Need help on a Cipher build

[Bryan Skull]

I plan to make 2 Cipher twin Brothers.  14 might/dex/Con, 16 Int and rest 10. Both Ciphers are Heartland Orlan.  What gear should I use for them? I am planning on sword and shield to reduce damage. I want to keep there fighting up close. Background Merc for both.  Medium armor?  Scale?

[Boeroer]

You mean Hearth Orlan I guess.

Ciphers need to deal dmg in order to generate focus. Using a shield does indeed increase your survivability, but it also reduces your damage output. 

Two Ciphers are actually pretty neat since they can cast certain "Ally only" powers onto each other. A single Cipher can't profit from Cipher buffs, two can. Especially Reaping Knives, cast on each other, is very good (basically doubles your two Ciphers' focus generation).

You can achieve a compromise with two hatchets: you'll get +10 deflection but still be able to dual wield weapons (which raises your dps significantly compared to weapon & shield). This is nice when you want to skill your characters for Reaping Knives (with Two Weapon Style).

However, if you like the idea of weapon & shield then that's totally fine as well. 

Armor is important in the early game. There I'd recommend wearing the thickest one you can get (plate, brigandine). Later it doesn't matter much because DR doesn't scale as steeply as enemies' damage and your health/endurance pools do. Pick the one with the best enchantments. You can usually tell where the sweet spot is (too low: you lose too much health too quickly and have to rest too often - too high: your focus generation feels really slow). Also you will have access to Borrowed Instinct and Pain Block.

Generally speed weapons are the best pick for a Cipher's focus generation (I mean weapons with the speed enchantment). 

[Raven Darkholme]

Shield can be good for the early game, while it shouldn't be necessary with a party at all.

Late game however (level 15+) there is 0 need for any defense on any of your party except your tank because of mindweb.

Just max defenses on your tank (my pala had 170 deflection and 160+ in all other defenses, will was smth like 200), give the soulbound ranged weapon to one of your cipher that fires two shots before reloading, shoot it twice at combat start and then cast mindweb on tank, switch to melee weapons.

Even for the early game I would try and find a way to either dual wield or use a ranged weapon, as Boeroer said a cipher is only as good as the amount of focus they can build.

There is many strategies to make squishy melees survive a fight, mainly about engaging with the tank first and making sure all enemies actually attack him before attacking with the squishy melees.

With the cipher you have the additional option to charm from stealth before engaging and also always keep enough focus to charm if some enemy switches targets.

[Bryan Skull]

I have Vetern's Recovery on both ciphers. I plan to make my ciphers use small shields. Less accurately debuff.  I was thinking 1 warhammer and the other sword.  This way to counter enemies with a high damage resistance of a certain type.

[Boeroer]

That's generally a good approach. War Hammers have some good and even early uniques. Swords also deal dual damage types (pierce/shlash) but unlike War Hammers the good uniques come very late. Unless you plan to side with the Crucible Knights. In that case you'll get a Sword that works pretty nicely with a pair of two ciphers since it increases the hit chances of your partner significantly ("marking" enchantment). If you do not side with the Crucible Knights (the talent you get from the Doemenels for example is usually more valuable for a Cipher) then you won't see a lot of good swords until late in the game (don't ask me why - don't know what they were thinking). Luckily one can enchant even the most ordinary sword into something good.  

If you go White March rel. early (lvl. 6-8) you can achieve a unique sabre names "Bittercut" pretty quickly after the initial fight which has dual damage (corrode/slash) and also gets a general +20% dmg buff from Spirit of Deacy which stacks with sabres' inherent +20% buff and your Soul Whip bonus. If you give it a corrosive lash it will even have a 30% lash instead of a 25% one then. It also has some spell bindings which are neat. It's one of the best one handed weapons in the game.

It 's also totally viable to use s great weapon with a single damage type but have a weapon with another damage type (but the same weapon focus group) in a backup weapon set. For example using a Rapier (e.g. "Sword of Danysis") as main weapon but a mace (e.g. "Ravenwing") as backup should you meet pierce-immune or -resistant enemies (which are often vulnerable to crush damage). Sabre/Club or Battle Axe/Sword also work of course - and so on. Also, should you like Stilettos a lot: they are usually pierce-only. But on White March lots of Lagufaeth enemies carry special stilettos that are not marked special in any way, but they actually do slash damage instead pierce. So you could carry a nice unique stiletto in the main setup but a slashing Lagufaeth stiletto in a backup weapon set. Stuff like that. So it's not necessary to stick to a dual damage weapon. Unless you never want to switch weapon sets because you hate it. Then War Hammers and Swords is the smartest choice. 

Note that the small shield "Little Savior" has an aura that gives +5 to all defenses to everybody standing in the AoE of the aura (including wielder). There's an item you can get from a Stronghold Adventure that's called the "Helwax Mold". You can clone one item with it (except soulbound ones). If you clone the Little Savior you will have two small shields which emit that same aura and they will stack, giving +10 to all defenses. This is - generally speaking - the best use of the Helwax Mold if you have two shield users in the party. 

 

Edited November 24, 2019 by Boeroer