Darnalak

Heh, that's pretty much how I played my melee cipher. (he was using firebrand, but you wouldn't have to, I did fine just using tidefall when I didn't fire up the brands...which is a leech weapon so fits the bill).

Well, damn. Finished my play through using the Super Cipher (and he really did end up super). And you guys start talking about punching dorf priests... and I had Khelgar flashbacks... so yeah, guess I'm playing through again. Will give char generation some thought... and post another thread. (and close this one out with my final stats for the Cipher).

heh, Very similar to my Necromancer idea, but easier to go directly to wizard conceptually. (draining staff, and dangerous implement combo for that whole use life, take life feel). Just to have some separation from that, I'd use the Bleak Walker with endurance draining weapons (and be sure to take the Skeleton summoning talent, cuz ... required).

Level 10 now. things are still fairly easy. He's the only one in my party who uses 2h swords, so he always sports the best one I pick up (at this time that's Tidefall). Biggest limitation at this point is his health, which, you would think would make me actually click the firebrand button more often... but I'm old, and forgetful. Anyway, lets see how he's doing: Mindburner! (haven't come up with anything better yet, Dante's Dream might be too obscure :D ) MIG 21 CON 8 DEX 13 PER 19 INT 18 RES 12 (Stats listed as equipped, not counting food/rest bonuses) Armor: Blaid Golan (He's Barbaric, and I'm deathly afraid of getting wailed on while stunned/prone, so it's almost like someone called me when they designed this armor) Hat: Footpad's Hood (Cipher's gotta wear hoods) Neck: Lilith's Shawl Hands: Forgemaster's Gauntlets (I could totally swap these out for speedy gloves, since I'm dumb and forget to use firebrand unless the fight's really tuff) Waist: Cannoneer's Belt (fully upgraded) Feets: Glanfathan Stalking boots (there's no battle where all the mobs aren't flanked, thanks Unhappy Mommy) WeaponSet1: Tidefall (It's almost wasted in his hands... but why not?) WeaponSet2: LeadSplitter (mostly it just hangs there) Talents up to this point: Vet's Recovery, Biting Whip, Draining Whip(Could still delay this one and get Savage Attack), Apprentice's Sneak Attack, Scion of Flame Powers up to this point: 1. Eyestrike, Whispers of Treason, Antipathic Field 2. Mental Binding, Phantom Foes, Psych Shield 3. Puppet Master, Secret Horrors, Ectopsychic Echo 4. Body Attunement, Silent Scream, Going Between 5. Borrowed Instinct, Detonator, Ringleader Tactics now: I actually switch things up, I have Grieving Mother sporting the Deadfire Arbalest, so she starts by Phantoming everyone, then shoots someone in the face, meanwhile I either bind, or firebrand while waiting for Kana/Pallegina to get everyone's attention. Durance's master spell (accuracy) pretty much means everyone crits... a LOT. If it's a tough fight, I'll use the debuffs (Horrors, eyestrike) but generally I just dump focus using Silent Scream... cuz... it's friggin awesome. Other party members: Kana's Dragon thrashing now, Pallegina does her thing as before, Durance buff bots (and sometimes debuffs), Grieving Mother debuffs or buffs the MC(or uses silent scream too), Aloth is still bored, unless there's a serious fight. I've come to realize I haven't really optimized my powers, as hard as he hits with his 2h, either steel or fire, it'd really behoove me to learn how to use the beams effectively...but, quite frankly, I'm lazy. Darnalak... Hmph, probably not going to be my final play through though... I always felt Ciphers were closest to "necromancers" in POE, but now that I've deep dived into some items, and some particular spell combos... I have other ideas... so there may be a Darnalak play through after this one. (and I'll just have to keep a bar of soap handy, Darnalak isn't exactly a compassionate feller).

Hah, Boeroer is it your current task to bring the god of fire to all the classes? Not that I’m complaining, the biggest thing that you already noted, is you get the two important items, very quickly. Darnalak

Mindburner (Name's still a work in progress, changes every time his equipment gets better) update! Was going to wait until level 10 to update, but between 6 and 7, I got both the forgemaster's gloves and the cannoneer's belt. instantly doubled his highest hit. (Much to the Chagrin of the local thugs in Defiance Bay) This build is a lot more fun than for me than a dual wielding Cipher. Seems to flow a lot better, and even without lighting up a firebrand, focus generation is quite high. MIG 21 CON 9 DEX 13 PER 18 INT 18 RES 12 (Current Stats with Listed Equipment) Note: Cannoneer's belt covers: Str, Int and Dex, which leaves a lot of slots open for non stat increasing items. (defenses or clickies) Armor: Fine Hide. (sticking with the Hide Theme, so aiming for Blaid Golan, then Wayfarer's Hide) Hat: Regular ol' Hood. (Cipher's need hoods, it's a thing. For RP Purposes: Hood of the footpad, if you don't care, Helmet of Darksee/something that either grants Per, or gives you a whole bunch of status defenses) Neck: Torc of Falcon Eyes (you can do what you like here, the Cannon belt takes care of most of your stat increases, so you have a lot of wiggle room with the other items) Hands: Forgemaster's Gloves (Can swap these out when you aren't using the charges, but it's not really necessary) Waist: Cannoneer's Belt Feets: Fulvano's Boots (Lotsa options here: Glanfathans, Fenwalkers, Stability) Rings: Deflection and Resolve (Again, plenty of choices, protection, Wyrwood, searing wounds if you're feeling more fiery) Weaponset 1 Justice (when firebrand isn't blazing) (will update final weapon choices later) Weaponset 2 St Garam's Spark (It was gathering dust in the stash, would prefer something a bit more "rustic" but he'd just look silly with a warbow now). Talents at this point: Veteran's Recovery Biting Whip Draining Whip (Recommendation: delay this one and get apprentice sneak attack, or scion of flame) Powers at this point: 1: Eyestrike, Whispers of Treason, Antipathic Field (if it mattered, I probably wouldn't take this again, but I suck at using it) 2: Mental Binding, Phantom Foes, Psych Shield (all critical imho) 3: Puppet Master, Secret Horrors, Ectopsychic Echo (Puppet master: cuz some stuff is immune to charm, Ecto Echo again, if it mattered I'd replace it) 4: Body Attunement, Silent Scream (Silent Scream: The reason why the beams don't matter... cuz if you're not debuffing, you'll save for SS) Tactics: Either charm the most powerful guy on the field, or Phantom Foe the whole encounter. by the time you've done the above, Eder and Pallegina are up in folks' grill. If the encounter's worthy, fire up a firebrand, if not, steel's fine. Whack a few times. If it's going to be a long tough fight, Psych shield someone. Keep whackin. If not, debuff with binding or SH. If things are really long (so far this hasn't been the case) you might wanna Body Attune... if not... fun times: Silent Scream entire chunks of the encounter... tears will fall. Other party members' contributions: Eder and Kana get in front of stuff, Pallegina gets in front of stuff too, but also has the Outworn Buckler, Zealous Focus, and Flames of devotion (cuz hey, more fire). Durance Debuffs every fight (he also has the charm implement, so generally causes a crapload of chaos in the back row), Aloth stays bored most of the time unless it's a really big fight, then he steps up and melts everything.

Hehe, I think it would be obvious! So you have time to gloat like a C-Lister Villain, right before the big explosion! (and the inevitable plot device that ends your life before the explosion happens).

Update on our Fiery Illusionist: He's now Level 5, and master of his own keep... Not bad for a backwater frontiersman trying to hide his abilities. That, of course, all came to a screeching halt when he started seeing spirits, not exactly easy to keep quiet. Currently he's travelling with Eder (Loosely following the tank of pain), Durance (basically grabbing all the buffing talents), Kana (Loosely heading in the direction of the Dragon Thrasher), and Aloth (uh, he just kinna throws stuff on the ground for people to get stuck in). Haven't picked up any firebrand items yet, so he's still "growing", started with a fine poleaxe, until a fine greatsword showed up. (He hits REALLY hard with either of them). Much like he did growing up, he starts by charming the biggest thing heading his way, then blinds everything else. Makes beating them down rather trivial . He's broadened his horizons a bit with Mental Binding, and Phantom Foes, and learned he could not only degrade others' ability to fight but borrow them as well! (Psych shield). /rp off. Current stats abilities: Blind, charm, Anti-field( I really suck at using this, I've wiped kana out 3 times so far trying to use it >< ), Paralyze, Flank, Psych Shield, Dominate, Secret Horrors. Current Talents: Vet Recovery(this is extremely nice... but also makes your resting periods dependent on your health), Biting Whip He starts in the second row, gets off his charm/blind while Kana/Eder round up the critters, then steps in and slams them like a screendoor in a tornado. We shall proceed! Darnalak

For the record, I liked the rogue idea as well, since that's another class that I absolutely fail at in POE. Also extreme points for using a Dorf (favorite fantasy race).

Alrighty, So starting off: We have our Savannah Folk Colonist with a dirty little secret...(no one really likes Ciphers poking around in their heads), trooping down from the mountains of the Living Lands. His rather robust build allows him to hide the fact that most of his exploits are the result of mental acuity rather than the swing of his big ol' Sword. Stats: Mig: 18 Con:8 Dex 10 Per 16 Int 16 Res 10 (EDIT: Raised Con/Res up a bit tanked Dex to average.) Opening Power picks are pretty straight forward: Treason and Eyestrike, recommended: Antipathetic Field for first level up. If you prefer, you can sub in mindwave for either eyestrike or AF, but I'm going for longer term debuffing, and rank 2 stun power trumps Mindwave anyway. Only RP downside to this is, that the Living Lands starts with a bow >< ah well, life's full of little disappointments

Arg! Approval delay. Yes, what Boeroer said. You manually target her while she beats the hell outta her minions. (Detonate/disintegrate are helped along by the charm rebuff)

First choice of powers should be charm. That old fashioned rank 1 power pretty much makes Dragons go from rough to easy

Ok, so my brain went on overdrive while reading, and I was totally set on diving into the priest option... Then a light bulb went off... First, Cipher's my favorite class from an RP perspective (which, in the end, is #1 for me), and secondly... when you listed a barb right afterwards that thematically followed the Cipher... This is what my brain came up with: Ok Cipher, favorite class, bonus points for adding a focus on items I haven't used (haven't played since they put in the Deadfire items). Cipher can charm his way through the opening Acts ( even on POTD, which I generally don't play. I stick to Hard), and since I generally play my ciphers as CC'ers (whether they be melee or ranged), adding a pile of fireballs and a 2h sword fills in the blanks on the weapon types and direction (I think I said heavy weapon and shield, but basically I meant: no lil bitty weapons and no dual wield). And since you've assuaged my fears of the Cipher totally sucking in Deadfire, now I'm looking at... playing the Cipher through POE, and smashing him together with the Cauterizer in POE2 (Bautercutter eh, work in progress). And if Firebrand sucks in POE2, fine, then I'll smash together Soulblade/Beserker, dress him up like the golden dragon, dragon leap behind enemy lines and be my own Amplified Wave monkey. Race: So, talent wise: All the whips (obviously), 2h Style, Apprentice sneak attack, maybe something defensive Powers: (most are obvious: Treason, AF, Mind Wave, Shield, Binding, Phantom Foes (eh, I normally let a ranged cipher do this one, but I may not play with Unhappy mommy this time), Puppet Master, Silent Scream, Pain Block, Body Attunement, Borrowed Instinct, Tactical Meld, Amp Wave, Disintigrate, Time Parasite, Mindweb (I like reaping knives, but casting it and mindweb in the same battle means something probably went wrong). Gear Wise... some kind of 2h sword for those few times when Firebrand isn't around... Armor: Blaidh Golanor Wayfarer's hide? (I really hate being CC'd when semi squishy) Belt: Canoneer's obviously other equipment would have to be stat boosts. I'm guessing stat distribution would be a bit neutral. alrighty, we have a direction. Lets see where it goes. @Slack83er: My ranged Cipher was my first playthrough, and it's always "non optimized" I always play 1 game without touching the web for advice, so this is definitely NOT an optimal build, but it got me through POE on Hard: Weapon: started with hunting bow, ended with Warbow. (Notice the total lack of blunderbuss here?) Race: Wood Elf (ranged bonuses) Background: White Wends, Merchant Stats: High Might, Avg Dex/con Super High Per and Int, dumbstatted Res. Skills: Mostly Mechanics, enough athletics/surv/Lore to get "decent" results. (in the 4-5 range each) Talents: All the Whip talents, Marksman, Weapon focus: adventurer (Not a great choice), apprentice sneak attack, Greater Focus (Horrible choice), Powers: My power choices were abyssmal really, here's what I SHOULD have done: 1st: Treason, Mind Wave, (Your choice, AF isn't a great option for 3rd line archers) 2nd: Mental Bind, Phantom Foes, Psycho Shield 3rd: Puppet Master, Pain Link, (Your choice) 4th: Silent Scream, Pain Block, Wild Leech 5th: Borrowed Instinct, Tactical Meld (HUGE for Ranged Ciphers), (Your choice, probably detonate, easier to cast from range) 6th: Amp Wave, Disintigrate (Choice, I don't like mind plague) 7th: Time Parasite (so yeah, beyond awesome), (choice) 8th: Mindweb, Reaping knives (so much awesome for a ranger Cipher). Since you want to use Stormcaller, you could skip the whole Adventurer Focus, and choose whichever you want. (or something else entirely). As you can see, my build wasn't... well, really worthy of being called a build :D

Alrighty, (yeah yeah, my first post, I've been reading this forum for years though ). So I've finished the game 3 times... twice with Ciphers(1 melee, 1 ranged), once with a Golden Dragon Barbarian... Made it to Act 2 3 times, once with a dragon thrashed Chanter(brutally effective but I like a LITTLE more micro than that), once with a home made barb ( tall grass thing, didn't like it much), and a druid (really never liked shapechange). From a story perspective, I absolutely adore the Cipher... but the game play just seems a bit... off. (I finished the ranged play through before WM2, so I think he had stormcaller, but didn't bind it, and just shot a super pimped war bow), my homegrown melee used a speedy stiletto and a small shield, with some moderate armor, which gave him a "meh" speed to damage ratio. The Golden Dragon Barbarian was, quite frankly, the most fun I've had in the game, but it almost felt like cheating, since I basically Just nodded my head "Yes Mister Boeroer, I'm on it" (hard not to, really, cuz it works in a godlike fashion). So /background off. I'd like to work through something that fits these parameters (more or less): 1st, if there are any classes that absolutely fail in POE2 strike them from the list (I hear my beloved Ciphers have a stick shoved so far up them, popsicles are jealous). 2nd, I'd like to focus on a heavy 1h weapon and some kind of shield (Dragon's maw being barb/fighter-only, hurts me deep). 3rd, Tanky, but not a tank. (yeah, pretty much the definition of any melee-centric MC). 4th, I always use the story NPC's, so no custom groups. (I have a particular fondness for Eder, Kana, Aloth and the Grieving mother, but I give everyone (except the thief) enough playtime to get their personal journey done) 5th, I prefer to have plenty of dialog options but I've noticed the RES options, while most numerous, generally suck (Int/Per seem to be the best, which is good cuz int/per seem to be friggin critical for 90% of the characters). 6th, I can't bring myself to play a complete jerk (I had to take a shower after throwing the kid off my ship in KOTOR), which means I won't feed my party members to the skaen altar, I don't get the machine gift, and I don't wipe out the spiders for the shiny spear. 7th, I'd love to be convinced to play a priest in this fashion, because that's so not me, that it'd be almost like playing a new game (I'd still keep durance or Hiravias around cuz, heh they're gunna heal, I'm buffin and stuffin). 8th, Can't be a barb. Quite frankly, imho there's just no better Barb than the Golden Dragon, so trying to challenge that is a waste of all our time 9th, Going along with the Anti-Jerk Policy, probably means I can't be a Skaen priest, or a bleakwalker. 10th, Would take some mighty convincing for me to play a Monk, cuz I'm old fashioned and think they should be nikkid and punching. (I absolutely love the monk in POE btw, and I'll probably play one while we thrash this post out :D ). 11,12,13,14,15,etc I'm sure will come as soon as someone throws a curve ball at me that I didn't think about. Darnalak