Ultimate build = highest dps and tankines in 1 char

[nemesis205bw]

Cipher fire godlike

 

Might - max

Con - 10

Dex - min

Per - min

Int - max

Res - left points (should be around 15-16)

 

You dont need dex, that -20% attack speed is nothing, you can make up for it with one talent.

High res will let you cast spells without being interrupted.

There is no point in increasing your con on cipher because it multiply your endurance by % and cipher has low base endurance so it would be waste.

Per - most useless stat.

 

Weapon - dual wield some fast or penetrating weapons.

 

Armor - heaviest with the highest DT possible.

 

Antipathetic Field - your strongest dps skill and cost only 10 focus. Cast it on some ranged enemy and watch melee targets around you die. 30-60 damage PER SECOND.

 

Drain stat spells - start each battle with them. On high level you can cast borrowed instinct (+20 acc and +20 all defenses) to initiate and then body attunement for +7 DT (it has very quick cast time).

 

Tactical Meld - cast it on ally just before battle for free +20 acc. Your focus will back to full (or rather half ) after a second.

 

Retaliate = for epic focus generation and spells spam.

 

Important talents - bitting whip, draining whip, savage attack, vulnurable attack and two-weapons mastery.

 

Optional - have another cipher in team to buff you +10 DT with pain block.

 

With this setup, just on level 9 I have:

-100+ deflection,

-34 (38 under 50% endurance) damage threshold,

-105 accuracy,

-alot of melee damage (because of constant crits) and attack speed (because of dual wield). Melee attacks usually do 20-40 dmg per hit (very fast) with bad/average weapons,

-10-20 retaliate damage and when drop under 50% I do on top of that 30-50 fire damage (which works even on misses unlike retaliate). That fire attack can crit. Vulnurable attack works on both: retaliate and fire godlike talent

-you can run around to position your beam and make your enemy extra hit you because of disengage and hurt themselves even more.

 

Buffs have long duration and usually lasts full fight and you easily can crit them for even longer 40-50 sec duration. They not just buff you but also debuff enemy.

 

You will generate focus faster then you can spam spells thanks to draining whip + retaliate.

 

With that much DT, enemies will mostly deal minimum damage and thanks to that you have lower deflection because of no shield, enemies will gaze more often then miss so retaliate will occur. Gazed attack vs that much DT will deal around 1-5 damage, pain block regen will cover it entirely even if 5 enemies are attacking you at the same time. Cipher low endurance doesnt matter because enemies deal so little damage even with their strongest hits.

 

Harder mobs will die very fast because of these debuffs. -7 DT for enemy will increase drastically your melee dps on them (especially when dual wield).

 

 

 

With this build you will be God-like (literally)

Enjoy!!!

Edited April 5, 2015 by nemesis205bw

[mazeltov]

Cipher

[pi2repsion]

That build and abuse of game mechanics sounds gloriously silly.  Congratulations, that was a good find and a better read.

[Lasci]

I mean-

It's a Cipher.

 

That's kinda a given.

 

<.<

[Dongom]

I knew from beta videos Cipher would pretty much be best everything.

[Ninjerk]

Cipher is the prettiest girl at homecoming, for sure.

[Ceranai]

nice build but as others have said ciphers were always going to be more powerful than any other class by miles, its like how moon godlike is by far and away the best race to place as

Edited April 5, 2015 by Ceranai

[Exoduss]

Oh i love my moon godlike paladin :D that racial is crazy good 

[sterrius]

The differente from a DEX 3 to a DEX 15 (For example)  is 36% in atack speed.  Not 20%.     Plus you go heavy armor for more -40 to -50% Atack Speed where a ranged chyper will use just light armor.  (i use a -20% armor). 

Also you will have a useless Reflex no matter how much you buff it as you have a -14 from stats.   If one spell with reflex save hit you its not impossible for the enemy to critical hit you. 

Ok build for hard, but i would not go that route on a POD dif.    Learned the hard way a very low save can kill you there. 

 

 

 

 

 

[Daemonjax]

Cipher is good enough to be an unlockable character class after beating the game on hard.

[nemesis205bw]

The differente from a DEX 3 to a DEX 15 (For example)  is 36% in atack speed.  Not 20%.     Plus you go heavy armor for more -40 to -50% Atack Speed where a ranged chyper will use just light armor.  (i use a -20% armor). 

 

Also you will have a useless Reflex no matter how much you buff it as you have a -14 from stats.   If one spell with reflex save hit you its not impossible for the enemy to critical hit you. 

So what? There is nothing wrong in getting hit in this build. Reflex usually save from aoe spells and they will do like 3 dmg to you because of so high DT.

 

You will still attack much faster then single handed naked maxed dex character and like 5 times faster then other regular tanks. Attack rate stack additively and dualwield gives you +100% attack speed (130 with talent) so -50% is not much of a handicap.

 

Alot of damage comes from beam and moving around to position your beam and force disengage hits on enemies so they hit themselves and die while you just run around. Dex is not important there.

Edited April 5, 2015 by nemesis205bw

[Rune100]

This might be a bit off-topic, but I am trying out a build that also include dual wielding on a Cipher, maybe not same stats as you suggested, but It's my first time playing as a Cipher and I was wondering, is there a way to learn Cipher spells like a Wizard can learn spells from a Grimoire type thing? I know I can pick a few spells when I level up, but I'm not entirely sure what to pick. Maybe someone could point out a few of the "must have" spells for me?

 

I like the Cipher so far, very different from playing a Chanter, that's for sure.

[Daemonjax]

 Attack rate stack additively and dualwield gives you +100% attack speed (130 with talent) so -50% is not much of a handicap.

 

 

If you're going by what it says in the character sheet and tooltips to arrive at that number, you're going to be disappointed when actually playing.

[nemesis205bw]

If you're going by what it says in the character sheet and tooltips to arrive at that number, you're going to be disappointed when actually playing.

I know there are alot of bugs tooltips related. Thats why I always test things myself.

Edited April 6, 2015 by nemesis205bw

[Luj1]

Cool build. Really demonstrates class imbalance. Why don't you make it a Moon Godlike too? xD

Edited April 6, 2015 by Luj1

[nemesis205bw]

 

If you're going by what it says in the character sheet and tooltips to arrive at that number, you're going to be disappointed when actually playing.

I know there are alot of bugs tooltips related. Thats why I always test things myself.

 

Because you dont need that healing, with 35+ DT enemies cant really hurt you or outdamage pain block regen. Fire deals ALOT of damage (it scale with level, so on lv9 around 30-40 per hit) and have +4 additional DT which is great for DT tank.

Edited April 6, 2015 by nemesis205bw

[Noer]

is this still good? I want to play cipher family (he and her) on easy and beat the crap out of enemies for fun (lets say i want to play as least stressful as possible and as hack and slash as possible) so will it fit?

 

btw any mod for removing precast restrictions? I cant cast mirror image before fight its ridicolous

[Matthewskeew]

I'm surprised no-one has pointed this out yet but, like many other cipher abilities, pain block cannot be used on yourself. Going through the effort of trying to make a cipher tanky is not really worth it when having a cipher buff an actual tank is orders of magnitude better.

[nemesis205bw]

I'm surprised no-one has pointed this out yet but, like many other cipher abilities, pain block cannot be used on yourself. Going through the effort of trying to make a cipher tanky is not really worth it when having a cipher buff an actual tank is orders of magnitude better.

 

Optional - have another cipher in team to buff you +10 DT with pain block.

[MadDemiurg]

I'm surprised no-one has pointed this out yet but, like many other cipher abilities, pain block cannot be used on yourself. Going through the effort of trying to make a cipher tanky is not really worth it when having a cipher buff an actual tank is orders of magnitude better.

Actual tank won't be getting like 10 focus per second to spam spells when attacked. Also body attunement works on cipher and stacks with pain block. So you can get +17 dr if another cipher buffs you or 7 yourself. Still a lot. And yes, this is not the most tanky build, however the amount of pain it dishes out in return makes up for it. You don't need to be super tanky if you melt stuff in seconds, just tanky enough.

[sinister504]

Cipher fire godlike

 

Might - max

Con - 10

Dex - min

Per - min

Int - max

Res - left points (should be around 15-16)

 

For some reason I have 5 points left over? Sorry, I'm new to the game so it might be something stupid I'm not getting. I put skills 18/10/3/3/18/with all points left resolve actually maxes to 18. When I am finished I still have 5 points left over. Where should these go, maybe I did it incorrectly? 

[Odd Hermit]

Sounds great on paper but keep in mind it takes several casts and you have to actually land them. A tank can run into battle with around that level of durability without the need to spend multiple actions building up.

 

It suffers for similar reasons as a mage gish build does in that the elaborate setup has to happen in combat. On the plus side, you don't spend spells/rest. On the downside, you can run out of focus and a few early misses - because your buffs have to target enemy defenses first - can ruin this whole strategy.

 

And until you get Borrowed Instinct, @ 9th level, you're stuck with a minimum dex Cipher. Borrowed Instinct costs 30 focus too, which is pretty high. And if it misses on big tough boss battles(and it will, 'cause plenty of bosses have high will defense) you're pretty screwed.

[nemesis205bw]

Sounds great on paper but keep in mind it takes several casts and you have to actually land them. A tank can run into battle with around that level of durability without the need to spend multiple actions building up.

 

It suffers for similar reasons as a mage gish build does in that the elaborate setup has to happen in combat. On the plus side, you don't spend spells/rest. On the downside, you can run out of focus and a few early misses - because your buffs have to target enemy defenses first - can ruin this whole strategy.

 

And until you get Borrowed Instinct, @ 9th level, you're stuck with a minimum dex Cipher. Borrowed Instinct costs 30 focus too, which is pretty high. And if it misses on big tough boss battles(and it will, 'cause plenty of bosses have high will defense) you're pretty screwed.

With tactical mend you start each battle with +20 acc so its easy to land first debuff. You always initiate with borrowed instinct (because of average cast rate) and follow up with body attunement (fast cast). Before enemies get to you, you will be fully buffed already and can spam spells with +40 extra accuracy.

 

You can actually increase your dex because u will have many points left. Just not necessary.

[MadDemiurg]

I'm running a similar build on PotD solo and it absolutely wrecks things. I'm pretty confident I'll be able to finish the game with it. Btw your ranged capabilities are good as well, since firearms are mostly limited by reload time, which doesn't depend on dex or armor. In parties where you can use tactical meld and other buffs like pain block it's much more potent. And it's not like you're not survivable/damage dealing enough without buffs. Even if you miss you get focus back really fast and you can take quite a few hits. Plus there are nice +2/+4 focus on hit foods, but this is more of solo stuff, you won't ever need it in party.

[gkathellar]

... like it. I edge away from weird, unstable-looking builds like these, but this is, I dunno, ugly-cute.

 

I'll give it a shot - I like having Grieving Mother in the party, but she feels redundant with a conventional Cipher along.

 

firearms are mostly limited by reload time, which doesn't depend on Dex

Not true. Dex does shorten reload time.

 

That said, Dex really doesn't matter much for the normal fire-and-forget approach, so there's that.

Edited April 6, 2015 by gkathellar