Hi. I have been using Ydwing as a ranged mindstalker on veteran upscaled through the beast of winter and now the seeker, slayer survivor dlc but she feels a bit underwhelming.

She feels an one trick pony, that's basically single target damage but even that doesn't feel very satisfying and when opponents are resistant to mental attacks it only auto attacks.

This is the build that i have for her now at level 20:

1. Penetrating visions

2. Lingering echoes

3. Drain whip

4. Dirty fighting

5. Phantom foes

6. Blinding Strike

7. Puppet master

8. Confounding blind

9. Hammering Thoughts

10. Secret horrors

11. Greater focus

12. Two handed style

13. Recall Agony

14. Combat focus

15. Borrowed instinct

16. Deep wounds

17. Rapid Casting

18. Uncanny Luck

19. Disintegration

20. Improved critical

21. The empty soul

22. Far casting

23. Ancestors memory

24. Deathblows

25. Bears Fortitude

Is there a way to improve this?

In general I think your ability and especially your spell choices are fine. Here are some abilities I personally would probably not take:

• Since you don't use any damaging spells besides Recall Agony and Disintegrate - which both deal raw damage - you can drop Penetrating Visions.

• Unless you are using the Community Patch, Improved Critical is absolutely not worth the ability point.

• Uncanny Luck: same as Improved Critical. Okay if Community Patch is active, not worth it if not.

• Deep Wounds doesn't generate focus. Still a good ability for damage, but maybe it could be skipped on a Mindstalker who's focused on delivering debuffs/afflictions.

• Combat Focus is not worth it in your case imo. You can get Concentration layers elsewhere or even become immune. Also as a ranged Mindstalker you might not need it in most fights?

• I personally would pick Crippling Strike over Blinding Strike. Just because Blinding Strike is two times as expensive - which means you can only use it half the times you could use Crippling Strike. Besides the bonus PEN, Crippling Strike also has one more Power Level for scaling which leads to higher base dmg and base PEN than Blinding Strike. I wouldn't even upgrade it and thus spare +1 ability point (compared to Blinding Strike + Confounding Blind).

• Bear's Fortitude is not worth it that late imo. Might as well use a +3 CON belt and get +6 Fortitude without spending an ability point.

What I might take instead:

• Ciphers usually struggle a bit in tough fights against high defense foes. Empowering an attack or a spell can help. You didn't pick any of the Empower related abilities like Accurate Empower for example, maybe something to consider. They can make a difference in tough fights. An empowered, high accuracy Disintegrate can be pretty brutal. Lasting Empower stacks with Lingering Echoes, giving you very long affliction times on something like an empowered Secret Horrors for example or an empowered Puppet Master.

• Psychovampiric Shield reduces enemies' Resolve by 10 points. This can be very useful in boss fights against foes that have very high Resolve. Because a giant those all afflictions and other hostile effects (Disintegrate for example) won't stick long. -10 Resolve means an increase of duration of 30%. On top of that you get more Resolve yourself (yay). For a ranged character it's only useful occasionally but maybe something to consider if boss fights are something where Ydwin doesn't perform too well.

• Keen Mind lets you use a better/higher focus spell (+1 tier) right away at the start of battle which can make a difference in tough battles. Use it in combination with stealth: a stealthed character gets a -80% recovery time bonus for his first action from stealth. If you can cast a better spell from stealth and that have basically now recovery that's an advantage. You can also combine it with Empower.

• The Complete Self is nice with big AoE spells such as Phantom Foes since it most likely procs. In case of Phantom Foes it cuts down the cost in half.

• Escape is a cheap but effective mobility tool which also grants you a +50 deflection bonus; it can be pronged with Salvation of Time. In combination with a Priest who benefits from your Ancestor's Memory, you can make yourself a lot more sturdy for very cheap.

• I find Slippery Mind to be very useful later in the game.

• If you use Potions and Scrolls then Deep Pockets is great in combination with either The Amazing and Truly Incredible Instant Potion Belt or Spellkeeper (belt).

• I personally like to pick Fast Runner. It helps to outrun enemies and make them stop chasing you (because they quickly realize they cannot catch up and turn to somebody else. Not needed with Boots of Speed though.

• Bull's Will stacks with Iron Will. So if you want to invest in a defense passive I would maybe pick those instead of Bear's Fortitude.

• Snake's Reflex can be combined nicely with Adept Evasion instead of using Bear's Fortitude.

• If you want more versatility and lose the one trick pony feel a bit you can try to pick one or two support spells besides Ancestor's Memory. Pain Block is very good for example. It's very nice to have a good healing (and bonus AR) spell at hand on a character who normally isn't the party healer. That way you can improve action economy in a pinch when it comes to healing. If you only have one healer in the party you can get into situations where more than one party member would need healing - but the healer cannot cast two spells at the same time and maybe doesn't have a powerful AoE healing left. In those cases it's great to have somebody else be able to deliver the occasional healing effect.

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If you want to try something completely and utterly different you could check out if the Whispers of the Endless Paths with Offensive Parry combined with Riposte is something you would enjoy with a Mindstalker. I did this with a Streetfighter/Soul Blade recently and had a lot of fun with it. I'm sure it could also work with Ydwin.

Give Ydwin all the deflection she can get (items, spells such as Psychovampiric Shield and Borrowed Instincts) and put on Nomad's Brigandine with the enchantment that raises melee deflection and the other that grants immunity to disengagement attacks. Use as Boots of Speed. Boost INT with items.

You can then attack enemies from the flanks with a cone - and if they attack you and miss you can harvest focus passively with Offensive Parry and Riposte. The action economy of this is pretty nice because you don't even have to attack to generate focus. In this case Blinding Strike and a blinding spell are great because they lower enemies' accuracy (leads to more misses). Secret Horrors is also great for this.

If you get damaged too hard you just run away. Since the armor turns all disengagement attacks into misses you will proc Offensive Parry every time somebody does a disengagement attack against you - and sometimes Riposte will proc, too.

In this case Persistent Distraction is good to have of course.

If you want to use an occasional backstab and don't have the Community Patch: Run Through (enchantment of Whispers of the Endless Paths) in combination with Backstab (and Sneak Attack + Deathblows) can do absurd single target damage 1/encounter. Secret Horrors to unlock Deathblows, pop a Smoke Veil or Shadowing Beyond, use Run Through and watch a very high danger number float up. ;) This also delivers a lot of focus of course.

Cheers!

Edited yesterday at 07:40 AM1 day by Boeroer

@Boeroer

I usually don’t use any mods so I’m going to follow your advice and take out the talents that you found redundant or can be obtained by other methods as items and such. But now I almost don’t want any talent from the rogue side, but I still must take them on level up; so passives it is.

I used to use arterial strike as an opener against melee opponents, but I dropped for some reason, I will give it another chance then.

Penetrating visions I completely forgot that only work with damaging spells, I usually don’t take them because most cool ones target fortitude and the others that target other defenses are a bit meh.

I also forgot that ciphers could buff allies so I’m taking Pain Block as you said.

Slippery Mind I didn’t find useful since, maybe on occasion but if Ydwin is blooded or worse the combat is going bad.

 

Do you recommend any ranged weapons?

I used to use frostseeker but the weapon bug made me change to veilpiercer/essence interrupter.

hhh

8 minutes ago, kronozord said:

I used to use arterial strike as an opener against melee opponents, but I dropped for some reason, I will give it another chance then.

I wouldn't even upgrade Crippling Strike. Arterial Strike's DoT is situational and doesn't generate focus. Yet you pay 1 ability point. I would simply use Crippling Strike as is.

10 minutes ago, kronozord said:

Penetrating visions I completely forgot that only work with damaging spells, I usually don’t take them because most cool ones target fortitude and the others that target other defenses are a bit meh.

Imo it's also suboptimal to use focus for damaging spells (except Disintegrate bc. great raw damage and Amplified Wave because prone) - might as well keep attacking with a weapon and deal damage AND gain more focus. Focus should be used for buffs, debuffs and CC imo.

13 minutes ago, kronozord said:

I used to use frostseeker but the weapon bug made me change to veilpiercer/essence interrupter.

Frostseeker is great for a Cipher, the AoE explosion generates focus, too. What is the weapon bug? Never had one with it.

An excellent weapon for opening the fight is Kitchen Stove with the enchantment "Thunderous Report". It's a 1/encounter cone attack that does immense AoE damage and generates a lot of focus.

Hand Mortar + Fire in the Hole are great, too. Hand Mortar has "Blinding Smoke" which distracts (in an AoE) and thus unlocks Deathblows in an AoE.

Amira's Wing has an "AoE spell" enchantment that only works 1/encounter but works with Sneak Attack and Deathblows and does very high damage in a big AoE. Also generates a lot fo focus.

Edited 16 hours ago16 hr by Boeroer

I had this issue with Frostseeker sometimes doing zero damage when enemies were immune to ice, not only zero damage from the lash but zero from the entire attack.

Yes, that's not really a bug though but a unfortunate implementation of elemental keywords and immunities. The attacks of Frostseeker are keyworded as freeze attacks (no matter the damage type) and thus they also profit from all bonuses for freeze (power level bonuses from certain items and so on). On the other hand it also always triggers the immunity vs. freeze (no matter the damage type).

So an alternative weapon such as Essence Interrupter (which doesn't have that problem because it's not keyworded with shock but just does pierce/shock dmg) is a good idea.