Boeroer

You've got a little more accuracy and a little less deflection. Not a problem for melee ciphers I would presume. With the new "multiclass" talent from the rogue class it's maybe even better.

There are guys here that did triple crown solo with a melee cipher. So I would think it's very viable. One trick is to use heavy armour and retaliation, since retaliation from battle-forged, shield and armour/neck stack. Together with the meal that gives +2 focus per hit you will always have plenty of focus.

Maybe Lead Spitter with Vul. Shot, a lash, the corresponding +elemental damage talent and all I mentioned above would be truly devastating for the first "Backstab" shot - even without deathblows. Combine it with Envenomed Strike. Ah... the possibilities are endless.

Forgot the special talents that add %crit damage like the one from doemenels and from the trespassers in Twin Elms. On top of that you could add rabbit fur gloves or that helm taht does +10% crit damage. Should be another +30%.

It's cool if you have high stealth and some kind of +movement enchant or ability plus a high damage ranged weapon. You can quickly reach the 2m radius while still undetected, fire a high damage shot and run away or switch to melee. If you use Shadowing Beyond or individual stealth, you might be able to trigger Sneak Attack, Deathblows and Backstab: Apply two afflictions with rotfinger gloves or other CC from companions, then cast Shadowing Beyond and attack/attack with indiv. stealth still on. That should trigger all of them I think and would be a damage modifier of 250% without any other ability/talent. Eventually you can add crit (+50% or even +100% with annihilation items), reckless assault and savage assault. That would result in 340% or 390%. Superb weapon: 380/430. Then perhaps some lashes on top or Finishing Blow... Finishing Blow should do enormous damage I can't even think of.

Does not count at the moment. I think it's a bug.

Yeah? What does it do? Because I just decided to use Hours of St. Rumbalt (Annihilation, Overbearing) with my rogue instead of Estocs (White Spire or Blade of the Endless Paths).

Every character can have one summon at a time. Skeletons or whisps or wurms or ogres count as one summon. If you summoned skeletons with a char and then thus char tries to summon a phantom, the skeletons will just go "poof".

I used four ciphers during my last PotD run in 1.06. Weapon choice: Blunderbuss/Pistol, Crossbow, Arbalest, Warbow. Not much of a difference in focus generarion. And they were all awesome. Ciphers are still number one - for me at least. Mental Binding is so cheap and so powerful. Ectopsychic Echo is so damaging and Amplified Wave is just uber. Easiest Potd run ever (including perma-paralyzed adra dragon thanks to Tactical Meld, Borrowed Instinct and Mental Binding). Thaos was finished in round about 15 sec. Ciphers are still awesome.

I can confirm: that definitely still works.

You can indeed use all offensive modals at the same time.

Two chanters will also work: one with the speed chant then frost, the other chanter the other way round. So you will have constant +1 move speed (and +10 reflex) and you will constantly drop traps. If you are to fast, the kiting becomes tricky because the enemies will cancel the encounter to soon and will return without stepping on your traps.

For a kiting group you have to have a chanter with the tier 2 chant "Frost and rhime followed the footsteps of karth". It used to be meh but I used it the other day and was amazed. The drop traps have a high accuracy and do quite some damage and the best part is the hobble affliction that lowers reflex a lot. It works best if the whole group is fast and does kiting (there's also a chant for that) because then the trail of frost traps is really broad and more traps will be dropped. I used that tactic to line up foes, hobble them and then cast some spell against reflex on them (Ectopsychic Echo for ex.). Works great!

Things like the space piglet ot the black hound or zombie cat or mini animat or whatever.

The PET - not the animal companion. That works of course. Especially with the fast wolf with bonus disengagement defense.

You should do some more testing (only if you want of course) because sometimes I have the impression that second chance fails to do it's job. I have a priest with a second chance armour and from time to time I wonder why he doesn't get up after the first knockout. But maybe I miss something like dot damage or the like...?

Bonuses from chants are handled like bonuses from gear at the moment. That has up- and downsides. So you can stack bonuses from chants and auras or prayers and so on (which is nice), but you can't stack bonuses from chants with the same bonuses that cone from gear - like you experienced.

It does stack with sneak attack at least and therefore should also stack with deathblows. But deathblows and backstab won't trigger together I think, because the moment your first attack (Blinding Strike or whatever) hits, you get sbeak bonus and apply afflictions, but your breaking stealth and therefore can't trigger backstab anymore. I see no possibility to apply two afflictions to a target without breaking stealth. Solo that is. With a party and individual stealth in 2.0 it's possible.

Would be so awesome if Ectopsychic Echo worked with your pet... AND if you could control your pet of course.

Fast Runner and also Zealous Charge work. They both work only in combat, not outside of it. The latter is a little bit stupid though, because sometimes it takes more than a second before the aura really starts working. That's the reason why I kicked my paladin offtank and hired a priest with Aggrandizing Radiance. I needed to run behind enemy lines as fast as possible because of 3*Ectopsychic Echo. Priest worked, paladin failed. Monk with long stride would have been my next try.

Man... I played a lot of ciphers and never took that power because of the tooltip. 25 raw damage pfff. If that's per second... rolling a new cipher.

I totally forgot: which difficulty? On normal or hard it's totally ok to do that. I was talking from a PotD perspective. Sorry...

I think he meant that the bonus from perception is missing and that's 8 or 9 defl. if you maxed perception in 1.06.

You get a talent point every two levels. Maximum level is 12. Now we can do the math... Talent points are rare. With a two hander, a fighter might need thicker armour, because he will get hit more often. But that's only if you want to tank with him. If the fighter is not your main tank then he will be fine with light or medium armour. But I have to admit that I don't use fighters a lot so I'm not an expert.

Yeah... then don't buy these talents. It's a lot of fiddling to make them work effectively and even then it's not superpowerful. You can achieve the same thing with spells that lower deflection and don't have to spend two talents.