Elric Galad

Whisper in general is just a much better use of Focus. With 30 Focus you can cast one Puppet Master or Whisper of Treason and one other 1st or 2nd level power. Dominate is a better effect overall, but generally you're only Dominating or Charming an enemy to keep their heat off you and to distract the enemy, and Charm can do that just as well as Dominate can. I agree that it seems slightly too strong. Fast cast is not a bad way to make it a bit different from tenuous grasp. I think reducing its duration to 8s would be better. But as you said, Whisper is only "generally better", especially for the situation you describe. Dominate is +60% duration, and its effect if more or less twice more powerful (Shut down an ennemy AND gives you an additional teammate, not a gimped weakling.) In total, its effect is 3.2 times as strong as charm. OK "twice more powerfull" is clearly overestimated . But it also "saves" around 2s casting, so I think it's not that poorly balanced. In conclusion, having different powers for different situation is not that bad for me. Whisper is more or less CIpher's signature spell, so if it becomes their most used spell it won't be so bad.

The accuracy bonus from surv is unchanged and it was better than DR so... Accuracy bonus levels could enable choosing additional types of monsters instead of stacking +10 against a single type. +20 Accuracy against Beasts or Vessels can potentially break Adra Dragon, Alpine Dragon and Concelhaut fights (which happens to be the game's greatest challenges).

Did they nerf Mind Plague to 6s in 3.0 beta ? It used to last 18s from what I remember.

Did you check the Beta Thread ? http://forums.obsidian.net/blog/7/entry-190-update-notes-300-beta/ I really think it's nice. I think Cipher gameplay will have more variety from now. No more amplified Wave spamming. The whole package seems far more balanced. Stasis not buffed makes me sad, but c'est la vie. Also DR from Survival has been divided by 2, which makes sense.

The cipher powers recent buff sounds actually quite good. There are a lot of fun and diverse tools now. A nice and subtle change is what Obsidian did for Whisper of Treason and Tenuous Grasp. Now you have a CC followed by debuff versus a slighter longer CC with faster cast, but without debuff. Both are nice, you will probably not select both, but each of them has its purpose. Now it seems that Cipher are meant to be the top dog for Single Target CC. They have a lot of excellent spells for this, with slightly different uses (Whisper of Treason/Tenuous Grasp for quick and cheap CC, Mental Binding to deal more demage to the target, Puppetmaster for complete, quick and long domination, Silent Scream to kill some stuff around.) AoE CC are a bit less noticeable, but Amplified Wave is still valuable, and Mind Plague is still a crazy spell (It was the best cipher power IMHO, even if less convenient than the old amplified wave. Multi-target Hard CC with crazy duration is priceless.) They also have a wide range of (mostly) ally friendly AoE damage powers, from echo to Detonate, which is rather cool too. But still no love for this poor stasis field ? 70 focus for a single target hard CC which prevents from attacking the target ? This power's concept is not bad, especially after adding immunities to the game (I don't think that a single creature is immune to stasis). My suggestion would be either longer duration or greater bonus to accuracy. 60-70 focus will happen in most fights. Cipher will start at 45 at max level. So you barely have to deal about 45 - 75 damages to cast them (without even counting draining whip... or greater focus). That's not so much. But I agree major Power will become more rare. But I don't think it's so bad. Spamming Amplified Wave was strong but boring. But please consider that 10 focus from greater focus is a lower amount of focus if all powers cost more. It could be better to raise it to 15-20 bonus focus. Anyway, I feel that 3.0 will make the class probably neither stronger nor weaker, but nicer to play. I was tired of spamming Amplified Wave. Nice job, Obsidian !

"The pepper slashed, the pepper trashed."

Spicy hot salsa sauce to trigger fan of flames. Tequila gives +3 DR. The Doemenels renamed "Cartel Domingo". And Thaos becomes "El Toro" serving the "Wood Inca", ancient goddess of Death and Fiestas.

Trivial nitpick, but there is at least one instance where enemies spawn behind you and block your exit from a dungeon . So there is actually one point in the entire game where per-rest matters. Mmm... and act IV

Hehe PoE is really a great game. Writing is excellent, background is deep and mature, alien races are well designed. And Combat system might not be perfect, but it is what I expected about Black Isle games spiritual successor. Except Black Isle games were never so tactic and balanced. Team members have clear and unique purpose. They complement themselves in front of adversity, and this is the epic touch I really hoped to see achieved in this kind of RPG : complementary strenghts of an adventurer group in a fantasy setting. The only game that could come close is this good old Guild Wars 1. I've never played MMORPG by the way, so I may lack experience. I'm happy to contibute a bit to this great game evolution (probably because of a frustated passion for game design ).

It is intentional.

I never thought whining could lead to such a collective achievement. But after months arguing about chanter not scaling well, per encounter spells being too strong or fighter nerfed too bad, I feel relieved.

Crown of the faithful is lvl 6. At level 7, you'll have a full-life which is a life saver in this kind of battle. But it's still true you have most party buff between lvl 1 and 5.

Now that powers cost about twice more focus, greater focus should be set to 20 more starting focus. If not, this talent is going to be rather useless (which is not very critical, but an useless talent is not so nice).

Lvl 10 is a bit low. At level 11, Durance will get 2 uses of protection against Domination.

I would say that less frequent and more powerful spells is even more attractive. Anything that would prevent from spamming amplified wave is good news anyway.

Ok, they choosed the "easiest way". But that's ok. I've whined enough on this topic. Let's wait and see what happens now.

Sorry, I was not very clear. Mind blades were good so they nerfed it like crazy (not in 3.0, sorry if I was not clear). Mental binding was good so they nerfed it like crazy. Amplified wave was good so nerfed it AND cipher. The history of cipher in PoE is an history of a class which shines because of a few spells that gets shot one after the other.

Sorry, I do think that Echo is just too powerful. About anything that would get caught in the ray is going to die in seconds. It seemed that there was a bug applying cipher +40% damage or maybe crazy acc buff like old priest seal : damages displayed were almost always higher that the maximum stated in the description (potd). I found it so cheesy that I stopped using it. But the mechanic is so cool that I hope that they will not nerf it to the ground ! Mental binding was nerfed too much. Now you have about 4s cast time for about 5s+ hard CC on single target... they could have kept the fast casting at least. It would not have been OP. They have also nerfed mind blades by the way... Many cipher powers were never really balanced. A lot of them are simply too weak (lvl 7 is just so bad). And there id a few OP powers nerfed one after the other to the point of being unusable. In 3.0 beta, the only thing left to cipher is Echo. And it is even still OP as no martial class will never reach the level of damage of a properly used Echo. But I don't want a cipher that would become a "one and a half trick poney". And I don't want another cool cipher power like Echo to be rendered unusable by a crazy nerf.

So your proposal is to accept focus change and buff all cipher powers except Echo. Mine is to keep focus as it was and nerf Echo. It seems that both would be equivalent. I guess that the dev are going to choose the easiest path... or not.

3.0 might be basically beta of 3.1, or even 3.2. Well, I think it would be stable enough to play and to enjoy. My only advice is to avoid Cipher class for 3.0, because there are big changes incoming, and high chances of further balances.

Which confirms what was said previously : Ectopsychic is just too powerful, dealing damage it isn't even suppose to do (such a fun concept by the way) while other power except lvl 1 & 2 will not be used anymore. Ectotpsychic Echo and Amplified wave are what made cipher "a bit too good". I don't agree about greater focus : it used to be "2 free level" of cipher power. Now it is just 1 level. It doesn't worth it. 10 focus are now a smaller fraction of cipher powers (except lvl 1 of course). Petitioning : Please obsidian, restore focus, keep amplified wave and tactical meld nerfed, and nerf Ectophyschic (but not to the ground, please) !

Ok, things are starting to get clear. Anyone knows which other effects are concerned by Immunity : Unconscious ?

It would even make sense to make her a tank since the last thing you want is a tank getting mind-controlled. Maybe with Riposte and a paladin dropping Reinforcing exhortation ?

I think it's easier to make Melee Companions more or less optimal. Melee NPC benefit from all stats including Constitution and Resolve. For Ranged NPC, you would like to drop Resolve and stay around 10 constitution. How do you benefit from 12 constitution from Sagani ? Or 13 Resolve from Aloth ? It's not strictly worse, but I feel that it is clearly suboptimal. For my next run, I consider taking Eder, Kana and Pallegina but I have trouble to complete my team if I choose to go with 5 Companions. I can't go with 5 melee and a ranged PC, I fear a "melee traffic jam" effect. Yeah, I have a "rather powergaming" approach. Devil of Caroc is a special case : the problem is her stupid dexterity which happens to be the most important stat for a rogue, alongside with heavy armor which makes her even slower. At least she has a lot of unique features...

For Eder, I'll do something like this : Hybrid Tank DPS with strong alpha strike Lvl 1 : Knockdown (it's not like if you had choice )) Lvl 2 : 2 Handed Style Lvl 3 : Confident Aim Lvl 5 : Weapon Specialization : Soldier Lvl 6 : Weapon Focus : Soldier Lvl 7 : Armored Grace Lvl 8 : Weapon Mastery : Soldier Lvl 9 : Critical Defense Lvl 10 : Superior Deflection Lvl 11 : Unbroken Lvl 12 : Runner's wounding shot Lvl 13 : Sundering Blow Lvl 14 : Apprentice's sneak attack Get a 2-Hander and an arquebus / Arbalest. Open fight with a Runner's wounding shot from range. Switch to melee 2-hander and hit. For melee weapons, I would go Tidefall or Grey Sleeper, with St. Ydwen's Redeemer as a backup for vessels. Alternatively, take ruffian weapons with dual wielding syle and pistols/blunderbuss. (Soldier or ruffian are the best for alpha strike.) Get also a good armor (35%+ penalties, I would say Coat of Ill Payment.). Fighters have good bonuses with ranged weapons, so it is a good way to benefit from something that your Juggernaut Monk doesn't do as well.