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"You know... in a fight, if you really need help, you'd meditate briefly on your pain, then you summon two physical manifestations of suffering, one made of flame, the other of ice. This technoque is called 'The Dichotomous Soul' and it requires a lot of training to master that. However - when I was younger and met your mother, and we were doing... those things... you know... that young people do... it may be that I wanted to impress your mom and summoned this in a... err... very wrong way..." - Rokkua, aka "The Long Pain" aka "Dad" - "You are mophers? Half monk, half gophers?" - Last words of Yon "Malicious Tongue" Sweets, jester - (sorry for the bad photoshopping - was in a hurry) =================================== The Dichotomous Soulbenders =================================== Difficulty: PotD v. 3.02 -------------------------------------------------------------- Solo: seriously? -------------------------------------------------------------- Class: Cipher -------------------------------------------------------------- Race: Hearth Orlan -------------------------------------------------------------- Background: Ixamitl Plains - Scholar -------------------------------------------------------------- Stats: MIG: 17 CON: 10 DEX: 18 PER: 10 INT: 15 RES: 08 -------------------------------------------------------------- Skills: Stealth 2, Athl. 7|9, Lore 6|4, Mech. 1, Surv. 10 -------------------------------------------------------------- Talents (a=auto, r=recommended, !=important) Veteran's Recovery Novice's Suffering (!) Weapon Focus: Peasant ® Draining Whip ® Two Weapon Style ® Vulnerable Attack ® Fast Runner Outlander's Frenzy Abilities Minor Threat (a) Soul Whip (a) Second Whind (kind of a) 1st Level Cipher Spells Antipathetic Field Mind Wave Soul Shock Whisper of Treason ® 2nd Level Cipher Spells Mental Binding Psychovampiric Shield (!) Recall Agony 3rd Level Cipher Spells Ectopsychic Echo Pain Link ® Puppet Master 4th Level Cipher Spells Body Attunement ® Pain Block ® Going Between (!) Silent Scream 5th Level Cipher Spells Borrowed Instinct ® Detonate Tactical Meld ® 6th Level Cipher Spells Amplified Wave Disintegration Mind Plague 7th Level Cipher Spells Statis Shell Time Parasite ® 8th Level Cipher Spells Defensive Mindweb ® Reaping Knives (!) --------------------------------------------------------------- Items (*=additional echantments by me; !=important, r=recommended): Weapon set 1: fists (!) Weapon set 2: Stormcaller ® | Twin Sting ® or Persistence Boots: Boots of Speed | Sandals of the Forgotten Friar ® Head: Crossed Eye Patch | Munacra Arret Armor: Starlit Garb (*PER +2, *Durgan Reinforced, *Pierce-Proofed) | Rundl's Finery (*Exceptional, *Durgan Reinforced, *Pierce-Proofed ) Neck: Talisman of the Unconquerable ® | Talisman of the Unconquerable (r - you can get a second one from Okrun if you don't give him back the medaillion of his sister - WMI quest) Belt: Broad Belt of Power Rings: Ring of Protection, Ring of Deflection Hands: Gauntlets of Swift Action/Mourning Gloves Quick slots: Scrolls & Potions (especially Potion of Power, scrolls of Confuse and Paralyze) --------------------------------------------------------------- Hey there - another build of my new "twisted" series, I hope you enjoy: When I was toying around with Novice Suffering on the Immortal Martyr the other day I found out that the bonus damage from that talent counts towards damage modifiers now! Halleluja! That means that Savage Attack and stuff not only increases the whimpy base damage from unarmed attacks (like it did before), but also the bonus from Novice's Suffering (like it does with Trancendent Suffering). This is really good news. Now you can have real fast weapons in the early game that upgrade automatically and do a lot of damage. The "base" damage now is really good and works really well with all sorts of damage modifiers like Savage Attacks, high MIG, flanking bonus and so on. The above istn't true (anymore?). dmg bonuses don't increase the bonus dmg, only MIG does. So you want to focus on MIG and attack speed to get the most out of Nivice's Suffering. Also found out that Novice's Suffering's bonus doesn't get amplified by critical hits. On the upside_ grazes also don't do much less damage than hits. So it's kind of balanced. Anyhow - I asked myself: "Which class gets a neat damage bonus but doesn't crit a lot in melee?" - and the answer was obvious to me: the Cipher! He gets a nice +40% damage bonus from Soul Whip + Biting Whip, but his ACC is not too good - so it doesn't matter too much that the crit damage of fists is not that high. The damage of normal hits is, and that counts here. So I came up with those two buddies here. I always thought it's a pity that ciphers can't cast their best buffs on themselves. There's only one solution to that: two cipehrs, right? Their buffs also fit nicely into the monk theme: Going Between and Pain Block could also be monk's abilities. And they help you to perform a lot better in melee. Add in Psychovampiric Shield and they are like mindbending monks. Once those two guys are buffed up they are really devastating warriors - and focus generation with those fast flying fists is so high that I can't really spend it all (until I get to higher levels where the focus costs explode). And you obviously spare a lot of durgan steel. So, my everyday routine with them is: - Get the camping bonus for movement (in hard encounters go for the ACC bonus if it's against non-kith) - let the frontliners engage - shoot with a bow to gain enough focus for your first buff (usually Psychovampiric Shield, later Going Between), if you have focus left, do some sort of CC (in hard encounters I shoot until I have enough focus for two buffs - usually Psychovampiric Shield + Going Between. Later on I will always try to cast Time Parasite first and aim for Reaping Knives next if the foes are not too dangerous. If they are, I will wait for more defensive buffs) - switch to fists, pick a target, rush in, flank (!) and beat the crap out of the foe while gaining lots of focus. - do CC like hell and pick the next target - try to keep 10 focus as backup - if you get targeted by too many foes, you can always mind control one guy to distract the others Novice's Suffering leads to good ACC values for your melee attacks - so 10 PER is no problem. For hard encounters there is another nice trick: cast Tactical Meld on each other: you will gain +20 ACC if you attack the same target - which you should always do. This stacks with Minor Threat from the Hearth Orlan's racial ability. You can then cast Boworred Instinct on the same target. The debuff will not stack, but you will still get another +20 ACC each. So - +40 ACC is really nice against foes with high defenses (bounties for example). And while it doesn't do any good for out fists' crits, our spells and scrolls will hit like trucks afterwards (aka crit). And of course you can always buff your other party members, too! This all works really well. I'm really amazed by the synergy of fists and focus. To make things more interesting you can sprinkle Antipathetic Field, Ectopsychic Echo and other dps stuff into the mix. But hoestly it doesn't matter - take the powers you like best. I just found that Whisper of Treason and Puppet Master enormously help you to stay alive while you beat up mobs. Fast cast makes the difference here. Ranges ciphers can affort to cast slower spells. If you're in the middle of a crowd you want fast casts. One reason I chose DEX 18. I toyed around with the stats a lot and found that this distribition worked best. Atm Puppet Master is a lot faster than Whisper of Treason. I guess there's a bug because both should be equally fast. But it is still a great power because it's so cheap and lasts long enough. I also like the "dichotomous" looks of them and the fact that one has an eye patch and the other a monocle. I chose Stormcaller because the focus generation is really great with it even without ranged talents - because of the -6 DR. Twin Sting comes late and is only good if you fully unlock it, but then it's good for a cipher. Especially since you only want too shoot a bit until you have enough starting focus. And because it's a soulbound item it profits from Weapon Focus Peasant. Any Hunting Bow will also do I suppose, but keep in mind that those can be bad against foes with high DR - and you want to go into melee as quickly as possible. You could also use guns for the initial phase - but I did that all the time with ciphers and I felt that bow & crossbow fit the monkish theme better than guns. Once you get Defensive Mindweb and Reaping Knives it's game over for most foes. If you have a defensive Paladin or Fighter in the party, you can just cast Reaping Knives as soon as possible, then go into the fight and very quickly generate focus for you AND your brother and let Defensive Mindweb follow. Then you become untouchable while dealing aweseom damage. Game over. The great thing about Reaping Knives on a cipher is that you generate focus for yourself (like you would do with any other weapon) and at the same time you also generate focus for the caster. So with this setup you double focus generation while doing insane raw damage. This makes up for the loss of the synergy between Novice's Suffering and Reaping knives which OBS nerfed. Keep in mind to switch off Vulnerable Attack once you have Reaping Knives running! You don't need the DR bypass then but may want to gain additional speed. I hope you like it. Thanks and bye bye!* *© Jörg Sprave