Single Class Ciphers are Really Good

[Boeroer]

Read again. There's two monks. One gets the reaping knives. The other gets the Driving Echoes.

 

As an ascendant, you can spam both.

 

The best thing about cipher is at the higher levels you don't have to do damage on your own to generate focus.

I read your post multiple times before I posted my reply. Your statement doesn't make sense. Also not with your reinterpretation: why would I want to cast Reaping Knives (3 secs, 30 sec duration) on one Monk and Driving Echoes (4.5 sec, 24 sec duration) on the other if my goal was to use the Monks to generate focus for me? I could cast Reaping Knives on both and get my focus for my next Ascension even faster - and skip Driving Echoes altogether?

 

By the way: does anybody know if Draining Whip on the Cipher influences the focus generation of Reaping Knives (which are carried by allies)?

Edited January 14, 2019 by Boeroer

[Boeroer]

 

Yeah, Reaping Knives work "especially well" with Driving Echoes (+8 PEN) - because they deal raw damage.

 

@Razorchain: yes. If your Berserker is immune or only resistant to RES afflictions ("Mind" includes all RES, INT and PER afflictions) then he won't be confused anymore.

By the way: with your party setup (two chars who can profit from being bloodied) you maybe should've brought a priest for Barring Death's Door + Salvation of Time to keep then bloodied/near death and only heal then once BDD is about to in out. Lifegiver/Priest of Eothas (or whatever Priest) would have worked. Just saying...

 

Good call, I'll switch out my lifegiver for a Lifegiver/Priest

Just a suggestion. And sorry for the multiple "then/them" typos. My phone hates me...

[Marigoldran]

You only need 1 monk with Reaping Knives to regenerate focus.  Driving Echoes does more damage.  

 

Edited January 14, 2019 by Marigoldran

[Marigoldran]

Now that he has an Ascendant I have to imagine a priest is next, permanent ascension and BDD via Salvation of Time is exactly the sort of thing he'd love.

 

It's too much micro.  BDD doesn't last long enough.  

 

Cipher buffs last a long time so you can cast them and forget them for a while.  Monks have the easiest powerful spammable ability in the game (Whsipers of the Wind and Resonant Touch- no worries about resources).  Heralds are auto pilot.  These 3 classes will pretty much never run out of resources.  

 

Also, a party of heralds, monks, and ciphers doesn't require much of any positioning (keep the cipher near the heralds for healing and give the monks Pain Block and damage buffs).  The probem with priests is they use AOE buffs, which means that it's difficult to get those buffs on the monks who teleport everywhere.  

Edited January 14, 2019 by Marigoldran

[Boeroer]

You only need 1 monk with Reaping Knives to regenerate focus. Driving Echoes does more damage.

Driving Echoes does zero damage.

[Marigoldran]

 

You only need 1 monk with Reaping Knives to regenerate focus. Driving Echoes does more damage.

Driving Echoes does zero damage.

 

Well, yes, but Driving Echoes with Sabres (low penetration, high damage weapons) and Whsipers of the Wind does LOTS of damage.  

Edited January 14, 2019 by Marigoldran

[Boeroer]

Sabres + Thunderous Blows + modal has enough PEN to penetrate (+4). Longer recovery doesn't matter for Whispers of the Wind. With Driving Echoes you might get overpenetration in some cases which means a meager +30% additive dmg. A waste of casting time for an Ascendant in my opinion (except against high AR bosses - but there Reaping Knives will work).

[Marigoldran]

Exactly.  Driving Echoes with Sabres does more damage.  Even assuming your numbers are correct, +30% is a lot considering that your monks make 6 attacks at once.  

 

You can't hit the tough bosses consistently enough for A Thousand Cuts to kill them and Disintegrate, while powerful, is rolled against Fort.  Also, the more damage you do as a cipher, the more aggro you draw, and that's a very very bad thing as you're kinda squishy   

 

Cipher is DPS in the early mid game but transitions to buff bot at high levels when the monks can take on the role.  

 

As late game Nukers, Monks can do a better job than Cipher.  The problem is that before Whispers of the Wind, single class monks kinda suck.  

Edited January 14, 2019 by Marigoldran

[Elric Galad]

I thought PR modals didn't stack.

I thought overpen was multiplicative.

[Boeroer]

Ah right. Sabre modal might does not stack with Thunderous Blows. Thunderous Blows will get suppressed. I forgot.

 

+30% additive (unfortunately yes) damage from Overpenetration is exactly 4.8 points of damage with sabres per hit - minus the 35% from Full Attack. And you have to have double PEN. Which is difficult to get against high AR targets. Even against lowish ones it's not guaranteed. Building one's dps on overpenetration is ineffective - even if you hit 6 or even 10 times in a row (high level enemies laugh about those numbers). The goal of Driving Echoes is to prevent underpenetration/to ensure penetration, not to generate overpenetration.
Against high AR targets Driving Echoes is very good, espacially if you have somebody who can generate a lot of attack rolls in a short time (usually AoE).

Against normal mobs it's a waste of casting time (and focus if you're not ascended). It's kind of a niche ability. Using it all the time indiffrently is ineffective.

 

For attacking bosses with Whispers of the Wind you'll need at least one ad (that doesn't die instantly or hte jumping stops). Then half of your jumps will hit the boss - which can be very effective. This is a case where Driving Echoes pays off on a monk. Or when only the boss is still standing and you attack him with single-target-attacks.

 

And still I think it's a waste on a monk most of the time. I would nearly always try to give it to a caster since those struggle the most with PEN and at the same time are those who can usually hit the most enemies in a given time (excluding single Barbs or Monks with mortars or other shenanigans of that sort). 

 

However...

 

You give [Reaping Knives] to your Monks, who then use Whispers of the Wind (works especially well if they also have +8 Penetration from Driving Echoes).

... still makes no sense, no matter how often I read it. 

Edited January 14, 2019 by Boeroer

[Verde]

Rem trying to figure out which bonuses were and were not suppressed in PoE 1? Ah those were the days...

Edited January 14, 2019 by Verde

[Elric Galad]

Rem trying to figure out which bonuses were and were not suppressed in PoE 1? Ah those were the days...

At least for PoE2 we don'start from scratch...