Boeroer

That's why I give it to my priest. Or barb of course. But not Cipher. What about Dragon's Bell? It has 8 DR penetration (and it's burn DR bonus stacks with everything). You can get it quite early and I guess it's a good cipher weapon until you get the BotEP. With Vulnerable Attack and Ryona's Vambraces and Effigy's Resentment: Devil of Caroc you could reach 17 DR bypass. Add Body Attunement and you could ignore 24 DR of a single enemy. Animats, beetles and disabled dragons beware!

This is not the case. The speed enchantment only reduces the recovery time of the particular weapon. You can test this when you exchange one speed weapon with a normal one: the recovery of the first weapon with speed stays the same, the second, normal weapon will have slightly longer recovery. The only exception is Spelltongue which adds a universal attack speed buff on hit.

Drawn in Spring does good damage because of wounding. But wounding doesn't generate focus. Because of that I would give it to somebody else. I think Bittercut + corrosive lash + with Spirit of Decay is better than Resolution or Purgatory. Mainly because of the two damage types. It's very convenient that you don't need to switch weapons. That's why I recommended Durance's Staff. It generates focus quite well - and there are enough foes around who have low burn DR. For the others you can take Llawran's Stick.

There's a nice build for Pallegina that's called "the Fire General". Paladins have good heals as well, so use Lay on Hands to prevent team mates from going down. With Zealous Focus you can raise the party's accuracy which is especially good in the early game. Hiravias as a druid has nice CC spells like Returning & Relentless Storm. Those will prevent enemies from hitting your front line. He also has Moonwell which is very nice for your barb tank and he also has Form of the Delemgan which is very nice because it's DR stacks with other sources and makes your party more sturdy. Priest as usual: buff your frontline with Devotions of the Faithful + Inspiring Radiance. This will give them all +30 ACC. Together with Pallegina's Zealos Focus that's +36 ACC. You can build Maneha as you like - but since you already have a barb tank you might want to build her into a dual wielder with sabres or battle axes. I also love Hours of St. Rumbalt (great sword) on a barb. Use Blood Thirst + Blood Lust + Frenzy. As the sixth member I personally would use a wizard. Expose Vulnerabilitites + Combusting Wounds are so good when combined with Heart of Fury.

Dual torches? No, wait: torches have an innate 10% burnung lash and you can enchant them with the usual +25% burning lash on top. The base damage is really bad though and the speed is average only. Never tested this in a real game, but it sounds fun.

...aaand Spirit Lance!

I think Relentless Storm is one of the best CC spells in the game while also doing good damage. Calling the World's Maw is also very good. Most CC spells of the druid also deal damage, which is nice.

He should at least have 8 survival. He should do OK with a plate and an estoc once he has Ancient Memory, Beloved Spirits and Veteran's Recovery plus a Belt of Bountiful Healing or Fulvanos Amulett. Shod-in-Faith should also be in your possession. If he has all that he won't die easily. His regeneration should be good then.

Once you can have Stalwart Defiance and a decent armor I would change to weapon & shield. He's a tank after all. You don't need to dump CON. This guy also plays well with a lot of CON. The real magic begins once you can have Heart of Fury and Badgradr's Barricade.

Supercharger and -disabler: Flagellanth's Path, Charge, Force of Anguish, Knockdown, Stunning Blows, Skyward Kick, Clear Out, Armored Grace, Swift Strikes... What about the Long Pain with carnage? Turning Wheel + Lightning Strikes + Greater Wildstrike + Wild strike Belt + Blood Testament. 50% lash + 40% lash + 25% lash 10% lash. Turning Wheel + Lightning Strikes + FoD + Intense Flames + Scion of Flame + Long Pain. Shapeshifting backstab rogue. Superhigh base damage + up to 300% weapon damage + 40%+10% lash + some nice Full Attacks.

Druid and priest is a good choice. Keep in mind: Unicorn chanter without shield is a late bloomer.

Cipher with HoF - WtF? Wizard with Spirit Lance + carnage. Paladin with Sacred Immolation + The Dragon Thrashed. Fighter with Spell Mastery Firebrand and so on...

More optimal?

Early on I use a small shield. I hate it to switch styles during a playthrough. And in a party you really don't need to. I will stay true to my original idea even if it's a bit harder in the early game. Man, that solo priest with a great sword was really demanding until he reached defiance bay.

In fact, I made a blunderbuss wizard just because of combusting wounds. You don't even need 6 guys. Island Aumaua with Arms Bearer and four blunderbusses. Expose Vulnerabilities + Pen. Shot + Combusting Wounds is so great with four blunderbuss shots. I also added Concussive Missiles and all the other stuff from time to time. It's debatable if this is better than an implement wizard - but it surely is a lot of fun to watch even powerful single enemies die after seconds. Who needs rogues?

Look at Raven Darkholme's "arena" fight (solo upscaled Magran's Faithful) with a tanky shield cipher. Cipher with shield can be tanky as hell while providing good offense, too. The upside of this approach is that you don't have to babysit at all. The downside is a bit lower DPS/focus generation. But with a durganized shield dps is not bad at all because of better speed while defenses are still great. And once you get Reaping Knives (and have somebody in the party who dual wields) your own weapon damage doesn't matter anymore.

Combusting Wounds doesn't work with DoT effects and therefore not with The Dragon Thrashed. Well, it might work with the initial, first hit, but not with the ticks. That's why I recommended things that hit often and quickly, like HoF, Wall of Flame and so on. Multi retaliation is also good with Combusting Wounds. A cipher with Pain Link can retaliate in an AoE for example. If you stack retaliation and use Pain Link, foes who hit you will melt.

Keep in mind that HoF's carnage attacks also can reach enemies that are out of your initial reach. So if you can reach 5 enemies with HoF directly but there are more around in carnage range around each initial target, you will produce a lot more carnage hits than 20. It's one of the abilities that you can pair with combusting wounds. A dual wielding HoF barb loves his Ring of Searing Flames.

Usually a melee cipher can build up more focus than a ranged one, so it's OK to give him more sturdyness to balance out the higher risk of getting knocked out. I like ciphers with shields, but that's just me. There's no particular reason for it other than the higher defense - which I like. Psychovampiric Shield and later Borrowed Instincts stack nicely with the shield's defense and make your cipher quite tanky. This way he doesn't need the thickest armor. With durgan steel on the shield he also hits faster than a two hander cipher or one with a single weapon. A dual wielding approach is nice because your higher speed (+50% dw, +20% two handed style) leads to more focus if enemies' DR is not too high. He has no Full Attacks though which would be nice with two weapons. And of course his defense is worse than with a shield. Your higher speed allows you to wear thick armor and still hit considerably fast. With Time Parasite it's easy to reach 0 recovery even with plate and Vulnerable Attack. A two handed cipher can get good focus even when fighting against highly armored foes. And it's possible to take a reach weapon and use the front line as protection. You can skill more offensively because of that. Durance's Staff is the only reach weapon with two damage types. Llawran's stick has speed. Both are good weapons for a reach cioher. With the additional damage of two weapon style you will do more damage and gain more focus. Weapons like great swords and estocs are also great, but you need more staying power for those. Good weapons in general are those who will give you more focus via direct damage. Enchantments like annihilation or Coordinating and things like Bittercuts corrode damage which can be buffed by 20% via Spirit of Decay help. Annihilation works nicely with ACC buffs like Tactical Meld or Borrowed Instincts, paired with disables like Mental Binding to produce crits and geht even more focus. For sturdyness, I like to take Veteran's Recovery with max MIG and INT plus Fulvano's Amulett or a Belt of Bountiful Healing and put survival to 8 or even 14 for the bonus healing. Most of the time it's the belt because I want to wear the Unconquerable talisman which gives more focus. I no one else needs them, I'd also put on Shod-in-Faith. I also like the Caoe of the Master Mystic on my cipher. So when I get a crit I will turn invisible and won't get attacked further while I can reposition. Paired with heavy armor (Sanguine Plate gives me +4 MIG and +33% speed- good for healing and dps), this usually leads to a very sturdy cipher. The cipher has no self heal but potions also work with the healing bonuses. As I said: with reach weapons you might be able to skill more like a ranged cipher and thus deal more damage than in the front. Things like Savage Attack and Apprentice Sneak push your damage further. If you have a priest and your cipher is your number one killer then use Triumph of the crusaders and he won't die from low endurance. Use potions of Infuse with Vital Essence when health is low.

I doubt that lvl 7 is appropriate for a new player. Darzir will be too hard and you'll have to do Galvino's Workshop, Lagufaeth and several other stuff before you can enter Durgan's Battery. There you will face Sirens and whatnot. That's way too much effort for the prize. An alternative before getting the Barricade can be Sura's Supper Plate. It's retaliation can be stacked with another one (for example Hiro's Mantle) and works with Deep Wounds. Before you can get that any shield will do. The one from the Drake in Endless Paths lvl 5 (Blabla Solace) is great together with Blaidh Golan hide armor because the defense buffs when you get prone or stunned stack with each other, giving you +100 to all defenses. This can prevent you rogue from getting knocked out by ogres and so on.

It no longer works with DoT effects. That was patched some time ago. Scion of Flame and all the other elemental boosters don't work with DoT damage. As far as I know Combusting Wounds is a DoT effect itself. It's hard to monitor because the combat log doesn't say anything about it. But you can witness it's awesomeness if you cast it on an enemy and put him into a Wall of Flame (preferably when debuffed). It also makes a huge difference if you cast it onto a group before delivering a Heart of Fury (=a lot of hits in one second).

Eldritch Aim + Chillfog usually will do the trick. Later you can combine Pull of Eora, Expose Vulnerabilities and multiple Chillfogs plus Combusting Wounds. This works best with multiple wizards. Generally you always want to have this pattern: Buff ACC - debuff/disable foes - deal damage. Just look at the spells which raise ACC, debuff defenses and/or disable completely and then those which deal damage and combine them accordingly. Combusting Wounds is a special one: for each hit the target will get a small burn DoT effect. It's very powerful if you can generate a lot of parallel hits via Chillfogs, Wall of Flames, Concussive Missiles and so on.

Persistence with 1 INT is quite fun. Take 3 INT at the start and then wear that Ultimate Hat of Alluring Perfection from WM I that does -2 INT , -2 RED, +2 MIG, +2 CON. The full wounding lash damage will get applied instantly. Same with Runner's Wounding Shot and an arquebus as opening shot. Also works with Drawn in Spring of course, but that comes so late compared to Persistence. I had good fun with Hours of St Rumbalt on my first ever rogue now that I think of it. Prone on crit, Annihilation, comes with great ACC. It a good weapon for a rogue. Here you need a bit DEX and also decent INT in order to chain-prone.

Yes - fighter will also work. He can even get 4 Knockdowns per encounter if he wears the Girdle of the Driving Wave. With high INT the Knockdowns last quite long. Esp. if he crits which might happen often because of Disciplined Barrage. A monk can also take Stunning Blows. It's per encounter and is a Full Attack that works best at the start of the encounter because it doesn't need wounds. It has a short duration though. Force of Anguish lasts very long, that's nice about it.

While thinking about great single target DPS: it might be that the cipher is also better than the rogue at higher levels. Think about it: - +40% base damage via soul whip + biting whip without any afflictions etc. - +20% Savage Attack - +50% attack speed via Time Parasite, lasts a long time - Soul Ignition is not super great, but good single target damage when burn DR is low. - Recall Agony. Few use it, but it's a powerful multiplicative raw damage "lash" against single targets. A bit like wounding. - Body Attunement lowers the enemies DR - Disintegration provides a lot of single target damage Plus some nice ACC and defense buffs and disables. What do you think?