Cipher class general feedback discussion

[evilcat]

As for Repeaing Knives ideally:

- Make them ally or self

- Assume they are legendary daggers with raw damage, with accuracy, damage bonus as legendary

- if they are daggers they should have accuracy bonus i suppose

- give them electric lash

- give them wide arc low distance cleave

That would be something

 

Create new power:

Soul Connection - bless allyy with weapon damage bonus as 10% in raw damage, and this value is given to caster as focus.

The exact cunmber depends on general balance, could be 7.25 %

Generally if build is Berserker Monk with Duskfall Modwyr there is a reason in it.

Edited June 7, 2018 by evilcat

[gkathellar]

Making one power stronger - a power that comes late and is intrinsically mediocre - will not fix ciphers. Ciphers start having problems as early as 2nd level.

[dunehunter]

I think a future patch will mostly aim at improving underwhelming things in the game so I'm not so worried about Cipher. 

[Tagaziel]

As long as they don't touch my Soul Blade with Charm+Dominate, I'm happy (nearly the same combo I've played in PoE1 and just as fun).

[Vatman27]

As long as they don't touch my Soul Blade with Charm+Dominate, I'm happy (nearly the same combo I've played in PoE1 and just as fun).

Wasnt Soul annihilation nerfed to ground?

[evilcat]

Soul Anihilation was nerfed. May still be good enought with Assasins Backstabs with some crit stacking.

Or you could just ignore it, and play SoulBlade without it, using Whispers of Ringleader.

 

Buffing one high tier abillitiy is better than no buffs at all.

There is a challenge with summoned weapons, not very good they are. So some guidiance like make them legendary with one or two special perks is some feedback.

 

Due to general character of class cipher are very tempting to MC, so having like very good power/passive at top levels may be required.

[ArenCordial]

Honestly at this point I feel like 80% of the Cipher's worth is in 3 powers.  Whispers, Dominate, and Ringleader.  (I'm not including passives in this.)

Soul Annihilation's nerf is pretty ridiculous if Assassin/Soulblade is the sole source of the issue.  Frankly SA needs some basic changes like not expending on a miss.  It feels terrible that a miss is basically robbing you of the signature hit, especially when it doesn't hit that hard anymore.

I actually prefer instead of an all or nothing power, Soul Annihilation had a version available at each power Tier.  So a level 1 SA does added raw damage.  A level 5 SA does a lot more raw damage and maybe adds a dot.  A level 9 SA does massive damage, a dot, and something like an AoE or heals the Cipher.  It would give the player more choice on how much they wanted to gamble their focus pool and Soulblade some reason to go single class Cipher.   Something Josh really needs to look at is giving people reasons to stay single class.  Multiclass is cool and an awesome addition but at this point feel like too much of a no brainer.

Edited June 9, 2018 by ArenCordial

[mychal26]

I enjoyed the cipher so much in the first game that I played that class for each playthrough. In this game though? I tried it at release and then rerolled into a different class a few hours in and haven't looked back. It just feels...boring, lackluster in POE II. And I don't care how strong soul annihilation is/was, I'd rather stare at a wall than press a single button the whole game.

[lesti]

I made a mod file based on the discussion in this thread. Note that accuracy bonuses and the change to Wild Leech do not appear to show, same with the damage to not-the-target victims of Mind Lance.

 

You will need to make sure the file extension is ".gamedatabundle" and not ".gamedatabundle.txt" for it to work. It goes in:

PillarsOfEternityII_Data/override/Any_name_you_want/design/gamedata/

Here's what it's supposed to do:

0:    Soul Annihilation:    Attack Data copied from pre-1.1 datafile, should un-nerf
1:    Mind Wave:    Cast time reduced from 3s to 0.5s (e4c738a7-4d3f-407f-b035-cc76191fe26b)
1:    Soul Shock:    Cast time reduced from 3s to 0.5s (e4c738a7-4d3f-407f-b035-cc76191fe26b)
1:    Antipathetic beam:    Attack now affects target instead of... not
1:    Tenuous Grasp:    both status effect durations doubled from 15s to 30s
1:    Eyestrike: Attack (eyestrike_target) cast speed changed to cast speed from recall agony (4.5s to 3s) (eacb53e3-6eb5-422a-92ca-99cc883ae4a9)
1:    Valorous Echoes:    inspirations upgraded to tier 2 (+2 Pen, +50% graze-to-hit)

2:    Mental binding:    both status effect durations doubled from 6s to 12s
2:    Psychovampiric Shield:    Attack accuracy increased from +0 to +10
2:    Recall Agony:    Status effect duration doubled from 15s to 30s


3:    Secret Horrors: Both status effect durations increased from 12s to 20s
3:    Pain Link: Main status effect duration increased from 12s to 30s
3:    Fractured Volition: Both status effect durations doubled from 15s to 30s
3:    Soul Ignition: Cast time reduced from 3s to 0.5s (e4c738a7-4d3f-407f-b035-cc76191fe26b)
3:    Ectopsychic Echo: Damage doubled from 7-13 to 14-26

4:    Wild Leech: All afflictions and inspirations upgraded to tier 3 from tier 1
4:    Silent Scream:    Primary and secondary attack damage doubled from 12-20 to 24-40
4:    Mind Lance: Primary target damage from 22-27 to 44-54

6:    Mind Plague: Status effect Duration increased from 12s to 30s, attack accuracy increased from 0 to +10

7:    Stasis Shell: attack accuracy from +0 to +10

EDIT: It turns out I copied over the wrong thing for Soul Annihilation. I copied over the ability entry, rather than the status effect that adds raw damage. I have updated the file. My data files said it adds 10 + half focus to damage, and I don't *think* I'm on 1.1, so I left that as is.

 

I just checked it on 1.1 and it now scales with 0,25 focus in status effects file, which is pretty absurd (e.g. 25 extra base raw damage for 100 focus on 1 target, it's nothing in comparison with what you can do with that much focus using powers) . I also think they nerfed it because rogue multipliers but doing so made it crap for all other classes, better way to do it would be to make it not affected by said multipliers. It would still be good damage for rogues but also for everyone else.

[Zoso der Goldene]

3) Ectopsychic Echo is very easy to use once you get the knack of it and consistently useful even at high levels, excellent power.

 

I second that. I have my two multiclass ciphers (MC and Serafen) use it at start of combat on Eder who uses Charge to get to the High Value Targets. Followed by a little positioning and Frenzy and it's easily one of the highest damage AoE powers/spells in my arsenal.

The area you can cover this way is just insane.

Edited June 11, 2018 by Zoso der Goldene

[Zoso der Goldene]

 

As long as they don't touch my Soul Blade with Charm+Dominate, I'm happy (nearly the same combo I've played in PoE1 and just as fun).

Wasnt Soul annihilation nerfed to ground?

 

I don't think so, maybe a bit. My lvl 12 assassin/soulblade still does 150- 200 SA damage regularly, on top of weapon damage. And with Whispers of the Endless Paths, that's AoE damage.

BTW Whispers of the Endless Paths was supposed to lose the second attack when attacking a single target, but it still hits twice.

[1TTFFSSE]

-In multi-class form they are strong throughout the game if built and played right - sure I agree that powers are schezo at the moment with some being really good and others trash but that is why you multi and just take the good stuff

-in single form they suffer from having too little strong powers and too many mediocre but even then once you hit higher levels they are very good with the parasite

-biggest weakness in single class is accuracy is a problem potentially until higher levels unless another party member buffs them 

-biggest overall strength made relevant now in 1.1 and with health mods is fights can last a good minute or 2 two now making them overall at least as useful as per encounter casters: the way I see it is a cipher is a "sustain" dps spec while something per encounter (rogue etc) is a burst dps spec. same with cc/debuffs. you have sustain - monk, chanter, cipher and you have burst ie wizard, rogue, druid whatever is per encounter. you need both on tweaked higher difficulty so there is a place for them in the party.