CriticalFailure

The shield was mentioned already. There's another armour you can get from one of the second-round bounties.

I've found a higher score quite noticeable, though I'm running a melee-heavy party, so I don't have to rest too often in order to replenish spells. Anyway, I don't claim it's spectacular, just better than the alternatives in my experience.

Once you have your basics covered, I'd put the rest on Athletics. A high score helps with fatigue when travelling between areas, so less resting required. At the very least I'd have a high Athletics character for climbing and stuff. I suppose that some Stealth would be useful if you're into burglary. Not sure if a single stealthy character is enough for that purpose, or how the whole thing works.

If anyone's interested, I got around to test this, and they stack indeed. I gave both items to Pallegina (I figured it would be harder to notice on a character with Carnage) and she was hitting twice on retaliation, whereas, obviously, armour without shield would hit just once. I'm using Tidefall, so no shield for me, but I suppose this means that the damage output would be increased with it and/or other retaliation items (I don't know if there are others).

So... can anybody answer this? (I wonder if people had missed the post due to the new user post approval thingy).

I don't think so either, but I was wondering if someone had actually tested it.

I'm planning on trying something similar with my barbarian once I get the retaliation items. My question is: do they stack? If I use the Sanguine Armour + the retaliation shield, will I do more damage than if I use just one of them?

Hi. I don't have a lot of experience with ciphers and I'm not sure I understand this build's playstyle. I mean, I get the tankinesh and retaliation and all, but how are you supposed to attack? Casting spells? Melee (in which case, where does all that damage you speak of comes from?)? Or in other words, what actions would this build do in a typical,non-boss battle? And what about the early-mid game stages where you don't have all those items and level 4-5 spells? Should it be played like a "normal" cipher then, or can you afford to be in the frontline somehow?