Boeroer

Every weapon has it's own basic recovery duration (fast, average, slow). And spells have, too (instant, fast, average, slow spells). Dual wielding, speed enchantments and so on only affect the weapon recovery, while things like Frenzy, Alacrity, Swift Aim affect the recovery of ALL actions while things like Sure Handed Ila or Pen. Shot only affect the recovery of ranged attacks, Vulnerable Attack only melee attacks and so on. You can't reach 0 recovery for your spellcasting or potion drinking and stuff. And the spell and drinking animations can be very long, too - so DEX is a good way to speed those things up.

Exactly! But attack animation isN#t as short as you think. If you dump DEX to 3 with 0 recovery you will still be fast but you will feel a big difference compared to higher DEX and tehrefore shorter attack animation. And also: try to cast a spell, use a slo ability, read a scroll or drink a potion with 3 DEX.

What MaxQuest wants to tell you is that the DEX bonus modifies your recovery after all the other modifiers get calculated. So, if you have... let's say 100 frames of recovery left (after all the speed mods from dual wielding, two weapon style and durgan stuff as well as frenzy, alacrity, armor penatly, penalties and whatnot got calculated) - and you have 10 DEX, then your recovery is 100 frames of course. But if you have 20 DEX (=30% speedup) your recovery will only be around 75 frames (see his formla). But it can never reach 0. BUT if you already reched 0 frames recovery with all those speed mods, then DEX does nothing for your recovery any more: 0 / DEX speedup mod is still 0. So that's why DEX is really important for your recovery time if you have a lot of recovery left and not so important if you have already reduced it to a small amount or even zero. With a bow like Stormcaller you can't reach 0 recovery with abilities, items and so on - so piling up DEX is the only way left to make it faster. But DEX also affects attack animation and reloading. So it's very useful for somebody who wants to use guns or any slower weapon with which you can't reach zero recovery easily. It's a bit counterintuitive. I would have liked it better if it would be applied like all the other speed mods. Edit: My... you can't be fast enough here - and I thought I already have 0 recovery while typing... 3 PER though it seems.

Ha! Right! Seems to fit...

Yes to both questions.

Man - I nearly choked on my slice of pizza.

Depends how you play and if you have other sturdy guys I guess. I had a good time with a max RES sabre and shield cipher + Psychovampiric Shield and medium armor only. But as I said above, I also think that dual wielding sabres with plate armor and blunting belt is a good choice.

On the other hand, shields give you the most benefit in the early game, because the ratio of deflection bonus from level : deflection bonus from shield + style is more balanced than in the late game. And you will lack the spells that can save you once you get targeted. And if your're knocked out you can't do anything. SO I would do it like GawainBS said. But as I said that's also a matter of preferred playstyle- I hate nothing more than going down all the time. I am always wiling to sacrifice some offensive power to avoid that. But plate, Blunting Belt and dual sabres is also very good. If you have a priest or paladin in the party or use shod-in-faith boots this is save. So maybe you can skip retraining at all and just stick to dual wielding sabres and just reduce the armor step by step if you feel you're sturdy enough and want more speed - until you reach the point where you're so fast (as MaxQuest described) that you can wear a plate without getting slowed down by it (late game, once you have access to durgan steel). So both recommendations work I guess. Just pick what you like best - also style wise and so on. That's also important - I mean you want to have fun and not doing a "perfectly optimized" playthrough when your hero looks stupid to you.

Dual sabres is definetely an option. Especially if you choose thick armor because dual wielding itself negates the recovery penalty of heavy armor like plate and brigandine. Estocs will indeed be slow but is best against enemies with high DR. Most "common" ciphers tend to be pretty useless if they can't target enemies with low DR in order to gain focus. With such a cipher you always want to hit the target with the lowest defletion and DR in order to a) kill ist fast and more important b) to get as much focus per hit as you can Enemies with high DR will only get MIN damage from you if you don't have any DR bypass and/or high base damage and that means a very laughable focus gain. This is especially bad if you use small, fast weapons like daggers or Hunting Bows and then run out of soft targets. Against a dragon, animats or beetles those ciphers can't generate any focus - against ghouls and such they can be great. A sabre however can punch through pretty much anything, but it's much slower than fast weapons of course. You can take Vulnerable Attack and only switch it on if you feel the enemies' DR in certain fights is too high. You will be free in the choice of your targets you and can get good focus out of any enemy - but in 75% of most fights you won't need it. Novice's Suffering combines that high base damage with higher speed and therefore can also be a good option - but you can't enchant your fists which is a disadvantage on higher levels, but it's good in early and mid game. An Estoc can be great if you want to focus on the really sturdy enemies with the thickest of armors. You can then stack as much DR bypass as you want (+5 Vuln. Attack, +5 Estoc, +3 rending (there's an Estoc named "Drake's Bell" with that enchantment), +3 Ryona's Vembraces, +7 Body Attunement spell) for a crazy DR bypass of 20 (23 with that special estoc "Drake's Bell"). That means that against nearly all enemies you will just punch through their DR as if it wasn't there (Ryona's Vembraces also work with certain spells by the way - like Mind Blades and Mind Lance for example). You could skip Vuln. Attack and lose not much. Most of the time the -20% speed will be worse than having 15 DR bypass instead of 20. Estocs have a unique representative named "The Blade of the Endless Paths", which has speed. This is a great enchantment for a two hander. It the main reason (besides the 5 DR bypass) that estocs are popular. There is one big disadvantage that sabres and estocs share though: they only have one damage type. This can be superbad if you meet foes who are immune to slash or pierce. You will have to switch to a different weapon then - like from sabres to clubs. But there's a nice sabre that renders this fuzz needless: name's Bittercut. This sabre does corrode/slash damage and also profits from Spirit of Decay (giving you +20% damage on top of your soul whip's 40% and also working with Antipathetic Field which you should use as a frontliner all the time). You won't have to switch weapons again once you pick up this special sabre. With estocs it's a bit more complicated (but also doable without losing the benefits of your weapon style). They all do pierce damage only - so you would have to switch to a pollaxe if you meet immune enemies. If you make yourself sturdy enough (for example with plate armor, blunting belt, Shod-In-Faith boots and/or Veteran's Recovery) then an estoc can also be a good choice - if you want to focus on the really turtlelike enemies as I said. Against all others using dual sabres will result in better focus gain.

Dual sabres is the best option in terms of focus genration in my opinion. Sabres have nearly the same base damage as two handers (which is great because sould whip's damage bonus applies to that base damage and therefore has a much better effect than with whimpy weapons) while their recovery time is halved while dual wielding. There's no better "basic" combination of damage and focus generation. YOu don't necessarily need Vulnerable Attack. It will slow you down and you won't want that and you will have a spell that reduces DR anyways. I also had good experience with a monkish cipher build which uses Novice's Suffering instead of sabres by the way: The Dichotomous Soulbenders Ok, so dual wielding sabres works fine with focus genreation... BUT: that's only if you play him like a rogue and avoid being hit - which can mean a lot of running around and positioning in order to not get surrounded and so on. Ciphers are not extraordinarily sturdy, so a melee cipher skilled for max focus per attack might go down really quickly. At higher levels this might not be a problem any more because you will have spells with which you can open combat which will disable the foe you want to hit. This lowers the risk of being knocked out. But you will still have to watch out a lot. So, a setup with sabre and shield is my favorite: Still close to the damage of a two-hander but with the possibility to wear a shield which will increase your sturdyness immensely - especially if you combine it with defensive self buffs like Psychovampiric Shield (which doesn't matter much if your deflection is abysmal anyways - but really pays off if you put it ontop of an already good deflection - and it also debuffs the target). Your focus generation will be slower than with dual sabres of course - but still better than with most ranged weapons - while you can stand in the front row without any fuss and low micromanagement and also use some of the powerful spells that you can't use properly when you're in the back rows or when you have to flank, like Antipathetic Field and Mind Lance. I like this a lot - BUT: I prefer slower fights with sturdier characters over shorter fights with one or two tanks + glass cannons. First of all it's less micromanagement and secondly because you don't have to reload that much. But that's just my personal preference and the sabre and shield cipher fits into this. I also made a build that used sabre & retaliation shield because retaliation used to give you focus - but OBS nerfed that and now I wouldn't recommend it (until they buff it again ).

You can still do that and have 10 direballs per rest this way. You can't have too many fireballs. I recently made a wizard with 17 possible fireballs per rest and 1 per encounter - and it's just hilarious. edit: "direballs" ROFLMAO. Makes me think of Buttercut, Rodriguez and Wuthering Strike again...

Thumbs up for this!

And you can always turn it off if you need more speed - and on if you need more DR bypass. Ghoul: off, Beetle: on.

ROFL! And congratulations!

Obviously "My Name Is Bob" just don't know yet how to use a wizard properly and hasn't reach lvl 9 yet. For me (I have some hours+ experience) wizard's still the greatest class of the game - in terms of power, fun, versatility and build options. That doesn't mean that I don't like the other classes as well. But hey you can build a wizard who may cast 17(!) fast casting Fireballs per rest (plus 1 per encounter) without using any scroll and he will still have all his other spell levels left. You just shouldn't spare all your spells for the "next big" encounter. Just spit them out all the time - that's the secret. And on top of that he has awesome spells that let you steal spells from others which he can cast then infinite times while that stealing spell lasts. Isn't that totally awesome? Sure it is...

Gorgeous! This should be your signature from now on: *demonic laugh with a typo*

It has always worked. I'm so sad that you didn't notice my posts. I even tried to extend the invisibility with salvation of time, but no one was interested. Curiously, invisibility was extended but backstab didn't work after this extension... I tested distracted too and it worked. I also stacked with other defense debuff(not only flanked). What happened ? I did read it of course and I also found it interesting. I also tested a Backstab rogue build with all the invisibility uses I coud get after I read your posts. But I also noticed that Backstab didn't work well with it and in my case the invisibility also ended when I attacked somebody - not the visuals though - only that the enemy turned and attacked me. I did not develop this further because it was a real pain in the youknowwhat because of the horribly high amount of micromanagement. So my powergamery swiss cheese brain made me forget to post about that... Now I thought that maybe because they overhauled Backstab and Feign Death that it might actually work properly - nom0's post suggested that. Distracted triggering Sneak/Deathblows: Thank you. That restores a bit of my senile self confidence.

Hm, but when you stun your enemy (= many crits following) isn't Purgatory + Resolution still better?

THen Backstab should be ok in combination with Feign Death now.

It that the sound the mob makes when it's getting whipped?

Oh, nice one. I always forget about that short timed damage boost.

Ouch! And I'm already 40... that makes me... wait... what? Senile like a 85 year old? That explains everything!

Yeah, now you really have to think a bit before choosing your favorite weapon style. Concerning rogue & Riposte: You can pile up a lot of defense against disengagement on top of your normal deflection with Fast Runner (+5), Graceful Retreat (+12), Cape of Withdrawal (+15) and that lvl 2 chanter phrase "The Fox did run and leap" (+10). So this +42 bonus would stack with your normal (and buffed) deflection. You can then just run past foes and provoke disengagement attacks like crazy - most of them will graze or miss. With the new Riposte it should result in plenty of Full Attacks while also working as distraction for most enemies who will chase you and forget to attack the other party members. I tested this a while ago with the old riposte and it works. It was just not good enough with 20% of all misses. I will test that again soon. And I never tested if Riposte gets triggered while you are rone or stunned. If it does, then switching to the Solace Shield when you fall on your face and having Orlan's Bramble Ring might be great: +100 to all defenses while you are prone or stunned while doing Riposts.

Whaa? You're right! I just tested it and it doesn't. But I was so sure it did when they introduced Persistent Distraction. I remember running the exact same test and it did trigger Sneak Attack/Deathblows - which made the ability very useful. Without triggering Deathblows it's kind of worthless - only good for running away without getting hit - but Escape is way better than that. But maybe my memory fails me completely. Wouldn't be the first time. Three kids taking their toll and so on...

I used a Barricade rogue (Devil of Caroc) in a playthrough when it still procced Thrust of Tattered Veils twice (in this beta, that's fixed). It was very good - also in terms of dps. But I skipped Riposte because it was too bad. Maybe now it's worth it. Even when skilled for tanking a rogue's deflection isn't superhigh and grazes happen a lot. Now - with 30% riposte chance, that might lead to something. Edge of Reason while doing HoF could be seen as a nice instant-heal ability. Ouh! What about dual wielding duplicated Edge of Reason and doing HoF?