What Items Should I Be Looking For?

[patronkus]

Returning to the game after not playing since release. I installed the community patch and some of the balance polishing to help with the experience and its been fun so far.

For my own sanity I decided to ban multiclassing for this run and do all single classes. As such, my part is Watcher (Monk, Helwalker), Serafen (Barbarian), Ydwin (Rogue), Mercenary (Cipher, Ascendant), Pallegina (Paladin)

So far, its been going good, I like having Pallegina to keep everyone alive while the Monk, Barb and Rogue do the killing. The cipher is the most micro intensive but once they get into ascendance they just spam the PL 6 wave attack and win.

One thing that has been confusing though is what items to run with and actually work well with my classes. Monk is easy, fists auto scale so they are chilling but the Barb, Rogue and Cipher are a bit up in the air. I originally wanted Pallegina to wield a 2 hander but its just way better to do S+B too. For the Barb and Rogue its just both dual sabres. The proficiency seems real good, -12 deflection on Barb is whatever since they got so much HP and for the Rogue its been manageable and worth the tradeoff IMO. Cipher I have rocking the Kitchen Stove so they can do the nova and instantly be in ascendance which has worked good so far but after that initial ascendance getting another in has been real tough.

Overall I am just not super sure what weapons and armor I should be looking out for. I feel like I should stick to ranged for the cipher but idk if blunderbusses are the way to go. What one handed weapons are good for the Rogue and Barbarian so they can get the most of their full attack abilities?

[thelee]

1 hour ago, patronkus said:

For the Barb and Rogue its just both dual sabres. The proficiency seems real good, -12 deflection on Barb is whatever since they got so much HP and for the Rogue its been manageable and worth the tradeoff IMO.

sorry, do you mean swords? sabres should be +2 PEN with +50% recovery penalty

 

1 hour ago, patronkus said:

I should stick to ranged for the cipher but idk if blunderbusses are the way to go.

i'm not wild about ranged weapons for damage-based ciphers, with the exception that there are a few blunderbusses that are really good for ciphers. you've already used kitchen stove, but after thunderous report, have you tried switching to one of the mortar-style ones (from serafen)? the aoe can help you generate a lot of focus from those, much better than the puny 4x bullets from normal blunderbuss shots.

[NotDumbEnough]

Sabre proficiency modal was changed in Community Patch.

 

Since you're doing only single classes some of the longer range ranged weapons are quite powerful for ciphers (though pay attention to the range of your spells, some of which are quite short). Time Parasite can get you obscene attack speeds and is therefore almost always worth picking on a SC cipher -- however, you get so much attack speed that you lose out on quite a bit of damage from melee weapons due to the need to move around (i.e. your damage output is bottlenecked by the time you're spending moving around while having already recovered from your previous action). You can just search for the list of unique weapons on the wiki for PoE2 and find whatever is suitable, though keep in mind that lots of enemies are immune to pierce damage so you shouldn't rely exclusively on arquebuses, crossbows, etc. I personally like Spearcaster as single class ciphers are incentivized to pump Arcana (Shared Nightmare works with bombs and scrolls). Pair with a chanter singing Sure-Handed Ila, steal Maia's armor and pick up the tricorne sold at Tikawara to shoot faster.

Edited September 20, 2022 by NotDumbEnough

[Constentin Lévine]

 

About SC cipher, for the "focus purpose",  from the level 19 with shared nightmare there is a lot of possibility at distance : Mortars, Frostseeker, Amira's Wing (the 3 spells generate focus like Thunderous Report), and this : https://forums.obsidian.net/topic/128831-class-build-the-high-dispersed-tide/ . 

Barbarians and rogues are more versatiles, depending of your playstyle.

 

[MaxQuest]

51 minutes ago, NotDumbEnough said:

I personally like Spearcaster as single class ciphers are incentivized to pump Arcana (Shared Nightmare works with bombs and scrolls). Pair with a chanter singing Sure-Handed Ila, steal Maia's armor and pick up the tricorne sold at Tikawara to shoot faster.

Just wanted to write that

Shared Nightmare is amazing with scrolls of Storm of Holy Fire and Meteor Shower. Iirc it increases the AoE of each projectile as well, so each one hits more enemies.

Also scroll of Avenging Storm can provide some boost to focus generation.

---

About SC ranged ascendant's weapons you can also try the following Quick Switch workflow:

      - enable Arquebus modal (+20 ACC, -25% Arquebus Action Speed)

      > shoot with Dragon's Dowry (from stealth, -80% recovery)
      > shoot with Dragon's Dowry
           - switch (to Xefa + Kitchen Stove)
      > use Thunderous Report
      > shoot with Xefa and Kitchen Stove

           - most likely you already are at max focus, so cast while Ascended;

           - easy and medium encounters are usually over by now. If not:
           - switch (to Red Hand)
      > shoot with Red Hand
      > shoot with Red Hand
           - switch (to Fleetbreaker or Spearcaster)
     > shoot with Spearcaster
           - switch (to Red Hand)
           - disable arquebus modal
     > continue shooting with Red Hand 

For 4 weapon sets you'll need Arms Bearer talent and The Giftbearer's Cloth cloak

Also it's great to have:

• Amaliora and equip it before fights with vessel bosses. You can switch to it while Ascended, because having +10acc and +20% dmg vs vessels, helps landing a nice Death of 1000 Cuts.
• Rakhan Field Boots: because you can use them when an arquebus has went into reload, and thus skip 1 reload per encounter
• Ring of the Marksman
• the already mentioned Acina's Tricorn, Sharpshooter's Garb and Amira's Wing (for emergency need-focus-now)
• and if you use SpoilsOfCaedNua mod: Bartender's Ring, Swift Action Gloves, Talisman of Unconquerable, and Coil of Resourcefulness belt (for -1s on weapon switch)

-----

Another variant is to go for Girdle of Driving Wave belt. A 4s (1/enconter) AoE prone with mortars and rod is nice. And that AoE is also increased with Shared Nightmare.

Edited September 20, 2022 by MaxQuest

[patronkus]

7 hours ago, thelee said:

sorry, do you mean swords? sabres should be +2 PEN with +50% recovery penalty

Oh, I think maybe the community patch or something changes this? I recal most of the weapon modals were usually + recovery for some weak bonus

[patronkus]

5 hours ago, MaxQuest said:

About SC ranged ascendant's weapons you can also try the following Quick Switch workflow:

      - enable Arquebus modal (+20 ACC, -25% Arquebus Action Speed)

      > shoot with Dragon's Dowry (from stealth, -80% recovery)
      > shoot with Dragon's Dowry
           - switch (to Xefa + Kitchen Stove)
      > use Thunderous Report
      > shoot with Xefa and Kitchen Stove

           - most likely you already are at max focus, so cast while Ascended;

           - easy and medium encounters are usually over by now. If not:
           - switch (to Red Hand)
      > shoot with Red Hand
      > shoot with Red Hand
           - switch (to Fleetbreaker or Spearcaster)
     > shoot with Spearcaster
           - switch (to Red Hand)
           - disable arquebus modal
     > continue shooting with Red Hand 

Thanks for the advice, side note loved your old POE videos. Why at the end of your sequence here do you continue to shoot with the Red Hand? I've been using it and so far found it a little underwhelming with regard to building focus.

[NotDumbEnough]

The Red Hand had the most amazing damage output among all weapons in the game (bugs, cheese and unique interactions aside), but was nerfed in the balanced polishing mod. However it still has really high damage output.

[patronkus]

21 minutes ago, NotDumbEnough said:

The Red Hand had the most amazing damage output among all weapons in the game (bugs, cheese and unique interactions aside), but was nerfed in the balanced polishing mod. However it still has really high damage output.

Interesting, does it require a specific setup or upgrade to achieve this? Furthermore, I thought the balance polishing mod nerfs only came into effect if you installed the nerfs module?

[MaxQuest]

On 9/21/2022 at 3:26 AM, patronkus said:

Thanks for the advice, side note loved your old POE videos. Why at the end of your sequence here do you continue to shoot with the Red Hand? I've been using it and so far found it a little underwhelming with regard to building focus.

Glad you enjoyed them

Quick Switching weapons is there in order to bypass reloading phase. Once these options are out, there is only auto-attacking left. And Red Hand is comparatively effective at that, since it can fire twice before going into reload phase, due to Double Barrel 'native' enchant.

A side note: if you take "Double-Tap" enchant and shoot vessels, in terms of focus-generation it actually becomes worse than a regular arquebus. Because it goes like this:

- shoot (and deal dmg and get focus) -> shoot again (vessel is destroyed) (deal dmg to none, and thus no focus) -> reload

The next CP update will include a fix for that, and it will go like that: 

- shoot (and deal dmg and get focus) -> shoot again (and deal dmg and get focus) (vessel is destroyed) -> reload

On 9/21/2022 at 5:42 AM, patronkus said:

Interesting, does it require a specific setup or upgrade to achieve this? 

It already comes with that property, granted via Double Barrel enchant.

P.S. BPM nerfs Red Hand's reload time from 6.8s to 9s

Edited September 22, 2022 by MaxQuest