MadDemiurg

Balance != all classes being equal regardless of how you play them though. The class that requires you to left click on the mob and be done with it should not be as powerful as class using a variety of ability combos and adapting his tactics to different enemies. Effort should be proportional to the reward. This is balance.

The problem is that the bosses' saves are laughable. I've never missed a gaze in PoTD, and that's using Aloth and not a custom, optimized wizard. In BG2, for example, f you wanted to kill or otherwise cripple a superboss (let's say Firkraag) with a spell like Finger of Death, you needed to cast 3 or 4 save-lowering debuffs first, just to have a chance of it sticking. Adra dragon fort is 133 on PotD i think. Aloth's accuracy is 80 with gaze (since he's an elf), and there are no talents or stats that increase it, so it doesn't matter that he's not optimized. If you know how attack rolls work, it's easy to see he can only hope to graze with that accuracy, and will mostly miss. The dragon sports a -20 accuracy aura as well, which you need to counter. Now if you use eldritch aim, devotions from priest and rotfinger gloves/interdiction you'll bring him into the high hit chance territory. But here you go, 3-4 spells you're talking about. So maybe you're extremely lucky or smth.

Pets are pretty bad overall, but they have 2 nice gimmicks: They seem to have an incredible stealth score so they are the best scouts. They are also nice to initiate combat in combination with cipher because of this (Amplified wave ambush). Maybe there are other uses for this I didn't think of They fully restore health after combat, and their health is pretty high. This can be quite OP in combination with unlimited healing since it gives you like 800 endurance tank at high levels in each encounter. i haven't found the best heal synergy though. Wasting priest/druid spells on them is too costly, cipher's painblock is not bad but he also usually has smth better to do. LoH is only 1/encounter. Put them in a moonlike party? Dunno. So it's theoretically useful, but i haven't found the best use for it yet. For anyone having trouble keeping the pet alive - at level 9 priest casts withdraw per encounter, turning it into a static invincible wall .

Tbh with its 30 sec charge timer I've used it maybe twice on PotD in a full party. If mobs fail to target the frail summoner instead of the ogres, it's an AI problem, not a balance problem.

On a more serious note: Rogue's deathblows allows you to do 200% extra damage to a target with 2 afflictions 1 of which does not even require you to beat any saving throw. This is clearly too much, bosses should be immune to it! Oh, and priest can give crazy stat bonuses with buffs. Let's make all buffs automatically dispelled when fighting a boss. The mentality of bosses being immune to CC is BROKEN. CC abilities are already at a disadvantage compared to buffs/passives since they need to beat saves. They need to be more powerful to compensate. i wouldn't mind placing a priest near some bosses who is scripted to cast prayer against imprisonment (which you'll need to wait out or figure out how to kill the priest first). But giving bosses CC immunity - just no. Also, thankfully most tough fights are not about beating just 1 tough mob in PoE, so you need more than just gaze to win. And many tough mobs have really high fortitude, which you can beat, but you need to know how. And once you start optimizing, you'll discover many other ways to win just as easy.

What's the problem with dump stats really? You're speaking about it as if it was something bad. Should the optimal build have 13 in all stats in an ideal world? What's the point and where's the character building then?

I have a better idea. Let's make bosses immune to everything except non enchanted hatchet. Enchanted weapons are too powerful since they deal a lot of damage, also sabers are cheat. The only "fair" way to damage a boss is to use a non enchanted hatchet. This would be fun.

I tend to believe that as do not have experience with all classes. The part of save & reload which enables me to try different approaches, to what I perceive as puzzle, is the part I probably like most. The game offer lots of tools and as it seems the community has discovered probably all of them by now. It depends. It does not have to be ironman. Depends on reward for winning such fights, time to yield ratio, or alternative non-violent solution in case of quests. Choice and consequence. Solo necessarily revolves around summons, own or figurines. Unless for Chuck Norris character. Apart from items and de/buffs, summons can probably deal with some of the troubling effects. Arcane reflection .. I wonder how widely used it is (minor) arcane reflection - I'm trying to do a legit TC solo wiz now (no savescum that is, act 3 atm) and I wouldn't risk entering any fight with a spellcaster that has CC spells without it . Even fetid caress can screw you up real bad.

If you're doing ironman, yes, I'd avoid any of these. If not, they are all perfectly doable with many classes.

Depends on class and specific encounter. You can bounce some effects such as fampyr charm back with arcane reflection as a wizard. Recovery potions are usable by anyone.

The value of doing well in trash encounters goes down as the game progresses though as they barely scratch your party anyway, so as I said only clear speed changes. And yes, you can make ciphers work well enough in boss fights (and they even have some things going for them like super high single target accuracy), however I'd rather ditch a cipher than a priest or wizard from my party if given a choice. There's usually enough space for all of them though.

Monk with long stride is a much better partner for ectopsychic echo cipher than a rogue. Even more so at level 11 when you get flagellants path. Disengagement attacks just give you more wounds. As for chanter best support chants for melee are probably the -slash/pierce damage one at level 1, frighten at level 2 and flame weapons (duh!) at level 3.

Oh man, we must have been playing a different game!!! Did you manage to ever get your cipher to level 11? Amplified wave - (maybe shoot blunderbuss if bored) - amplified wave - shoot blunderbuss - amplified wave. Everything in a 12m radius dead and spent the -entire- fight on the ground. I would definitely love to hear how well you can play the druid and wizard to beat that but such a large margin, I really would! As of 1.05 blunderbuss isn't working as well for focus gen unless you use drugs. It is possible to use arbalest/arquebus/pistol/dual sabers to almost the same effect though. You can also open with only 1 AW now. The big problems of AW is that it targets fort, which is quite high for most tough enemies. So while AW spam obliterates trash encounters it doesn't work that well in many boss fights. Priest/Wiz otoh have spells that work very well in most cases. They would never outdamage a level 11+ cipher though, since he racks up damage like crazy on trash encounters. But to me it is weird how people rate the class performance on damage dealt in trash fights, which has nothing to do with your party/class effectiveness. The only thing trash fight performance influences is clear speed. We were talking about pre-1.05 ciphers, see above. The comment on fortitude is not fair, the cipher has great spells that target will, so there's something for everyone. Large/strong enemies have high fortitude, but a lot of high-priority targets are not large and do not. Gaze of the adragan is one of the wizard's best spells, and I've never heard anyone say it's trash only because it targets fort. A graze still gets you 50% duration of a great effect. Which wizard and priest spells would you say set them above cipher in terms of effectiveness? If I make a list of my favorite spells and explain why it will become the nerf list for the next patch so I won't . Check my vids in this thread http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/79181-paladin-solo-vs-adra-dragon-potd/ (and i'm actually avoiding the most cheesy stuff there). Try to replicate this with cipher (Well, this fight IS doable with cipher, but needs much more finesse as of 1.05).

Let's put it this way - I have stats good enough to tank the dragon at range with this build. I have 210 effective reflex once debuffs land - full immunity to breath. Blind doesn't make him stop, tbh I don't know why he did it. I've still run into melee ranged and dodged quite a few deflection and reflex hits. There's enough space to kite him till he dies in the treasury anyway. I could do a higher fort build as well, which would be able to handle wing slam better, I just did a standard priest, without a lot of optimization for this fight specifically. You're right about the damage though - you need to do more damage since your buffs a bit more than a minute as a priest and unlike wiz rebuffing is a pain. Luckily you do more than enough damage. Paladin is not reliant on temporary buffs so he's able to tank longer. My point was that buffed up you can reach the comparable level of defenses for a sufficient amount of time, which I think I've proven.

Keep tight formation Drop a couple of repulsive seals to block shades from attacking Drop shining beacon on top of the shades Win Lvl 7+ priest needed. Ofc this is just one of many possible tactics.

He is, but I won't call this a balance problem. Imo a class that requires more micro and skill to play (cipher does) should be better at the high end of the skill and micro that classes that do not, otherwise what's the point? 1 button classes are for the times when you're feeling lazy.

Looks like it doesn't, although I haven't done extensive sampling.

Oh man, we must have been playing a different game!!! Did you manage to ever get your cipher to level 11? Amplified wave - (maybe shoot blunderbuss if bored) - amplified wave - shoot blunderbuss - amplified wave. Everything in a 12m radius dead and spent the -entire- fight on the ground. I would definitely love to hear how well you can play the druid and wizard to beat that but such a large margin, I really would! As of 1.05 blunderbuss isn't working as well for focus gen unless you use drugs. It is possible to use arbalest/arquebus/pistol/dual sabers to almost the same effect though. You can also open with only 1 AW now. The big problems of AW is that it targets fort, which is quite high for most tough enemies. So while AW spam obliterates trash encounters it doesn't work that well in many boss fights. Priest/Wiz otoh have spells that work very well in most cases. They would never outdamage a level 11+ cipher though, since he racks up damage like crazy on trash encounters. But to me it is weird how people rate the class performance on damage dealt in trash fights, which has nothing to do with your party/class effectiveness. The only thing trash fight performance influences is clear speed. That said, Ciphers have a lot of excellent abilities that target tough enemies' Will defences, a couple of decent anti-reflex ones, and especially abilities which can massively lower enemy will to make other skills work better. Also, targeting Fort is incredible vs. Vithracks, which are one of the toughest opponents in the game right now imo. Yeah, but from my experience with casters (which is quite extensive) ciphers do not have as many gamechanging spells as say priest (who was the MVP of any tough fight I had). I'm not saying they're bad, I just don't agree with the whole "cipher is OP" outcry, which imo has more to do with the skill level of the players (cipher is easier to use in general). In my experience original frontline/striker/mob ruler/leader classification doesn't really work as well. Many classes work much better in other roles than the intended one, and from my experience of building parties I have 3 main roles I try to fill: tank, nova, trash mob grinder(1 is usually enough in this role). Ciphers sit somewhere between grinder and nova (drugs) roles atm.

All infidels must burn! Vid link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E3ENTVKRuqg&feature=youtu.be Few notes: Stat build is M 18 C 3 D 19 P 16 I 19 R 3 (Your standard glass cannon priest, but with Res and Per switched. It's possible to go with standard Res and Per but you'll need to be a bit more careful until you land your debuffs or alternatively you'll need to pick a reflex talent). Talents are Scion of Flame, W&S, Inspiring Radiance, Painful/Empowered Interdiction, but frankly only Scion and W&S matter much. You get enough ref & defl, but not enough fort to tank wing slam, but it's possible to avoid it (I got careless and dot hit by it once). You hardcounter petrify with prayer though. I got a bit lucky with shining beacon crit when recording, but to be fair you almost two shot AD with beacon + cleansing flame even with normal hits, and it's not like you can't drop a 2nd one. I also forgot to add scalebreaker, but I've beaten it first try without any problems so I just recorded it on the 2nd run without it. With scalebreaker or CC spells it obviously would've been easier. Priest lacks buff speed of the Wiz, so you need to back up a bit to get your buffs up and running. Obviously you deal massive damage so you don't need to tank for long but as seen in the vid I've dodged a few breaths and my reflex was 170+ (while the dragon had like -40 accuracy).

Oh man, we must have been playing a different game!!! Did you manage to ever get your cipher to level 11? Amplified wave - (maybe shoot blunderbuss if bored) - amplified wave - shoot blunderbuss - amplified wave. Everything in a 12m radius dead and spent the -entire- fight on the ground. I would definitely love to hear how well you can play the druid and wizard to beat that but such a large margin, I really would! As of 1.05 blunderbuss isn't working as well for focus gen unless you use drugs. It is possible to use arbalest/arquebus/pistol/dual sabers to almost the same effect though. You can also open with only 1 AW now. The big problems of AW is that it targets fort, which is quite high for most tough enemies. So while AW spam obliterates trash encounters it doesn't work that well in many boss fights. Priest/Wiz otoh have spells that work very well in most cases. They would never outdamage a level 11+ cipher though, since he racks up damage like crazy on trash encounters. But to me it is weird how people rate the class performance on damage dealt in trash fights, which has nothing to do with your party/class effectiveness. The only thing trash fight performance influences is clear speed.

GJ. Priest video uploading - no unobtainable items as well. Also no hard CC and only 1 scroll, 1 potion and 1 figurine (that was not really needed) used .

99.9% of game sites "guides" are utter garbage. Cipher outdamages the rogue even post nerfs. If he doesn't you're letting his potential go to waste. Also, Wizard easily outdamages the Druid.

Their aoe spells often do more damage than the single target ones, but this is the result of poor spell balancing. They also have more aoe than single target attacks, by power count. I would actually buff some of their single target spells like soul ignition. They were originally positioned as "strikers" along rangers and rogues. Ciphers use weapons a fair bit tbh, and are quite competent at it. Also, whats the difference between dealing damage with weapons and powers really? As long as you can do x damage it does not matter.

Echo targets reflex as well, don't know where did you get that it target fort. This is quite similar to my solo cipher build.

I don't think casters and non casters perform different roles. The only role the majority of casters do not perform very well is tanking (wiz tanks admirably on demand though). They still can be built for it but they won't be optimal. I'd rate cipher below wiz or priest as of 1.05, then again I would probably rate wiz/priest higher because of their performance in tough/boss battles anyway. Cipher is still pretty strong though, definitely not garbage.