MadDemiurg

I attempted Cipher in the BB, and even just Tenuous Grasp was pretty nuts for soloing. In the long run though Cipher's lack of shadowing beyond got me stuck at key points the rogue was able to bypass using shadowing beyond. Granted, the BB =/= the release game and you have more freedom to out-level content in it. Especially now that they doubled solo XP bonus with the patch, which is pretty major for soloing. Tenuous Grasp abuse is indeed a key trick for low level. Without question shadowing beyond can save you from otherwise perilous situation, but so far I haven't seen places you can't really path through without it. It's pretty good tool for ironman though, to reduce bad luck rng.

Riposte isn't really necessary I suppose. I haven't tried to perfect a rogue build yet. The main thing is cipher = no shadowing beyond. Shadowing beyond lets you do so many things you can't with other builds. The rogue isn't as good for combat but most of the time you only need to defeat enemies 1 by 1 as solo if you're cheesing well and running away. It's not about high damage it's about being able to damage all targets and outlast. A rogue is perfectly valid for that. Most solo builds will end up cheesing items to do most of the hard work anyway. Summoning stuff, traps, etc. A cipher build isn't likely gonna solo most things without doing the same nonsense as a rogue build, sans rogue's trump card. There are items that allow spell casting as well, I've found one that even casts whisper of treason. A cipher could be built similar to the rogue - not dumping perception for one would make way more survivable than the OP's build. Cipher is more capable combat wise, rogue admittedly is better at running from combat. Cipher has his own unique ways of cheesing like casting confusion out of stealth though.

Well, on PotD mid game some fights last long enough depending on party setup. Near the endgame spells are usually devastating enough to win in 1-2 casts, yes.

Rogue has less deflection, can't self buff, his raw damage from deep wounds is crap (like 1 dmg/sec), deals less damage per hit (sneak attack won't work, biting whip will). How is he more tanky? You can put endurance drain weapon on cipher just as easy along with retal shield. And again 1 mind plague/ring leader = I win. Riposte has 20% chance triggering on miss, so it's pretty bad too. In practise it's < 20% dps increase, since you don't get 100% avoidance with a rogue. Gotta admit adept evasion is good, but not enough to make up for other stuff.

Well, mine has 10 dex and less per, not sure it's optimal. Also con is not very important since you can buff max endurance with food, but you need fort on the other hand, so not sure. So tbh I'm not sure what the best stats are. You're gonna need fast runner and +2 quickslot talent for solo though.

Gotta disagree on rogue solo being smoother. Tried it myself. Yep, you have get out of jail for free card, but your combat ability is just horrible compared to most other classes. Also, OP's build still can use disintegrate on dragon for 200+ raw damage. So why would you not. You can have a more flexible build, but that one has some flexibility too. As for Mind blades nerf - tbh it was completely weird since it was a mediocre spell anyway. I had doubts on taking it even before nerf. Cipher has much stronger dd options.

It's a cheesy retaliation build(retal will likely be nerfed anyway) that's mostly just a maybe viable alternative to rogue for soloing but is of no value on the actual difficult fights which are all side content. The people jumping the gun here are the ones just assuming it's amazing without actually playing it. It's a gimmicky niche build that will be weak up until certain items and spells are gained, and even then it's far from the best for that one particular niche. I went into the game, built this, tried the Sky Dragon and even some of the Burial Isle fights before the boss. I doubt you could even take the final boss with it as this thing died to an animat on hard difficulty because its reflex saves are so poor. Again, You can go with 10 dex an W+S if you want to, it wont lose that much retal focus and have decent deflect and good ranged dps (plate impact is minimal on firearms). You can do bosses like sky dragon with disintegrate or resort to usual petrify cheese with traps as most classes would. The build is extremely flexible and can do melee/ranged/cc/tanking/kiting depending on the situation. It's your own fault that you're not using this flexibility. You're jumping to conclusions yourself without playing the build and trying to understand what it offers and how to use it. It's like running a melee dps rogue into a room full of mobs and then complaining that it sucks because it died.

Buffs don't stack with themselves normally. I know a few buggy ones that do though. But I don't think shield does.

You don't have to stand and wait for the dragon to burn you you know. No one's stopping you from casting disintegrate using tactical meld from safe distance. I think it's a better solo build than rogue actually, I tried both. Shadowing beyond does allow you to escape some unfavorable situations, but stealth and fast legs are enough for the most part. Plus it's not available for early levels and for later levels cipher scales much better in terms of combat power, especially solo. For party you get a decent offtank (which depending on your tactics can be your only tank) that gains tons of focus from being attacked in melee to eliminate both ranged and melee opposition. He also can use some of the more devastating cipher spells like antipathetic field and ectopsychic echo much better than ranged cipher due to positioning. Plus ranged cipher can't really compete with his focus gain in most battles, so he casts much more spells as well. And notion of "melee" and "ranged" cipher is quite blurry since you can switch to blunderbuss too if needed. That been said, I don't run him with min dex (mine has 10), so I'm not sure how that will play out (maybe worse, maybe better, who knows). If you're having problems with reflex, you can take W+S style, you'll still get tons of focus from retaliation. Personally I don't. Also, regardless of your stat split your total saves are the same, and reflex is probably less important, since the other two have plenty of attacks that pretty much instagib you. Really if you don't like it, well, don't use it, but when used properly it's quite devastating.

It's either armor, cloak or shield I think. You can find the armor quite early in act 2. And yes, not enchantable.

It's an item property. Allows you to hit back with melee weapon when enemies attack you in melee.

You used wrong tactics for the dragon, what did you expect? Would end the same way for a lot of chars. As I said, it's not the tankiest build ever, it can tank a lot of enemies however. You can switch to ranged if needed an you can still do nasty stuff with your spells. Retaliation tanking is used vs mobs of melee enemies, which are plenty. OP made it out to be "ultimate" "god-like" and etc. It's not. It doesn't deal that much damage, and it doesn't tank that well. That's my only point. Some of the stat stealing Powers are great, but they don't turn a cipher into something you can call "tanky". Also the set-up necessary to buff this thing up isn't worth the time on most of your average encounters. . Well. it's good enough to clear PotD solo without crouching past most of the encounters. There are some other builds that can do it as well. In terms of damage - it retaliates for 140% weapon damage in melee powering up his spells that do really crazy damage (lvl 1 antipathetic field can do like 200 aoe dmg with proper positioning). I would argue on "doesn't do that much damage". It's definitely near the top. In terms of tanking - Cipher has decent deflection and crappy endurance. Moon godlike (not fire like in OPs case, although it's good as well for some cases) fixes the 2nd problem, especially with high might. With DR stealing and buffs cipher can get one of the top DR scores, although it does rely on your spells landing. Borrowed instinct can buff your saves and deflection pretty well to, but again you need to land it. When you land it though, you're pretty close to a tank fighter in terms of defenses (like 10 less or so) Yes, it's not the ultimate tank, but any char can tank if built for it. The point here is not that you tank better than a fighter - you don't. The point is that by tanking you power up your spells like crazy and honestly you need to land like 1 ringleader to end most encounters.

You used wrong tactics for the dragon, what did you expect? Would end the same way for a lot of chars. As I said, it's not the tankiest build ever, it can tank a lot of enemies however. You can switch to ranged if needed an you can still do nasty stuff with your spells. Retaliation tanking is used vs mobs of melee enemies, which are plenty.

Not true. Dex does shorten reload time. That said, Dex really doesn't matter much for the normal fire-and-forget approach, so there's that. Yeah, maybe. I usually switch to melee or run away after the 1st shot. Still often does tons of damage though. And fullplate penalty is surely negligible for firearms in any case. My build is not 3 dex and a moon godlike btw, with some different talent picks, but the general idea of fullplate cipher with retaliation still applies.

Wrong thread.

A lot of classes can solo POTD, it only varies how tedious it is. In case of rogue, imo very tedious. The only thing rogues have going for them is exploity combat reset via shadowing beyond. Apart from it, sneak attack doesn't work very well solo and the rest of class features are either not super impressive of work even worse solo. Fighter with scrolls can do some damage, but a lot of better spells are not available as scrolls plus scrolls don't grow on trees. And any class can use scrolls/foods/potions to great effect. Not enough to make him top tier imo.

Props! I'm currently act 3 with retaliation cipher, pretty sure I'll be able to finish the rest since L6 spells make things quite easy. Don't have that much time to play now.

I've also played PotD and doing a PotD solo run atm. You need to tank only for long enough to wipe out the enemies, so it all depends on your setup. Fighter is indeed the most survivable tank (and the least micro intensive one). However monk is a much better CC tank with force of anguish and Barb retaliation tank will often kill things attacking him before going down himself. And as I said, you can make setups that work without a real tank too. If you need a dedicated tank, yes, fighter is the best, but unlike classes that I put at the top he usually won't turn the battle by himself.

I'm running a similar build on PotD solo and it absolutely wrecks things. I'm pretty confident I'll be able to finish the game with it. Btw your ranged capabilities are good as well, since firearms are mostly limited by reload time, which doesn't depend on dex or armor. In parties where you can use tactical meld and other buffs like pain block it's much more potent. And it's not like you're not survivable/damage dealing enough without buffs. Even if you miss you get focus back really fast and you can take quite a few hits. Plus there are nice +2/+4 focus on hit foods, but this is more of solo stuff, you won't ever need it in party.

Fighter is just the best damage sponge. He's good, but I won't say top. You can replace him with a lot of other options that won't work as well, but will do the job for the most part, plus if you go heavy on the nuking you may not need a tank at all (don't say it's optimal). He doesn't have any "I win" buttons though, and can't win the fights on his own usually. That makes him just "good" but not "top" in my book.

Actual tank won't be getting like 10 focus per second to spam spells when attacked. Also body attunement works on cipher and stacks with pain block. So you can get +17 dr if another cipher buffs you or 7 yourself. Still a lot. And yes, this is not the most tanky build, however the amount of pain it dishes out in return makes up for it. You don't need to be super tanky if you melt stuff in seconds, just tanky enough.

Ranger indeed can have nice accuracy (+20 with stalkers link and vicious aim) and sniper build is indeed quite good with stunning shot. He can do good damage, some light cc and even some aoe with bouncing arrows talent, However that's not as good as Cipher's 140% biting whip attacks under tactical meld for same +20 acc or Rogue's ranged deathblows, and I'm not even bringing wizards or druids going all out on their spells into this. So while being quite decent, ranger is kinda unfocused and doesn't quite match other ranged options. He's still pretty good, just not as good as the alternatives.

For dps take endurance drain (think it scales with might). Once at you get level 3 phrases get the fire rain one, it absolutely wrecks things. Invocations do not matter at that point.

Top tier: Druid, Wizard level 5+ (lol at meh tier some put him into), Priest, Cipher(yes, he cant nova like the other casters, but even one spell from him at lvl 11+ is instant win and his ranged weapon dps is also great, plus you can generate tons of focus very quickly if you know how), Barb (with bug fixes will go down a tier) Good tier: Fighter, Rouge, Chanter, Monk(again lol at bottom tier, properly built monk tanks are quite great, they're quite far from their supposed archetype though) Meh tier: Paladin, Ranger That been said balance is not that bad in the game and even meh tier can be quite decent. There's no bad tier.

How would you have changed things, if you were to redo it? I'd have more balanced stats to be honest. Slightly less Con and I'd prioritize Res over Perception. You have enough reflex from your dex stat. The deflection of the character is really low. On a side note I just downed one of the optional bosses in the game. Took a lot of planning to work out. Spoilers if you click the link below. http://imgur.com/a/SJm6k Some of the stats are lower due to the debuffs done by the boss such as "Terrify". Edit: Combat log linked if you guys wanna see just that. http://imgur.com/OGE6Fij Boss died in under 5 seconds after melee engage. Did you use petrify trap? It seems like the most plausible way for a monk to do this kind of damage. Edit. Nwm, see it in the log. Thought so.