Raven Darkholme

This char specifically was console created a while back when we tried out which char is best for the high level bounties in this forum. But I did a full run with cipher and used whispers in quite a few encounters, for example I couldn't win Magran's Faithful upscaled without it (charm the priests). It's also actually quite some fun to charm one of the bog dragons (one is immune one not) but psychic backlashing them is even more fun. Well it's not really about unlabored blade and counts basically for every weapon enchant, the enchant itself applies to spells/chants, you name it. (Blade and Abydons are just the only Mythic weapons I know of) Only thing that doesn't apply is weapon specific stuff like +5 for daggers or WF or talents like flick of the wrist.

I did not point this out, just realized the potential after @Haplok and @fortuntek pointed it out. The +20 Stun resist is actually insane since not many items do help you vs stun, but having +2 Mi is also very nice. (+20 stun also works vs some deflection based attacks like the phantoms initial attack before the fort roll) Spelltongue was actually just something I tried, I had 1 sucessful fight before this where instead of leaving the dragons to die to brutal backlash I killed tem with Disintegrate and I was annoyed by having to recast buffs so I tried Spelltongue 2nd try but it didn't really do much but the rest of the try was good enough so I rolled with it. :D I personally like unlabored Blade a lot for ciphers since the mystic enchant applies to powers. I took Co for fort, since I got turned to a piggie earlier tries and 190 fort seemed to stop that. :D

Nalrend the wise bounty: Also there's a special video for Boroer upcoming.

Yeah on paper adding a priest and cipher would make the party even stronger. In practice the dmage output of 6 chanters tops everything especially if you'd have to pause to micro your priest (I'd have to )

But you see, I'm also lazy.

Yep, but since then Veteran's recovery has been added.

I am using small shields, since I want palalike defenses, I guess I'm greedy. Acc doesn't seem a problem and there's been situations where I went into fights with yellow hp bar and one or 2 of my chanters went down.

I couldn't find my old thread from 1.5 years back so here's a new one. I'll start with footage of Cail the Silent being burned, just when I got level 9. I streamed a bit more after that and today as well so there's a lot more footage coming. I'm almost level 12 now and have 6x seven Nights and 6x2 ogres but usually the fights don't go long enough for 5 phrases. Also I finally went in the White March (upscaled) only to realise one of the bounty rewards is a weapon with Prayer against Treachery, so Fampyrs are no problem anymore. :D

Yeah I can see how it is useful early game, but latest with Durgan Refined you will lose out on damage. Attacking as fast as possible is nice, but if it's a question of attacking without recovery either way but losing out on massive damage because your animation might be a couple of frames faster then it is a huge waste of stat points and brings me the question why you would invest into damage talents in the first pklace if you don't even care for max damage. On a build like this I would always look for max dps because that also falls under fast attack, you wouldn't get max dps on a rogue if you were slow.

Why 20 Dex? You already dual wield, have gloves of swift action and will eventually get Durgan Refined. Maxing Might instead will give you way more damage than 20 Dex, it doesn't matter that the rogue is slightly different from other classes, Might still gives you exactly the same benefits it gives to other classes. check also here: https://youtu.be/KtAFiEuSiMk?t=31809

Talents are always rare this is true, but the amount of fights being a lot easier with brutal backlash is quite big and not only dragons, so with a little bit of planning it should be pretty easy to use respec and rush thru all the encounters where backlash is good and then respec back to your original setup.

Moon Godlike has lost a lot of it's appeal, especially lategame. Veteran's recovery, Ancient Memory, Moonwell and Consecrated Ground (Periapt even has 1 per encounter aand it is the best tank necklace in my opinion anyway) are so many endurance reg options that will make moon look really useless once you get to the point only hp regen with vital Essence will seem necessary (if at all, the solo cipher with new backlash only barely went to yellow hp in the upscaled Llengrath fight and I was trolling and never directly attacked the dragons.). 1.5 years ago when I created my 6 chanters I made them all moon godlike, now that I play them again I realised how bad that choice was because Ancient Memory *6 is insane. As to your Darcozzi I'd definitely dump Res to 8 and wear Periapt for 10 and +25 Concentration. You didn't even max Might and that is the most important stat on almost any class including paladin, so I would max that and put the rest into CON.

Depends if you don't mind respeccing. At the start of the game there is not many deadly disables until Caed Nua (the odd Xaurip Skirmisher is annoying but if you have a party you can just focus those and kill them in seconds, if you solo you're gonna try and avoid those), but deflection on the other hand is kinda important since your acc is very low and fights take a bit longer. So if you respec before Caed Nua I'd say start with high-maxed res and change to 8 before Caed Nua (get the +2 from Gilded Vale Inn). On the paladin I would never go below 8 unless your bonus to Res and Concentration (Periapt of the winding path!!!) gets you to 95 Concentration even with dumped Res. (There is still plenty disables that can lower your concentration one way or the other). But if you don't want to respec as early as before Caed Nua I would start with 8 Res and never touch it again (unless you get way better bonuses to Concentration later on then you could always dump it further). Also i can't stress enough how awesome coastal Aumaua is on any tank, because of the bonus to stun (the Looped Rope is the only other source in game for a +20 vs stun and it is a WM2 item), which also applies to many deflection attacks like the phantoms stun, so if you still had maxed Res by Caed Nua but also a Coastal Aumaua, Wizards double potion will make Phantoms look very bad against a pala with shield and 1h style and Ring of Deflection + 2 Res from inn. If you went Coastal Aumaua you could have maxed Res till you fight something more deadly like Pŵgra. But once again if you want to go with as little respecs as possible 8 Res and more Con is a lot smarter.

Well these days even RES is not meta anymore vs dragons. I was one of the people who always maxed res, these days I don't even take Superior Deflection anymore and Res is never higher than 8(10), for concentration, on my test cipher for backlash it was even dumped and with periapt + dragon food bonus at 8. Having very high fort and reflex is so much more important, because getting grazed by disables is much more deadly than getting grazed by simple damage. Ofc maxed deflection feels kinda better in trash fights but against dragons and especially Llengrath you will have to reload spam to get lucky if your fort is below 160, something you can't do on a legit ToI. So Per giving acc instead made it a better attribute for pcs in the long run, but it also made something like Adra more deadly since it has around 22 PER. 100 base deflection is actually enough for trash fights if your CON is quite high and if you play a class with bonuses to defenses like cipher with Borrowed Instinct, Chanter with Sight of Comrades (and massive healing) (not giving deflection bonus but there is Llengrath potions), paladin with F+C, Monk with Duality, Wizard with all kinds of buffs... Then at least in boss fights with use of consumables your deflection will be around 120-130 with maxed fort and very high reflex. (The cipher doesn't even need consumables, but moonwell is always nice. )

Ya ive beaten it a lot obviously but not like that. The Adra Dragon is immune to fire. At level 16 you could muscle him and still win but if you did that fight at 12 it might get dicey? Or the slash damage enough? I don't think I ever tried the Adra Dragon at 12, but if any group could do it it is this one, tho I doubt I will attempt any dragon before level 16. Cail has 48 fire DR and got melted in 30 seconds, Flame Blights have immunity and melt even quicker. The thing about stacking a dot in this game is it just ticks super fast so even only the slash damage is huge especially later with maxed brisk recitation. Also I seem to remember @Kaylon once posted stacked dragon slashed is not affected by DR. (Cail definitely looked that way). edit: I just remembered level 12 used to be max level and I soloed Adra with a paladin and cipher on level 12. So yeah, should be no problem at all with the 6 chanters.

I got to the 3 Adragan, several spirits and a couple Adra Animats fight in the Endless Paths Elemental level today with my 6 chanters all level 9 and chanting Dragon slashed. It was a slaughter over in several seconds and quite comicalm since I don't even bother auto attacking anymore I just let the chant do it's work. Only weakness right now are the above mentioned charms, but only because I didn't level my lore enough for the level 6 scroll, I might either respec one of the chanters or just level up elsewhere, since at that point I didn't even start Act 3 yet and haven't been to White March since I wanted to upscale it. Now finally having witnessed the damage of 6x dragon oomph I don't believe there is a stronger party comp in Potd, because you just won't need higher defenses or anything another comp might offer, the damage output is just o insane and will only get crazier with leveling up for more acc and brisk recitation scaling.

Not sure if this helps but back when I recorded my Trio Tutorial I also used GM and as soon as defensive Mindweb was available respecced her into a dual wielding murder machine. Here's the vid with the respec (starts at 17:33 mins) https://youtu.be/uUzUtPi6vDo?list=PLzscMCQ3321uDtjan2jm_3waeIt0ZCMDO&t=1053 (Before that I played her ranged and you can see how I level her up in much earlier vids in the playlist)

Dual sabres are more of a cipher weapon tbh who not only gets extra soul whip damage but also generates focus faster because of the high base damage. If you're really into bs you should definitely open with a reach weapon as Boroer stated, after that you can always switch weapons either into sabres or as mentioned above into weapons that inflict disables on crit, which is the rogues most deadly strength because of high acc.

Yea I was immune in the vid. It's like the Wild Orlan passive as long as you're subject to a will attack it will proc. Btw it two shots Xaurip priests, so it might even be relevant for lower levels, unless the acc is not enough, haven't actually tested it.

Yea Drakes and Banshees just get melted by this. This is so cool since Cipher has been my fav class for some time, now but always got overshadowed by Chanter. Another awesome thing about this is, once an enemy gets stunned their will gets lowered, even if it's just a grace.

It does indeed work more than once.

If it procs more than once it is indeed amazing vs dragons, but you can always respec vs those and respec back after. I'm gonna try this a bit later with my bounty cipher, in solo runs this is pretty amazing, but even for a party very helpful.

I think the best build for rogues in this game is to go for disables on crits. One guy did an ultimate solo run with a rogue and basically permastunned all enemies and combined with rotfinger gloves and deathblows chunked them for BIG damage.

I'm pretty sure boots of speed only apply in combat but I could be wrong. Splitting usually doesn't work if you run into a group of enemies for a bs, but you could use invis I guess, it rather works if you run into the los of only one enemy and attack. Also there is a couple of encounters that don't end until the fight is finished.