldn't call it the best level 6 spell as Venombloom is quite good too and Sunlance has it uses for burst, but yeah, it's one of the best, many l6 Druid spells are lame. There's plenty of other good stuff to pick though. As for weapon groops - imo one needs to have only 1-2 decent weapon types to be good. If it has a decent 1h weapon you already can dw and w+s. You don't really need 2h in this case. A decent ranged option would be good too, but not 100% necessary. Ruffian doesn't have 2h and it's a good group. What imo makes knight bad is that there's not a single attractive weapon. Battleaxes are not the worst 1h but their uniques are pretty bad. I guess one can try an interrupt morningstar build, but I've never managed to make it work myself.

Yeah, I'm sure it works with all (instant) spells. You can even see fire damage in the logs of the vid I posted at one point.

I was going to finish with wizard next and give a detailed spell/ability analysis, but it's really massive and I don't have the energy to do it yet, so I'll post a chanter vid and some analysis for them. The vid: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nXVATLHjU5E I encountered several pathing glitches while recording and my character got stuck at 1 point for no reason, but it didn't stop me from winning. Watch the vid on x2 as it was recorded on slow mode. Level 1 Invocations (i'm gonna write what they do instead of the names both for chants and invocations since remembering and spelling all these names is too much for me :D): -Summon phantom - This is an extremely powerful invocation earlygame, but it's not strong enough to deal with groups of enemies mid-lategame. Mostly useless for AD fight, but can be used to cleanup ads if there are only few remaining. It's decent enough vs adragans 1 on 1. -5 DT - this is not bad, but it attacks fort and overall is not as gamechanging as other invocations. Pass. -Summon skeletons - they are a better meatshield than phantom in general, but lack punch and overall I'd stay away from it. -+shlash/shock DT - too specialized to be useful. -Stun cone - Quite awesome, the main downside being that it attacks fort. That prevents it being useful for locking dragon. At 30 Int (possible with godlike) this stuns for 10 sec and can be cast every 12 sec, so it's almost a stunlock provided that you don't graze or miss. -3 lightning bolts - damage too low, wouldn't bother. -Corpse explosion - awesome if you can set it up correctly. In case of AD you can prepare a corpse "trap" from xaurips if you slaughter them first, but extremely high phsyical DT makes this spell not that useful vs AD since most hits are cut to minimal damage. In other situations it is quite awesome though. Level 1 chants: (All 1st level chants are useful for charging up invocations fast, regardless of what they do) - +speed, +reflex - neither of the bonuses stack with items, but +speed items are rare and you might want to wear smth else in that slot anyway. - -concentration - this might be useful for some specialized party builds, but I never bothered with it tbh - endurance drain - this is the one to go if there are no better options. Damage is low, but it's raw, aoe, and you don't have to do anything. Obviously it won't kill AD fast enough. - +fortitude +will - only good if you don't have items with the same bonus. Pass. - -slash -pierce damage - this is actually a very solid survivability booster for a level 1 chant Level 2 invocations: -Paralyze cone - This is one of the best chanters invocations. It has great aoe and at 30 int lasts 16 seconds on hit which is equal to the time to charge it with 1st level chants, so it's very good at locking down weak willed enemies. It's not that good in solo AD fight though, unless you use scrolls, since using it + 1st level chants leaves you with no damage. -Charm cone - Nice to turn enemies on each other, in particular AD on its minions in AD fight. Possible to build a viable strategy around it. -Terrify cone - Extra duration it gets over paralyze/charm does not compensate for much weaker affliction. Pass. -Summon wurms - another meatshield spell, they tank better than phantom or skeletons but are rather weak overall. Since there are 3 of them they are good for blocking doorways and the like, but they won't stop serious enemies. -Summon wisps - wisps have charm spells, but their accuracy is not that great and they are less durable than wurms. Overall both 2nd level summons are not that great. -A bunch of defenses vs various afflictions - useless solo as it doesn't work on self. In a party it is decent if you ignore the fact that this kind of a bonus is most useful at the start of a fight. Level 2 chants: (All these charge invocations slower, so you have to think if it's worth it before turning any of these on) - frighten - frighten is an entry level debuff, but it's -10 accuracy if it hits, so +10 to all saves effectively if you don't have any other debuffs running. Not bad, but it's not worth it vs AD solo. - -frighten/terrified duration, +frightened/terrified defense - this is effectively a replacement for priest's protection vs fear so if you've run out of scrolls it can be useful. However, you'd rather use scrolls and do smth more useful for the most part - Frost trap - this is decent for kiting, and trap accuracy is quite high. However AD lair doesn't have enough room to kite forever and the damage it does is negligible. It's a decent way to inflict a one time hobble on the dragon though. - +ranged attack speed/reload speed - This one is a decent ranged dps boost and I wouldn't be surprised if it works with some spells (untested), but generally don't expect to hurt the dragon with a ranged weapon as a chanter. Pass. - -Disengagement accuracy - this is just terrible Level 3 invocations: -Summon drake - this is supposed to be a "dps" level 3 summon, however it's inferior to ogres in almost every way and in many cases i would prefer phantom actually becaue of faster charge. It's not exactly horrible, but there are much better options. -Summon orges - the best meatshield spell. Not that useful in AD fight though as they can't really tank AD and are easily dominated by adragans. -Resurrect - obviously useless solo and in a party there are better abilities for this in the rare cases you might need it -7 ice spikes - This invocation alone is enough to warrant taking secrets of rime as your level 10 or level 12 talent. It's especially great vs big targets like AD since it's possible to hit them with 3 spikes essentially dealing like 400 damage on a great roll and 300 on an average one. Switch to fire lash chant for maximal damage when casting. - +Dex/Per/Int - good buff, but useless solo and probably comes too late in a party to make a difference. - +Might/Con/Res - same as the previous one. Level 3 chants: - +25% fire lash. This is one of the few chants that are worth sacrificing greater invocation speed for. It's mostly awesome in a party, but it adds damage to your big guns, so it's worth considering switching to it when using a damaging invocation. With cooldowns on chants this swithcing became more questionable though. -+Freeze/Shock DT, +Prone defense +Concentration - what is this thing doing on level 3? - fire/slashing DoT - In the latest build this definitely scales with might (and linger scales with int), so max these if you want it to be effective. It still does not benefit from scion of flame for some reason. However it deals very solid damage (with stat buffs up to like 30 damage per tick). It attacks reflex, which is AD's weaker save, so it's not too difficult to land. This is one of the 2 main damage options for this fight. - +deflection - this doesn't even stack with items, so what's it doing on level 3? Overall it's hard to speak of chanter "combos" as there isn't enough combo material, but you can make combos with some items and scrolls. Sunbeam spellbind + Seven nights she wailed (7 ice spikes) = higher chance to land the invocation that you really don't want to miss with Seven nights she wailed + fire lash chant = more damage Kill a group + lure enemies to corpses + corpse explosion = lots of damage Viable tactic for AD fights: Use tanking talents/equipment - this is overall probably the best option for chanter in any circumstances Go max might/int (int not required for some strategies) Either use dragon trashed or some 1st level chant + Seven nights. Possible to combine/switch between these Also possible to use charm invocation on the dragon to make it deal with ads while you charge seven nights Aaand of course it's also possible to bombard with scrolls while charging your invocations and chanting your chants but that would make things too easy Will post some additional stuff on stats later, but it's pretty straightforward

Tbh you don't need any knowledge of mobs and areas, you can gather intel that you need fairly quickly during your playthrough. And spell management is not even related to map sizes or whatever in any way. purely encounter difficulty. It's more about whether you know how to play vancian casters or not. A lot of people with no D&D experience find it difficult.

Yeah, but it's your choice - jump or not. And I think you just need to beat the drake to access the master staircase which is one fight where you can go full nova. Tbh I'd take even low level wizard over cipher any day. If you know both classes well enough to solo with either one you'll understand.

Holy radiance is nowhere near the level of Faith and Conviction, so for Priest being a PC doesn't matter as much. It's a decent low level heal, and with good reputation it deals noticeable damage to vessels, but that's it. You can make it a +5 accuracy buff with a talent, which is nice and is not affected by reputation, so any priest is effective with it.

Well, first of all I think you can exit ANY area in the game except the final one. Secondly, at levels 9 and 11 1st and 2nd level spells respectively become per encounter. When soloing I also tend not to bother with killing every damn ooze on the map since the rewards are marginal at best which significantly cuts the number of encounters you need to fight, but if you're a new player/play with full party this is probably not an option for you. Estimating how much magic you need per encounter is an acquired skill - essentially you evaluate how much damage a given encounter can do to you and whether you can use any spells to minimize it. Example: You see an encounter with several ogre mages. You quickly realize that CCing them would be much more sensible than eating some nasty druid spells and having to rest because of low health or even dying. Example 2: You see a bunch of xaurips that do not even have enough accuracy to hit your tank. You don't use any spells (or use per encounter ones if you have them) because you win the encounter taking little to no damage anyway. In the end, spells are just a resource similar to health, but they are more difficult to manage. Both in party and in solo play quite often I've run out of both more or less simultaneously.

I actually have a chanter build that can solo AD, but it's not that fun, yes. I'll try to post some info on it when I have more time.

Well, as I said, I rather consider recall agony underpowered. Pretty much any spell I listed can be considered overpowered if definition of overpowered is being competitive with MB. However I played cipher alongside other casters (and soloed with both cipher and wiz/priest) and the only spell from the list that definitely felt OP was Amplified Wave (mostly because of AoE size, not damage/duration - these are ok for level 6 spell). There are a few other spells that can use some light to medium nerfs (but nothing like cutting duration in a half). And there's a ton of garbage spells in need of buffs (recall agony included). Level 2 and 3 in particular are full of trash.

If 6 sec is enough for a couple of hits 4 sec would likely only accommodate like 1. I'm not sure it will be worth to even spend focus on. Deflection debuffs tend to have diminishing returns, plus it's 6 sec base, while some blind spells are like 20 sec base. It's pretty clear what's more powerful for dps. Recall agony just needs a buff. For what it's worth -40 deflection is about 45% damage buff if base accuracy is equal to deflection. Less if we count in some additive damage bonuses, which are easy to come by for a Cipher and make hit quality less important. Recall agony is 30%, but it lasts much longer. In my experience MB is not a noticeably OP spell even within the class. As I said, cipher has tons of trash spells and just a few decent ones, but MB is not the only one. Basically: L1 - All spells are more or less useful in my experience. Most powerful are probably tenuous grasp/antipathetic field which I would often prefer to MB L2- Yeah, MB. This level needs some serious buffs. L3. - Ectopsychic echo - this inflicts "dead" affliction to multiple enemies, which I'm sure is much more powerful than paralyze or whatever. Niche spells: Soul Ignition (oneshots shades), Fractured volition (fort & will debuff) L4 - Painblock, Mind Lance. Niche spells: Body attunement. L5 - Tac meld, Borrowed instinct, Ringleader L6 - Mind Plague, Amplified wave. Niche spells: Disintegrate (deals good damage but needs setup, worth it only vs few targets) Any spells not listed, and even the ones listed under "niche spells" need buffs. Tbh once you get Echo MB is mostly useful for interrupting enemy casters. Why should I bother paralyzing enemies that would die to echo in 5 secs? Once you get Amplified Wave you forget about MB completely unless facing some very high fort opponents.

I never make strictly physical female frontliners like fighters or barbs, and I also never make female wizards (i treat them as fantasy mathematicians/programmers/nerds among which females are exceedingly rare, plus evil wizard is usually my self insert character). I'm ok with female priests, druids, rogues etc. Overall it depends on available characters and portraits/models I like. For my first custom party I ended up with 4 male and 2 female.

So are you arguing that it should not have enough duration to get any hits in? What's the point then? Besides grazes there are also misses which happen a lot on low level PotD. And for high health enemies like trolls or lurkers or orges even crit would often not be enough to kill them while it lasts. Does it increase your damage? Yes. Is it an "I win" button? No. I wouldn't call the focus boost from it "gigantic". After you finished recovering from casting it you have like 2 hits till it expires, assuming it did hit for full duration. Maybe 4 hits if you DW. That's nice but nowhere near "gigantic" really. Both MB and mind control have advantages and disadvantages as you noted yourself. Do you want MB to be crap and inferior to charm/confuse in all cases? Cipher spell spam is going to look more impressive at low levels compared to other casters simply because they scale differently. Even then, some low level spells of other classes have much more impact when used in the right moment. And yeah, it's a good 2nd level spell. Maybe it can use a slight nerf (like toning down/removing aoe). There are plenty of great 1st and 2nd level spells that other classes have and that are in many ways superior to MB, like Slicken, Chill fog, Curse of blackened sight, Miasma of dull mindedness, Bewildering spectacle, Repulsing seal, Sunbeam etc.

Maybe that'd make it garbage, maybe not. The fact is that right now it's much too good because: - It is a party game. A well organized barrage of spells/attacks on that massively debuffed deflection/reflex can be devastating. With the current duration, even a graze leaves more than enough time to mangle something severely. - It lets you lock down the most dangerous enemy at the start of the fight, which is of course the most important part of most fights. - You're almost always focusing on one enemy at a time, at least in non-trivial fights, so the fact it'd be a single target effects is really not as big a downside as it may seem on paper. - In addition to being a great help in letting the rest of the party murder something, It's very good for the cipher himself since ciphers depend on targeting (the now severely debuffed) deflection in order to gain focus. Note that other powerful effects a cipher can inflict like charm/domination do not have this kind of feedback loop. There's just so many good things about it I really don't see even the severe nerfs discussed as being a downgrade into the garbage tier, considering what only a level TWO spell should be able to do. -Graze is 4.5 sec at 20 int. You'll get 1-2 attacks in at best from each party member attacking. Yes, it's a good damage multiplier vs single target. Something that Cipher is SUPPOSED to do well. -Most fights do not even have "a most dangerous enemy" and are aoe fests on PotD. "Most dangerous enemies" also tend to have high will saves. -No you're not, see about aoe fests. -After recovering from the cast you only have so many seconds to get your attacks in and get focus back. Yeah, you can do MB + attack + MB + attack loop vs certain enemies by burning your focus. Is it optimal? In many cases - no. Dominate/charm do not have this loop. They have the effect of enemies beating up on the charmed target doing both damage and tanking for free. Source: PotD Cipher, Wizard, Priest solos and 2 PotD party playthroughs + a lot of dicking around with different builds Well, there's more to cipher than MB (and it is not even my most used spell tbh), but it is true that ciphers have a ton of garbage spells and only a few good ones.

Although that spell is undeniably powerful , AI is usually retarded enough to gang up on your tanks if the ranged part of the team keeps sufficient distance. In case of some mob randomly getting a bright idea to advance you always have CC. If anything, staying closer to the paladin to get that FoD deflection bonus is more dangerous.

Have no problems keeping my backline from getting hit on PotD.

Minor blights are a wand, so if you go for implements wizard build you pick adventurer imo. For cipher I see 3 main options: 1. Soldier with quickswitch and pike (quickswitch arquebus for initial alpha and pike for decent dps afterwards without putting yourself in danger). Can go just 4 arquebuses/arbalests for regular encounters that won't last long enough for the pike to matter. This is the best option for initial alpha and reasonably safe. 2. Ruffian with Sabres or Stilettos using pistols or blunderbuss for initial alpha (quickswitch or not). Blunderbuss is still good with carow golan or vs low DR enemies, otherwise use pistols, unique pistols are quite competitive as hard hitting dps weapon. This still has the best burst generation with consumables (carow + blunderbus), good initial alpha and best dps when in melee. However melee is not as safe as with pike. Ruffian is still the pick for solo cipher imo. 3. Adventurer with warbow - This is the best steady focus generation option without engaging in melee. It will do better than ranged Soldier/Ruffian options in the long run. Melee option here would be estoc, which is decent, but not as good as dual sabres/stilettos overall and not as safe as pike. Lenas Er + Quarterstaff (no good uniques unfortunately) is a decent option too with Peasant. As I mentioned, I would pick Ruffian for solo. In a party that depends on the composition. If you you have space for a melee flanker Ruffian is still very good. If you can hold the frontline well and have some space in the 2nd row I'd use soldier. If you're already packed with melee or just don't want to micro as much I'd go adventurer.

Buffing the entire party with + deflection is not that useful since the whole party is not getting hit. And it does not affect the paladin, who should be taking most of the hits. +accuracy buff on Rogue is actually not optimal (although it adds a fair amount of dps). Buff your wizard/druid and see enemies completely unable to resist your CC. About "rogue shouldn't be grazing" - play PotD .

In all fairness, if it's 3s sec paralysis, I'd move it to garbage tier and never pick it again. If that's how you see "balance" then ok.

2H for the frontline - estoc by far if considering base stats only. If considering available unique items greatswords are quite good too (Tidefall, Hours of St, Rumbalt).

Elf and Godlikes can't dump DEX to 3 and Orlans can't get 18 might without using +1 might background, but that's quite minor differences and they are good options. But coastal Aumaua is a nice option too. In general you just want a race that will help your survivability. Well, it works exactly per description. It's a bit situational, but definitely powerful in big fights or if you can lure a new encounter into a pile of corpses from the previous one.

There are several options to build a chanter attribute wise. In 1.05 dragon Thrashed seems to be affected by might (or at least the tooltips were corrected, did not do enough testing), so if you want to use that might is not a dump stat. Int affects chant linger duration, so if you want to overlap multiple chants you want to max int (at 30 int you can completely overlap 2 same level chants, but that requires rest bonuses and buffs). it also affects your CC invocations. However if you're content with sticking to summons and spamming 1 chant you can leave it at 10 probably. You steel need some for the chant radius. Dex is a clear dumpstat unless you want the chanter to be somewhat effective with weapons. Per/Res are tank stats as usual. Con I wouldn't max on a chanter but wouldn't dump either if you want to tank. M 18/ C 10/D 3/P 10/I 19/R 18 Is what I'd use for decent tanking, offense(Dragon thrashed/invocations) and support balance. Weapon & shield to cover reflex.

Noble - the best weapon in this category is the mace Ravenwing imo, which is a good endgame weapon if enchanted as well. Sword of Daenysys (rapier) would be awesome if the speed mod worked. Implements are meh as ranged weapons in general, but there are some nice unique ones such as Rod of Pale Shades with Disorienting. Overall the second least favorite group for me. Peasant - actually has some very good unique weapons. Lenas Er can give most war bows a run for their money, Cladheliath spear can be great for many uses depending on how you enchant it. Hearth harvest hatchet is decent and hatchets are a good tank option in general. Knight - Unique battle axes are almost strictly worse than unique sabers, and other weapons in the category are kinda meh as well. As I said my least favorite group. As for group advice: Fighter - Peasant (hatchet to tank and spear to damage, Cladheliath with marking & coordinating works very well on a tank). Chanter - No focus, use hatchet or some ranged weapon. Chanters don't need weapons. Rogue - yeah, Ruffian. Alternatives are Soldier (Pike) and Adventurer (War bow, ranged). Priest - Magran Priest with an arquebus and shield + whatever in second slot is a good option in a party. So Soldier. Some alternatives would include Skaen priest with Ruffian, Wael priest with Peasant and Berath priest with Noble, but these are more exotic. Wizard - You want Soldier on a wizard for the Spirit lance. You can go Blights with Adventurer, but imo it's weaker (but available earlier). But you can go w/o any focus at all, spirit lance has plenty of accuracy anyway. Druid - no focus, there are better things to pick

Jolting touch is fixed now though and does its "normal" 20-35 base damage (which could be a bit higher tbh), so it's not that great in the end. Tbh for base weapons stats Melee Sabres > all, apart form some narrow stat ranges where estocs or +accuracy weapons are better Reach weapons are still useful for having, well, reach Hatchets for "I just want to tank" case In case of wizard Pike > all (spirit lance) Ranged Warbow > all for steady dps, excluding some narrow stat ranges where harder hitting weapons are better Arquebus > all for burst with quickswitch Gets more complicated when counting in available unique items though. In practice, the one I use the least is Knight. I've used Ruffian, Soldier, Peasant and Adventurer for most builds.

FV vs MB depends on the enemy. I'd rather have a longer effect on a tough enemy like one of the Thaos statues for instance. Vs a low health enemy, yeah, I'd rather MB and shoot him. FV is also good for combos like FV + petrify for instance (Not FV + MB as MB is quite short and attacks same save). It also depends on party size and composition. MB is not that useful solo as you burn all your focus just to keep it up, same for a low dps party. It's good in a high dps party that can focus fire well. Grasp is not better than any other disable with comparable length and it still requires you to deal full damage to the target. As for casting out of combat: if anything, MORE spells should be available out of combat. The fact that confusion is abusable has more to do with how retarded AI is and effectively is not too different from pulling or other cheap tactics. Either AI needs a serious upgrade, or it should stay as is IMO.