[Initial range alpha strike, anyone else do this?]

While many people still resent the inclusion of firearms in PoE, I've grown to embrace the opening salvo method. Though it is somewhat saddening that in terms of pure mathmatical DPS, firearms outclass bows in pretty much all cases except for overkilling a target.

[Patch notes for 1.03]

Personally I'm backing up my "objectbundle" folder.  That way if I don't like the changes to certain abilities it should be fairly easy to make a house rule and revert individual abilities back to the old version.

[Let's talk about the Estoc...]

 

Armor should just be a simple increase to deflection. It's much simpler and doesn't bias the game towards one weapon type or another.

It would bias the game towards single-wielding a rapier or dagger, and HEAVILY PUNISH using a shield.

 

 

Agree'd shifting armor to increase deflection instead of DR would just shift the bias towards accurate weapons inplace of DR bypassing weapons.

[Cipher builds and advice]

 

There's a week's work of quality build information if you actually tried to searched through the forum.

 

Ciphers don't have a lot of endurance, so you want to be ranged. You want maxed out might, along with good intelligence and dexterity. You want to start every fight off with a blunderbuss shot to gain focus before taking out a bow and keeping to the back while casting spells. Biting whip is very good.

I start with Mind Blades, because I have full focus at the start of every fight--I only have to gain focus after I've spent some.

 

Is this not normal?

 

 

Starting a fight with full focus is not normal.  At the very beginning of a new combat, Ciphers should only have half their maximum focus pool.