Barb or Cipher starting off, pros and cons of each?

[EdgeOfThorns]

Narrowed it down to these two classes but cant seem to decide, hoping a few folks can give me the low down on each and what I can expect early on. Basically, help me pick one thanks in advance for any and all info.

[cavemandiary]

Well, chanter controls the battle, but for most encounters ypu will never get to use his invocations. He is a rare breed in that the worse ypu have build your party, the more he shines.

 

Barb is incredible. Glasscannon him and use defiant resolve to survive and most encounters are utterly arbitrary.

[Gallenger]

They *sort* of fill the same role just in different ways.  With the barb you're going to be straight up in the front most time doing melee DPS and using abilities and so forth throughout a battle, and managing your positioning. 

 

With Cipher you're going to start off encounters with a big spell or two, and then set yourself to auto attack bascially until you build enough points back up.  So, it mainly comes down to what style of character you want. 

 

A guy you need to micro at least somewhat intensively, or a guy you need to micro hardly at all besides when you blow your spell wad. 

[View619]

Front-line DPS or CC Caster? It pretty much comes down to this.

[cJohnOne]

I started a Barbarian with 10 Constitution.  17 Strength 17 dexterity.  ended up using a stiletto, fast pokey thing but I'm still using a torch in my off hand which I should change to a mace.  Anyways, I keep restarting and now I'm doing a Ranger with 18 Strength and 18 Dexterity.  Don't know how long I'll play that character. 

 

Barbarians are great have nice health and  stuff.  if you like melee it has better DPS than fighter and paladin.

Edited April 4, 2015 by cJohnOne

[MadDemiurg]

Barb is melee aoe dps and pretty one dimensional. It is probably the best melee class atm though, partially due to bugs (but even without he would be very strong). Cipher is generally quite squishy backline char with good single target dps, CC and aoe. He hes a weird power curve, since power of the spells on each level varies greatly (and new ones are not necessarily better), but his endgame stuff is quite nuts. Some more esoteric cipher builds can make him tanky, but I won't recommend them unless you solo. Both are top tier classes in terms of power, along with the druid I think.

 

In the end, if you're not going solo your party composition is going to matter much more than your Watcher class.

Edited April 4, 2015 by MadDemiurg

[Lasci]

Barbarians are in your face melee DPS. They have a lot of steamrolling mechanics that let them charge into battle, get injured, and then charge some more.

 

Ciphers are long-range spellcasters that do very well in small, quick encounters because their Focus mechanic doesn't restrict them to spells per rest. 

 

They're honestly exact opposites of one another.

 

However, I would recommend going with the Barbarian if you're not going to be hiring adventurers. There's no Barbarian NPC and the Cipher NPC that you get is actually really good at what she does.

[EdgeOfThorns]

Barbarians are in your face melee DPS. They have a lot of steamrolling mechanics that let them charge into battle, get injured, and then charge some more.

 

Ciphers are long-range spellcasters that do very well in small, quick encounters because their Focus mechanic doesn't restrict them to spells per rest. 

 

They're honestly exact opposites of one another.

 

However, I would recommend going with the Barbarian if you're not going to be hiring adventurers. There's no Barbarian NPC and the Cipher NPC that you get is actually really good at what she does.

Pretty much helps me make my choice, thanks. And thanks for replies everyone, much appreciated.

[cavemandiary]

Just realised that i misread cipher as chanter. My bad. Both barbs are ciphers are amazing, and I suggest that you get both in your party as either one is a top tier pick in their current form(even after the mindblades nerf).

[EdgeOfThorns]

Just realised that i misread cipher as chanter. My bad. Both barbs are ciphers are amazing, and I suggest that you get both in your party as either one is a top tier pick in their current form(even after the mindblades nerf).

What starting stats would you suggest for Barbs?