Doing My Third Run, Wanted to Try a Melee Cipher

[Hallacson]

Decided to try a dual wield cipher, thought multiclassing it with a rouge and creating a begulier/assasin or begulier/vanilla rouge. They obviously have great synergy, begulier and rouge but with assasin? I cannot decide, mainly because I don't believe having an increased stealth attack won't help me much since imstead entering into stealth and repositioning my character then doing a an enhanced attack, I can use all that time attacking and using my spells. Which is arguably a better way to deal damage to the enemy party. Also taking %15 more damage is a big deal but nearly everyone were saying otherwise in the other threads I read, so I am a bit confused. 

Edited December 13, 2021 by Hallacson

[Bosmer]

Hey! Are you playing on PC? Then you could/should try the Balance Polishing Mod (in addition to the Community Patch!), which decreases the costs of Smoke Veil and Shadowing Beyond, such that playing a "stealthy" rogue becomes totally viable. If frequently re-stealthing is your playstyle (some people love it, others don't) than soul blade has obviously a great synergy with assassin (soul annihilation gets really boosted by the backstab damage bonus). But other cipher subclasses also benefit from assassin, since +25 accuracy for spells on high-defense enemies is really nice!

In my opinion the increased damage taken by assassins doesn't affect your playstyle all too much, since you aren't supposed to take too many hits in the first place, unless you stack deflection. And smoke veil and shadowing beyond are not only great offensive abilities (in combination with backstab) but also serve as good "oh-****"-buttons when something is going wrong! 

[Not So Clever Hound]

2 hours ago, Bosmer said:

If frequently re-stealthing is your playstyle (some people love it, others don't) than soul blade has obviously a great synergy with assassin (soul annihilation gets really boosted by the backstab damage bonus).

I agree with @Bosmer. If I may add, a re-stealthing melee Assassin/Soulblade will be micro-heavy in a party, but have the advantage of being able to strike enemies locked in engagement, or ranged squishies that are not moving around. The annoying thing when you're playing a melee Assassin solo is that when you are invisible, many enemies go about their business and wander around, resulting in a lot of "Miss: Out of Range" attack resolutions or encounter reset where you don't get your resources refunded...

[Hallacson]

@Bosmer Yes I play on PC and I heard about Community Patch but I usually enjoy playing vanilla. And for the Soulblade, while the advantages are great; having -5 starting focus really is a really bad disadvantage since Cipher starts with 7 focus and can have max of 30 in PoE2 unlike 1. So I am still not sure with Soulblade. Begulier on the other hand has a disadvantage that can be negated easily, you just have to attack flanked targets, which a Cipher with party does %90 of time anyway. So yeah I am not sure but I may try Begulier/Assassin, I just have to be careful not to get hit often.

Edited December 13, 2021 by Hallacson

[dgray62]

I strongly recommend Soulblade for a melee cipher. The starting lower focus sounds bad, but it really isn't a problem at all, since you actually generate focus very fast with a melee cipher. Also, you can get the highest possible focus as well as multiple stacks of concentration with a soul blade, since you gain max focus and concentration with each kill. You can also extend the higher starting focus with the Strand of Favor if you are so inclined, with can enable you to have a starting focus as a high as you wish. The high max focus of a soul blade is great when you get the Seeker's Fang, a weapon that is ideal weapon for a melee cipher, since it inflicts raw damage over time when you crit, a mini disintegration, and the greater your max focus, the more damage this attack does. You might consider trying a soul blade/assassin. I have played it before and it is great. A soul annihilation backstab from stealth will destroy most foes.

[Constentin Lévine]

Another good weapon for a melee cipher is Magistrate's Cudgel : +10acc on marked ennemies for 30s (+ int only, because it is considered like a beneficial effect for the ennemies) and 2s stun (maybe 3) on crit, not very long but basically a kind of Interrupt.