Boeroer

Yeah. A Firebrand druid is kinda crap. I just thought the high damage per hit and Taste of the Hunt would be a good combo - but the druid lacks melee ACC and damage modifiers to be good at it. I mean besides spiritshift.

Yes - I tried it when I was toying around with a Firebrand druid. It's good if you deal a lot of damage per hit. Or if you are a barb with Dragon's Maw. The synergy of petrify + Taste of the Hunt is a really good point. Missed that, too.

What did today's release do? Edit: Ach! You meant my ciphers.

Really nice - and really a different kid of shapeshifter build. I love that synergy between Form of the Delemgan and Elemental Endurance. I totally overlooked that. Two questions: Did you consider to put on Sanguine Plate to proc "the real" Frenzy and then switch to cat form? Should spare you a talent (Outlander's Frenzy) and give you a bit better stat and speed boosts. With the fitting helm you will also have that anti-prone and anti-stun thing like with Blaidh Golan. Would slow you down in kith form of course... What do you think? What about Gyrd Háewanes Sténes? I can restore one Spiritshift use per encounter. You have to attack with it though. Really nice!

I still have to read it all - but I already have a suggestion. You HAVE to use spears when in kith form. Because... you know... Britney!

Low RES plus barb plus the intention to tank while dishing out fire retaliation damage will get you killed a lot until mid game on PotD. Even in plate armor with a Blunting Belt. You will eat a lot of crits. You can't rely on your Battle Forged as reliable damage source until high levels (when your health and endurance are much higher and also the damage from BF). However- you can make it work if you use a shield in your second weapon slot and take weapon & shield style and switch to that once your endurance got reduced to 50%. Then you will catch more grazes than hits/crits and will stand up longer - but your retaliation still happens. You can combine your BF retaliation with the ones from items: the shield Sura's Supper Plate adds retaliation which stacks with that from other items (there are two armors and a cloak that have it). Then there's Barbaric Retaliation (ability). All in all this adds up to 4 similar retaliation effects, doing good damage. Use Vulnerable Attack and Ryona's Vembraces to make it more awesome. If you want you can also take Scion of Flame later on to boost your BF and then also use items with Fireball uses. There's a sabre that has 3 uses per rest. And you also should use scrolls with fire spells then. Your high MIG and INT are great for that. This can be a lot of fun - just keep in mind that you will be really squishy at the beginning. Just keep on going!

He? There's are pipe "|" between the numbers, not "1". Like in Unix - but less nerdy. Tell me - do you have a nerdy forum template with nerdy medieval fonts running?

1.: Nope Not anymore 2.: Yes - they are very fast (faster than sabres) and have good base damage (higher than stilettos). This is really good for focus. Damage modifiers work better with them than with stilettos. Sabres do less dps because they are slower (and in early game you can't enchant too much). And those fists also get an ACC bonus after few levels. But even a late game they are good because they scale to superior and above if I'm right. At least my ciphers had 100+ACC with fists late game. With only 10 PER and ciphers' underwhelming starting ACC. You could bring any sabre to higher damage with a lot of ressources though - especially in the endgame. But why bother with sabres then if you can have friggin' Reapin' Knives?

Yeah - this is pretty new. It wasn't like that when I played my last melee rogue in a complete playthrough (around 2.0 or so).

Can someone correct my tags? "class buildcipher"... Something went horribly wrong there...

Thanks a lot for testing. I really appreciate it. It is as I suspected - and I don't think it's intended.

"You know... in a fight, if you really need help, you'd meditate briefly on your pain, then you summon two physical manifestations of suffering, one made of flame, the other of ice. This technoque is called 'The Dichotomous Soul' and it requires a lot of training to master that. However - when I was younger and met your mother, and we were doing... those things... you know... that young people do... it may be that I wanted to impress your mom and summoned this in a... err... very wrong way..." - Rokkua, aka "The Long Pain" aka "Dad" - "You are mophers? Half monk, half gophers?" - Last words of Yon "Malicious Tongue" Sweets, jester - (sorry for the bad photoshopping - was in a hurry) =================================== The Dichotomous Soulbenders =================================== Difficulty: PotD v. 3.02 -------------------------------------------------------------- Solo: seriously? -------------------------------------------------------------- Class: Cipher -------------------------------------------------------------- Race: Hearth Orlan -------------------------------------------------------------- Background: Ixamitl Plains - Scholar -------------------------------------------------------------- Stats: MIG: 17 CON: 10 DEX: 18 PER: 10 INT: 15 RES: 08 -------------------------------------------------------------- Skills: Stealth 2, Athl. 7|9, Lore 6|4, Mech. 1, Surv. 10 -------------------------------------------------------------- Talents (a=auto, r=recommended, !=important) Veteran's Recovery Novice's Suffering (!) Weapon Focus: Peasant ® Draining Whip ® Two Weapon Style ® Vulnerable Attack ® Fast Runner Outlander's Frenzy Abilities Minor Threat (a) Soul Whip (a) Second Whind (kind of a) 1st Level Cipher Spells Antipathetic Field Mind Wave Soul Shock Whisper of Treason ® 2nd Level Cipher Spells Mental Binding Psychovampiric Shield (!) Recall Agony 3rd Level Cipher Spells Ectopsychic Echo Pain Link ® Puppet Master 4th Level Cipher Spells Body Attunement ® Pain Block ® Going Between (!) Silent Scream 5th Level Cipher Spells Borrowed Instinct ® Detonate Tactical Meld ® 6th Level Cipher Spells Amplified Wave Disintegration Mind Plague 7th Level Cipher Spells Statis Shell Time Parasite ® 8th Level Cipher Spells Defensive Mindweb ® Reaping Knives (!) --------------------------------------------------------------- Items (*=additional echantments by me; !=important, r=recommended): Weapon set 1: fists (!) Weapon set 2: Stormcaller ® | Twin Sting ® or Persistence Boots: Boots of Speed | Sandals of the Forgotten Friar ® Head: Crossed Eye Patch | Munacra Arret Armor: Starlit Garb (*PER +2, *Durgan Reinforced, *Pierce-Proofed) | Rundl's Finery (*Exceptional, *Durgan Reinforced, *Pierce-Proofed ) Neck: Talisman of the Unconquerable ® | Talisman of the Unconquerable (r - you can get a second one from Okrun if you don't give him back the medaillion of his sister - WMI quest) Belt: Broad Belt of Power Rings: Ring of Protection, Ring of Deflection Hands: Gauntlets of Swift Action/Mourning Gloves Quick slots: Scrolls & Potions (especially Potion of Power, scrolls of Confuse and Paralyze) --------------------------------------------------------------- Hey there - another build of my new "twisted" series, I hope you enjoy: When I was toying around with Novice Suffering on the Immortal Martyr the other day I found out that the bonus damage from that talent counts towards damage modifiers now! Halleluja! That means that Savage Attack and stuff not only increases the whimpy base damage from unarmed attacks (like it did before), but also the bonus from Novice's Suffering (like it does with Trancendent Suffering). This is really good news. Now you can have real fast weapons in the early game that upgrade automatically and do a lot of damage. The "base" damage now is really good and works really well with all sorts of damage modifiers like Savage Attacks, high MIG, flanking bonus and so on. The above istn't true (anymore?). dmg bonuses don't increase the bonus dmg, only MIG does. So you want to focus on MIG and attack speed to get the most out of Nivice's Suffering. Also found out that Novice's Suffering's bonus doesn't get amplified by critical hits. On the upside_ grazes also don't do much less damage than hits. So it's kind of balanced. Anyhow - I asked myself: "Which class gets a neat damage bonus but doesn't crit a lot in melee?" - and the answer was obvious to me: the Cipher! He gets a nice +40% damage bonus from Soul Whip + Biting Whip, but his ACC is not too good - so it doesn't matter too much that the crit damage of fists is not that high. The damage of normal hits is, and that counts here. So I came up with those two buddies here. I always thought it's a pity that ciphers can't cast their best buffs on themselves. There's only one solution to that: two cipehrs, right? Their buffs also fit nicely into the monk theme: Going Between and Pain Block could also be monk's abilities. And they help you to perform a lot better in melee. Add in Psychovampiric Shield and they are like mindbending monks. Once those two guys are buffed up they are really devastating warriors - and focus generation with those fast flying fists is so high that I can't really spend it all (until I get to higher levels where the focus costs explode). And you obviously spare a lot of durgan steel. So, my everyday routine with them is: - Get the camping bonus for movement (in hard encounters go for the ACC bonus if it's against non-kith) - let the frontliners engage - shoot with a bow to gain enough focus for your first buff (usually Psychovampiric Shield, later Going Between), if you have focus left, do some sort of CC (in hard encounters I shoot until I have enough focus for two buffs - usually Psychovampiric Shield + Going Between. Later on I will always try to cast Time Parasite first and aim for Reaping Knives next if the foes are not too dangerous. If they are, I will wait for more defensive buffs) - switch to fists, pick a target, rush in, flank (!) and beat the crap out of the foe while gaining lots of focus. - do CC like hell and pick the next target - try to keep 10 focus as backup - if you get targeted by too many foes, you can always mind control one guy to distract the others Novice's Suffering leads to good ACC values for your melee attacks - so 10 PER is no problem. For hard encounters there is another nice trick: cast Tactical Meld on each other: you will gain +20 ACC if you attack the same target - which you should always do. This stacks with Minor Threat from the Hearth Orlan's racial ability. You can then cast Boworred Instinct on the same target. The debuff will not stack, but you will still get another +20 ACC each. So - +40 ACC is really nice against foes with high defenses (bounties for example). And while it doesn't do any good for out fists' crits, our spells and scrolls will hit like trucks afterwards (aka crit). And of course you can always buff your other party members, too! This all works really well. I'm really amazed by the synergy of fists and focus. To make things more interesting you can sprinkle Antipathetic Field, Ectopsychic Echo and other dps stuff into the mix. But hoestly it doesn't matter - take the powers you like best. I just found that Whisper of Treason and Puppet Master enormously help you to stay alive while you beat up mobs. Fast cast makes the difference here. Ranges ciphers can affort to cast slower spells. If you're in the middle of a crowd you want fast casts. One reason I chose DEX 18. I toyed around with the stats a lot and found that this distribition worked best. Atm Puppet Master is a lot faster than Whisper of Treason. I guess there's a bug because both should be equally fast. But it is still a great power because it's so cheap and lasts long enough. I also like the "dichotomous" looks of them and the fact that one has an eye patch and the other a monocle. I chose Stormcaller because the focus generation is really great with it even without ranged talents - because of the -6 DR. Twin Sting comes late and is only good if you fully unlock it, but then it's good for a cipher. Especially since you only want too shoot a bit until you have enough starting focus. And because it's a soulbound item it profits from Weapon Focus Peasant. Any Hunting Bow will also do I suppose, but keep in mind that those can be bad against foes with high DR - and you want to go into melee as quickly as possible. You could also use guns for the initial phase - but I did that all the time with ciphers and I felt that bow & crossbow fit the monkish theme better than guns. Once you get Defensive Mindweb and Reaping Knives it's game over for most foes. If you have a defensive Paladin or Fighter in the party, you can just cast Reaping Knives as soon as possible, then go into the fight and very quickly generate focus for you AND your brother and let Defensive Mindweb follow. Then you become untouchable while dealing aweseom damage. Game over. The great thing about Reaping Knives on a cipher is that you generate focus for yourself (like you would do with any other weapon) and at the same time you also generate focus for the caster. So with this setup you double focus generation while doing insane raw damage. This makes up for the loss of the synergy between Novice's Suffering and Reaping knives which OBS nerfed. Keep in mind to switch off Vulnerable Attack once you have Reaping Knives running! You don't need the DR bypass then but may want to gain additional speed. I hope you like it. Thanks and bye bye!* *© Jörg Sprave

Ciphers do Bloodbending by the way. And not only at full moon.

That is for one attack out of two (FoD is a Full Attack). So I think it's quite good. You don't need to switch anything and just stick to your sabres.

ROFL - what the heck? Thanks for testing. However - that doesn't quite explain why a Bleak Walker with Scion of Flame and Spirit of Decay hits for over 130 DMG with FoD. Something else is going on there. If it would just add 20% the numbers would be way lower I guess. Could you verify (only if it suits you of course) that Scion of Flame does the same with Durance's Staff? I had the impression that it doesn't. Maybe related to the order (corrode/slash and crush/burn). Or maybe my impression was not right.

Yeah - you maybe don't want to use the Dull Runner, the Engineer and Fulmineo in one team. Too much single target focus and not enough CC. Maybe you should try Batsh!t. I always had the impression he's the most useful of them all. Also, a guy like the Hurtstacker can be even better nowadays because the on-crit effects of implements now work with blast and you have Pull of Eora, which is like made for a blaster wizard. This is such a nice combination: pull the enemies together and then blast-cc them.

Even if it works with retaliation: Stunning Shots only works on the target that your pet also attacks.

Who knows. But he kicked & fried some a$$ on the way.

I tested that two days ago to be honest.

Thanks a lot - but I've been wrong more than once. Kaylon usually knows his stuff. And his statement was like 90% correct. ONly the "ie slash" part was wrong. I only realized that because I coincidentally tested this a few hours ago - I was a bit disappointed by Durance's Staff's performance and wanted to know if the other "elemental" weapons also sucked like that.

How about an Avatar rogue? You can have Bittercut and The Flames of Fair Rihangelingdingdong from the Endless Paths (if you siphon knowledge from Maerwald's soul). It will give you 3 Fireballs per rest. Badgradr's Barricade on a rogue is supernice. And if you do WM before Act III it also not too late-game-ish.

That may be better. Talents are always so scarce.

Right.

DoT effects now (3.02) don't work with CW anymore. I mean they don't proc CW dmg effect. I notice that it works with retaliation effect only, besides normal attacks of course. However, ranger's skill like Binding Roots, which only have debuff effect, still proc CW. These rules sometimes are really weird. To remember everything it needs to make notes ;p. That's really sad. Now CW is a bit underwhelming. Still works with Wall of Flames and Chill Fog, Malignant Cloud and all those other "pulsing" things.

It's a bit stupid though if you get crit by a shot or a fear aura and your Overwhelming Wave ejects prematurely.