Stasis_Sword

Have you tried running one? I'm curious how survivable it feels. It seems like the higher DPS, lower defense counterpart of the Wizard/Fighter mentioned above. Or can any one else speak to how Monk compares to Fighter for multi-classing?

I'm under no delusion of being the ultimate nuker or a high tier DPS build. On the other hand I don't want to just be a self buffing damage sponge. Ideally I'd like to maybe cast a self buff or two use a CC spell to incapacitate some melee units and then charge across the battlefield to take down a caster. I think this build could do all that. Looking through the wizard passives most of them don't seem that useful other than maybe combat focus?

I'm curious what your preferred cipher hybrid is at this point and what you're using as your main abilities.

marc5477 Thank you for the extremely detailed post. I feel that was more detailed many of the builds on the forum. It looks like a solid build and I think between charge and the boots Owlbear mentioned I'll have the mobility I wanted. I had a couple questions: 1). Why two handed over dual wielding? I know about the summoned weapons but I'm pretty sure a pair of mid/late game swords/sabres would outshine them. Is there some other mechanical advantage? 2). Especially without knockdown do you have a reliable way or interrupting casters? 3). If you're rarely using sword and board is unbroken still worth the tradeoffs? I was thinking either devoted (if I was sure what I would use) or vanilla fighter. 4). Any advice on must have passives for either class? As you mentioned abilities will be tight...

I haven't seen a lot of posts about rogue or cipher abilities in general so apologies if these are kind of basic questions. 1). What weapon style do you recommend? I assume dual wield or one handed? Can both weapons backstab? Is sword and shield still one handed? 2). Melee weapons any standouts here? I'm assuming saber or rapier would be descent starting points, but is anything else noticeably better? 3). Noteworthy rogue passives? I assume backstab, dirty fighting, deathblows and riposte are givens but anything else standout? 4). Noteworthy rogue actives? Crippling Strike is a cheap interrupt, Smoke Veil is handy but are the status attacks worth it if you have companions / cipher powers for debuffs? 5). Noteworthy cipher passives? Biting / Draining Whip are obviously staples and the abilties that increase starting focus might be nice. Anything else? 6). Noteworthy cipher actives? I feel the most lost here. With all the other actives / passives it's probably 1 maybe 2 per level. Whispers of treason is always useful. Which debuffs / damage abilities are most worth it?

Devoted / Soulblade probably makes the most sense for Ciri. With that said I think I'm going with a Corvo style Trickster / Soul Blade for my first playthrough.

KaiG - I really like the Ciri idea Voltron - I was just testing Monk/Shifter and it was great. Any recommendations on a specific Chanter/melee combination to try?

1. Soul blade for melee or Ascendant for power spam 2. Beckoner will help you summon faster. Not sure if it's fast enough for you...

Are there any team wide checks in this game? Like anyone who doesn't have X survival or athleticism gets injured? Otherwise focus areas for each companion seems to be the way to go.

OK, so, you're saying I should stay single class? Why multiclass at all? If I have an option to go multiclass, I will multiclass, you know. Single class casters benefit from earlier access to better spells and being the only ones who get level 8/9 spells. If you want to be the "best" caster that's the way to go. If you want to have some fun and experiment with combining different classes I would recommend one caster class and something you think synergizes well with it. You seem interested in Paladins so maybe Paladin + caster class. With that said if Wizard / Druid nuker makes your day and you're not soloing POTD it should be doable.

Thanks for the replies. I'm going to be doing some build tests tonight but the three main ones I'm looking at are: Fighter / Cipher Monk / Cipher Monk / Rogue (I like Fighter / Rogue too but Eder can pull that off...) I assume for melee hybrids: Soul Blade, Shattered Pillar would be the most common sub classes. Street fighter for rogue? Devoted for fighter?

I realize the term interesting is subjective, but I'm looking for a melee build with lots of options. I find auto attacking (or always using the same skill) really boring. I'm looking for something that is: Mobile (able to get to enemy casters / range units) Range of abilities/powers (from knocking enemies prone to debuffs or fireballs) Not a glass cannon (can take a few hits before going down) Although I'm open to other suggestions I'm probably looking to multi-class (more options). Some of the class I'm particularly interested in include: rogue, monk, cipher, chanter, wizard, shifting/shape change. Any recommendations (ideally with some explanation) would be appreciated. Related question can rogues still use scrolls and are explosives useful (in most games they quickly become obsolete)?

A lot of it depends on how you define frontline. If you have two other tankier characters (fighter, paladin, monk, armored chanter) you can usually get away with dual wielding in light armor and flanking targets. If you actually want the rogue to be one of the tankier characters holding the line then go with Boeroer's suggestions. Personally if I'm looking for a character who can soak up damage and pick locks I think a chanter works better. When I have rogues in my party (which I often do) it's because I want them to be quick attacking DPS machines and I usually go with a flanking build. Regardless of build I highly recommend: reckless assault (+accuracy, +20% damage), dirty fighting (+crit), deathblows (+50% damage when target has 2 afflictions). For the rogue to reach it's damage potential you need a way to put afflictions on enemies so that you get the +100% damage bonus from sneak attack and death blows.

Another option is to create a branching save right before an encounter you find interesting (I had one before the double druids on EP Level 3). Name it "testing" or something and go to town with the console. You can create characters, add levels, create equipment and then just reload to try the encounter again. It really helped me get a feel for how the classes work at various levels.

Riposte and Adept Evasion look like they could be fun on a tanky rogue. It will be interesting to try the new shadow step. Since it's still in beta if anyone from Obsidian is reading please consider making the distraction affliction trigger sneak attacks/death blows. It would make persistent distraction and smoke cloud much more useful.

What's your current level, build and equipment? As for weapons arguably the biggest question is are you looking for pure damage or CC too? If you're looking for CC starcaller, Mabec's and Godansthunyr will all give you stun on crit (almost nothing is immune). Weapons like purgatory are nice for high base damage and annihilation further increasing your crit damage. I think the reason TUB isn't mentioned much is that it doesn't have any exceptional synergies with a rogue. Don't get me wrong it's still a very nice weapon but other classes could use it just as well. Reckless assault give you a great bonus to accuracy and +20% melee damage, I always take it. Remember that savage attack no longer stacks with it.

I think your suggested party could work. I would probably play Maneha more like a rogue than an off tank. Let Eder/Pallegina get swarmed and then bring her in to AOE the mob. Having at least one reach weapon can help with some of the hallway encounters. I'm currently running Kana as a Drake's Ambassador but with all the spell holding/scrolls I can find and it's pretty awesome. He's constantly chanting and can fire off whispers of treason, fireballs, and even scrolls of paralysis for tougher fights. Priest will help immensely with buffs and protections (prayer against treachery is awesome). Ranger I would probably go with a traditional stormcaller ranger and try to be shooting as often as possible. As for who should be your PC would you rather bring Durance, Sagnai or neither?

I believe TC is referring to Ryona's Breastplate which naturally (no enchant) gives a +3 int bonus. I agree with Boeroer that the formatting is hard to read and as proved above not taking the time to put the actual item names in is confusing.

Also in case no one else has mentioned it you do have the ability to retrain your character and reset their attributes and abilities. So don't worry too much and have fun getting a feel for the game.

I agree with Loren Tyr that scrolls are probably your best bet. One other option is to use the lightning strike skill for the 25% lighting lash. The damage will be incredibly low, but it's the only thing besides blood testament that modifies fist damage types.

1). The problem with this question is it assumes there is only one way to build a class. Maybe you want a super tanky paladin so you use a sword and shield while boost resolve and con. Maybe you want a DPS paladin with a great sword which boosts might and dexterity. Maybe you love the ability sacred immolation and boost int to max it's area of effect. None of these attribute allocation are "the right way" or "the wrong way" to build a paladin. 2). No there is no cross over effect between attributes and skills. There are items, scrolls and resting bonuses that can help boost skills. You will want at least one character to specialize in mechanics which is the key for traps, locked objects and hidden objects.

The biggest difference between this and D&D is there are no saving throws. Every attack (including spells) is simply a comparison of accuracy vs defensive stat followed by a d100 roll. For more information on the accuracy vs defense and the roll itself look here: http://pillarsofeternity.gamepedia.com/Attack_Resolution Combat modifiers can come from status effects (http://pillarsofeternity.gamepedia.com/Status_Effects) or buffs/debuffs (too many to list). Quick example let's look at casting the wizard spell slicken on an enemy, to keep things simple let's assume the wizards accuracy equals the targets base reflex (the defense stat for slicken): (Wizard Accuracy + 10 [bonus accuracy from slicken spell]) - enemy reflex = +10 modifier (5% miss, 35% graze, 50% hit, 10% crit) Now if the wizard buffs himself with eldrich aim (+15 accuracy) and the enemy is hobbled from a rogue attack (-20 reflex) it would change to: (Wizard Accuracy + 10 [slicken] + 15[eldrich aim]) - (enemy reflex -20[hobbled]) = +45 modifier (5% graze, 50% hit, 45% crit) While the specifics may be different the goal is the same as D&D: find ways to increase your accuracy as much as possible and reduce the enemies defensive stat as much as possible (just like thaco and ac). Damage reduction is a flat penalty to damage which you can see in the combat log. You'll see something like 15 - 5 = 10 meaning the attack was going to do 15 damage but 5 points were absorbed by DR so it only did 10 damage. Enemies can (and often do) have different DR for different damage types so while an enemy might have crush DR of 15 it might only have a fire DR of 5. Note DR has no effect on the accuracy. As for which stats for which class I really recommend looking over the pinned build guides.

How much of a min/max gamer are you? The attribute allocation for this build is optimal for it's goals (receiving and dealing damage). With that said if taking 2 points from might and 4 points from con to boost perception by 6 makes you happy by all means do it. The character will still be viable and it's your character/game after all.

Loren Tyr and Max Quest I agree that the attacks should be (and likely are) scoped properly. Improper scoping was the only thing I could think of that might explain the effect described other than the obvious that the attack was super bugged. Side question: Why on earth didn't they just put the threshold at 20% (Near Death)? It would make the ability slightly better and way more intuitive.

MaxQuest is "this" in the code above the attack or the attack against a specific enemy? For a normal auto attack or cripling strike the difference wouldn't matter. However if you cast a fireball and one target is below the threshold is it possible the bonuses might carry over to all targets? Edit: I was referring to the code in post 7.