Updated 2/10/2017 This build was originally written during the late public beta. It seemed to be pretty popular (and may even have inspired a few balance changes!) but the game has changed a *lot*, so this is pretty much a top-to-bottom rewrite now that the game's final patch is out. I see lots of people talking about how powerful Ciphers can be and they're generally correct. I realize most people will be aware of most of this and it's just general basic knowledge for vet players but I didn't see a writeup on this forum and i did see some bad advice getting tossed around like it was gospel (i.e., people advising two handed style). This guide is designed to help you put together an effective ranged support cipher for crowd control and damage. The advice herein is based on too-many-hundreds of hours of gameplay, from the backer beta on, along with a fair bit of reading and forums research.
The single lesson to learn is that Ciphers are a "tempo" class -- first you build focus, then you spend it, then you build it again. More than any other class, with a cipher it pays to think about what you're doing and, very importantly, when you're doing it.
Race: really any choice is good here but you want a race with bonuses to Perception, Intelligence, Might, and/or Dexterity. Wood Elf has the best racial bonus since you'll be at range a lot of the time, and the Wood Elf racial bonus helps your accuracy, which is very important for this build since you're using guns which have an inherent accuracy penalty. Island Aumaua is a good choice also if you take Quick Switch talent and carry several guns at once. Human's a decent choice also but not optimal. Stats: This is the first big character choice you make. Overall:
For an inexperienced player attempting PotD for the first time, I would recommend something like :
16 Might /8 Con /12 Dex /19 Per /19 Int /4 Resolve.
For a more experienced player, I'd shave it down to 16/6/15/19/19/3.
For someone playing on Hard or lower difficulty, I'd go 16/7/16/17/19/3 ; this is also a good layout if you want to make sure you can meet as many stat checks as possible, as with items you'll be able to meet every Might, Dex, Per, and Int dialogue check in the game.
(You might need to skip a screen ahead to "background" and set your character to "Old Vailian" in order to reach that 19 intelligence).
Here's my reasoning, in approximate order of priority for each stat:
Perception: Because you rely on 1st doing damage, then casting powers, you're effectively rolling two to-hit rolls for every Power you use; first to build the focus, and then again to hit with the spell. If you miss at either stage, you fall behind, and have effectively "lost a turn". Accuracy therefore really matters for the Cipher, more than for any other class. This is especially true on PotD difficulty, where all monsters get defensive bonuses that mean you are quite likely to miss frequently unless you stack buffs. For a PotD build, therefore, this is probably your most important stat. On lower difficulties, it's still important, but probably takes second place to Intelligence and isn't worth sacrificing your Dex to the same extent. Intelligence: This extends your power durations and power Area of Effect. Almost all Cipher powers have either durations or areas of effect or both, so this is a big deal no matter your approach. The longer your durations, the greater your ability to keep enemies stun-locked or charm-locked, and many of your powers have big areas of effect that benefit hugely from increased intelligence. (The benefit to AoE is especially powerful because the percentage boost applies to power *radius*, not power *area*). With a very high dex you could use fast re-casting to get away with shaving a few points off of Intelligence, but the more points you have in intelligence, the easier that work will be. Might: This is your damage with your weapon and with your powers. Ciphers benefit slightly less from this than other classes do because Might doesn't efficiently boost weapon lash damage (i.e., Soul Whip), but you do get *a* bonus, and that bonus is critical, especially against heavily armored opponents where you have to do a lot of damage with each hit to punch through their resistance. The damage boost from Might is also *front-loaded*; you see it right with your first attack at the start of combat. A high Might score lets you hit hard first, and that matters -- with a Might of 17 or 18, you can often kill soft enemy targets with a single attack, and gibbing is the ultimate crowd control. Dexterity: Point for point, the attack speed bonus from dexterity gives you the most overall damage increase of any of the stats -- more than a point of Might, over time. It also helps you cast your powers faster, and importantly, cast them first, before the enemy casters have a chance to act. The cipher is a tempo class, and the higher your Dex, the faster your tempo. There are two problems with relying on Dex over Might, though: 1) against high-armor targets, you're effectively multiplying enemy armor, and 2) the damage boost from dex comes over time, and the outcome of battles in PoE is often determined in the first few moments; damage later is less tactically valuable than damage first. Constitution: As a ranged character you want to be in the back, avoiding damage, so you really shouldn't need that much Con. Still, you want enough health to make sure you don't get one-shotted, or to survive long enough to get away if something nasty engages you. So you can shave some points off this, but not too many. Resolve: This is the least important stat for you. If you need this stat, you've probably made a mistake. That said, mistakes happen sometimes, and the AI is smart enough to seek out very vulnerable characters, so it isn't entirely crazy to leave a point or two here instead of taking it all the way to minimum (but I take it all the way to minimum personally). Region of Origin: You probably want Old Vailian background for the Intelligence bonus, but you might want to consider White that Wends for Perception, or Living Lands or Deadfire for Might or Dex. Talents: Older guides will tell you not to take Greater Focus, but changes in the last few patches (primarily, the higher cost of Cipher powers and lower base focus) mean that the extra ten focus this gives you is a huge deal, and a bigger deal the earlier you take it, proportionally. Grab this at level 2. After that, you want to get Draining Whip and then Biting Whip, and then probably Apprentice's Sneak Attack (so many of your powers will be disabling that it's functionally a flat damage bonus). Past that it depends on your weapon choice, which should depend in turn on your stats, so I 'll cover later talent choices in the Weapons section. Skills: Since this is your PC, the biggest consideration is conversation checks; Lore will help the most there, followed by Survival. Otherwise, none of these make a particularly big difference in gameplay apart from Mechanics and Lore. The top scroll in the game requires Lore 12; it's generally better to put Mechanics on a companion, but you can take it up on your PC cipher if you want. It's worth having a point or two in Athletics for an instant heal, and it's worth having either 4 or 7 points in Survival for the rest bonuses at those tiers. With this build you'll be able to have the following base point totals at level 16, not counting class/background/items/etc.: Stealth: 1 Athletics: 1 Lore: 12 Mechanics: 0 Survival: 4 Items: The following section contains game spoilers for specific item recommendations, including where to find them. Broadly speaking, I recommend the highest-damage ranged weapon you can find, and relatively light armor.
Tactics: The idea with this build is that you're pumping and dumping your focus as fast as possible. Hit hard with a physical attack, then cast, alternating powers with physical attacks depending on what's needed and what's available. Shoot at the enemy's softest target first (usually a caster) as that will help you build focus fastest. If there are no soft enemy targets, and especially on PotD, you and the rest of your party may need to open with debuffs and status effects (knockdown, paralyze, etc.) in order to make it easier to land your attacks. Mental Binding is especially useful for this, as the Paralyze effect will will lower your targets' Deflection, giving you a nice soft target to hit/crit against. Avoid getting into melee combat if possible because you'll drop like a rock if engaged, but that's what Mental Binding and Whisper of Treason are for. If you can't get out of melee, don't be afraid to switch away from the blunderbuss to your melee set, you will gain a lot of focus that way and do a lot of damage but you can't tank at all so don't try unless you have no other choice.
Powers: With this build you want a mix of damage powers and crowd control; damage powers will benefit from your high Might, and you'll need crowd control to keep enemies at range, where they're safe. For each level, I'll put my preferred powers in bold, and list others worth thinking about; if I don't mention it, I probably don't think it's worth mentioning. Level 1: There are five good level one powers. Soul Shock, Mind Wave, Eyestrike, Antipathetic Field, and Whisper of Treason. Pick 3. Whisper of Treason is effective, costs minimal focus, and casts fast, making it a great tool to get melee hostiles to go away and leave you alone. Antipathetic Field takes a little positioning but can do a surprisingly large amount of damage (especially with high Might) and remains useful over the whole course of the game. Mind Wave casts fast and is a great opener for seizing control over the first few moments of a battle. Soul Shock can be your bread and butter for DPS for the first half of the game, and remains useful throughout. Eyestrike is a powerful AoE debuff. level 2: Mental Binding is the must-pick and your Old Reliable; good-duration crowd control with a strong debuff element. Psychovampiric Shield is very useful, especially against high-deflection targets; Recall Agony is good against bosses.
Past that, Mental Blades is a decent choice for slashing damage but situational (as most enemies have good armor vs. slashing). Phantom Foes can be good if you have a rogue in the party or if your party members have Apprentice's Sneak Attack. Level 3: Ectopsychic Echo is a powerful damage spell and very useful once you learn how to optimize your positioning. Pain Link is great to cast on your tank (especially if they have an effect like Spelltongue that lengthens buff durations). Puppet Master is a strong alternative to Whisper of Treason with a longer duration but a correspondingly higher cost. Secret Horrors and Fractured Volition are in the "only wortwhile if you have a rogue in your party" category; Soul Ignition is a decent cast on boss enemies but you're better off spending that focus on Mental Binding against most targets. Level 4: Pain Block is probably your first choice here, as it's the Cipher's only real healing power, and can be a lifesaver for your primary tank. Silent Scream is a good AoE damage power with a decent debuff. Body Attunement can serve two useful roles: as a boss enemy debuff and as a self-buff if you find yourself in melee against something you can't paralyze or charm. Mind Lance can be situationally powerful but can damage your own party if you aren't careful with it. Wild Leech is too random to really be useful. Going Between is a good buff in the right circumstances but those circumstances are very specific. Level 5: Most of these are underwhelming. Overall, I like Borrowed Instinct and Tactical Meld the most at this level, mostly because they're useful against boss fights or high-deflection enemies where you need to buff up to have a decent chance to hit. Detonate is very powerful damage if your gun isn't enough, but if your gun isn't enough, you probably won't have the focus to cast this anyway! Detonate is still preferable to Ringleader though, if only because the final version has a very small Area of Effect and just isn't worth the focus. Level 6: Amplified Wave is the capstone power for the class and will be your bread-and-butter offense in endgame. It has a great area of effect, combines damage and crowd control, and is the closest thing this class has to a win button. Disintegration, on the other hand, is one of the most powerful single-target damage effects in the game, so very much also worth grabbing. Mind Plague is situationally useful but generally isn't worth the focus cost (in effect, it's basically just a Confusion spell implemented weirdly). Level 7: Defensive Mindweb and Reaping Knives are both extremely effective, but each of them requires a little party setup; the conundrum is always which to cast first, as Reaping Knives will generate an immense amount of focus, but Defensive Mindweb will keep everyone alive long enough to get things done. For Defensive Mindweb, you want to optimize your party so that each member is really, really good at one specific defense -- i.e., Eder has high Deflection, Durance has high Will, Zahua has high Fortitude, etc., so that when the mindweb kicks in, everyone gets the maximum results. For Reaping Knives, you want at least one party member specialized in fast two-weapon attacking -- Zahua is great for this as fists count as dual weapons, but a rogue or barbarian can be similarly effective.
That should be enough to get you started. This is not the "best" way to play the Cipher, it's just one way that works reasonably well even on high difficulties, and that I've found fun and satisfying.
Apparently the argument is that reducing the # of companions this way allows them to develop each companion in more depth.
