warpedacorn

I picked up where my character last left off, which was as a melee Cipher in PoE1. My one change in PoE2 has been to change her from a Cipher to a Fighter/Cipher...mainly because I played her as a melee Cipher who swung a big sword around. The Fighter tools are great and I use them constantly, but the Cipher spells seem to be lacking despite being the same as their PoE1 counterparts. The big thing I did in PoE1 was utilize the Crowd Control aspects to Paralyze and Charm enemies until I learned Amplified Wave. At the moment in PoE2 I am an 17th level PsyBlade and none of those spells seem worth the time to cast them. Enemies blow up incredibly fast, and have been doing so since I got about 6-7th level (could be a combination of getting used to the new combat mechanics and general player strength). I should admit that for Cipher I did go Soul Blade, so my Focus pretty much always gets spent on Soul Annihilation hits (which consistently does stupid amounts of damage). With my Greatsword, I typically let the party do what they want (unless a tough enemy set) and just have my main character charge into a swarm of enemies and AoE them down with Cleaving hits. So my question to the community is...are Cipher's garbage? And if so, is Soul Annihilation the single ability that pulls the class up? Also, I should note I am playing on Normal right now, but my next playthrough will be on Expert. So I am debating changing the character to a Fighter/Wizard as opposed to a Fighter/Cipher. Honestly I really like the Fighter skills and am super glad I made Eder a Fighter/Rogue because he is my 2nd most useful attacker while being near impossible to take down.