DubiousNixie

Yeah that was the idea; honestly I'm rethinking it and I'm not wholly certain it matters that much. My main concern was whether the 3 secs immunity to engagement for every dex affliction (i.e. Spider's Escape) really compared to Squid's Grasp's immunity to flanking for a tactician multi

Basically I've been pondering trying to do a run of the games with a class other than Cipher (or admittedly Paladin the only other class I've finished a full run of the games with but cipher is my eternal crutch class) since Avowed makes me want to redo a run of Pillars before getting fully into the new game and I noticed that Seeker's Fang had a wizard track. I know Seeker's Fang is famously busted on cipher but is the wizard upgrade (a brief immunity to flanking for every dex affliction you cause which I guess would work with Gaze of the Adragan since that's an AOE) good enough to replace Squid's Grasp as a rapier for a tactician multi? Have any of the buildomancers on the boards tried it over the years?

Alpy is immune to stun, however, but my melee setup for this on vet the last time I played 1 was Kana and Cipher Watcher on melee frontline handling the dragon and its adds (while trying to make sure the dragon focused Kana), with Pallegina providing melee cover against the adds that swarm the backline in this fight and heavy healing. Thankfully everything in that room is pretty weak to fire and Kana and Pallegina can do a lot of fire. I was mostly surprised that Kana can be somewhat useful in melee since I gave him the BotEP on a lark after I found out the soulbound arbalest is a buggy mess. I did end up switching Kana to Pliambo per Casitas duty for WM2 and Sun in Shadows.

Is there a convenient table for those? IIRC there isn't a huge difference from the two games (other than, like, 2 having a million skeletal undead on both the critical path and major sidequests) If not am I wrong to assume the general situation is roughly identical to 1? Piercing immunity being almost all skeletal undead (minus basic skeletons) and fire blights, slashing being stone blights, and crushing being ice and wind blights and one of the rarer oozes (well and the alpine dragon in 1)

I named them mostly after lore characters - a few island have something that feels already appropriate (Black Isle, Xaur Tuk Tuk), I used Fulvano, Ryona and Eccea a few times plus other characters from gear stories in 1 (like Vierina or Pefrel). I had a St. Ponamu once until the scallawags pack made him a possible canon crewmember. I named one Sanza to see if he has a reaction to that as your financier for the whole thing. Some make sense, some are totally arbitrary.

fwiw my initial point of comparison was dual wielding specifically because it's the case I find hardest to figure out - I guess once we're in the realm of rogue flanked attacks, superb or legendary grade weapons, other additives (like fighter weapon mastery or cipher lash) the dual wielding penalty becomes a bit less relevant But also I get the point on not relying on finite resources for mere dps on harder difficulties, which is fairly sensible

I feel like Recall Agony and Silent Scream are broadly okay as shreds on Soul Blade, Recall is multiplicative and thus nice, Silent Scream is a nice aoe. Situationally Disintegration for bosses if you can stomach the cast time. Although I admit that Scream, like Mind Wave, is a spell I mostly keep in my builds for fond memories of running a melee banshee cipher through about 2/3 of my replays of the first game. I would consider Pain Link a big deal on Soul Blade if it still worked like in the first game since retaliation tank was a nice subrole of cipher in 1, but as a single target and strictly non-self thing, I kinda hate it if I'm not running mods. Also I feel like SA's interrupt on crit is definitely made for running accurate weapons or single style

I'm having a conundrum with picking actives: are primary attack abilities like Sap and Knock Down worth it when dual wielding fast accurate weapons (i.e. daggers, rapiers, clubs) compared to full attacks? By the same token, are pure DPS full attacks worth the dual wielding penalty? Back at release the lack of a damage penalty on dual wielding full attacks made this a no-brainer but now I'm not sure how what the math really leans towards (except for Soul Annihilation, where it's clear that, no, the weapon in your mainhand doesn't really matter since the damage bonus depends entirely on focus) For example is the 25% damage on mule kick a better actual bonus on one of those weapons than the +20%/+2 pen of penetrating strike once the dual wielding full attack penalty is factored in? Sap on a rogue feels like it's possibly straight up better than strike the bell except for the dot on 1h melee?

The 4-8 slice is kinda weird since it's relatively easy to spend most of these levels not fighting anything (especially if you spend about a month or two after Maje island wandering aimlessly to grab exploration XP which adds up really fast at low levels), but fair, Phantom at 4 makes sense if you hit the digsite at that level. As for antipathetic field, I like it enough in TB but I think I'd probably sink dex for the same TB setup, and it's definitely powerful, but I find it miserable to use in RTWP - especially at lower levels when it's especially good - since it ends up exploding companions a lot more than I hoped (also Mind Wave is mostly to be there as a cheap aoe interrupt, which admittedly is messy to time because of the cast time 2 tacked on it on top of the other nerfs)

Oh, right, I forgot blights, even though it's the main reason I kept a note somewhere with the acceptale lash elements to circumvent immunities in 1. As for the stacking, I assume at some point math or assumptions were made that a cipher with +40 to accuracy from rapier or arquebus might be a bit much, idk, but it's still weird to have to juggle this (even though it's still less opaque than figuring out what stacks in 1) Also speaking of dubious picks - I think in retrospect I'd have been better off with Greater Focus over Two-Weapon Style since between gear, already dual wielding, dex and mob stance there's a lot of competing speed buffs on the sheet already (I didn't really do the math of how they stack up but I think one of them might be in diminishing returns territory), and I forgot Greater Focus also buffs your starting focus

I've been faffing about trying to get a grip of where game balance was now that everything's out (I only finished up to Core + BoW on vet upscaled at the time) and it seemed to me that Tactical Meld didn't get mentioned a lot, to the point that it feels slept on. I figured it might make for a nice Psyblade build's centerpiece spell when paired with a rogue on the first run where I figured out how Aloth's romance starts, hence the name. Race - to taste, but I prefer snow elves (I could make up some nonsense about loving the elemental DR it brings but really it's just elves) Stats - I start with Dex 15, Per 17, Int 12, Res 14. While these are the RP stats I had in 1, I do feel like Per is worth going heavy because it's harder in 2 to find permanent bonuses to it compared to 1, while Might just doesn't feel worthwhile when the basic psychic lash already gives 20% additive damage baseline. If I use a backstory where I made a sacrifice chances are it's Durance (with Int bumped to 13, Con down to 9 on the understanding that I'll get Durance's Resentment back after Hasongo). The cauldron upgrade 100% goes to Perception even if the potion for it requires Adra Ban. Class - as the title says, Soulblade Cipher/Tactician Fighter Skills - I ran this character as the group's primary lockpicker so I didn't have a lot of spare points to do much more than mechanics and athletics, although I think a few points into explosives might have been a nice idea. I also split between Insight and Streetwise more or less evenly for passives. Preferred gear - Weapons: Rapier or Club are imo kinda essential for a melee tactician (Gipon is a pain to farm for and also requires much lower rep with the principi than I'll ever have). Squid's Grasp has my preference since it's easy to beeline with the 50k pires blessing, has immunity to flanking right out of the gate, the mats to lift the curse are trivial to find, it's one of the two-ish items in this game with Second Chance enchants, and it doesn't require sinking a galleon with a crack crew. The ideal offhands for this setup are the bashing bucklers, hatchets, or daggers, although the two unique stilettos have good enchantments that are worth consideration, although in this case a source of non-piercing damage is especially essential. Grave Calling deserves a honorable mention as a plan B backup weapon because every pierce-immune is a vessel, but this is, on the whole, incredibly niche for niche situations - although on the plus side, it's incredibly easy to rob the Crookspur general store. Opening up with a pistol or blunderbuss before going to melee helps with the very focus-hungry initial setup, especially with things like the special attack on Kitchen Stove or Thundercrack, and all the uniques for both weapons (except Scordeo's Trophy) have a way to get around piercing immunity (it's still a mystery to me why it even exists and why it's specifically applied to things that shoot .60+ balls of lead but whatever). - Armor: Miscreant's Leathers, imo, is the best option, with Contender's Armor, DoC breastplate and Reckless Brigandine distant seconds (for a variety of reasons like respectively not being available until act 4, requiring specific history choices, and being rather ugly) - Accessories: My personal preference for hats is Fair Favor but Blackblade's Hood for the +1 Perception is nice and both essentially buff weapons that are good for this setup. Gwyn's Garter Belt or Cipher's Shackle is nice for the Dex resistance. I tend to use Harmony (paired with, say, Aloth or really anyone I expect will be in melee) and either Kuaru's Prize or Entonia for rings, with the Burglar's Gloves from the tailor in Periki for hands. Charm of Bones or Upright Captain's Belt are nice options to fill up the remaining slot. - Pets: I like using the cosmic bird but really any +Per pet will broadly do - Consumables: Unless I have a surfeit of ingredients for captain's banquet, I feel like a svef habit is a relatively good way to mitigate mental afflictions in general. Potions of Merciless Gaze and Deftness are also nice if I can't use one of the drugs with equivalent effects (due to being on svef, for example) My preferred leveling scheme is basically 1 - Eyestrike & Knockdown 2 - Mind Wave (or debatably Tenuous Grasp) 3 - Fast Runner (debatably Monastic Unarmed Training) 4 - Phantom Foes & Fighter Stances 5 - Draining Whip 6 - Psycho Shield (as was pointed out, if I'm going to use Foes on the build, better off asap, especially considering the lull in combat encounters that usually happens after finishing Maje Island) 7 - Secret Horrors & Penetrating Strike 8 - Hammering Thoughts 9 - Puppet Master 10 - Silent Scream & Charge 11 - Mule Kick 12 - Body Attunement 13 - Tactical Meld & Mob Stance 14 - Two Weapon Style (edit: In retrospect I think Greater Focus would be better off around here) 15 - Borrowed Instinct 16 - Disintegrate & Unbending 17 - Mind Plague 18 - Keen Mind 19 - Echoing Horror & Unbending Shield 20 - maybe the Complete Self? Alternately maybe Ancestor's Honor or Stasis Shell Fighter feels like a dip, all told, with only 2-3 picks from its tree outside of tier level ups. Mule Kick is nice to make sure whoever got missed by phantoms, eyestrike or a friendly rogue's distraction is still going to be flanked in the end. Also while Phantom is nice and all, my true setup to keep Brilliant flowing from level 13 on is to make sure that I have a friendly rogue in melee who can keep as many enemies locked down as possible with Tactical Meld. And for that, my preference is Aloth as a Spellblade, because getting Eder to 6 engagement slots is extremely easy and it's kind of hard to get him more surrounded than that. I just give Aloth Griffin's Blade, one of the leftover bucklers (usually Shimmerscale or the Outworn Buckler) and Llengrath's Martial Masteries and have him jump in the fray. Ydwin also works okay for the purpose of a melee rogue (but in very big fights might be better off paired with someone else for maximum engagement slots), but sadly Mirke's streetfighter subclass has anti-synergy with Tactician and just about anything that pumps her engagement slots (and the other rogue options are better off staying out of melee). I tend to use soul annihilation in that setup more to soften or when there's nothing better to do with the focus, since it tends to play poorly with mob stance (I think it only triggers cleaving if it registers the death as being due to the attack and not the spell, which is ugh), so soul blade is in this build more for the ease of getting concentration and as a safety blanket than for the spammable melee shred. I don't overly mind ascendant as an alternative but the concentration thing gets on my nerves in melee (the alternative belt does help to some extent I guess, as would picking Disciplined Strikes in the early levels). There's times when I'm a bit dubious about Brilliant Tactician's value, but admittedly I wouldn't build a dual wielding fighter with pen strike as an active were it not for it, I think. Mule Kicking Concelhaut to death while doing Bekarna's Folly at-level was the highlight of my first attempted run and it would probably not be possible without Brilliant. EDIT that's not just going over a few details where I blanked: I can sort of see why Psyblade doesn't exactly have a ton of building, it's a really straightforward thing and kinda hard to make a seriously heinously bad one, short of doing things like trying to stack buffs that don't (Borrowed Instinct overwriting every defense and accuracy modal was something I didn't expect on my first run, that's a lesson since learned).

Basically, for attacks like Strike the Bell, one thing that's not clear to me, if I've already fired my shot, say, as an opener to build focus and I'm currently engaged in melee, if I use strike the bell to interrupt someone on the other side's backlines will I A. Shoot as though the pistol was reloaded B. Shoot after a reload animation or C. Disengage, run up to the mage, and hit them with my melee weapon like an idiot because the game registers me as in melee My impression is B is the true one but I'm still a little bit worried I'm misreading what's happening on screen.

I fully agree, they're great. As a multiclass, it's okay if amazingly boring, pity that it's a use case where you're better off taking as few cipher abilities as possible. They also don't work as single class strikers. They have no mobility, their self defences are less powerful than mage spells of equivalent power level especially once you account for wizard buff casting times and durations most of the time (borrowed instinct is a high-level exception), they have no way to recover from messing up which even rogues get even if they don't get self healing. It's deeply lacklustre. At the very least non-charm CCs in the first game made it possible to get around that. "But it's a striker for advanced players" just confirms my impression, that just means you need to do a lot of working around core class problems to get the same effect as something better like, say, any kind of rogue besides maybe assassin.

I'd rather stick to fast accurate weapons in general and I also don't feel like farming gear of random non-hostile NPCs, I don't play murderhobos even in tabletops. Maybe one of the unique clubs? That said Modwyr is good in spite of being a sword which are lacklustre as a base weapon.

By the time you get Borrowed Instinct (which you can only open a fight with at level 18) a wizard can chain cast enough self buffs in your recovery time to stack more nspirations at the time when it actually matters 99% of the time, namely the opening of a fight. Llengrath's Martial Mysteries literally makes a completely unoptimized mage better at cipher's striker role than a cipher. Even taking into account that Citzal's Martial Mysteries is PL7 and Borrowed Instinct is PL5 most of the useful mage melee buffs are still lower level than both, and by the time a single-class wizard gets CMM, a cipher is still gong to be unable to open a fight with Borrowed Instinct for a couple levels. Seriously the striker designation (which I will remind is the only thing it's designed for besides CC according to the game, not support) is utterly misleading for anything but a multiclass annihilation battery and most of the striker toolkit there comes from focusing on **** that isn't actually cipher. Gripes aside: Borrowed Instinct and Psychovampiric shield don't seem to be considered proper afflictions on the target which seems backwards.