Dr. Hieronymous Alloy

Mind Blades was nerfed way back in the Backer Beta, had its damage dramatically reduced to its present near-uselessness. Now it's only useful if you're trying to hit around corners. Again, theoretically useful but not really, mostly because everything and its brother has slashing resistance. Can't speak to Thrust because I've always assumed it's a bug that it generates focus so I don't take the power.

Ah ok I see yeah. I've always assumed that powers being castable outside of combat was a bug so I never used them that way. For me right now it falls in the "theoretically useful" category of things like Soul Ignition. If I know I'm in for a long fight against a small number of targets, and those targets have very high defenses -- say something like the Sky Dragon or the final Thaos fight -- then it's nice to have the added boost, in theory. But in practice in those fights I'm probably prioritizing other powers (pain block) first.

Also, don't forget equipment. *Anybody* can be a good tank if you give them the Sanguine Plate and the Shod-in-Faith boots, and for that type of tanking you actually want medium to low Res (combined with high DR and high Con, which Zahua has).

Eh, I honestly think that most of the higher-tier cipher powers need a buff regardless. It's just that at release it didn't matter because Mental Binding and Amplified Wave were so good, you could use those two (plus a couple other powers like mental blast) to build a decent crowd control cipher. None of the powers were balanced, but because some were too good, it didn't matter that the others were awful. Once they nerfed those two powers, ciphers didn't have much really powerful left, but what they did have, they could spam, so that made up for it -- no single big whalloping spells, but you could still keep a battlefield locked up by spamming your relatively weak effects. Wizards were kings of big effect lockdown (confusion, etc.) but they couldn't sustain it. Now, you can't spam your effects because they cost too much, AND they're weak because they were all balanced for spamming. I'm presuming the devs had some good reason for implementing this change -- maybe the White March II content just got too wrecked by ciphers or something -- but the net result is that ciphers don't have a role. I don't think Echo needs a nerf. It's a very powerful power but every class has a couple of abilities that are crazy good. Returning Storm, Consecrated Ground, Arduous Delay, Expose Vulnerabilities, Combusting Wounds, etc. Ecto is fun to use and requires some thought and maneuvering so there's nothing wrong with making it powerful. Why do you think Tactical Meld needs a nerf? I find it very situational and only really useful for boss fights.

Oh, I don't know how new this is, but you can now buy from Azzurro without having to return to your stronghold, which is a huge positive change.

There is encounter difficulty scaling now. I find i spend the cash on respecs anyway.

Honestly his unmodded stats are fine for a tank i think. The "akagi" build from here is what ive been using with him and it works fine on PotD: http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=416939844 I have been playing the 3.0 beta which gives him three more points of CON.

Y'all are starting to convince me on this also. I've kinda rushed through levels 10-12 because bounties give so much experience, so I'd only used it a few times last night and it seemed to be doing its old job pretty well. I could tell the area of effect was smaller than I remembered but it was still large enough. After I saw y'all's comments I did another bounty and looked more closely at the damage and duration numbers it was inflicting and yeah it's just too small an effect for the investment. Part of it is the general problem of effect not having been upscaled with cost, and part of it is that (much like with Mental Binding) they seem to have cut the duration & damage in a previous round of nerfs. Net effect is that it's nigh-impossible to play a cipher as a crowd controller any more. Wizards (and even arguably druids, with returning storm) are just better at it because they can keep dropping spells on the battlefield and keep things locked up. Ciphers can't -- even with a maxed out build they can't generate focus fast enough to keep things locked down. My cipher is still leading the party in damage done totals but I suspect that's more an artifact of soul shock, ecto, and rushing Leadspitter than it is anything else. Pain Link may have done a lot too but it's hard to tell since that damage doesn't show in the log. My overall recommendation at this point is that if they're going to keep this change in place, they need to increase the durations and damage of all Cipher powers (possibly excepting Echo) in proportion to the amount their focus cost was increased. (I.e., mental binding's duration needs to increase by 25% or so, etc.) That's just a general suggestion and some powers may need individual tweaking (for example Puppet Master probably needs to be at least doubled in duration because it's competing with Whisper of Treason at 1/3rd the cost; ectopsychic echo can probably be left as-is).

Yeah this sounds like the big difference between our experiences is that you're playing on Normal and I'm playing on PotD. On normal I bet everything does get absolutely wiped out long before the cipher gains up enough focus to use the higher level powers. That said even on PotD Aloth and Hiravias and Durance are definitely contributing more to the fight and have been since about level 5. There's just that string of levels from 5 to 10 where Wizards get so many useful tools -- arduous delay, expose vulnerabilities, combusting wounds, wall of fire, wall of force, etc. -- and Ciphers just, well, don't. Same is true for the other casters too -- Durance gets the prayer against spells, Druids get things like Returning Storm and party heals, so on so forth. On PotD the fights take a lot longer so there's enough time for a few gain/spend cycles. For reference I'm using a fairly standard blunderbuss build -- 19 dex/int/per base, 12 might, wood elf, angio's gambeson, talisman of the unconquerable, leadspitter with exceptional/corrosive, greater focus, biting whip, draining whip, penetrating shot, ruffian.

I had a pretty good time when I used my druid as a tank. I think that approach also works for Hiravas. Look up the "Batsh!t Crazy" build. It's quite simple and not too weird. So far this approach seems to be working great, thanks -- I even had most of the items already just by chance. He's a tough little guy. I just run him up to the front and cast returning storm and wheeeee

Yeah, but now you need that extra power level of focus a lot more. Back at release Greater Focus was a total waste -- there wass just no situation where you needed it. Focus was never really a limiting factor, because you started each fight with so much more. Now you need focus constantly. I finally found a talisman of the unconquerable and I'm equipping it over the +3 dex or +3 per cloaks. So Greater Focus makes a bigger practical difference now, than it did before. Personally I feel like Ecto and Amplified are about where they should be now, given what they cost (well, amplified wave's duration, like mental binding's, is a little short now given the cost). Personally I'd like to see the other cipher powers (i.e., the rank 4 and 5 ones, and the rank 3 powers that aren't Ecto) improved a bit. The big problem with Ciphers right now isn't the focus, it's that after they build all that focus there are a lot of levels where they don't have much to do with it. I've tried out a few different weapons and so far (level 12) I still keep going back to Leadspitter. Fellstroke seemed like it might be worthwhile but it just didn't quite keep up. It might be worth keeping in reserve for bosses with very high DR.

ACtually, what I would really appreciate is a good build for Hiravias, ideally a PotD one that fit him the second rank as support. I don't really "get" druids and I haven't kept track of the class changes. An updated Eder build would be good to see too, I've just been going with Defender etc. like I did before and he still works ok but I feel like he's a missed opportunity.

All of that stuff is utterly ignorable and skippable and marked so that you know in advance it's ignorable and skippable before you click on it. Basically it's there if you want to look at it but otherwise you can play the entire game through multiple times without ever looking at it (I have). There is one really good backer NPC in Golden Vale that has a neat description of his past life as a gardener.

Right, exactly. I was just using swift aim as an example. The same issue comes up with paladins and priests etc. It's not necessarily a bad or good design decision but it does add another layer of complexity to planning out party builds. Include Durance in the party, you build Pallegina a different way from if you don't, etc.

Thanks. After I made this post I realized I probbly should have also mentioned the initial Raedric's Hold.

I don't think Ciphers are quite bad or "worst in the game." (Personally I think my least favorite class is rogues). They're just . . . a lot less "wow" than they used to be. They used to be a sort of 2/3rds caster | 1/3rd rogue hybrid and now it feels like it's the other way around. You spend a lot more time shooting and a lot less time casting. Anyway, further update: Greater Focus is a much much more valuable talent now. Unlike it's description it gives +10 to your base focus also, which is a HUGE jump in terms of letting you cast a powerful opener.

Sanguine Plate is also a good source of Frenzy, to the point I even use it on my PotD barbarian adventurer. Does outlander's frenzy work with the berserker belt? The other problem with companion builds is making sure they don't overlap too much. For example, typically I give Kana the Sure-Handed Ila phrase, and I build Sagani with swift aim. But those no longer stack . . .

There are a couple of issues with cipher AI though. -- Tendency to fire off low level powers rather than saving for high level ones. Not a big issue since most good powers are low level. -- Tendency to cast powers at immune targets that you know are immune. The AI *loves* to fire Whisper of Treason at charm-immune targets, for example. The other big issue I'd like to see addressed isn't so much a 3.0 issue as a guns issue; attack speed vs. reload speed. Most of the various speed enhancements --- including Time Parasite -- effect attack speed (i.e., your recovery animation) but do not effect gun reload speed (the reload animation). The result is that even if you use guns throughout your character's life, at high level you're better off respecializing into bows instead, simply because bows don't have a recovery animation and guns do. There's no real reason for the distinction and it forces people to ditch preferred playstyles. Especially since guns are so typically a cipher-associated weapon in this game, makes little sense to force high level ciphers away from gun use.

Can't find a good specific summary online anywhere. Aloth's sidequest is the obvious one, I suspect also the assemble the scepter quest, what others?

Yeah, I think that if you really looked at things objectively the "ideal" barbarian would probably have somewhere around 15 base Int. Put those three points in Dex, Per, or Might instead and overall you'd likely do more damage, because even on PotD there is a functional limiation on how many enemies are around you at any one time and how big an AoE you actually need to grab them all. Overall you're probably better off with a slightly smaller carnage radius and more damage, interrupts, accuracy, attack speed, etc. against the targets within that radius. The problem is that when you're playing a character you're going to really notice each time an enemy is JUST outside your range and because people are bad at estimating frequency of events it'll seem like you need more Int than you do. Net result is I end up always picking Godlike barbarians just so I can take Dex and Int to 19.

You can totally stack inn bonuses and survival bonuses. The Inn bonuses, most of them, last for one or two additional rests, so you rest in the inn, then camp out with survival, and have both. It is a little wonky and takes some setup but it's totally doable, to the point that it frequently happens without trying -- you rest at an Inn, then later you camp, and you have both.

I can understand that. The tactical problem with ciphers is the quick getaway when something aggros you, and quick cast powers are ideal for that. I still prefer Mental Binding for that purpose though just because of the AoE root.

OH that is something I wanted to talk about. The survival bonuses are probably too powerful given how versatile they are. They make a lot of previously unworkable builds a lot more viable without any other real tradeoffs. For example, a barbarian can start out with base 2 survival, get 3 more on first level up, and by level 4 have +4 base DR. That's as good as padded, naked; another way of saying that is that +4 DR is worth 20% reaction penalty, or an Exceptional armor enchant. It's just a walloping good bonus and there isn't even really a penalty because they can swap it out for something else later if they want. Personally I think the modifiers should be about half what they are. Like, +1 DR per rank, +5 Accuracy per rank instead of +10, etc. EDIT: the problem isn't just with the DR. All the bonuses are a bit large. The +10 accuracy is twice what you get from Marksman talent, for example, and theoretically you could rest every time the next monster type changes, especially if you're following a guide.

Omigod, are you saying what I think/want you to be saying? That they have pointy hats in the game??! Please, good doctor, tell me it is so! It doesn't have an in-game texture yet though.

Both bugs predate the patch. However, enemy debuffs not disappearing was fixed in 2.03 so if you're getting it now, it means it's a regression. I would definitely raise this in the tech forum. Yeah, I've got a whole list of minor bugs or unexplained design oddities (enhanced frenzy not helping frenzy from the Sanguine Plate; various missing srings, etc.) that I've been keeping in notepad and I need to sit down, match up the screenshots, and make a big post. Just a matter of finding the time. With luck I'll get to it this weekend.