Chanter or Cipher main. Help me choose

[Twotricks]

I have played both Chanter and Cipher until the keep. And I am having hard time deciding which one to continue.

 

 

The Chanter is a tank,buffer and summoner if needed. He has high might and res and good int. So fairly balanced for dialogue.

 

The Cipher is kind of arcane duelist build. So far I have only one tank (Eder) so he doubles as off tank, which doesnt work very well. And his resolve is 10 so i am afraid i will lose some important dialogue choices.

 

I plan to play one custom character , melee sneak attack rogue. The rest will be NPC party.

 

 

What do you think will be more enjoyable for first playtrough at hard difficulty ?

 

[Blave]

More enjoyable is hard to tell. That's something you need to decide for yourself. I'll just say that there is one more NPC who works decently as second tank (not perfect tank stats, but Eder doesn't really have those either). It's the Paladin Pallegina and easily accessable once you have the stronghold.

 

I use her an Eder as tanks for my ranged Cipher and it works out well enough. The things they cant tank easily are usually easy to handle once you throw a few debufs at them (or just paralyze them outright.)

[sku]

Play both. Either in a form of custom companion or a second playthrough.

[Ceranai]

 

I have played both Chanter and Cipher until the keep. And I am having hard time deciding which one to continue.

 

 

The Chanter is a tank,buffer and summoner if needed. He has high might and res and good int. So fairly balanced for dialogue.

 

The Cipher is kind of arcane duelist build. So far I have only one tank (Eder) so he doubles as off tank, which doesnt work very well. And his resolve is 10 so i am afraid i will lose some important dialogue choices.

 

I plan to play one custom character , melee sneak attack rogue. The rest will be NPC party.

 

 

What do you think will be more enjoyable for first playtrough at hard difficulty ?

 

Ciphers feel to OP to me whenever I pick one up but thats just me. I really enjoy chaner play as I think tactical use of chants is one of the games strongest mechanisms. Im soloing a chanter and i routinely run speed to kite, get out my summon then switch to whatever chant is most appropriate for the fight

[falchen]

Cyphers are amazing and (in my opinion) more fun, give them a gun instead of going into meele though, particularly blunderbuss with the draining whip talent will give them enough focus for several spells with each shot. Cyphers also seem to get additional conversation options on ocasion, in one case this impacted a quest outcome in a rather significant way.

 

Chanters passive buffs are not very significant and their invocations don't come into play often enough, so for the most part you are left with a mediocre fighter with no actuall fighter abilities. You also get a decent chanter companion early on, so there is little point in being one yourself, while the cypher companion comes later and has really bad stats.

[RunningWolf]

Summons wreck asses. My PC Chant atm:

18

3

16

3

19

19

Great tanking, great dmg, great singing and shouting and all dialog options except perception(who needs it anyway). Enjoying the **** out of her.

 

Ciphers are fun, but i fell like they way too good. I dont use my party all that much when i play them(on hard that is), and who likes that. 

Edited April 7, 2015 by RunningWolf

[Ineth]

Cipher.

 

You're welcome.

[Venatio]

What would be a good set of starting spells for the Cipher? I have heard that Soul Shock and Mind Wave might be optimal but I was wondering what everyone else thought. 

[Ineth]

Summons wreck asses.

 

Except most encounters are already over by the time the chanter can cast those things, or shortly afterwards.

At least that was my experience with Kana.

[RunningWolf]

Except most encounters are already over by the time the chanter can cast those things, or shortly afterwards.

At least that was my experience with Kana.

Difficult battles lasts long enough. So they wreck when you need them the most. And i loved Chanters when i soloed 2 bears at level 2 with crap equipment, so im bias.

Edited April 7, 2015 by RunningWolf

[Ganrich]

If you just set a chanter to using level 1 chants in order to get invocations during most of the smaller combats you will be disappointed in their power. Their high level chants are incredibly powerful, and on smaller combats they are all that is needed. During big fights you start with low level chants to get an invocation out and then switch. Make no mistake, Chanters are incredibly powerful. They are also a very passive class to play, and have very little to do other than auto-Attack unless you have a high Lore skill to cast from scrolls. Even then that gets expensive, and you can't use scrolls every combat.

 

I agree with a few others on the Cipher. They are a bit too powerful for me to enjoy. They are a good class, though.