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I love respecing all the time personally just because I like to try different combinations of abilities out and can't imagine having to create new characters or restart the game countless times to do that. But to each his own idea of fun in this game. Getting retrained for a certain fee is not implausible.

It's important if you want to interrupt stuff which barbarians can be very good at. And it helps early game. Something like this is probably optimal: Might min 14 generally, but does not have to be more really, can be as low as 12 or flat if using estocs Con 12-16 range is best, 12 with good cc in the party, 16 for more laid back approach Dex: the more the better Perception: not less than 10 but really around 16 and above is awesome if you can get it that high with items and buffs Int: min 15 starting, 17+ recommended, most important Stat, along with dex Resolve: dump it but no lower than 7, anything lower than 7 and you are getting into really dangerous territory where you'll be constantly interrupted in melee.

Since ie mod doesn't work with 3.0 what I did is addexperience command to level up to 9 enterered white March stalwart with high level scaling enabled and immediately added negative experience to delevel back to level 5. The ogre fight in the village was quite manageable but the other areas are brutal (potd of course). Had to kite ulric but eventually killed him to get redeemer and now snuck and got stormcaller and boots of haste and resourcefulness belt but this is really a chore pulling mobs all the time with a very underleveled party. Not sure I can take on the workshop to get to the devil but even if I did as much as I would like to integrate her into my party not sure if it is optional. Currently running: -main dps and some cc cipher -zuhua monk half dps half tank in sanguine —maneha two handed style (had white spire but will try redeemer probably, in Eder second chance armour thanks Eder!) -costum skaen priest (love that damage pop from skaen priest on snaek attacks) but he is breastplate currently and just behind zuhua and maneha currently) -cc cipher -pallegina fod arquebus alpha strike + firebrand - her haste talent on fod is better than chanters reload chant imo as I can haste both back and front line with it) Would love a single target rogue specialist but I am but I have no clue who to eliminate from current party then. Wish we could have larger party size (don't mind more enemies in that case). But I will probably come back in a level or two. In my experience high scaling in white March is a challenge at levels 7-8 for a good party but gets too easy once party hits levels 10+. I gave that soul bound scepter you get from the stronghold quest to my priest atm but does the dominate effect work on multiple targets from wizards blast? Just curious. It might be better on a wizard then. It is a bit of a weird party right now the ciphers are easy and clearly built (backline cc/ dps) and maneha as well I guess but I am still not sure zuhua will make for a very solid tank - as a monk he has to take damage to be effective and that can get risky. I am still trying to find the right balance in offence / defense for him. Any thoughts and suggestions would be appreciated. Thanks!

There is a big ability upgrade variation to paladin if you want pallegina more offensively/ buffing. Hint: it involves just completely upgrading flames of devotion as there is a nice talent now which boosts near allies attack speed by 25% for a time after paladin uses flames of devotion. Chanter is the other big mid game change due to speed up talent to chanting but you don't have a chanter. I am assuming your fighter is primarily tank in your party? What makes sense is to give everyone at least 4 survival so you can take advantage of racial +10 accuracy bonuses after camping. And don't you need to respec aloth and durance anyways to spec spell mastery? You might want greater focus on gm but it is helpful but not necessary.

It's basically wizards have more spell variety and flexibility and can cast immediately as battle starts and keep casting while ciphers have less choice in spell selection but can cast lots of high level 5-6 level spells late game as don't have a per rest limit, of anything should survive that long late game anyways, but at a slight action delay. Both work well. For most difficult battles you probably want a cipher and a per rest / immediate caster in the party anyways. Ciphers are unique also in that they have strong dominate spells which the other casters don't. The other casters have however more powerful hard cc options. The highest level powers at lvl8 seem to be best on cipher atm, but again you probably won't be casting those immediately and if you do maybe once or twice in a battle.

Yeah Stat wise zahua and Cana have most potential. Eder is solid too but don't expect him to be the Uber tank in potd, he will need support to stay up in the harder fights. Problem is that durance is not really that great in terms of stats sure he can heal and buff but much less well (and fast) than a custom priest. Aloth is solid. Grieving mother is also sub optimal due to low strength and perception for a cipher on her. But cipher is so strong a class so she is still a very good cc and secondary dps unit in the party. Sagani is OK I guess but Ranger is sort of a lackluster class especially with her stats until high level than with stun and twin arrows she's great. Pallegina and palis got buffed so she makes for a strong back line support and alpha arquebus strike unit : flames of devotion fully upgraded, scion of flame and the ability that hastes everyone around every time paladin uses flames of devotion. Once you alpha strike some priority targets with fod and buff your back line switch to firebrand from Forgemaster gloves and go into melee.

Whispers of treason and dominate got buffed so hard in this patch it makes cipher a one man army by himself again. Well not exactly one man as during the course of a fight you consistently get more and more enemies fight each other for you.

It's basically a rhythm thing. I still think the goal is to be able to generate 60 focus or so in short bursts (guns are good for that). With that 60 focus you can go for a sucker punch like amplified wave or cast several lesser spells. Bows basically mean you can spam level 1/2 powers every few (2) seconds while guns means you wait 4-7 seconds and can drop big abilities like amp wave etc. That said if you love bows try stormcaller with heart of the storm and outlander frenzy talents that should generate a consistent stream of very good focus, not like the 150+ you get with quickswitch and 4 gun shots at the start of the fight but in an encounter which is a bit longer this might generate more focus in the long run given that drugs don't give you flat focus per hit anymore. The best of both worlds (late game) is to burst generate focus at the start of a fight for time parasite or reaping knives use that ability and quick switch to a bow for your final weapon after unloading 3 guns.

But seriously, though the gun cipher still works with these patch changes and especially if you micro quickswitch it seems guns are becoming less and less effective on a cipher given their talents needed as compared with bow or retaliation ciphers. To be an effective blunderbuss "gunner" you really want lots of accuracy talents both ruffian and maybe marksman if you do not go wood elf. Wood elves probably need arms bearer while aumunas need marksman. In addition with blunderbuss you need penetrating shot. Not to mention gunner well unless you micro quick switch all the time from that white March unique belt. Given patch adjustments I would say you are better off with greater focus at least until very late in the game as well. That's a lot of talents to get the ranged gun cipher "up and running" without even taking some very strong damage talents I will list below. On the flip side a bow setup can get you the whip talents faster and greater focus along with it as you don't need weapon focus with high perception your accuracy is high enough especially with paladin or priest support. and you don't need penetrating shot if you use the bows I will discuss below. After those you can go directly for these juicy options: Outlander frenzy, heart of the storm (hopefully it's fixed now with stormcaller but the boost to soul shock radius makes this totally worth it), apprentice sneak attack (if you still have a talent point at the end). Bows: steal everything from sagani. Her hunter bow in patch 3.0 deals Pierce / crush. Slap a damaging 2 enchant on it and you are good to go till level 8 or stormcaller with a weapon that deals about 21-30 piece / crush damage (with high might) At a fast attack rate! Yeah anyways those have been my experiences playing the patch now. Cleared skaen temple on potd with level 4 party . I now have money to shop for cool items in defiance Bay.

Two moon godlikes is overkill at this point. Just run low deflection Eder or a barb or a monk with sanguine and shod in faith. Best setup is still one sturdy tank (Pali or fighter or monk) , one mobile dps melee striker (barb, fighter, monk or dw rogue) , chanter midfield, 4 in the back row with guns / heavy artillery getting buffed by the chanter who is also debuffing the enemies in the front. Just make sure one of those 4 in the back can switch to melee style for some oh **** moments.

Nice your party barb or Ranger just became your bff eve more.

Amp thrust is a very good underrated spell around character level 3-7 on a dps cipher. Later you have better options but it casts fast, restores focus (so you can chain spam it almost) and most importantly focus fires against a boss target / ogre whatever who is beating up your tank. Since it's knockback and high single target damage it's great against those foes. With right speed high dex / cloth you can keep a single target perma cced while doing massive damage to it with this one ability.

Is that thing still bugged? Like perma invisibility once it activates?

Stuff like lvl 7 single target cc spell like stasis field would be good if they were instant casts, and bypassed all enemy saves and resistances so guaranteed the effect no matter the enemy and immediately.

Killed that stupid thing on potd at lvl 11 (Wm high level) by casting pain links on my tank and off tank barb / using potions of flame shield. They kept dying of course maybe 2-3 times each in the battle because the dragon has insane stats and 2 shots things but I kept resing them up again and reapplying pain block and link. Meanwhile Rogue kept pew pew up from distance and deep wounds always up on the dragon. Eventually it went down.

Well do you still have exceptional lead spitter? Because if it's superiorized and durganized ™ and you have unconquerable talisman on as well as draining whip maybe you can consistently break that level 6 spell 60 point threshold. That would be pretty awesome. I think in addition to the weapon lash kana's or another chanters fire enchantment lash would help too.

Really solid guide btw! I guess it does not matter which weapon you use since appropriate talents help guns while others help bows / you don't need certain pricey gun talents if use bows and get other damage and speed talents instead. The question for 3.0 and I am asking those who played the updated beta: can you consistently at higher levels once you have say amplified wave is available generate 50 to better yet upwards of 60 focus points with a heavy gunpowder weapon shot or 60 focus points per 2-3x bow shots because if you can (with the focus gain buff and certain focus gain items) you've reached the threshold where you can "spam" those high level spells again, well maybe not spam but that ~55-65 focus gain range per say blunderbuss shot is the one to aim for. And given that lead spitter can hit for around 150+ on higher levels I guess it is feasible with about a.40 damage to focus conversation rate, maybe even the base.35 but you won't hit all the time.

Detailed advice indeed. That is accurate for v3… Hihi I did a damage per hour in combat calculation on a "we just dps" party once and cipher was going at a nice 1200+ clip (from the start of the game I had a consistent party). Next in line was barbarian at just over 1000, rogue was at about 750 (no deathblows until high level unfortunately but after that it goes higher). Per rest casters were not run though as I was speeding and did not want to rest.

Bit of a thread necro but this fight is easier than white Forge final, white Forge siren bs in the mines, 2 higher dragons, magical weapons in cragholdt and maybe the vapor Springs in longewatch falls. I assume no door pull cheese here and potd Momentum: have A battle plan. Park your party in the lower right corner of the room. Send tank to talk with cancelhaut. Once fight starts have tank scroll of maelstrom mobs. Your other guys can summon figurines and swallow potions like deletrous motion. Next: throw a cc effect on the ground with wizard druid or priest (I had a wizard). Wall that hobbles everything is great from wizard. Have 3 of your guys engage and control mobs while 3 others deal with cancelhaut. Send a strong melee dpser right at cancelhaut after a potion or better yet pain link pain block Buff like a barb or a dw rogue you don't want him to do his mass aoes and bigby or hammer your mages back line. Buff that guy with your priest or cipher as appropriate as stated above. Have a ranged dpser with high accuracy also target cancelhaut like a rogue or Ranger. If you have a cipher cipher should have tactical melded with rogue and also target cancelhaut and use amplified wave on the mobs to support your tanks whenever focus is there. Heal / revive / use revive scrolls if somethings go wrong. Last time I did this on potd I was level 12, people did get buffed by food before but fight ended quickly. There are probably plenty of other strategies here and at level 14 don't your casters have uber spells?

If you go hunting bow on cipher there is no reason not to use lenas er (which you may get much later than stormcaller) in the second weapon slot. It's great debuffing against bosses (a full - 10 to defenses is huge) but dps wise the stormcaller is more damage against most mob encounters when it matters like wm and cragholdt. It's a question of damage vs utility. Vs bosses I prefer to debuff them to that my rogue can do more damage to them which he is very good at. Yeah and in last party setup I played I had a ranged rogue instead of Ranger as single target specialist. With Ranger in the party I'd probably just go good old guns on a ranged cipher.

Don't dual wield rimecutters make very good dps on a rogue? (I got two for some reason in my last playthrough). Sure they don't have any utility but both have speed enchantment and crit damage bonus as battleaxes.

Well early game best is custom tank either fighter or Pali, Eder as two hand dps fighter (great sword or estoc) and spear shield in second slot though later a barb may be actually more suitable than Eder for this role, durance is fine and you need him early to heal eder and rogue but if you go more ranged dps kana is boss with the reload buff - will help the ciphers. Another trick to win any fight on potd once your party hits level 5: at beginning of fight just have both ciphers echto echo rogue, rogue goes into shadowing beyond and camps behind the enemies and maybe engages them if the encounter is safe enough (should be if 2 echto echo rays are tearing the enemies apart), tank and off tank engage enemies and your back ranks the ciphers and chanter or priest blast them the to bits with guns. For shades echto echo the tank as shades most likely will teleport behind the tank to your squishys. It's really not that hard but it can get repetitive. Well rogue is actually a great class but your role is usually to kill dangerous squishy targets like enemy mages quickly. Late game a wizard is welcome in the party for the boss fights. 2x cipher 1x barb 1x rogue 1x chanter 1x Pali definitely clear the trash out quicker and without resting but for a big fight one cipher gets replaced, though you have to micro the wizard much more to make him effective.

Well it's basically end of the game but a rogue sniper with sabra Marie is just stupid op. You confuse anything (even bosses) on every third hit or so. Just sit back and snipe ftw when enemy mobs hack at each other. Rogues high accuracy and abilities make this very good against tough bosses. I just did it to cancelhaut and he wrecked his own minions.

Possibly. I find so far that I'm still picking essentially the same powers, I'm just delaying some of them. Before, I'd grab biting whip, draining whip, ruffian, penetrating shot, and after that it was sortof open ( Gunner? Marksman?)(In prior 3.0, Greater Focus?). Now that they've added two (four) extra levels, I think the progression is greater focus, biting whip, ruffian, penetrating shot, draining whip, (gunner) (marksman). It's a change in what order you get powers but not a big change. Said another way, by the time you get to the point where you might think about re-speccing away from greater focus, you're probably running out of good talents to pick anyway. Of course that might change with WM II if they add new awesome talents. That's gun cipher. I personally found though that I never lacked focus generation in my last potd playthrough to the point I ditched taking draining whip entirely as I was getting more focus than I could use without it and in the fights that focus gain is a challenge draining whip is not the issue, accuracy is. But recently for bow build I speced bows and went stormcaller as early as possible as the shock damage was generally more consistent than pierce. 1.biting whip 2. Marksman 3. Weapon focus 4. Baby sneak attack 5. Heart of the storm (yeah sure it does not work in 2.3 with the bow yet but hopefully they'll fix it and soul shock whatever spam every now and then is ok) 6. Draining whip - yeah why not don't really need it but at this point I am also running out of useful talents to take . I guess you can take penetrating shot on this build but you don't need it really as both bows have rending and you get those 3 Dr bypass bracers eventually. Lynes er as second bow for debuff. Maybe in 3.0 draining whip and greater focus will become essential but they're not currently and even than just stacking accuracy and damage may be more efficient in the long run. I would say pending these changes greater focus will become actually very useful to open fights with bigger spells as you and others have tested and pointed out. But with the increase in focus gain from damage draining whip may not be needed if your dps is high enough and you have the focus gain amulet. Cheers!