Looking for advice on melee Cipher Debonaire build

[smilehigh]

Hello!

I'm currently finishing my first playthrough of Deadfire with a crusader and am already starting to think of my next build.
I have a cipher save file from PoE1 so I would like to multiclass it in my new playthrough.

As my cipher is already an established character from the first part of the game I would like to preserve some of his core character/build traits for RP reasons even if some of it may go against power-gaming logic. I will play on PotD unscaled and use a full party of story-companions.

Mainly I would like him to:

- be a melee-focused character dual-wileding a rapier in one hand and a dagger/stiletto in the other hand as main weapons (although I usually start battles with a ranged shot from stealth and then switch to melee);

- favor Passionate and Clever dispositions;

- have a somewhat balanced ratio of melee and casting;

- not be multiclassed with a monk .

 

Given his "dispositions" I thought I might thematically multiclass him with a Debonaire rogue.

One of the obvious options is to make him a Beguiler/Debonaire. But I worry that it could detract from the melee aspect and would make me lean into a ranged shooter/caster playstyle.

So another option is to make him Ascendant/Debonaire. This is the choice that I'm favoring right now.

Yet another option might be multiclassing him with Trickster or Tactician instead of Debonaire. (Tactician in particular could make use of the Squid's Grasp rapier with its no-flanking enchantment for most of the game, but would miss out on the Seeker's Fang which might be a strongher option for a cipher in late game.)
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My questions to the esteemed community are:

1. Will Ascendant/Debonaire be a viable choice? Are there some hidden synergies/counter-synergies in class abilities that I should be aware of?

2. What weapon/armor/equipment combinations would you suggest?

- Seeker's Fang with its raw damage on crit and additional raw damage on hit on enemies with mind affictions seems to synergize with Debonaire's specialization in critting mind-afficted (charmed) targets. Or am I missing something? Also Seeker's Fang comes very late in the game.

Rännig's Wrath is available early on and its Redoublement (+1 penetration on Crit) seems to compliment Debonaire's 100% hit-to-crit conversion.

Midgame Squid's Grasp might be a decent alternative.

- For the off-hand (dagger/stiletto) I'm curious to try the infamous Pukestabber. But maybe there are better options?

Rust's Poignard has a cool on-crit ability but it will limit all my melee damage to "pierce" variety and is also quite tricky to get.

3. I'm uncertain about some mechanics:

- Seeker's Fang: Aspect of the Spider is a raw DoT that triggers on Hit. Will it trigger on Crit too? Or is it restricted to Hit only?

What will happen if I hit a charmed enemy?

Will Aspect of the Spider even trigger? Or will it be cancelled by Debonaire's 100% hit-to-crit conversion and only Spider's Patience will be applied?

If both effects are applied - will the raw damage from Aspect of the Spider and Spider's Patience stack? Or will one cancel out the other?

- Seeker's Fang again: it's a soulbound weapon with different "level 2" upgrades unlockable for cipher and rogue. If I play cipher/rogue multiclass and unlock the 2nd level how will the game determine which soulbound upgrade my character should be given? (Will I get a choice between a cipher-specific or rogue-specific upgrade?)

 

Thank you!

 

Edited July 21, 2023 by smilehigh

[Boeroer]

10 hours ago, smilehigh said:

1. Will Ascendant/Debonaire be a viable choice? Are there some hidden synergies/counter-synergies in class abilities that I should be aware of?

Hello! Forgive me if this text is a bit of a structural mess, I wrote it while having breakfast with three howling kids.  I was on the phone so there will be weird typos, too.  Here we go:

The Debonaire cannot engage (at all - that also means no Persistent Distraction which is a great Rogue ability for melee chars. You can pick it but it will do nothing - a trap if you will) and has disadvantages if he's facing melee opponents when no allies are nearby. So using that subclass for a dedicated melee character is a suboptimal approach imo. It's better for a reach weapon or (short) ranged weapon setup. Nevertheless: it's doable - and if it's more about RP vibes than power gaming it will be okay I guess. 

I personally would pick Trickster/Beguiler. Beguilers do get focus from casting Deception spells, but they also keep the ability to get focus via weapon dmg. The restriction that this only works if the target is afflicted is a non-factor: even if enemies have 0 affliction before you cast a deception on them you will get focus because the affliction of the deception spell itself will be applied first before this "does he get focus?" check is made. So you always get focus from Deception spells if you hit with them properly. And stuff like Persistent Distraction immediately unlocks the focus gain in melee, too. During actual playthroughs with a Beguiler - where you would start with a Deception like Phantom Foes and Secret Horrors anyway - I didn't have any issues where I didn't generate focus. Not once (that I noticed). Thus, the Beguiler is an excellent cipher subclass. 

Trickster is excellent for melee chars because it's a great combo of defense (via self buffs such as Mirrored Images) and offense (Sneak Attack and so on). The lower Sneak Attack makes almost no difference because it's only a 10% malus which stays that way even though Sneak Attack itself scales with Power Level. So while you level up the little malus becomes less and less noticable compared to the scaling bonus you'll get. 

For melee combat one could also consider a Soulblade/Trickster (or Debonaire). Nothing prevents Soulblades from casting Deception spells etc. - but on top they get a very potent melee attack which is Soul Annihilation and which profits from Sneak Attack, Deathblows and also crit dmg bonus. From the powergamer's perspective Tricksters/Soulblade is a very appealing combo.

10 hours ago, smilehigh said:

2. What weapon/armor/equipment combinations would you suggest?

- Seeker's Fang with its raw damage on crit and additional raw damage on hit on enemies with mind affictions seems to synergize with Debonaire's specialization in critting mind-afficted (charmed) targets. Or am I missing something? Also Seeker's Fang comes very late in the game.

Seeker's Fang is exceptionally great with a Cipher because the soulbound-enchantment that adds the DoT is very powerful. Comes late - but once you get it I would stick to it. 

Rännig's Wrath is great. Imo overall the best rapier (if you factor in that it comes early). I would use it until I get Seeker's Fang (which will be very late).

Once you get Seeker's Fang and soulbind it, it will ask which class you want to bind it to. This will be binding (pun intended) and you could only change that by severing the soulbind and bind+level up anew - ugh). So pick the Cipher route! It's best. The DoT works incredibly well as I said and your questions about it can be answered with: don't worry, it works on hit and crit, it stacks and it's awesome.

Debonaire/Cipher problems again - or rather pure Cipher problems: If you hit charmed enemies (with Deception or weapon) you will not get any focus(!).

But Aspect of the Spider and all other weapon stuff will still apply even to charmed enemies (or party members and other allies).

Rogue's DoT attacks (Ring the Bell, Gouging Strike, Toxic Strike) stack with the Fang's DoTs and this melts away any foe in no time.

For the second weapon I'd recommend one set with a Dagger (look at Marux Amanth, you can bind it to your Rogue class) or Lover's Embrace. The Frenzy from Lover's Embrace stacks with everything by the way - so it can make you noticably faster. The other set can be stiletto like Rust's. It's a great weapon in general but it's true that the pierce dmg can be limiting at times. It's not that hard to get it with a full party. Especially if you use stuff like Gouging Strike and Lover's Embrace against dear Rust from stealth and in the following battle in the cave have charm and dominate...

Just switch the weapon set if you encounter certain resistant enemies. As you might know in Deadfire underpenetration is a severe, severe problem for your dmg output. Much more crippling than it was in PoE. So make sure that your Penetration is always equal or better than the enemies' armor rating - else your dmg will be ridiculously low. You can witness that against certain enemies sich as Steelclad Constructs etc. For style I would say use one set Rännig's Wrath + Rust's and the backup set could be Griffin's Blade (looks flashy like a Rapier but is a sword) + Lover's Embrace?

Something else - there's another problem I recalled: charmed enemies flip back to hostile. So in general it's better to dominate them instead - I mean if want to attack them during the mind control phase.

Debonaire (if you pick that) won't get crit conversion against dominated enemies(!). Only charmed ones work. That means: on one hand you will almost always land a crit on a charmed  enemy - but on the other hand it will flip back to hostile immediately. Why would one want to trade one of the best CC effect in the game (turn a hostile entity into an ally) for a little bit of additional weapon damage - without even getting focus for that?  That's another reason why on paper Debonaire/Cipher sounds great but mechanically I'm only lukewarm about it, especially a melee variant who wants to land melee crits. It's hunting crits nicely (with a lot of micromanagement I must say) - but this tactic is actually detrimental to your party's overall performance - compared to just leave the enemy charmed as long as possible. You could only attack charmed enemies who are about to flip back anyway (duration's up) bit that adds even more micromanagement and becomes rather tedious (speaking from experience).

Ah, one good thing: One nice synergy about Debonaire/Cipher is charm + Disintegration (or Soul Ignition). Suffering those pure DoT spells doesn't flip charmed enemies back! Because it's not a real direct damage attack but instead a "status effect". The game doesn't trigger the "hey, that charming dude hurt me - so I'm gonna be hostile again" check. Crits are benefical for pure DoTs, too - so that's a synergy.

 

10 hours ago, smilehigh said:

Mainly I would like him to:

- be a melee-focused character dual-wileding a rapier in one hand and a dagger/stiletto in the other hand as main weapons (although I usually start battles with a ranged shot from stealth and then switch to melee);

- favor Passionate and Clever dispositions;

- have a somewhat balanced ratio of melee and casting;

- not be multiclassed with a monk .

 

Given his "dispositions" I thought I might thematically multiclass him with a Debonaire rogue.

I'm not questioning the preferences you deducted from that - but looking at that passage: don't you want to take a little look at a Darcozzi Paladin as potential multiclass option? I mean from a role playing perspective?  Paladin/Cipher is a nice combo in general anyway - but on top the favorite dispositions for Darcozzis are clever and passionate... I mean...

Also Rapier and Dagger are kind of the classic Darcozzi weapons (besides Rapier + Buckler I guess). Flashy Vaillant fencer and all. 

Adds sturdyness, support, healing and very nice accuracy with Ring of Focused Flames + your Eternal Flames ability (the lash of it applies to direct damage spells, too). 

Rest:

I personally don't like Ascendant too much. It forces you (kind of) to act in phases: loading phase and casting phase. That detrimental to versatility as I like it. An advantage for more weapon-heavy approaches is that its Soul Whip's dmg bonus doesn't turn off when focus is full Asis the case with other ciphers - but instead it gets even stronger. So one could use the Ascendant as weapon dmg booster only - but that's weird somehow and also a Soulblade would still do way better than that. 

I also don't like Tactician too much, especially with Ciphers. First of all I'm not a big fan of the Fighter unless it's a tank or at least tank-ish. Second of all it adds so much micro in a party setup (for solo it's great). Third issue: a Cipher gains very little from becoming Brilliant. Classes like Wizard, Priest and Druid profit the most from multiclassing with Tactician imo. 

Cheers!

Edited July 22, 2023 by Boeroer

[smilehigh]

Wow, Boeroer, thanks, man! As usual you are a treasure trove of useful information.

I was contemplating Debonaire mainly for flavor (and the cool subclass name). But trickster/beguiler or soulblade trickster seem really enticing too. (I’m probably leaning more towards soulblade in this instance, as I was planning to make a beguiler/priest of Wael on one of the future playthroughs (thou maybe I’ll go Psion on that one, so many options!).

 

I will have to digest everything a bit later today and come back to pester you with additional questions. Hope they don’t distract you too much from your family 

Edited July 22, 2023 by smilehigh

[Boeroer]

On 7/22/2023 at 12:49 PM, smilehigh said:

thou maybe I’ll go Psion on that one, so many options!

Oho, my favorite Cipher subclass!

On 7/22/2023 at 12:49 PM, smilehigh said:

Hope they don’t distract you too much from your family

 I don't think so - I shooed them around a nearby lake today (was a ~10km walk), so the kids are pretty knackered now and will leave me alone.  

[smilehigh]

@Boeroer Thank you again! Especially for underlining some dubious mechanics behind Debonaire.
I was mentally prepared to make do without Persistent Distraction. But when you reminded me that crits on charmed enemies turn them back to hostile mode - well, at this point I see how I would sacrifice too much for too little with this build.

So beguiler/trickster or soulblade/trickster it is!

Soul Blades profit more from two-handed weapons as soul annihilation only uses the current weapon and not a full attack, right? So rapier/dagger might not be an optimal choice. But hey, when playing with a full party the game is not that hard as to require ultimate optimization.

After your comment Beguiler also looks super-viable and interesting. 

I guess I will have to make a coin toss to be able to pick the one of the two subclasses.  

 

On 7/22/2023 at 11:57 AM, Boeroer said:

I'm not questioning the preferences you deducted from that - but looking at that passage: don't you want to take a little look at a Darcozzi Paladin as potential multiclass option? I mean from a role playing perspective?  Paladin/Cipher is a nice combo in general anyway - but on top the favorite dispositions for Darcozzis are clever and passionate... I mean...

Also Rapier and Dagger are kind of the classic Darcozzi weapons (besides Rapier + Buckler I guess). Flashy Vaillant fencer and all. 

 

Yes, I was originally considering this!

I really like Paladins and Priests because Disposition is integrated into their class-mechanics so it gives more meaning to sticking to a certain roleplaying archetype.

And Marux Amanth's burn damage would suit Paladin's fire-base abilities theme and perhaps be boosted by Scion of Flame?
 

Besides, my character has an Old Valia Dissident background to boot. Almost too ideal a premise.

The problem is I will have to wrap my head around how to retcon him to become a Darcozzi Paladin after settling in Dirwood (and convincing Pallegina to go against the Ducs' orders prior to that in the original game ). 

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A question about Marux Amanth:

One of the upgrades is Quick to the Slaughter: +2 Penetration for 20.0 sec at the start of combat.
What exactly is meant by start of combat? Does it mean that I've got to have it in my active slot when the combat starts?
So for example if I start combat by a shot from Scordeo's Trophy upgraded with Strategic Blitz to get -10% Recovery time and then switch to a melee setup with Marux Amanth - the +2 Penetration will no longer be applied?

Also does the "+2 Penetration" duration benefit from high Intellect?

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Speaking of Intellect: why do you say that Brilliant is not important for a cipher?
Does it not extend the duration of Deception/Crowd Control/Buff-Debuff abilities?

Or is it an insignificant gain when actually playing the game?

 

Edited July 23, 2023 by smilehigh

[Boeroer]

1 hour ago, smilehigh said:

Soul Blades profit more from two-handed weapons as soul annihilation only uses the current weapon and not a full attack, right? So rapier/dagger might not be an optimal choice.

No, not really. See, the raw damage of Soul Annihilation (I'll call it SA from now on) doesn't rely on the damage your weapon is doing at all. It is solely based on the focus you dump into it and then gets amplified by damage bonuses (Might, Sneak Attack, Deathblows and so on). So for SA's impact it doesn't really matter whether you use a fat great sword for it or a dagger. What is more crucial is that you don't miss (or graze). And for that weapons like Rapier, Spear, Dagger and Club are great because of their +5 accuracy bonus. Some special weapons like Sun & Moon are also great because it has two attack rolls bc. it has two heads that strike seperately (two chances to not miss or graze). 

It is true that SA is a primary attack and thus the dagger won't be used for it - but that doesn't mean that the dagger has no impact at all: because you are dual wielding your recovery will be shorter (just from the fact that you are wearing two weapons - on top you could be using Two Weapon Style for additional speed). That shortened recovery does not care whether you use a primary attack like SA or a Full Attack like Crippling Strike. Full Attacks get a -35% dmg malus though - that would be not good for SA, its raw dmg would be diminished. But for your rogue attacks a two weapon setup like Rapier+Dagger is often still better than a two hander (or a single weapon) because the Rogue has so many good Full Attacks.

So you don't need to worry about that in combination with SA: it's totally fine. For more confirmation: one of the best weapon combos for Trickster/Soulblade is considered Sun & Moon + Tuotilo's Palm (or another bashing shield) for the same reasons I explained above: you keep high speed bc. of officially dual wielding, you have a good main weapon that hits often and in case of bashing shields the primary ttack makes sure you don't even use the weak bash but can attack with the good main hand weapon mostly - and on top of it you get nice defense because not only does the shield give you defensive stats by itself, but bashing shields work with both Two Weapopn Style (bc. they are weapons) AND Weapon & Shield Style (because they are shields).

Your setup is not far off: Rapier & Dagger are better for Rogue's Full Attacks and not detrimental to SA. You don't get the defense boost of a bashing shield, but your Full Attacks don't suffer from a weak bash.

1 hour ago, smilehigh said:

And Marux Amanth's burn damage would suit Paladin's fire-base abilities theme and perhaps be boosted by Scion of Flame?

It would (both).

1 hour ago, smilehigh said:

A question about Marux Amanth:

One of the upgrades is Quick to the Slaughter: +2 Penetration for 20.0 sec at the start of combat.
What exactly is meant by start of combat? Does it mean that I've got to have it in my active slot when the combat starts?
So for example if I start combat by a shot from Scordeo's Trophy upgraded with Strategic Blitz to get -10% Recovery time and then switch to a melee setup with Marux Amanth - the +2 Penetration will no longer be applied?

Furtunately it only starts once you switch to the weapon set. It doesn't matter that the start of combat already happend. For the weapon the combat starts as soon as it gets switched to - so to speak.

So using a ranged weapon at combat start and only afterwards switching to the dagger totally works. However: if you switch away from the dagger the buff will instantly vanish and it won't even come back if you switch back to the dagger.

 

1 hour ago, smilehigh said:

Also does the "+2 Penetration" duration benefit from high Intellect?

It does!
Unfortunately the +2 PEN only counts for the weapon attacks of Marux Amanth (including Corona of the Soul) but nothing else (not the Rapier's attacks and also not spells for example).

1 hour ago, smilehigh said:

Speaking of Intellect: why do you say that Brilliant is not important for a cipher?
Does it not extend the duration of Deception/Crowd Control/Buff-Debuff abilities?

Or is it an insignificant gain when actually playing the game?

It does that. But so would Smart or Acute (like from Tactical Barrage - both grant +5 INT). The potential powerful effect of Brilliant is that it restores spend class resources like Discipline or Focus. And - and that's what's really impactful - used spells (for Wizard, Priest and Druid). It is significantly more potent to gain +1 spell use back per 6 secs instead of just 1 Discipline or +10 focus (which can be regained anyway) or phrases of Chanters or wounds of Monks (same as focus - they come back easily anyway).
It's easy for Ciphers to generate 10 focus without being Brilliant. It's less easy or impossible for other classes to regain 1 Discipline, Guile, Zeal or Rage or so... so Brilliant can be nice for them - but it's still only 1 point and you cannot do that much impactful stuff with it so it takes time to regain a meaningful amount.
On the otehr hand: one wizard spell per 6 seconds is... great. You can simply spam Shadowflame every 6 seconds or so - or you can be a Priest and regain Salvation of Time every 6 seconds and use that to prolong all buffs of the party endlessly...
So Tactician/Cipher is not bad by any means - it just so that it feels like a bit of a waste to not pair a Tactician with a caster in order to form a Multiclass instead of a Tactician/<insert class that regains resources anyway> if you know what I mean.

 

[Boeroer]

Oh, by the way, I forgot to mention somthing about a certain Dagger:

Lover's Embrace has this Frenzy enchantment as I already said which stacks with everything. Well, the even better part is that it can get triggered by ANY crit you do (against the specified gender), be it from your Rapier, Dagger, spells or whatever. So it procs a lot more often than one might have thought initially.   

Edited July 23, 2023 by Boeroer

[kronozord]

Ive been using a seer with the Sun and Moon flail and it does little damage even hitting twice so it generates very little focus for the SA.

Are the rogue damage bonuses so much better that make the weapon worth it?

[Boeroer]

The second flail head usually generates enough focus with all the dmg bonuses so that you can endlessly spam SA - which is a big dps increase. That way you also circumvent the shield's bash altogether while maintaining the dw speed bonus and getting good defense without any drawback offensively. This allows you to spend all your Guile for the defensive stuff (because not needed for offense). Besides that a flail is generally a low damage-per-hit weapon - but high enough on dps because of the shorter recovery (3 secs instead of 4 like the heavier one-handers).

Edited July 23, 2023 by Boeroer

[smilehigh]

15 hours ago, Boeroer said:

Well, the even better part is that it can get triggered by ANY crit you do (against the specified gender)

Cool to know. Now (if it's not too loaded a question) I have to ask: are there more female or male enemies in the game?

Non-hostile NPC genders seem to be distributed more or less equally. As for the enemies though, I've never paid attention to be honest as I play zoomed out on my laptop and you can't really distinguish to much from that perspective.

Has anyone cared to make at least a rough estimate? 

Also, just out of curiosity: do only kith (and lagufaeth?) enemies have gender mechanics-wise?

 

Edit: I kinda start to feel like a maniac or a serial killer asking these questions. 

Edited July 24, 2023 by smilehigh

[Boeroer]

11 hours ago, smilehigh said:

are there more female or male enemies in the game?

I don't really know. But I noticed that most of the "monsters" where it's kind of hard to determine (for example Rotghasts) seem to be male. So I suspect there's more male than female enemies in the game. But I'm just guessing. Never tried to verify that. 

Afaik all enemies seem to have a gender. Or maybe the game just defaults to male if there is no gender given. 

[smilehigh]

2 hours ago, Boeroer said:

Afaik all enemies seem to have a gender. Or maybe the game just defaults to male if there is no gender given. 

I had the same idea at first, but then I upgraded the dagger to "male" version and tested it. It worked on male kith in Neketaka (crit = frenzy) but did not work on constructs and imps in Arkemyr's Manor (I critted many times on different enemies but was unable to proc frenzy).

 

Edit: RNG is playing its usual tricks on me though - while testing the ability I critted Arkemyr about 20 times in 4 different battles with no result before finally proccing Frenzy from the dagger.

Edited July 25, 2023 by smilehigh

[Boeroer]

It did work for me on stuff like Rotghasts and other vessels (male) reliably.

Especially sure with Rotghasts because the cre_dummy objects I use as targets for console-based testing sessions are Rotghasts, too.