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Party Comp: Single Class Ascendant Cipher.  Monk no class.  Heralds.  

 

Ascend as cipher.

Give Driving Echoes and Reaping Knives to your 2 monks.

Monks use Whispers of the Wind.

Heralds keep everyone alive.

Win.  

 

And that's it! It's great.  You can also debuff as the cipher.  

 

Only downside is you're kiinda squishy.  

 

Honestly I'm starting to wonder if there's a point to multiclassing anything other than a Paladin or a Fighter.  

Edited by Marigoldran
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Ciphers are pretty useful in the early and mid game, too.  Monks not so much, but that's why you don't use them until the late game.  

 

Mind blades and Echoplastic Echo on an Ascendant does INSANE DPS in early to mid game. Only problem is that it draws aggro like crazy (hence the heralds and summon spam).  Later you have Disintegrate.  

 

Forgotten Horrors, Mental Binding, and Domination are also excellent FOE-ONLY debuffs (better than most of the Wizard debuffs).  

 

Your passives are useful.  +1 penetration to weapons and cipher spells, etc.  

 

As a single class, ciphers are useful for the entire game.  I'm seriously wondering about how good multiclassing actually is compared to single classing.  

Edited by Marigoldran
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Or (since we are speaking about PL9) you take 5 Berserkers, take Blood Storm, Bloodlust, Driving Roar and Blood Surge, go frenzy and cast Driving Roar for one flipping Rage on everything that comes along your way. Nobody moves, everybody gets hurt.

 

Or you take 5 Druids and cast 5 Great Maelstroms.

 

Or you take 5 Chanters and cast 5 Eld Nary's Curses. Wait - doesn't count. It's PL8 only. :oops:

 

Or you take 5 Paladins with Divine Immolation who dance ring-around-a-rosy...

 

 

Or... wait for it... that's totally revolutionary for a party-based RPG: you mix it all up! 

 

BrokenDimwittedArkshell-max-1mb.gif

 

I guess the lesson is that PL9 stuff isn't too bad generally...

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Deadfire Community Patch: Nexus Mods

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Echoplastic Echo works even better with Heralds and Summons in the party. Point is: heralds make everything better.

Look I find Chanters boring since PoE1. I Have no problems with Rolfstomping up scaled Potd without a Herald and I won't even notice if I don't have a chanter

 

In fact I might rather multiclass a chanter with a lifegiver so at least he can do anything useful while building phrases/buffing while my offensive frontline wrecks the opposition.

 

I'd rather bring a monk, wizard or a barb rather than a herald...

Edited by Razorchain
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Wait? What?  Of course they require micro, that's the whole fun.  I don't find it fun just spamming summons while healing myself with ancient memory and paladin aura and outlasting my foes.

Like in PoE1 on Potd where people thought they needed tanks and healers I went the opposite direction and made a team built purely on offense

 

I came in like a wrecking ball

I've never hit so hard in PoE

I mean it's much more fun for me to send in a Helwalker/Streetfighter with immunity to mind afflictions into my Chill fog to wreak havoc or have my Assassin/Ranger shadow beyond next to the enemy mage and shoot him in the face point blank with The Red Hand...twice! rather than stand in the corner somewhere and spam summons.

All classes are good for something, I don't think the Herald is the best thing since frozen yoghurt.  I mean most fights are over when the chanter can cast his third invocation.  

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Ciphers are pretty useful in the early and mid game, too. Monks not so much, but that's why you don't use them until the late game.

 

Mind blades and Echoplastic Echo on an Ascendant does INSANE DPS in early to mid game. Only problem is that it draws aggro like crazy (hence the heralds and summon spam). Later you have Disintegrate.

 

Forgotten Horrors, Mental Binding, and Domination are also excellent FOE-ONLY debuffs (better than most of the Wizard debuffs).

 

Your passives are useful. +1 penetration to weapons and cipher spells, etc.

 

As a single class, ciphers are useful for the entire game. I'm seriously wondering about how good multiclassing actually is compared to single classing.

Yeah, Ciphers are good both as multiclasses and single classes. Multis gain focus faster and are more durable, and, depending on class choice, can have a higher power ceiling. Single classes gain access to important powers much sooner.

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Wouldn't the really tough fights just beat you down? If you can't kill them in the first minute or two of a fight, it's over for you.

 

BTW, what is YOUR party comp?

I was just starting a new game with Helwalker/Streetfighter

Berserker

Lifegiver

Bloodmage

Sharpshooter/Assassin

 

Have just arrived in Neketaka

 

I don't see any reason why I shouldn't be able to handle the tougher fights

 

Quick question, if I can make my zerker immune to mind afflictions does that apply to the confused state from raging?

Edited by Razorchain
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Do reaping knives worth it for single class cipher ?

It sounds like a proxy martial multiclass.

 

You give it to your Monks, who then use Whispers of the Wind (works especially well if they also have +8 Penetration from Driving Echoes).  With high int, those knives last 45-50 seconds, which will quickly give you the focus to Ascend again.  

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

 

@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...

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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.  

Edited by Marigoldran
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....or you can just fire Thunderous Report once into a pack of mobs to insta-ascend, without Reaping Knives.

Then you can cast Salvation of Time to extend the Ascension duration. Bonus points if you're also a monk, cause the base duration with maxed Int and Duality:Int can be pretty solid already.

 

By then most fights are over.

 

I don't remember many fights where I'd have the time to Ascend more then twice. Magma Dragon, I guess. Of course, I didn't fight most of the big bosses yet. 

Edited by Haplok
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Many characters would have trouble to deal relevant damages to the endgames bosses.

 

Reaping knives solve any PR problems of one character while making weapon damages by cipher unecessary.

 

It seems that there are tons of builds to deal with packs of mobs, but significantly less to deal with these endgames megabosses.

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

 

@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

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Well, yeah, but it's precisely those SSS fights and big bosses that matter.  

 

On the tough fights- the ones that matter- ciphers have no reliable way of generating focus other than reaping knives.  Thunderous Report works only once per encounter.  

 

Glass cannon DPS teams work great for trivial fights and then collapse on the important ones when the enemy DOESN'T die in the first 2 minutes (or locks you down with perma paralaysis like in one of the SSS fights- I won that one with Heralds covering behind large shields as the spiders simply couldn't do enough damage to kill them).  

Edited by Marigoldran
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You're increasing the amount of characters in a party every few weeks. What'll be next? A wizard/ and/or priest being fed brilliant from the cypher to sustain buffs/damage?

 

Soon you'll have 5 unique characters (monk, herald, ascendant,...)

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