Boeroer

"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.

Sounds nice. Did you try Acolyte's Radiance? It also scales and gets decent at higher levels. It's 1/encounter and has a huge range. For the times you can't kill immediately, your LoH, FoD and Healing Chain are used up. And it also does ok damage to vessels - not comparable to a priest's Holy Radiance, but ok.

Don't judge too quickly. It's not like that: The default damage order of Bittercut is corrode/slash. So it will use corrode if corrode DR and slash DR are equal. That's great. However it is correct that the game doesn't take into account which type would cause more damage in the end. So if the enemy has a corrode DR of 11 and a slash DR of 10 - it will use slash. Despite the fact that you would do more damage with corrode + Spirit of Decay. But still - not bad with Bittercut. All damage you will deal with Bittercut (including +% damage mods) will be multiplied by 1.2 then, including the corrosive lash. With Durance's Staff it's the other way round: it has crush/burn - meaning that it will apply crush damage if crush/burn DR are equal - which is bad if you plan to use Scion of Flame. I just used Firebrand in those cases and the staff when enemies' burn DR was lower than crush DR. Also works ok. But it's not as good as Bittercut's "damage type order" of course.

It works. However - the spell chance is quite low and in some fights it doesn't get triggered at all. And the positioning is also tricky. Doesn't really make a big difference. The Swaddling Sheet is nice - it combines AoE crush damage with stun. Same thing with the White Crest Armor. One could built a nice sturdy rogue/fighter/druid with those plus Bittercut (Vile Thorns = pierce) or Grey Sleeper. And some scrolls.

Yeah I'm just playtesting it. Will take at least another day I guess until I'm ready to post him. I would like to see your build. It will be more effective I guess, but I think the essence of the builds will be very similar. This time I wanted to do some "twisted" builds just to make the playthroughs more interesting again. The "standard" class builds start to get boring after a few hours of gameplay because I've seen and tried them all (at least it feels like that). So I went the whole way and made my rogue more wizard than rogue. He's a robe-wearing, rod-using glass cannon with a pointy hat now (of course a gun or bow would be more effective, but would break the theme a bit), totally specialized in missile spells. Missile Barrage with Deathblows, Ryona's Vembraces and Penetrating Shot is just wow - instagib for most foes. Concussive Missiles are also really great with Deathblows and Deep Wounds. And in the end I also used the spell stealing morning star with this guy (plus Escape when stealing happenend). That is game over for every enemy. Casting Calling the World's Maw and other stuff for free for about 40 secs is just devastating with Deathblows and the rogue's ACC. And he's really good with the petrifying traps plus Coil of Resourcefulness, too. I lure them onto the trap, then apply another affliction and then Concussive Missiles - the end. Of course I also could use all the other Spellbind Items that have fireballs - but I like to stick to the missiles and leave those for another build (yet to come). Scolls + Rogue is really great. And with Prestidigitator's Missiles and Cloak of Minor Missiles you can also have some missile action for lame encounters without wasting srolls. I found three cloaks in my last playthrough. That's 9 missiles per rest. Pitiy that all those things don't work with Sneak Attack, but only Deathblows. So you have to wait till level 11 until the real magic starts. But implemenmts on rogues are not as bad as I thought. Two damage types, Sneak Attack and Dangerous Implement do good enough damage. I wanted to post my new "Dichotomous Soulbenders" first - but maybe I'll post the rogue first since some people seem to be more interested in that.

It's superannoying. If you want to backstab with a gun (what would be the best opener) and use a special attack (includes Finishing Blow) from stealth or invisibility, backstab isn't triggered at all. You have to use a normal shot. What's that stupidness?

I chose those two sabres because of the looks - and because of Annihilation in order to stack a lot of crit damage modifiers. Both Vengeful Defeat and Heart of Fury have a high hit-to-crit conversion and also add 0.5 to the crit damage multiplier. Meaning that your crits will not do +50% but +100% damage. Bloody Slaughter adds even more conversion and another +50% (+150%). With the Doemenels, Rabbit Fur Gloves and Dungeon Delver you get another +50% (+200% damage in the best case). Because of the high survival bonus you can get +18 ACC against everything except kith. Also, the high base damage of the sabres is great for carnage. Bittercut is reserved for another build I'm working on atm.

I also remember that clergyman got one or two dialogue checks, laborer also. I guess there are dialogue options for every background. I just haven't used them all in a full playthrough (would need a ton of playthroughs for that). Other than that, they are only good for your skills' starting values. Which can be of some importance if you really want to reach a certain value. For example I build a barb who really wantetd to get 16 survival for the +18 resting ACC bonus. Impossible without the proper background (it was colonist I think).

Doesn't help for this build, because it doesn't generate focus anymore. Let's hope they revert this.

The wiki is not too bad when it comes to items. Nearly all of them are listed. Not with separate pages, but the lists are nearly complete. Somebody did a lot of work there. Gamebanshee lacks the items from WM2.

Please try and report.

You really don't need RES 20. Fighters have the highest base deflection in the game. 15 is enough. If you raise MIG like DreamWayfarer said, your Constant Recovery can become very powerful and you can not only tank, but also spank by yourself. The Overbearing Guard can still be cool. I didn't try it but somebody said reach wepons are good for that because you will be able to engage enemies that are normally out of reach. If those want to leave you they will go prone. There's a quarterstaff named "Wendwalker" in the game that has "Guarding" (=+1 engagement limit). It's a reach weapon and together with Defender and Hold the Line you could have 5 engagement slots in an area of 1.8 meters (reach weapon). In theory that is. So theoretically even enemies that run past you but and are covered behind other enemies (but in reach) would eat disengagement attacks from you and fall on their faces. Sounds fun - don't know it that works. You could compensate for the missing shield with Cautious Attack and/or Superior Deflection. Together with Knockdown, Bonus Knockdown, Girlde of the Driving Wave and Clear Out there will be tons of Knockdowns.