[TWMp1] Cipher talent selection (cross-class summons!)

[Tomice]

Since there are a number of new and interesting cross-class talents, let's check them out in comparison to the old ones.

Input is VERY welcome, I'm still a beginner myself.

I'm assuming a warbow-using ranged cipher on hard difficulty, but this thread should not be limited to this build alone.

 

Greater Focus:

Awesome at the beginning - this doubles your starting focus at level 2 (10->20), allowing you to cast 2 powers before using your bow (or starting the fight with a stronger power). Later on, 10 focus mean less and you'll have enough of it to start the fight with a few powers anyway. Nevertheless, goog first talent in my books (and you can kick it later by reskilling, if you want).

 

Biting Whip:

20% extra damage that practically always apply, increase your focus gain and help you breaking through high DR with fast weapons? Obviously good, although starting the fight with an extra cast might even be better.

 

Draining whip:

I don't know the math enough to compare this to biting whip, but more damage AND more focus seems more versatile and reliable than more focus only.

 

Rhymers summon:

Summons 2 skeletons, 15 sec have to have passed since the start of combat, 1 per encounter

Perhaps the most interesting new talent! Admittedly, the skeletons have 26 endurance (no level scaling) and have pitiful damage (can't kill the two wolfs in the tutorial). And waiting 15 sec is quite long. But the range is good, making it easy to cast them behind your enemies for some ectopsychic echo madness. They might be even more useful as "emergency button" when our squishy ranged cipher is approached in melee after our first line tanks are overrun (ciphers lack any natural defensive abilities).

 

Apprentice sneak attack:

Extra damage to debuffed enemies

+15% damage seems a lot, and ciphers should be able to keep enemies debuffed. But it's a lot weaker than the more reliable Biting Whip.

 

Penetrating shot:

Another damage enhancer, hard to compare to sneak attack. Note that sneak atatck has no penalty (apart from not being applied to un-debuffed targets), while 20% speed penalty is nothing to take lightly.

 

Gallant's focus:

Aura/modal that gives +4 accuracy in a 2.5m radius

Most likely the most interesting accuracy enhancer. 4 accuracy might not seem that much and the aura only has a 2.5m base radius. But it applies to any weapon (and most likely spells!), making the weapon focus talents lose appeal in comparison (only a few weapons, no spells, only one character). Also note that ciphers usually have enough INT to increase the aura size and don't have any modal to choose from anyway. You also don't have to be far away like with the marksman talent. It has no built-in disadvantage. And if you really want accuracy, you can even stack all of those.

 

Fast Runner:

Positioning is very important for a cipher, probably worth a thought.

 

 

 

Well, I think these are the most important ones (For gun-users the gunner talent is worth considering, of course) The other new ones seem more suited for tanks or give you per-rest abilities that pale to the ciphers awesome per-encounter abilities - no sense in that. There also doesn't seem to be any talent apart from Rhymer's summon that hekps the cipher survive a melee encounter (and even with this ony you need to cast the skeletons timely, before being locked in melee engagement).

 

As I said, feedback is very welcome!

Edited August 25, 2015 by Tomice

[Nobear]

Penetrating shot:

Another damage enhancer, hard to compare to sneak attack. Note that sneak atatck has no penalty (apart from not being applied to un-debuffed targets), while 20% speed penalty is nothing to take lightly.

 

The penalty for Penetrating Shot is less significant for gun users than for bow users, since gun users spend most of their time in reload, not attack. For war bows, though, Penetrating Shot may not be worth it. In fact, one argument I've read for a war bow cipher is that there is at least one talent point "saved" that you can use for something else, compared to just about any other weapon choice.

[KDubya]

It all depends on the DT of the enemy. *(The actual effect of the -20% speed penalty is affects reload speed differently than attack speed but I am simplifying the effect due to not knowing how to accurately model the effect. The basic principle will remain but the specifics will be different)

 

If your bow does 25 damage and the enemy has 15 DT- without penetrating shot you do 25-15 = 10 damage, with penetrating you do 25-(15-5) = 15 damage but 20% slower =>> 15*0.8 = 12 damage when equalized for the slower speed.

 

If you had an arquebus doing 50 damage against 15 DT you'd have 50-15=35 damage without and 50-(15-5)=40 damage with, factor in the speed and you have 40*0.8= 32 damage. In this case it is better not to use penetrating shot.

 

It would also depend on what other talent you take instead of penetrating shot.

 

For me I'd look to take penetrating shot if I were planning to use a hunting bow, or blunderbuss. For a warbow it'd be a strong maybe. For other firearms or the crossbows it could be skipped as their damage per shot is much larger and has an easier time getting past high DT

[Tomice]

@ KDubya & Nobear:

Thank you for the great input. Warbow ciphers indeed seem to have one talent to spare by not needing penetrating shot or gunner.

 

The weapon choice also depends on difficulty IMHO. If you face mostly lightly armored targets, you don't need the enormous burst damage of guns. You'll also "overkill" a lot with guns on hard difficulty and below (wasting your rare, precious shot on an enemy that would have died from a weaker attack as well).

 

 

But in this topic, I'm more interested in the new talents. Anyone already used them to great effect?